Good morning. It's good to see you guys.
If we haven't met, my name is Cole.
I'm league pastor here, and we are on week 7:00-ish in our long
sermon series through the book of Titus.
We're particularly in chapter 2. We're looking at verses 3
through 5. If you haven't made the last
couple weeks, I'll catch you up. Essentially, we've met who Titus
is, this guy who's the recipient of the letter.
We met who Paul is, the guy who's writing it, inspired by
the Holy Spirit. We've met these small churches
on the island of Crete that this is going towards.
And after introductions, Paul says, hey, here's how you build
a church. That's why we're calling this
sermon series How to Be a Church.
And Paul says, here's what you got to do.
You got to find elders, train, then develop them, look out for
wolves, have good doctrine. And now all of a sudden in
chapter 2, he pivots and what he does in chapter 2 is he starts
pointing, He starts, he starts looking around these churches
and pointing at individual groups and saying, hey, X do
this. Why do this?
So last week was older men do this.
And this week he pivots and he looks out at the older women in
the church and he says older women invest in, teach, train
the younger women. And so I'm in a little bit of a
predicament here where I am preaching A sermon that's
probably aimed for roughly 1% of our church.
But the reason why we're preaching it is because it's
God's word, right? This is, it's actually like,
it's actually a great test whether or not you're willing to
preach on texts like these, right?
Because we believe that all of God's word is profitable.
Amen. And so even if you are not an
older woman, there is something in this for you.
I got, I got to be honest. So I, I'm actually excited to
preach this sermon now. Earlier in the week I was like,
oh gosh, what am I even going to say?
Because you can probably tell I'm not an older woman.
So I'm speaking into an experience that has foreign for
me. And the thing, the other thing I
did wrong was I went back this week and this put me in a funk.
I should not have done this, but I went back and I watched the
Office episode, Women's support Group.
Do you guys see that one? It's, it's, it's, it did not put
me in the right mindset because like essentially it's Women's
support day and Michael, wrongly so Jam is leading the women's
support group, which makes sense.
And then Michael cannot stand it.
And so he tries to hijack it, and he tries to start leading
the women's support group. And I was like, oh, gosh, I
don't want to be that guy. Because at one point in time,
Jim says to Michael, Michael, what do you think?
What makes you think you're qualified to lead this group of
women? And Michael goes, oh, I don't
know, James, was I not born of a woman?
And I was like, oh gosh, I don't want to be that guy.
But fortunately, Chloe was super helpful.
She reminded me that my qualifications to preach this
text and into the lives of the women in our church is that I'm
a pastor who preaches God's Word and loves you.
So I hope it lands that way. And even though Paul is singling
out older women, fellas, there is something in this for you,
there are actually very few things I'm going to say that are
not translatable to you becoming a spiritual father.
So I'm going to pray. Then we'll jump into it.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you would open up your word.
I pray that you would make it come to life for us.
May it not just be text on a page, ink on a page, but breathe
life into it, Lord, and make it come to life so that it can stir
us and encourage us and exhort us and comfort us.
And I pray that no matter what season people are in out there,
I pray that these next 35 minutes we meet with God.
I, I am not qualified to speak into the experience of older
women, but God, you are. And so speak through me this
morning. It's in the precious name of
Jesus that all God's people prayed.
Amen. They say They say that a
father's hug brings courage and a mother's hug brings comfort.
Now, obviously fathers can be comforting and mothers can also
be courageous. But I think there is something
to that statement, and I think it's generally true.
A father's hug brings courage and a mother's hug brings
comfort. And it's not just the family
system that needs both of those hugs.
The church itself also needs both of those hugs.
And So what Paul is going to do is he's going to look at this
people group in his local church and say, older women, we need
you. And particularly what Paul's
going to do is he's going to give these women a vision of
womanhood that wins the world to Jesus.
If I had to pick a sermon titled, that would be my title
for this morning, Womanhood that wins the world.
If you're able, let's go ahead and stand.
And he says to the older women, he says older women likewise are
to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much
wine. They are to teach what is good
and so train the young women to love their husbands and
children, to be self controlled, to be pure, to be working at
home, to be kind and submissive to their own husbands.
That the word of God may not be reviled.
Womanhood that wins the world. You guys can have a seat.
So this is a beautiful, beautiful text straight from the
mouth of God for our growth and our walk with Jesus.
A quick introductory note, and then we'll work our way through
this text verse by verse. Why?
Here's the quick note. Why is Paul singling out the
older women in these verses? The answer to that question is
easy. The reason why he's making these
demands on the women of the church is because Paul knows
something important. He knows that women are one of
the most important resources in the church.
We need women in the church. Amen.
And to to not identify them, invest in them, train them, or
equip women is a massive strategic mistake.
So the church that leaves the spiritual capacity of women on
tap is quite frankly an idiotic church.
So Paul says, hey, older women in the church, we need you big
time. Specifically look at verse 3 how
he says older women, we need you to be reverent in behavior, not
slanderers or slaves to much wine.
Paul's right there really quickly.
John Calvin 500 years ago, he's got a gorgeous sentiment that
really just lit this whole text up for me.
He said by calling these women reverent, he means that their
whole life should be a visible sanctuary of godliness.
You know when you see a sanctuary that you look at it
and it's just this massive, gorgeous piece of architecture
that inspires awe. And you Calvin is saying, Calvin
is saying by calling them reverend, he means that the
women, their, their lives should be a visible sanctuary of
godliness so that their presence may inspire reverence from the
younger women. So Paul wants the lives of the
older women in the church to be this visible sanctuary so that
the little girls in the church, the the single women, the young
married mom, they all look at the older women and they see a
life that looks like a beautiful cathedral.
Wow, look at that right there. It's like their their speech is
like the stained glass from a cathedral.
They're the the, the character of these older women's life.
It's like this facade of a giant stone cathedral.
Like a cathedral, it just takes your breath away.
And like a cathedral, this type of life requires an
extraordinary amount of effort and artistry.
You will not women you you will not drift aimlessly into this
lifestyle. It requires effort and energy.
And so Paul starts to unpack that a little bit.
He says specifically don't be slanderers.
The original Greek word for slanderers there it literally
means devil talk. So engaging in slander behind
the backs of church members is literally devil talk.
He says don't do that. He says, don't be slaves to to
much wine. Enjoy it, but do not make it
into an idol. So Paul unpacks the character
and the lives of these older women and then he pivots and he
gives them a mission. Why?
Because Paul knows something really, really important.
It's the same thing that Rosaria Butterfield knows.
Here's the way that Rosaria Butterfield says it.
This is so important. She says, quote, this is good.
What single women need are not more single women.
What young families need are not more young families.
She even goes on to argue that relationships that are only
organized by a sociological category actually weaken the
relationships across differences in the church.
In other words, Paul knows that our greatest need is for people
who aren't like us, like your greatest need in the church.
I hope you have friends and peers in this church.
Peers are not your greatest need though, right?
If you're a young man, bro, you need an older dude in your life.
Young women, you need a spiritual mom in your life,
somebody who's a step ahead of you, that can speak into it and
teach you and train you. And so Paul knows this.
And so he says, hey, older women, invest, invest, invest,
invest in the next generation of women.
How specifically? Look at the end of verse three.
He says they are to teach what is good.
Everybody say teach verse 4. And so train the young women.
Everybody say train, teach the next generation.
Train the next generation to do what?
Verses 4 through 5 get your eyeballs on God's word.
This is not me. Teach and train the young woman,
verses 4 through 5, to love their husbands and to love their
children and to be self controlled and to be pure and to
be working at home and to be kind and submissive to their own
husbands. Now some of these are pretty
self-explanatory, right? Self controlled, pure kind.
Essentially, those are just big categories that may hey, hey,
teach and train the next generation of women to be like
Jesus. So I'm not going to unpack every
word in here. What I would prefer to do is
poke at the hot topics. So what we're going to do is
we're going to talk about the hot topics, the ones that made
you buckle up when when you read them.
So, so let's talk about, well, let's just talk about the big
one like is Paul, hold on a second, is Paul Cole teach the
young women to be working at home?
Is Paul saying, you're thinking this, aren't you?
Am I in Like there's just like there's an elephant in the room,
right? I'm not like dragging some
random elephant into the room and being like, hey, should we
talk about that? Like, you're all feeling this,
right? So there's this elephant in the
room, right? Like is Paul saying that women
can't work outside of the home? Let's consult the actual text.
What does Paul say? What does the actual text say?
The actual text says teach and train the young woman to quote,
be working at home. How dare, how dare he say that
women can't work outside the home.
Well, chill, because he didn't say that, did he?
He didn't say that. What he said is younger women
need to learn from older women how to be working at home.
He's saying this because the younger women need help
specifically in learning how to work inside the home because
that's the area of their lives that requires the most
instruction and help. Of course, women should be
celebrated in our church if they want to work outside the home.
The woman in Proverbs 31, which is like, you hear about this all
the time, The Proverbs 31 woman, right?
The ideal woman in the Old Testament, I don't know if
you've ever read that text closely.
She actually does work outside of the home, though.
Proverbs 31 verse 13, she seeks wool and flax and works with
willing hands. That's work in the public
marketplace. Verse 16, she considers and buys
a field. So this is clearly not a
prohibition for women to not be able to have the freedom to work
outside of the home. I'm, I'm poking into this right
now, not just because there's an elephant in the room, but also
this is one of the areas where the church historically has
tried to to grossly overreach too much.
It's what I need you to know is that if you are a woman who
you're a stay at home full time homemaker, we're going to
celebrate you. If you're a woman who works
outside of the home, we're going to celebrate you here.
Specifically, the way that John Stop, probably one of the best
theologians of the 20th century, says, he says, quote, Paul is
not confining women to the home as if he was forbidding them to
have any wider ministry or employment.
Rather, he is emphasizing that the home is not to be despised
as a sphere of service, for it is there that love is best
expressed and character is best formed.
Am I being clear here? Let me say, let me say it one
more time, just in case. Our church will never, never,
never, never discourage women from working outside of the
home. And we will never, never, never,
never discourage women from being full time homemakers.
There's just a lot of freedom in it.
Like our let me say it this way, our church would not exist if we
didn't have some women working outside of the home.
You want to know how I know this?
Because for the first couple of years of this church's life, you
guys didn't have a lot of money to pay me and I and I had to
give 50 hours a week to building and and leading this church in
those first couple of years. Do you know how I did that?
You know how I could make very little money but continue to
give 40 or 50 hours during those couple years?
Because Chloe was my sugar Mama. She worked outside of the home.
Call me a gold digger, right? Because she worked outside of
the home. Without that, I wouldn't have
been able to give those 40 or 50 hours a week for those first
couple years to to Frontier Church.
And so we're just going to support you no matter what, but
make sure at the very least what Paul is saying is that make sure
that the time you do have within the home gets the best of your
attention and the best of your effort and energy in your heart
so that your kids and your husband don't get the leftovers
of your heart. And that's, that's hard, right?
That's hard. And if you're a single woman or
a young woman, you, you need help learning how to do that.
It's a learned skill. Like just take the two things
that Paul points out in verse four.
Look at verse four. He says, teach and train the
young women to #1 love their husbands and #2 love their
children. Both of these points are
brutally hard. Let's do them one at a time.
First, teach the younger women to love their husbands.
Women, you notice that you need, you need to be taught to love
your husbands. Fellas, this is true for you
too. But this goes against it.
Like it cuts against the grain of this modern culture.
Everything about modern culture has taught you to believe that
it should come super easily. And if it doesn't come easily,
holy crap. Oh my gosh, something is wrong.
That's not what Paul is saying. Paul is saying it's a learned
skill. Why?
Because if you're a wife, if you do live with a, a male human
being, you know that living with your husband is like, it is like
living with a, a creature of a different species.
It is. It's like living like, like,
it's like there's a wild animal in the house.
It's a creature of a different species.
Personally, I've learned a lot of things about myself that I
didn't know before I was married.
Like, for instance, I'm a very loud chewer.
I chew my food very loudly. I even walk very loudly for a
little guy. Loud chewer, a loud Walker.
And Chloe, you're not going to be able to Unsee that, are you?
And Chloe has had to learn the skill of loving me even in the
midst of those and a lot of other stuff that's hard.
Here's the way one one female writer says it.
She says, quote. She says, quote, living with a
man is like sharing your life with a bear that's been taught a
few tricks. He can drive a car like a bear
that's been taught a few tricks. He can drive a car.
He can go to work and maybe he can even BBQ, but then he'll
turn around and drink milk straight from the carton and
look at you like you're the crazy one for not understanding
why. That's fine.
He's civilized just enough to survive in public, but at home
he reverts back to the wilderness.
A bear that spits on a few tricks.
Look, here's what's at the bottom of this.
It is why I'm poking into this. What's at the bottom of this?
Is that the culture your favorite Disney movies?
I like Disney movies too. Pop music.
I like some of the music on the on the radio too.
But everything in culture has designed, particularly women, to
think that marriage is about compatibility.
It's like, dear Jesus, help me when I say this dead wrong.
Marriage is not about compatibility.
I'm not anti compatibility. I think it's great if you and
your husband have similar hobbies.
That's wonderful. If you guys enjoyed the same
music and you like the same board games and you like the
same movies, honestly, I think that's great.
I'm not anti compatible compatibility.
What I'm saying is that in the mind of God, his idea of
marriage was not built around compatibility.
It's not about compatibility. It's not.
God's design for marriage was not to put two similar people
together into a peer relationship that also just
conveniently happens to be sexual.
That's not God's vision for marriage.
No, God's vision for marriage was to put two people together.
In such a way that in the way that the husband loves the wife
and the wife loves the husband, the watching world looks at it
and they see the gospel. That's how God designed
marriage. Paul's clear about this in
Ephesians 5. It's so the world can see what
the gospel looks like and so God's designed for marriage is
not built around compatibility. Let me say it as strongly as I
can. The church, you and me, The
church would go to hell if Jesus cared about compatibility.
You understand what I'm saying? The church would be in hell if
Jesus cared about compatibility. Jesus is not compatible with the
church. He's holy, she's not.
He's perfect. She's not.
He's God, she's not. The church and Jesus are
incompatible. So what makes the relationship
work? It's not shared hobbies.
It's not similar personalities. It's not compatibility.
What makes the relationship between Jesus and the church
work if not compatibility? What's the answer to that?
The cross. That's what makes the
relationship work is Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross
for the church. That means that marriages are
held together by 1,000,000. Little deaths of sacrifice, not
compatibility. And so it needs to be taught and
trained both to the husbands and to the wives.
You just can't get around this in this text.
Like look at verse 5, he this is a continuation of Pauls thought
of teaching the young women to love their husbands.
He goes on to say at the end of verse 5 that you need to train
women to be quote, submissive to their own husbands.
And anytime we touch on this word submission, I, I always
have to say this because there's been an all out campaign waged
against the word submission. It has historically and always
been a beautiful word, but recently it's been spoiled by
the wider culture. So I always need to say this.
The word submission here does not imply inferiority.
It cannot because God the Son, Jesus himself submits to God the
Father and Jesus and the Father are of equal worth and dignity
and value. And so it cannot, cannot, cannot
imply inferiority. It can't.
It doesn't apply if you're already, and it certainly does
not encourage women to be thoughtless doormats in their
marriages and at the same point in time, it also doesn't mean
nothing. So it doesn't mean what the
culture wants you to think it means, but it doesn't mean
nothing. And so biblically, when you look
at it, what the word submission means is it calls forth bright,
intelligent, thoughtful, courageous wives to cultivate
the learned skill of celebrating their husband's leadership in
the family. And look, there are no easy job
descriptions for marriage in the Bible, right?
Because you're like, oh man, did did Paul just say that women
need to celebrate their husband's leadership?
That sounds hard, but what's what's the husband's job
description? Look at Ephesians 5.
He gives husbands the job description of leading the
family by dying to himself as Christ died for the church.
That's tough too. So Paul gives wives the job
description of celebrating that leadership.
How do you develop that skill? Titus 2 tells us that it needs
to be taught. So I would start here.
If you're a younger woman, I even think if you're a single
woman, this is a great question to ask somebody.
They don't have to be an older woman.
Even if they're one or two steps ahead of you in life.
I guarantee you it would be helpful to say, hey, can I grab
coffee for you? I'm just curious, how do you
encourage and celebrate your husband's leadership?
Like, I can't imagine that your marriage wouldn't get better if
you asked that question. It's a beautiful question, but
marriage in a good marriage needs to be trained and and
taught. Here's here's the way Tim Keller
says it. This is so good.
Keller says. As a pastor, I have spoken to
thousands of couples and I've heard them say over and over,
love shouldn't be this hard. It should come naturally.
In response to that, I usually say something like, why would
you believe that? Would someone who wants to play
baseball, professional baseball, say it shouldn't be so hard to
hit a fastball with someone who wants to write the greatest
American novel of her generation?
Say it shouldn't be hard to create a compelling narrative.
Of course, the answer is no. Of course we would ask so those
questions, And so why would we assume that loving your spouse
would just come naturally? Loving your spouses, like Keller
says here, is like writing a breathtaking novel work
technique. It's like mastering a complex
sport. It's a skill that needs to be
learned, that results in a joy that you can't even imagine.
Training young women to love their husbands.
And what's the second thing he says?
He says and train them to love their children again.
I just can't imagine that you would not be edified and built
up if you found a woman in our church who was one step ahead of
you in life and said, hey, can I buy you a cup of coffee?
And just ask, like, how in the world do you love your children?
I have these rabid animals in my house that I call my children.
How do you love these creatures? I think that's the secret to
developing these relationships of one generation to the other
generation. You don't know what the main
barrier is to women investing in women.
Personally, with all of my experience, I think it's the
generational divide. The generational divide, there's
a divide between the younger and older generation of believers
that's totally new. Throughout human history, this
divide did not exist. Younger generations always
admired and looked up to and wanted to be like the older
generations. But there's an assumption that
is formed in the modern world and you see it in movies.
So what movies do is they portrayed the younger generation
as the object of the older generations criticism.
The young, those young people, they just don't get it.
World's going to hell in a handbasket because of the
millennials. And on the flip side, movies
portray the older generations as unwanted by the younger
generation because they're out of touch.
So that's the assumption that forms the generation gap.
The gap older generations feel unwanted by younger generations,
younger generations feel criticized by older generations,
and that creates a gap. And I'm telling you as a human
being who talks with people for my job, I'm telling you the
generational divide is an illusion.
It's not real, it doesn't exist, right?
The older Christians I know are psyched about the younger
Christians and optimistic about the next generation of
Christians. The young Christians I know,
they ache to have an older believer in their lives who
looks at them and says, hey, let me teach you and train you.
It the the generational gap is made-up and we need to learn how
to cross it. Another barrier.
Chloe was really helpful in this one too.
Chloe also was talking about, and I noticed this in myself,
she was, she was talking about how when she experienced
something in life, a lot of times her first impulse in the
post modern world is to run to a social media influencer.
That's totally natural. Like I, I do the same thing.
Like when I'm struggling, I'll be like, OK, what, what does
John Piper say about this? What's what's the problem here?
The problem is you can have your online people that you you
really like, but the problem is when this becomes a major
obstacle. It this becomes a major obstacle
when we replace church members with online influencers.
Does that make sense? Like, I think too many young
women bump into a problem in life and they think, I wonder
what my favorite Instagram account thinks about this rather
than reaching out to another woman in the church who actually
knows her and actually loves her.
And there are a lot of brilliant female Christian voices in the
Internet sphere. So I totally get it.
Like Rosaria Butterfield, she's a living genius.
Jen Wilkin is a fan favorite at Frontier Church.
I know. So there's lots of great online
people. The problem is it, I think it's
foolish to think, what does Jen Wilkin have to say about this
thing when you have Judy Maxwell and Sheila Young in the church.
Have you guys ever talked with those two women?
They are unbelievable, right? I was talking to Judy all week
this week. I was actually, I was telling
our volunteers, I didn't know how to start the conversation.
I was like, hey, Judy, I'm preaching on this text about
older women investing in younger women.
Now, I I know you are, you're a young woman, Judy.
Like, what do you say, right? But if you happen to be an older
woman, how would you invest in the next day?
And she was like, call, stop. She was like, look, I have
earned the right to be called an older woman.
I was like, thank you, thank you.
But don't don't look to an online influencer who might say
true things when you have people like that in the church who can
look at your soul and say I see a fantastic woman and you, I see
a fantastic mother. I see a fantastic wife.
I see a fantastic leader in you. That is I'm telling you that is
irreplaceable. The church, it needs women
investing in women. We need that.
The church needs the voices that women uniquely bring to the
Church of Jesus. God, God didn't create Eve
because Adam was lonely. Like, well, hold on a second,
Cole, but the text says it's not good for man to be alone.
It's not good for Adam to be alone.
He wasn't lonely. He had God.
He walked with God, he was in paradise.
So why did God create Eve? Because Adam was alone and he
could not by himself accomplish the mission that God had given
him. Adam could not accomplish the
mission of God without Eve. In that same way, the church
cannot accomplish the mission of God without women.
Amen. We need their voices.
We need their leadership right we.
So while the Bible does call men exclusively to pastoring and
preaching, we need women crushing and flourishing in
every other sphere of the church.
We need the voices of women showing us how to worship
through leading worship. We need the voices of women
showing us how to pray through the leading of liturgy.
We need the voices of women in the offices of Deacon, community
group leader and fighter, group leader, leader and and disciple.
Listen, you cannot have a strong church without strong women.
If the culture of women is weak, your church is weak.
If you're not leveraging the giftedness of women, your church
is not leveraging one of its most important resources.
I mean, look at the purpose clause at the end of Paul's
commandment. He tells them all that he said.
He says, hey, older women teach and train the younger women to
do XY and Z. Why?
Look at the end of verse 5. He says train them and teach
them all these things so that purpose clause so that the word
of God may not be reviled. What Paul is saying is that the
reputation of the Word of God depends on the lives of these
women in the church. OK, why?
Because people don't look at logic most of the time, or
historical facts most of the time to determine what's true or
not. They look at the lives of the
people who believe the word of God is true.
And so the best argument these churches and Crete have in the
ancient world, the best argument to compel people towards the
word of God is the lives of these women.
If these women, if these women are flourishing, if they take
the raw material of their lives and they give it to Jesus to
compose a beautiful harmony out of it, if they live lives of
other worldly joy, if they invest in the next generation of
women and thrive and blossom, then everybody on the island of
Crete will look at these women and say I want what they've got.
It beautifies the word of God. It doesn't make it true, The
word of God is true on its own, but the lives of these women
makes it appear as beautiful as it is.
And that's why Paul is giving them a vision for womanhood that
wins the world. It's just true.
Like women, sister women, you have something unique that God
has given to your spirit that's better than food.
Like there's an you can prove that it's better than food.
The gifts that women have to give to the church is better
than food. There was we had a a church
membership meeting a year and a half ago.
That was just, it was just a tough one for me, right?
We, we had to walk through some financial difficulties within
the church. And for the first time in nine
years of punching the church, I was like, hey guys, I just want
to let you know that I might need to get a part time job if I
want to continue to pastor here. And by the grace of God, you
guys stepped up and our giving has been fantastic.
Last quarter, first quarter of the year was actually our best
giving season ever in our church.
So thank you. But that was a tough meeting.
And I remember just being flat on the inside.
I like having those meetings. I like being like, hey, let's go
get Jesus. Let's take the world.
Let's fight for joy in the Lord. So I was like, I was feeling
flat after that one. And before I walked out of the
sanctuary, Judy Maxwell came over to me.
She had tears in her eyes. She took a right hand, put it on
my left shoulder, looked looked my eyeballs right in the heart.
And she said, Cole, I just want you to know how obvious it is to
me that you are giving your whole life to leading this
church. And I think you're doing a good
job. And then she hugged me.
And I don't know if you've ever seen butter melt in the
microwave. That's what happened to my
heart. It just melted.
I'm telling you, it's it is best food.
It was what Judy did for me that night.
What she said to me was better than dinner there.
There was a there was a study that was done in the 50s that
proves this. It was a super unethical
experiment. So I'm not saying way to go
guys, because it was really unethical.
Has anybody heard of the the Harlow monkey experiment?
It's wild. OK, super unethical.
Also interesting what they did was they, they took a bunch of
monkeys and I'm not making some evolutionary claim right here.
OK, I'm not, I'm not an evolution guy.
Human beings are made uniquely in the image of God.
Yet there's some things to learn from studies like this.
And so they, they took a bunch of monkeys and then separated
these monkeys from their biological mothers.
Again, super unethical. But then what they did after
they separated them from their biological Mon monkeys is in the
controlled environment they made two different surrogate mothers.
One of the surrogate mothers had milk, but the mother was made of
wire. Got cold hard, but there was
food. Can you guys picture that?
The second mother didn't have any food, didn't have any milk,
but was made of soft cloth and blankets.
And so certainly the people leading the experiment thought
they knew for sure what was going to happen, right?
The thing that was going to happen, everybody assumed that
the monkeys would largely prefer the surrogate mother that was
made of wire but offered milk, duh, because people have
physical needs that need to be met.
So they were shocked when the monkeys overwhelmingly the
number was just over 90%. You can Google it.
The monkeys overwhelmingly preferred the mother with
blankets that had no milk or food.
Are you? Does that blow your mind?
That blew my mind because the findings of the study were
evident. That means they clearly
prioritized emotional security over the physical necessity of
food or the presence of a mother or spiritual mother is better
than food. Why?
What? Like, what is that?
Why would that be the case? Here's why, I think why.
It's because when you came tumbling out of your mother's
womb, out of that warm world, into this cold, sinful world
that we live, and you came out of your mother's room gasping,
right? Breathing, reaching for air,
wailing and crying. As a baby, when you came out of
your mother's womb, the first thing that you looked for in
this cold world, the first thing you looked for was a warm body.
Why? Because deep down, we all hope
and believe that at the very center of the world is a God who
is warm and loving and affectionate.
That's what we're all looking for.
And the the good news of the gospel is that God is both
blanket and milk, right? That's the God God is.
He is blanket. There's more emotional security
in God than you could ever imagine.
The gospel is the good news that Jesus died for your sins.
He takes it all away from you. He covers you in his
righteousness. When you go to God, you get
blankets and security, more security than you could ever
know. But he's also milk.
He also gives you truth. And grows you in knowledge and
brings you up. God is both blanket and milk.
And we are on the hunt for those figures in our lives.
And the thing that I fear, here's what I fear, my fear
sometimes is that our church is made out of wire.
You know what I'm saying? That our church is made out of
wire and we have milk. We're good with truth.
We say a lot of true stuff. We preach long, we talk about
theology, we talk about doctrine.
But it's wire. There's no blanket of warmth and
support. And women, we need you.
We need you to be spiritual mothers who are warm and secure
and teach and train the next generation of women to be like
Jesus. A lot of women grew up with moms
who are made of wire, distant, put a roof over your head, put
food on the table, but distant. And so you grew up with these
attachment issues. It's hard to attach to other
people and other friends, and it's certainly hard to attach to
God because our parent figures are how we imagine God.
And so some of you, because of that, you picture God as made
out of wire. He pays the bills, He puts a
roof over your head, but he's distant, cold and mechanical.
And so the question is, where are the women who will step into
that gap and show the next generation of women the warmth
and support that God wants to to experience?
It's so important. It's so important.
Where are those women? It it's not going to happen in
the corporate workplace. It's not going to happen in the
school system. It's not going to happen
anywhere in the world besides the church.
Here's the way one theologian says it.
He says quote in the family of God, spiritual mothers and
fathers are instruments of divine re parenting.
That's what you're doing. Even if you're in your 20s,
there are plenty of women who are one Step 2 steps behind you.
Divine re parenting the church. In the church, mothers and
fathers are instruments of divine reparenting.
Through them, God heals the wounds of our unmet childhood
needs and nurtures in us the secure attachment that enables
us to trust Him as our ultimate Father.
Isn't that beautiful? It's one of the reasons I think
I think a lot about it. Now that I've got a daughter
who's five years old like I want to do, I'm almost done.
I know we're falling apart. I I wanted there are things that
Chloe and I cannot be for her. And I know this.
Della tells me this on a weekly basis.
Earlier this week it was 7:00 AM and I just looked at Della in
the eyes and I went and Della goes, Dad, This is why I don't
want you to ever take me to school.
So I need you, some of you, to take her to school Now, Chloe's
got it. But there are these pieces and
parts in her heart that we won't be able to reach.
Who's going to do it? It's going to be you guys.
Like, this is crazy. If you're in your 20s, women,
you are going to be Della's spiritual mother.
And I want her to grow up in an environment, a church
environment where it is normal for her to hear from an older
woman. Hey, Della, I saw you, Della, I
saw you praying with Phoebe. And I just want to let you know
that was so cool. And I'm praying that your prayer
life would increase. I want that to be normal for
her, right? I want, I want Reese Kerr to
grow up in an environment where it's normal for an older woman
to say, sister, I heard what you said to your friend.
And I just want to let you know that you might have the gift of
prophecy, and I just want to fan that flame.
And I just want to see you grow into that woman, right?
That's the type of relationships I want my daughter and the women
in our church to have. So let me end with an
exhortation. This is an exhortation for the
women in our church specifically.
Put yourself on a pathway to one day grow into the role of a
spiritual mother. I don't care if you're single,
married, married, without kids. Put yourself on a path to one
day grow into the role of a spiritual mother.
Since we're a younger church, you will probably be called upon
to be a spiritual mother much sooner than you would have
guessed. At an older church, you might
have the luxury of waiting until you're 50 or 60 before you step
into that role. Not the case at Frontier.
You will need to play this role for women in our church who are
just one or two seasons life behind you very soon.
And so there's many ways to put yourself on this pathway, but
let me lay it out for you in three steps.
Do these three things every time you gather with the church and
you will be on your way to being a spiritual mother, a pillar in
the church. 1st, every time you gather with the church, notice,
just notice a young woman who is crushing it.
I don't even care what. Maybe they're just crushing it
being a Christian. Maybe they're crushing it by
leading worship. Just notice a young woman who
was crushing it. Maybe she's crushing it at being
a mom or a wife. Notice that she's doing a great
job. Step 2.
Tell her she's crushing it with your mouth with words.
Too often we bury our discourage or we bury our encouragement.
So tell her she's crushing it and be specific.
Third, pray for her out loud. If you're feeling so bold, put
your hand on her shoulder and pray for her.
And I am telling you, if you do that, even if you're 25, if
you're 25 and you do those three things 52 Sundays a year for 10
years straight, by the time you're 35, you will be a magnet
for younger women in the church who are drowning in life and
drowning in marriage and drowning in motherhood and
drowning at work. You will have an invisible
tractor beam that draws the younger women to you and
excavates out of them. Teach me how to be a godly
woman. And if you give your life to
teaching and training those women who ask you that, then
Frontier will cultivate A womanhood that wins the world.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you would you would bless us.
I think there's a lot for the men in our church to learn from
this text, but they also got their sermon last week.
And so I pray that you would call forth spiritual mothers,
that you would equip them to invest and that you wouldn't
teach them and train them to teach and train younger women.
And maybe the more important part of the equation, Lord, is
send your Holy Spirit to so soften, to so soften the hearts
of the younger women that they have the humility to pursue
older women and say, hey, how the heck do you follow Jesus?
And if enough of those conversations happen, this place
will be filled with spiritual mothers and fathers that rock
the city of Des Moines. Do that through us and in US,
Lord. It's in the precious name of
Jesus that all God's people prayed.