Speaker: Greg Sanders

Passage: Titus 2

BECOMING THE HOUSEHOLDS OF GOD PT. 3

Thinking about the thought we were just in that we, the people of God, are the gift of the Father to the Son. I think it goes without saying that He had intention for that gift, and really, that’s what Paul dives into here in Titus. 

We’re in kind of a portion of the Book of Titus called Becoming the Households of God, where we’re talking about what it looks like to live the Christ life in our homes. 

We started with just an observation that the Book of Revelation begins with Jesus walking among the churches, itemizing, calling out what He sees, encouraging, critiquing, very much in the same way to what Paul’s doing here in Titus 2.

And I want to just begin us in verse 1. “But as for you, promote the kind of living that reflects right teaching.” This is really the jumping-off point for Paul. He’s just analyzed what it takes to walk in leadership, what false leadership looks like, and the dangers of it. 

And then he turns around to Titus and says, But here’s what I want from you, for the people in your church, for the congregations that you’re going to lead, I want you to promote the kind of living that reflects right teaching. 

That’s a really big idea for us. What kind of living reflects right teaching? What’s he calling for? He’s basically saying, in essence, there is a standard of living that Jesus longs for, and I want you to teach people how to live that. 

I think it’s important that we look at this entire teaching– this entire set of teachings– from the lens of the way that I want to live natively, or the way that I’ve watched people around me live might not necessarily be right. And what Paul’s calling for is Titus to teach his culture, teach his congregation how to live correctly, really, with one agenda, so that the rest of the world can see how to live. 

How many have ever been around someone who you know their parents didn’t live well? Because you can tell it by their life, you see the dysfunction that’s in them that’s been perpetuated. Does that make sense? The sins of the father are passed down to the third and fourth generations is what Scriptures teach, but the blessing on righteousness goes to a thousand generations. 

What Paul’s after is to shift the curse on unrighteousness and create a pathway of blessing that will begin to extend into the generations. 

I would love for us to embrace that anything in these teachings that call for us to shift our life and change our life is because the Lord has a plan, and it’s blessing. But in order to get into it, we got to live the way He said to live. 

I need to let go of my agenda for how to live if it’s contrary to Scripture, I don’t care if it’s what my family taught me. I don’t care if it’s what I natively want. The reality is, if the Scriptures are breathed by God like we believe, then I need to take it to heart and allow my life to be transformed by it. 

That’s really what Paul’s after. He’s coming into Crete. He’s coming into an area that is fairly pagan. Paul’s been there before. We know that because he said to Titus, “I left you in Crete.” So, he’s observed. And what he said to them, essentially, is, I’ve watched the way you live, and it shows me one thing: clearly, you don’t know how to live the way God wants you to. 

Now, we could take that as a religious thing. We could take that as a do better spirit of religion. That’s not what’s going on in Paul’s heart, and Paul’s heart is you are fully missing the benefit and blessing of the Kingdom because you’re not living it. There is a blessing on righteousness, and if we step into it, we step into this favor index, where the Lord begins to pour out favor on our lives. 

I would love to offer to us a thought: I think the enemy loves to keep us stupid. He loves to promote the kind of living that reveals wrong teaching because he understands the moment we step into the kind of living that reflects right teaching, there’s supernatural blessing on it. 

And his agenda for the people of God is to make sure they don’t walk in blessing. You have to understand that he does not want you to walk in blessings. So, everything in you, in your native identity, will rise up against right teaching because that’s what the sin nature does. You’ll naturally want to rebel against it. Paul talks about that in Titus 1, the danger of rebelling. 

My point is, hopefully, to dangle in front of us the opportunity to walk in incredible blessing and favor. We talked about giving a few weeks back about tithing, and I watched this church engage in faithfulness to tithing like crazy. 

But my point in tithing is this: I want to see every person in the Kingdom blessed financially. I promise you, the only way to get there is God’s way. No matter what you think, the only way to get there is God’s way. It’s the exact same way here. 

The only way to get to a peaceful life that’s full of blessing, to have a household that is blessed and favored by the Lord, is to live the way the Scriptures teach. And if we live any way contrary to that, we are embracing and inviting a certain amount of destruction into our homes. 

I will remind you of what the Scriptures teach. There’s a way that seems right to a man, but the end is what? Destruction. That our native instincts, that come out of our sin nature, while they feel so near and dear to our hearts, always yield the wrong results. 

THE LORD’S PATH FOR BLESSING

Discipleship is becoming a learner under discipline. It is the willingness to put on the life of Jesus Christ in favor of what I want natively. So, Paul says, “But as for you, I want you to promote the kind of living that reflects right teaching. Teach the older men to exercise self-control, to be worthy of respect, to live wisely. They must have strong faith and be filled with love and patience.” We talked about this a couple weeks ago.

“Similarly, teach the older women to live in a way that is appropriate for someone serving the Lord. They must not go around speaking evil of others and must not be heavy drinkers. Instead, they should teach others what is good.” 

We looked at this last week, that Paul has four things that he defines to older women. If you remember, we’ve defined older versus younger in this teaching as older being over thirty, younger being under. 

You’re like, Why that age? Well, average life expectancy was thirty-seven to forty-five. So, let’s just not assume Paul’s aiming this teaching for older people at seventy because that would have been fairly unprecedented in that time. 

Do we know he was aiming for it at over thirty? I don’t. But let’s pick a line in the sand for maturity and call it what it is, that’s the goal. What I don’t want is that in our minds, we’re like, Oh, this mature older woman in the Kingdom, being she’s seventy, so I don’t have to worry about that until then, because what happens if that’s not the expectation of the Lord? 

I actually believe that that’s the truth, that it’s not the expectation of the Lord. I think the Lord’s expectation is that we step into this maturity at a much younger age, we quit giving ourselves a pass to be immature at a much younger age. 

Why would the Lord do that? Because if the Lord knows this is the path for blessing, He wants His people blessed as soon as they can be blessed. He’s kind enough to understand you have to get old enough and be mature enough and have a little bit of life underneath you to know how to live this out. 

But He’s never going to say to you, I just want you blessed in those last few years of your life. His desire is that you put a legacy together that for forty, fifty years, you’re living in the blessing and the favor of Heaven. 

We have to let go of this idea of, Someday, I’ll figure it out, and demand of ourself as disciples, Today, I’m going to figure it out. Did you know that, according to Philippians, we have the power to do that? We have the power to choose Godliness. We don’t have to go, Oh, you know, I’m just not perfect. 

No, we can actually get on our face, fight it out with the Lord, and go, Holy Spirit, I need You to help me crucify my flesh. I’m gonna choose to live the way You said to live. That’s what it means to put on the nature of Christ. 

THE POWER OF THE TONGUE

I had a thought, I’ll get to it in a second. No, I’m going to get to it right now. It’ll be important. Life and death is in the tongue. That also means that life and death is in silence. That sometimes the most life-giving thing we can learn to do as disciples is to shut up. 

I had a friend, he used to teach it this way: just because you thought it, doesn’t mean you had to say it. We’re talking about the very basic discipline as believers of being in control of ourselves. That’s what Paul’s dealing with. Are you and I in control of our behavior? Are we in control of our emotions? Are we in control of our desires? That’s what Paul’s dealing with. 

So, to the older women in the church, he gives a picture of what Kingdom femininity looks like. And he really will couch this in there’s no way to read this without Him, without understanding what He’s really getting at, is I need you to trust Jesus. Here’s how you’re gonna live it out: because you trust Jesus, your women are to live with every behavior reflecting Jesus. 

What does that mean? It means in the micro moments, day in, day out, you’re reflecting Jesus. You’re asking yourself all the time: does this behavior reflect the Lord? In other words, if Jesus wouldn’t do it, say it, or think it, then do we?

Well, how do I do that? That’s so daunting. You go to Romans 13, where it says, instead of living how you want to live, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Wear Him like a coat. If you think about a coat, a coat covers up who you are. It protects you from what’s on the outside. 

Putting on the nature of Christ covers up who you are. We’re like, Yeah, but I want to be known for who I am. Probably not a good idea. Probably a better idea to put on Jesus because sometimes that ugliness and that entitlement isn’t the great thing to have on display, but He’s always the right thing to have on display. And by putting Him on, we protect ourselves from what’s coming at us in the world.

That’s Paul’s entire teaching in Ephesians, We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, rulers of darkness. And when we put on Jesus Christ, we are putting on the armor of God. 

Second thing he says to women: women are to be careful to guard against critical slander, using their words to build. Life and death is in the tongue, ladies. I will give you this: you’re smarter than men for the most part. You have a quicker brain. 

You all know it when you’re in arguments. You all know the things that you could say that come to mind, those one-liners. You’re like, Ooh, that was a zinger. Sometimes the most Godly thing you can do is to put on Jesus Christ and be quiet. 

I had the privilege of doing a memorial on Thursday for Judy Mirowski. Judy was part of this house. In June, Pastor Gary and I had the privilege of doing a rededication of vows for their fortieth anniversary. Judy was with us doing VBS. Nobody had any idea she was going to pass away. She died in her sleep. She was eighty-four years old. 

I sat down with Randy, and interviewed him, and talked about their journey. He’s like, You know, pastor, in forty years of marriage, she never yelled at me once. Now, after I picked my jaw off the floor, I went, Wait, help me understand this. He said, Yeah, she disagreed with me. She would just say, Okay, and she’d go to the bedroom and she’d fight it out with the Lord. I’m like, You’re not joking, are you? He’s like, No. He’s like, That little girl made me a better man because of the way she loved the Lord. 

I sat at the graveside, stood there, Pastor Dustin officiated the graveside, and I listened to granddaughter and great granddaughter and daughter, one after the other, say the same thing: I learned to follow Jesus by watching the way she lived. One granddaughter almost came out and said, I wouldn’t have followed Jesus if it wasn’t for the way she lived, but I wanted to be like her. 

That’s what Paul’s getting at, is that we begin to launch a legacy to where the watching world says, That’s what a Christ life looks like. That’s what Paul’s after, is there’s a life Jesus wants for us. 

ALCOHOL IN MODERATION AND DISPLAYING WHAT IS GOOD

He’ll go on and say that older women are to manage their alcohol intake with moderation. For a lot of us, we grew up in churches that told us alcohol was sin because that’s what governments like to do, is they like to say, Instead of teaching you moderation, we’ll just tell you it’s sin, so you stay away from it, be scared of it. 

Paul’s statement isn’t that alcohol is sin; it’s that drunkenness is. In the Kingdom, if you want to drink, it’s fine, but you need to moderate. Now, for you, if the answer is, I can’t moderate, then abstain. 

But you got to know, drunkenness will always lead you to stupidity. How many have ever heard someone say, I got drunk and made the best decisions of my life? Paul’s statement is in the Kingdom, drunkenness and addiction are sin. 

And fourthly, he says older women are to put on display what is good. This phrase, “Put on display,” is really important. You’re to live in a way that everyone can learn what is good just by watching your life. They don’t even have to ask you. They can just observe. 

So, in these verses, Paul has just commanded older women to teach and display goodness through their lifestyle, careful with how they speak, always reflecting Jesus, being careful with alcohol. 

TEACHING THE YOUNGER WOMEN

And then he transitions, he uses a Greek conjunction, and he transitions for them to step into a specific kind of teaching which promotes moderation, sobriety, and self-control in the younger women. 

He doesn’t do this with the men. He says to the women, I want you to begin to train them, to teach them in a way that helps develop these things in their life. The word sophronizo, it’s a compound idea, conveys both the act of teaching and the promotion of self-control in the life of the listener. 

In English, we would term this life coaching. What’s a life coach do? Teaches you how to have a healthy, balanced, moderate life. He says to older women, That’s what I want you to do. I want you to be life coaches. Let’s call it Kingdom life coaches to the younger women. 

There’s an important linguistic reality that happens in this verse. In this phrase, it means “might train to be sober.” It’s in a subjunctive mood. You’re like, Why do we care? Here’s why you care: I’m going to bring it out because it doesn’t show up in the New Living, but it’s a really important idea. 

It really means that they may or might restore to right-mindedness. In other words, it’s not a guarantee. What Paul says is, Older women, I want you to train in a way and coach in a way that makes it possible. They’re still going to have to have a responsibility. There’s still an index on the younger women. They have to pick it up. 

It’s so easy for us to take responsibility for somebody else’s journey. Paul doesn’t do that. Paul says both parties are responsible. They both have to do what’s right. He’s calling for personal ownership on both sides of the equation. 

In other words, the older women are to live this way and be willing to teach, but younger women, you have to be teachable. You have to have the humility to be taught. So, older ladies, you can never let your obedience to being willing to train be dependent on whether or not they’re willing to listen. 

Now, anybody who’s raised teenagers understands that principle. There are times when you’re going to teach things that aren’t going to be listened to, but they’re still right, and later on, most times they turn around, come back, and say, I should have listened. And the answer is, when you want to say, I know, you say, It’s okay, I’ll be here next time. 

The call to be a teacher of goodness is an unchanging, permanent responsibility within the life of older women in the church. Now here’s the concern I would offer: there are very few places this is happening. 

THE CALL ON OLDER WOMEN TO LEAD

How many of you, if you look across your family lines, would say, I don’t know very many of the older women that have been living this standard? In my journey, I can think of one on both sides of my family. 

My grandma Sanders lived this life. My grandma Sanders used to do this cool thing to me. Tenth grade, I’m out partying, I bought all the beer for the party, and other things, totally living in sin. I knew the call of God in my life. There was no question. 

I get a call Saturday morning. Hey, sweetheart, I saw you on a couch last night, sitting next to a girl. She was wearing black pants, white shirt, had dark hair. What was her name? Julie. Yeah, sweetie, that’s not where God called you to be. Copy. 

Because this woman had a ridiculous relationship with Jesus, kindest, most gentle, never heard her yell once in my life, and I pushed the envelope trying. But for the most part, whether we like it or not, there’s not a lot of examples of this in our culture. 

My question is, why would we as the church shrink back from this when it’s so clearly the call of God on us? Here’s three things I think might be worth considering. Maybe we didn’t actually know it was the Biblical calling. 

In my fifty-two years in the church, I’ve never heard Titus taught on. Now, that doesn’t excuse us for not knowing it. We have the responsibility to study Scriptures on our own. However, it’s weird. 

Somebody asked me last week, Why don’t we give people this as the discipleship book, instead of the Book of John? I was like, I don’t know. That’s a great question. I gave the Book of John because I was given the Book of John. I never really thought about it. That’s a great question. I think I’m going to start giving Titus now. 

I know why we give John, because we want people to be rooted and grounded in the fact that Jesus loves them and that they’re redeemed by His kindness and His grace. It’s beautiful, love that. 

However, perhaps we just didn’t know this was a Biblical thing, or here’s a worse one: perhaps, church, we’ve let the culture inform our behavior instead of the Scriptures because the way the church lives at large looks more like Instagram than the Bible. 

Or perhaps there’s a laziness where we just think this is too much because this requires an investment. This requires a hands-on community style of understanding that we belong to each other. 

Do you know when we take the bread and cup, that’s what we’re declaring, that we belong to each other? That’s the whole point. We take the Body and share it, we take the Blood and share it, and we’re making a ceremonial statement that we are connected through Him. 

Whatever the reason, I would offer that what Paul’s teaching here is how the Holy Spirit wants us to live because it’s the only way the Kingdom works. So, I want you to put out of your mind the question as to whether or not this is an option. This is not an option. 

What if we refuse this? What you’re sentencing yourself to is missing the mark, and the Kingdom doesn’t become what it’s supposed to be. And at the end of this passage, Paul makes a statement that is terrifying if we don’t do that. 

I want to invite us to digest it, determine our obedience to it, and then start creating systems and mechanisms that allow for us to do this at a church level. 

PAUL ASSUMES THIS LIFESTYLE IS BEING LIVED

Okay, so let’s look at the detail of what Paul says the older women are to train into the younger women. The first thing he says, these older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and be pure, to take care of the homes, to do good, to be submissive to their husbands, then they will not bring shame on the Word of God. 

The first thing we have to see is that Paul does something called assumptive reasoning. Assumptive reasoning means he’s making an assumption in order to make his point. The assumption is that these older women are already living the things they’re supposed to train: loving their husbands, loving their children, living wisely, being pure, taking care of their homes, doing what is good, and living submissive to their husbands. 

It’s an important list, but we have to stop and push pause because in order for older women in the Kingdom to be able to train this, they have to be able to live this. So, there has to be a pre-existing condition of living these realities. 

I would offer that that’s partly why we haven’t seen it being taught in the church. It’s because we go multiple generations back where these things haven’t been taught, and so there’s no sense of authority to teach it. The only way we’re going to fix this is if we put a line in the sand and say, We will be the generation that rectifies this problem. 

Admittedly, these things that Paul’s teaching are wildly counter-cultural to where we live right now. They were wildly counter-cultural to Crete. The culture of Crete was very similar to the culture we live in right now. Because of that, I feel like leadership in the church has been afraid to call these things out for fear of being canceled. 

Here’s my answer: we can’t have that week a constitution. If I’m a disciple of Jesus Christ, for the rest of my days, I will espouse what Jesus said, not what the culture says. So, I want to invite us to look at these statements from two lenses. 

Number one: that these are the behaviors that are to be happening in the lives of older women, and where they’re not, they must be assessed, repented for, and put into practice. So, to the older ladies in the room, that’s the call to the younger women. These are the behaviors that are to be what younger women are learning to put on display. Let me say it to you this way. This is how you live the Kingdom. That’s what Paul’s teaching. This is the Kingdom life. 

And so for some of us, we’re going to have to ignore the model we’ve had in front of us, we might have to ignore three or four models we’ve had in front of us. You might feel isolated and alone and say, I don’t have anybody around me that can show me how to live this. 

See, Paul’s answer is, your immediate family line can’t be your only resource. There must be a family line within the household of God where people that aren’t your family are willing to step in and coach your life, and you got to be willing to hear them coach you. You have to have the humility of heart to say, I need your coaching. Bring it on. 

What’s it look like to have the courage to say to an older woman, I need you to watch me with my husband and my kids and tell me how I’m doing, and then when she says, Hey, you’re missing it, here, here, and here, to be willing to digest that and go, Okay, will you pray with me so I can move forward correctly? 

You see, because we live in a culture which is my house, my business, that’s the opposite of what Paul’s calling for. Paul’s saying we are the house of God; it is our business to make sure we are all living this correctly.

Do we do it in harshness? No. We do it in grace. But that’s the only way we’re going to fix multiple generations of this not happening. There has to be a generation that will say we’re going to return to the path of Jesus. So, my question to us is, will we be that generation? 

LOVE YOUR HUSBANDS AND CHILDREN

All right, let’s dive into these disciplines. The first one: older women are to teach younger women to love their husbands and their children. Two different words are used here, two different phrases. 

I want to highlight that for one reason: Paul doesn’t say just be loving to your husband or your kids. He means that, but he means it with more specificity. The two words are philandos and philoteknos. 

This is the only place in the Scriptures that these words are used. Philandros means to be affectionately friendly to your husband. There are three Greek words that are commonly used for love. One is agape, we all know that agape is benefacting love, or love that lives for the benefit of another, sacrificial love. 

Eros is erotic love. Don’t need to explain that one, right? It’s what we’d use to describe sexual love, sexual appetite. But philo is Philadelphia, it’s brotherly love. It deals with a fondness and a kindness, and it deals with a friendliness. 

This is the word that Paul says older women are to train younger women in how to be affectionate and friendly towards their husbands, affectionate and friendly towards their children. It is to love, but with a very clear calling to be friendly and affectionate. 

There’s a linguistic thing that happens in here that I want to highlight: there’s an infinitive verb in this phrase, which means “to be,” so that infinitive creates a mandate to an activity, not an emotional feeling. 

Catch that he’s mandating an activity, not a feeling. It means to exist in a state. Paul is saying, I want you to exist in a state of being affectionate and friendly towards your husband and your children, a permanent condition you are to stay in. 

Women are to exist in a state of being affectionate and friendly with their husbands and their children. Their husbands and their children are to be the object of their friendship and affection, and women are called to create a culture of friendship and affection in the home. 

The reason I highlight that is, if he had said, I want you to feel that way, that’s the permission to respond. He’s saying, I want you to create it. I want you to be in this condition in the home. 

Now, we did a bunch of research. So, if you need it, the QR codes in front of you. These notes are available for download because this is a lot. My goal is that you can take it home and grab onto it and mine it. 

In those notes, I highlighted a couple different authors from the first century and the fourth century that were using this word in the same way. I did that for one reason: because it’s only used once in the Scripture. 

It’s important to find out how it is used other places, and it’s used the exact same way in other places. One of them is Plutarch. And Plutarch will say this about a woman named Hipparete. He says she was so decorous and affectionate as a wife, but she was distressed because her husband was an idiot and would consort with prostitutes. 

In other words, what Plutarch is saying is there’s no reason in the world for this guy to go anywhere else because his wife was amazing to him. That being amazing to him is the call that Paul’s putting in front of Titus. 

What I would submit is that the truth of this concept stands in stark contrast to our modern culture. You don’t believe me, finish this phrase: If mama ain’t happy… You see, our culture gives a standard that’s not Scriptural. The Scriptural standard is, Mom, you choose to be happy. While that might feel daunting, calling always comes with grace. So, there’s a unique grace upon women to do this. 

Here’s what I want you to take from this. If the culture of your home is not affectionate and friendly, you got to fix it. You’ve been tasked with that reality. I want you to hear this as a calling and a charge to change it. 

LIVE WISELY AND BE PURE

He will go on and say older women are to train younger women to live wisely and be pure. This word live wisely, sophron, of sound mind, to be in control of one’s senses, curbing one’s desires, to be temperate. Hagnos, for be pure, pure from carnality, chaste, modest. It’s the concept of being in control of both appetites and emotions. 

So, the word temperate here is key in the understanding because what it reveals is a settled nature in favor of an irrational nature driven by emotion. Paul’s placing a standard for being under the control of the Holy Spirit. 

It’s the exact same standard he puts on younger men. And we talked about it, the question that they were to learn to live with is, Hey, will this decision, will this action lead me where Jesus wants me to go? Will it help me become who He wants me to be? 

Older women are to train younger women to take care of their homes. Again, Paul will use another compound word that shows up nowhere else in the Scripture. The word phrase means to be a manager, keeper, or guard of a household. It’s the picture of one who watches over, cares for, and keeps the family to manage the affairs of the home. 

Now, is Paul saying, Don’t have a job, stay at home, clean the house? That’s not what Paul’s saying. Right? Paul’s talking about a responsibility to manage the home. How you work that out in your own homes is yours to work out. But what Paul’s saying is, Ladies, this is a responsibility God put on you. 

Why would Paul teach that? Because he’s teaching a culture that is directly in opposition to what’s going on in Crete. Historians will tell us that the women of Crete were abandoning their homes, abdicating their authority, chasing their passions and their appetites. 

So, what Paul’s calling for is a correction for this, and a clear line to be drawn in the Kingdom. I’d remind us he’s saying that’s not how God set the Kingdom up to work. He’s teaching so people will be blessed. What he wants is women to be vested and engaged in the success of their home by teaching this. What Paul’s revealing is that Jesus is placing this calling upon women in the Kingdom. 

So, here’s a caution for us: in our culture, we would tend to want to superimpose modern culture over these mandates and say something like, You know, our day is kind of different to that. Here’s my question: does your culture determine your obedience? Or does your obedience determine your culture? 

DOING GOOD

Paul will challenge older women to teach younger women to do good. This teaching phrase is wildly important. The New Living Translation does a really poor job with it. Here’s why the word phrase “to do” isn’t in here. Instead, it’s the word phrase “to be.” The word is agathos, and it means to be in a state of good constitution, good nature, pleasant, joyful, happy, agreeable, and useful. 

This is a word that is declaring a demeanor women are to live with in the home. And according to Paul, it’s not a calling to do good things. It’s a calling to be good. So, catch this: what Paul’s saying is he’s putting a Kingdom calling on the attitude, behavior, and nature. 

Women are to live within the home and the marketplace, they are to be of good constitution and nature, pleasant, joyful, happy, agreeable, and useful. Each of these are attitude words. They determine how one lives. I would offer that each of these requires an intentional choice versus an emotional reaction. 

“To be” is a really important idea. Take upon yourself the responsibility to exist in this condition that you’re being good, you’re being agreeable, you’re being well-natured, has nothing to do with the other person. It’s your choice. 

It’s what Paul’s teaching and his simple answer really is that, ladies, we are to put on and actively display the nature of Christ in the home towards the family. We never give ourselves permission to take off Christ, that older women are to teach and train younger women to be submissive to their husbands. 

SUBMISSIVE TO YOUR HUSBANDS

And we just love this word submission. The Greek phrase here is to be obedient to their husbands. Now, this word is to have this relationship with your own husband, is how it is to be understood in the Greek. 

I want to debunk something. There are some cultures that teach, Oh, women should handle every man this way. That’s not what Paul says. You ought to handle every man with respect and put on Christ because that’s how we’re taught to handle people. 

But this is a specific relationship within a marriage, and you’re like, Why are you dealing so much with marriage? Because that’s what Paul’s dealing with here. We’re dealing with what the text gives, the Greek word is hypotasso, and the meaning is to arrange oneself under the authority of another and be obedient to that one. 

It’s the same word that shows up in Ephesians 5. Paul uses it twice, once for women in their relationship with their husbands, and once for everybody in the church, and how they handle each other. So, it’s not a new concept here in Titus, it’s in the Scriptures. 

Its dominant use in the day was a military term, meaning to arrange troop divisions in a military fashion under the command of a leader. What I think Paul’s doing with this word here is he’s giving us a hint to Divine order, the order with which God has engineered the ecosystem of the family to properly work. 

Scripturally, headship is male. Genesis teaches us that. If that’s a foreign concept, you’re like, I need more on that, we don’t have time for it here. I promise you headship is male, and I promise you that headship deals more with responsibility than it does with power. 

In non-military use, this hypotasso word was used to describe a voluntary attitude of giving and cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden. I think both the military and the non-military usages of these are important, but I actually think the second one gets more to the heart of what Paul’s after because he keeps dealing with attitude. 

I would say it this way: I bet if Paul was here, he’d say, I want you to have the right attitude, but I don’t care if you do or not, put yourself in order. You see, voluntary is a big idea that I think is in danger of being lost in our culture. 

I think it’s lost for several reasons. We worked through this as a teaching team, and we will give you a few of them. I think we’re letting culture dictate our reality, instead of the way of Jesus; we’re giving culture a louder voice than the Scriptures. 

I think in some places, ladies, there’s a genuine lack of understanding about how powerful heart surrender really is, and it’s not new to this generation. If we go to the Book of Hosea, we learn a story about a bride that detests the bridegroom God gave her. What we learn from that story is a simple reality that a bride cannot submit to her husband without making a decision to walk in love and respect towards him. She has to be bold enough and courageous enough and refuse the temptation to trample him or attempt to take his place. 

I don’t have that temptation. Yes, you do. It was hardwired into you at the curse in Genesis, the statement to women was your desire will be for your husband. The word is to usurp. You will always want to step over him. And in the Kingdom, the cause of Christ calls women to come out of that desire and learn to walk in honor instead to invert and change that nature that was sin. 

Most men just want to keep mama happy. The call of God to them was to lead, to be responsible, where most men have no desire to do that. That’s why most guys, when it comes to making a decision, the first thing they’ll do is like, What do you want to do? Which is not a bad question, but at the end of the day, men, you are called to get on your face, serve God, get an answer, and lead your home. 

I don’t want you to lead it Gestapo style. I don’t want you to walk and be like, I don’t care what you say, God told me. You can do that if you want, it is your right and privilege as a leader, it’s dumb, but don’t do it. It’s much better to sit, think about it as a manager/assistant manager type situation, where, like, Hey, give me your thoughts on this. I’m going to go pray about it. 

There should be the discipline in the wife that says, I will honor whatever you decide because I trust your leadership. But I’m going to pray for you that God gives you wisdom. That’s how God created this to work. 

And in truth, that’s a mystery. The outside world looking in is like, What in the world are you guys talking about? This is crazy. If you go to the outside world, the answer is, There’s nobody that’s going to tell me how to live and what we’re doing. That’s the native instinct. And most guys are like, Just whatever she wants. I don’t care, long as she’s happy. 

It’s a mystery. It’s hidden from the outside world. And I would offer to you that something that’s hidden from the outside world doesn’t make it wrong; it makes it spiritual. It’s easy to say, Oh, we know in marriage, do you know the man’s the head and the woman’s to live in submission? 

Easy to say, very difficult to explain to someone because everybody wants to go, Well, who makes the decisions? I just want you to remember this submission and authority headship are far more about who bears the responsibility than they are who gets the power. 

So, guys, in Ephesians 5:23, where it says husbands love your wives as Christ, we often, as men, will natively, without even thinking about it, say, Well, he was in charge, and I’m in charge. Great. Let’s ask, what did He get? What did being in charge get Him? 

It didn’t make life easier for Him. He sacrificed to His church. He took responsibility for His church, and He loved His church. In practice, for Jesus, being the head came with responsibility and cost, I would offer that it will do the same for us to do it correctly. 

Headship is never going to feel fair. You got to get over that. Submission is never going to feel fair. You got to get over that. These are both disciplines we make in humility as unto the Lord. It’s not about fairness. It’s about the fact that Jesus has taught us positionally how the Kingdom is supposed to work. 

EASY TO FOLLOW AND EASY TO LEAD

So, guys, I would remind you to ask yourself this question often: am I easy to follow? Do those who follow me, do they see that I’m submitted to Jesus? Guys, if your wife is asking you regularly, Did you even ask the Lord about this? That’s probably a concern. It means she ain’t seeing the evidence that you sat with Jesus to get an answer. 

I would also offer something I haven’t said to any of the gatherings: one party can be right and one party can be wrong, but it doesn’t make the one who’s right, doesn’t give them an excuse to not be right. 

Guys, if you’re leading your home well and your wife won’t follow, that’s between her and Jesus, not you and her. You got to lead your home. Ladies, if your husband’s an idiot, it doesn’t give you a right to not be submitted. 

But that being said, I want to challenge something: it would be easy to want to point this at guys and give the women a break, to soften it, to adjust it, to take the teeth from it. But we can’t do that with Scripture because Paul gave it with these teeth for a reason. 

So, women of the Kingdom have to embrace this calling because they trust Jesus knows what He’s doing. You are never gonna live this out because your guy’s awesome. You’re gonna live this out because your King is awesome, because you’ve decided, I can trust Him. That’s the only reason I’m gonna do it. 

I would offer I don’t know how people without Jesus stay married. Have no idea. It’s a mystery to me, like, how in the world do you stay married without someone who will constantly help you deal with your arrogance and your pride? 

I would challenge that Paul reveals a reality that women are to exist in a state that is easy to lead. So, that means there’s no room, ladies, for you to argue. Well, he isn’t leading me. Well, while that might be true, you are to let the Lord Jesus Christ deal with him. 

I would remind you of the Judy Mirowski index. Every time she disagreed, she just went and got alone with the Lord and went, You deal with him. I’m going to love him because that’s what You told me to do. 

Because your station, according to Paul, is to voluntarily choose an attitude of giving in cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying the burden. And that only works if your trust is rooted in Jesus. 

Lastly, I would just ask, ladies, please avoid letting the culture of our day inform your obedience. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Make no provision for the flesh. Have the courage to invite the Holy Spirit to deal with every place you refuse to choose an attitude of giving, in cooperating, taking responsibility, or carrying a burden. You have to do that for yourself. 

This has to be of such conviction at any age because young ladies, this is the life you are learning to live. And if you can’t walk in this kind of submission to your parents, you’ll never walk in this kind of submission to a husband. 

If you can’t walk in this kind of honor to teachers and leaders, you’ll never walk in it towards a husband. And you’re like, I don’t care, well, yes, you have to because if you don’t do this, it makes the family a wreck. The family doesn’t work without this index. God created it. This is the way it’s supposed to work. We’ve got to be humble enough to say, I don’t actually know more than God. 

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO LIVE KINGDOM LIFESTYLES

Paul will end this with a very sobering phrase: he says, “Then they will not bring shame on the word of God.” The they who’s he speaking to is all. He’s speaking to older men, younger men, older women, younger women. He’s speaking to the household of God, then they will not bring shame on the word of God. 

The word shame here means to ignore, revile, or speak evil. What he says here is wild. In John 1, it says, “The word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The word in John 1 is logos. It’s speaking of Jesus. Jesus is the logos of Heaven. Same word here, Paul uses logos, then they will not bring shame on the logos. 

So, let’s put it together. What he’s making is a statement that refusing to live this life brings about the ability for the world around us to ignore, revile, and speak evil of Jesus. Let me say that a little more clearly: when we live these lives, we are witnessing to the majesty and the reality of our King and to what His Kingdom can do. When we don’t, we’re actually undermining the strength of His voice in our city. 

I want you to catch this, this is the part of Titus that caught me from the beginning: the authority of the Gospel is inextricably linked to our surrender to the way of Jesus. When we live the Gospel in us, it makes the Gospel more powerful in the region. 

When we refuse to live this, make these changes, adjust our lives according to this– don’t soften this, Paul’s talking about the way we handle ourselves in the home if we don’t do this– what we’ve eventually said to Fort Collins is, We don’t really care if it’s easy for you to go to hell. 

When our job, all the while, is to make it difficult to go to hell in this region, that our lives should be so magnanimously full of the Kingdom that people watching go, I need what you have, because what I have isn’t working. 

And see, the problem is the world right now is looking at the church going, Why would I need what you have? You have the same exact problems. You handle yourself just like I do. You divorce at the same rate. Help us understand the difference. Your morality level is not any different. 

We have to come back to a Kingdom lifestyle where we promote the kind of living that reflects right teaching, and that begins when men become men in the Kingdom, when women become women in the Kingdom, and then we begin to train the younger what it looks like to walk out this Kingdom life. 

Let’s stand. Think that was the softest of the three of them. I want to invite the prayer teams to come up. In all seriousness, I know the depth of this. If you’re here and you’re a young lady and you’re like, I feel like I don’t even have an example, I want to learn this, I want to invite you just to come find somebody to pray with so we can believe and pray that the Lord begins to help set something up. Because whether you’re young or whether you’re old, you have to decide to begin it with you. You can’t wait for other people to do it. 

If you’re an older lady here and you’re like, I have not been doing this well, Paul’s teaching says, “Confess your faults to one another and be healed.” And maybe that answer is, I need to confess to somebody. I’ve not been putting on the nature of Christ. I’ve not been handling myself, I haven’t been affectionate and friendly to my husband or to my children. 

Maybe those answers need to be sat down and repented to somebody else. Maybe you have to sit down and have some hard conversations this week. I remember Gary Peters teaching this all the time when he was parenting: one of the hardest and most impactful things he learned to do with his kids was to get down on a knee and repent to them and say, I just sinned against you, will you please forgive me?

We can’t let pride get in the way of this. That’s the enemy’s agenda. You know why? Because he knows that God resists the problem. The enemy will do anything he can to keep you from having intimacy with the Lord. So, if your own stubbornness says, I will not change, you’re sentencing yourself to just more destruction until you decide to repent. 

We have to live this, not because it makes us better people, because it’s the only way this thing works. I don’t know what it looks like to develop these mechanisms. We’re not going to stop trying to figure it out. 

My hope is that we become the generation that says, You know what? There’s something in the Scriptures we’ve never seen done before. It looks like an accountability and a coaching and a real life. 

How do you do this? Because some of you are probably similar, where you’re like, I don’t have an example. I don’t know what this looks like. I don’t have a living Judy Mirowski in my life that’s shown me how to make these decisions. I’m just trying to figure it out. 

Hey, there’s a ton of grace for that. You don’t serve a harsh King. You don’t serve a King who’s ever going to say, What’s your problem? You serve a King who, with deep compassion, wants this for you more than you want it for yourself. The right answer in the Kingdom is always, Yes, Lord.

Put your hand on your heart with me, please. Lord, there are days where the weight of the Scripture is just so real. Lord, what You’ve called us to and invited us to, it just feels so other-worldly, and it is Lord. If it’s what You gave Paul to teach two thousand years ago, we stand before You and assume it remains true today. 

Holy Spirit, would You bring conviction? Would You highlight? Lord, would You bring encouragement to places we’re doing it well? We give You permission. We sing a song all the time: Come and consume God, all we are. We give You permission, our hearts are Yours. We want You, and we carry that heart into this concept, foreign as it may be in our culture. 

Would You lead us and guide us into this? Look for all the conversations that are going to have to happen this week, next week, weeks to come, for all the missteps that are going to have to be repented for, we just ask for incredible grace to be upon the women of this house, upon the men of this house, that we we would be able to embody graciousness towards each other as we learn this. That there wouldn’t be an austere demanding, there’d just be the willingness to walk together and say, Hey, let me help you towards Jesus. 

Lord, I pray that You would begin to do something with the older women, to the younger women, You begin to help develop this training mechanism that the Scriptures call for. Give us strategy, give us wisdom. 

Lord, for every man in this house, that You would give them the courage to rise up and be Kingdom men, not carnal men. Lord, for young men, that You give them the wisdom to live wisely, exercise self-control, to put away any belief that they get a pass to be stupid at this age. 

We can’t do any of this without You, Lord. I don’t want this to be a flash in the pan, where we study Titus and we move on. We’re crying out that You’d help change our culture. Lord, we openly would ask You forgive us for not living this, not even knowing it was there at times. We love You. We honor You. Jesus’ name, amen.