Titus 2:3-5 - Christ-Shaped Women

Again, happy Mother's Day to all of you.

It's a beautiful day, but I know it's also a very complex day, as I was praying and just thinking that for many today it is a day of celebration.

You probably already have plans and things you're going to do together, places you're going to go, people you're going to meet in just a little bit, or might be sitting next to right at this moment.

But not all of us are filled with that ability and to be able to express that sort of direct gratitude.

For others, sometimes our children are a long way away.

And we might get a phone call.

We might get a video.

But it's not the same as getting a hug.

For others, young mothers, right in the thick of it, you woke up today exhausted, and you're going to bear the burdens of being a young mother with the with the kind of kind of pressures and difficulties that may show just a little bit on your face, but certainly weigh heavily on your heart.

The others of us who are carrying an ache, would love to be a mother, but that's never happened.

And so that rest on you, that longing that may or may never happen.

Or you've lost a child through miscarriage or through illness or some circumstance that no sermon's really going to be able to touch deeply.

Or perhaps your relationship with your mother is strained.

Or maybe the relationship you have with your children is strained.

And today, while others celebrate, you feel that longing for something to be different there.

Today is a reminder of what's broken, not what can be celebrated.

And for many of us, today is a day in which we remember those who have gone.

I was looking at some pictures just yesterday, my mother, and enjoying the memory of her.

But I can't celebrate her today with the kind of word and love that I'd like to.

But I want you to know that we're going to be looking at the book of Titus, and it is a portrait of what grace looks like when it shapes a lady's heart.

And no matter what condition you're in today, it can meet all of the ladies and all of the men.

So I'd like for us to open up Titus chapter 2 together.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

And whether you're here as an older woman or a younger woman, married or single, mother, grandmother, never had a child, whose lives have mothered dozens of people in this church, even though you don't have a child of your own.

I want us to find here in Titus chapter 2 a word for all of us.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

As you might recall from last week, we listened to Paul's words to the men in Titus chapter 2, that the older men were to be sober-minded and dignified and sensible and sound in love and sound in faith and sound in endurance, and that young men were to be self-controlled.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

We saw behind all of that that these men, whether they were older or younger, were to be shaped by the grace of God.

And this morning, as we turn to Paul's words, as he looks toward the women in the congregation, we don't find a separate category of instruction.

We find that the same grace that shapes the men is the same grace that shapes the women.

And so before we walk through this passage, I want us to take a look at verse one and just be reminded of something that was said last week.

Paul tells Titus in verse one to proclaim things consistent with sound teaching.

And we said last week that sound teaching is healthy instruction.

It is doctrine that is not abstract, but the kind of truth that nourishes and engenders a particular kind of life.

It's wholesome, it's healthy, it's life-giving.

And so when Paul steps down deeper into this chapter, he's using that as an overlay, not just for the older men and not just for the younger men, but also for the older women and the younger women, and on into other categories that'll be looked at as we go through the rest of the chapter.

And what he's doing here is showing us what healthy teaching produces, what kind of life is visible and shaped by what truth does in the heart.

And that it shows us that gospel proclaimed and gospel lived is fueled by grace in both places.

So this morning I want us to look at three points this morning as we look through this passage.

I want us to see in verses three through five that first of all, the grace of God steadies older women into a life of reverence and wisdom.

And that the grace of God also sends these older women into the lives of younger women as servants of grace.

And then, third, the grace of God shapes young women into portraits of gospel beauty, all so that God might be honored in a watching world.

So let's look at verses two to two three two through five, or three through five.

Let me read it together.

In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not slaves to excessive drinking, they're to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind, and in submission to their husbands, so that God's word will not be slandered.

So let's look at these three movements, which really do give us a portrait of grace in the lives of older and younger women.

And the first one is this that older women are to be steadied by grace.

Steadied by grace.

Now, when you look at verse three, you're not looking at a list of duties.

This is not a task list of what ladies are to do.

What Paul is doing is painting the picture of a life.

And he's painting a picture of a life that's been studied by the grace of God.

And he names these ladies, first of all, as older women.

And he doesn't put an age on it.

And I think that's important.

I think what he's talking about here is rather a woman who has accumulated years of experience, who's been able to be positioned within the church in that influential way.

My sons go to a church where in their 30s they're some of the oldest people in the congregation.

And so my sons and their wives are really standing in the place of older men and older women among a younger congregation.

Depending on the makeup of the congregation, that will not be an age-graded thing so much as a sense of balance between who's older and who's younger within it.

And so we're talking about ladies who have had accumulated years of experience, who've gone through seasons of joy and sorrow and waiting and loss.

And the Lord has settled their souls, even in the midst of that, matured them through all of those experiences.

They've been formed by those moments and by God's grace to be in a position of influence in the lives of the younger women.

And he uses the word likewise there, if you'll notice that in verse 3, likewise are in the same way, older women.

Pointing us back to how grace shaped older men and grace shaped younger men.

So grace is now producing this Christ-shaped maturity within the body of Christ in the older women.

And Paul gives us four qualities.

Again, not a checklist, not a task list, but four brush strokes of a portrait of gospel wisdom.

Let's look at them each and then we'll sort of see how this unpacks in relevance and implication for us.

First of all, reverent in behavior.

Now, the Greek word here is a compound word, which means befitting the holy, something that is suitable to what is holy.

So it's not just a Sunday posture.

It doesn't just show up on Sunday, but it shows up on Monday in those conversations.

It shows up on Thursday night after a difficult day.

It's a life that is suitable to living with a deep abiding awareness in God's presence.

And the life is suitable to it.

My wife smiles at me every time I try to wear something green because you can really, really mess up your look when you're wearing green.

And Royal looks at me and she goes, That green and that green do not belong together at all.

So we were in the middle of a conversation a couple days ago.

And I said, she's having a very deep philosophical discussion with me.

And I'm like, I've got a question.

And she looks at me like, okay, where's this coming from?

And I said, You see that jacket over there?

Can I wear it with this shirt?

And I showed up, I showed up next to her with it on, and she goes, just do what you're gonna do.

And what she was telling me was that shirt and that jacket are not befitting one another.

They don't fit together.

And when we we hear this word reverent to behavior, it means there's a life that is complementary to holiness.

It the life fits together with that.

And so this is a lady who brings the calm into the room because she's gone through experiences that have shaped who she is.

She's prayed through enough dark nights where she's not panicking when the next one shows up.

She's a lady who's watched God's faithfulness in enough times of uncertainty that she can move into a place of uncertainty with confidence and not fear.

That's the kind of life that is complementary to the holiness of God.

Look at the next one.

Not slanderers, not slanderers.

The word there is literally diabolos or diabolus.

Does that sound familiar to any of you?

It's the devil.

This is the word that's actually used for the accuser, the one who tears down through destructive speech and accusation and slander.

And Paul is saying here that older women's speech must not carry the quality of the enemy.

Why is that?

Because the longer you live in this world, the more you realize how powerful words are.

When you're a kindergarten, you know, you can say sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

And you get older and you realize I'm not singing that song anymore.

Because they do hurt me.

I'd rather have the sticks and the stones.

And so we know that a word fitly spoken brings health and life, but a word that's said in haste, it can wound.

A piece of gossip can fracture a friendship, or it can even divide a church.

And older women, precisely because they're the kind of women that people look to and listen to and want to lean on, they're the women who recognize how responsible their speech is and how powerful an influence it can be in the lives of others.

And so Paul is calling on the older women to have the kind of speech that reflects Christ, not the enemy.

One that's encouraging and that builds up rather than one erodes or destroys.

Look at the next quality here.

Not enslaved are not slaves to excessive drinking.

Now, obviously, there is on the surface level an obvious about that, but it gets beneath the surface here.

This is not just talking about, you know, what the A ABV is on the beverages that you're drinking.

It's not just talking about can I have one and not three?

Can I have three and not six?

Can I do it once a week and not six days a week?

That kind of discussion misses the point.

What it's asking here is, ladies, what has mastery over you?

Where do you go when the pressures come?

When griefs and disappointments and loneliness tempt your heart to find a release.

Where do you go?

Well, some people will go to alcohol, some people will go to shopping, some people will go to social media, some people will find something to numb the gnawing difficulties of grief and disappointment and loneliness.

And here the Lord is saying, don't be enslaved by the things, because every one of those false masters is only going to ensnare you, not relieve you.

And if you give yourself over to them, you'll find yourself bound, not free.

And so find your freedom in Christ, find your freedom in truth, not things.

Fourthly, they are to be those who teach what is good.

I love this word.

And the word therefore good carries with it not only a moral aspect to it, but an aesthetic aspect to it.

Teach that which is beautiful, it could be said.

To talk about those things that are choice, are pleasant, are excellent, are beautiful to look at, in which the outward appearance and the inward disposition of the heart meld together.

To be a teacher of that which is welcoming to people, that is seen as beautiful or the right way to live.

Paul's not talking about a classroom here.

He's not talking about getting behind a microphone or standing behind a platform or a podium or even a pulpit.

What he's talking about is the teaching of a life, the steady curriculum of your character, in which you could be in a kitchen or a living room, you could be in a conversation after a Sunday morning service, you could be on a phone call in a Wednesday afternoon, and there you're shaping someone's understanding of how to respond in the middle of bad news, or how to grieve with hope, or how to open up your home and your heart to people with needs.

So this is teaching not primarily even by what you say, but significantly deeper than that by how you conduct yourself, in which your life is the lesson, not simply your words.

Now, all of this, like I said, is a portrait, a portrait of a lady who is living her life empowered by the grace of God.

Now think of Proverbs chapter 31, often read as a checklist of accomplishments, but it shouldn't be seen as that.

Proverbs 31 · chapter mention

The point in verse 30 of chapter 31 of Proverbs says, Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she is to be praised.

And in verse 26, it talks about what this woman is like.

She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

And so, Paul, when he's painting this portrait of a godly older woman, he is pulling out of the book of Proverbs that picture.

But he's also looking somewhere else because that flowering image is also given another place, and that is in Christ Himself.

Christ is the ultimate reverent one, whose life was always suitable to the holy.

He is the one whose speech was always to build up.

He is the one who was enslaved to nothing, but rather gave himself to the will and word of the Father.

And he is ultimately the teacher of what is good.

And so, ladies, older ladies, particularly, you're not given a checklist.

You're being encouraged to grow in Christ.

And the more you grow into Christ, the more these things will become fruitful in your life.

Because as grace is operative in your life through Jesus, it's going to steady you and it's going to form you, and it's going to give you a life in which others will find beauty on display.

So think about some ladies in our church right now.

You'll never see them leading a program, you'll never watch them stand behind a microphone.

But when they come into your presence or into the presence of others, they're there as a calming, settling, steadying influence.

And whenever a younger woman's life is falling apart, whenever the marriage is filled with difficulties, whenever a diagnosis comes that's uncertain, that's where you go.

You go there.

You go to that person who talks to you.

And who can tell you, let me tell you what it was like when God met me in that moment.

Her life isn't flashy.

She doesn't have to be the loudest or most vibrant in the room.

But she's the most welcome because she has wisdom.

So let me speak to you directly, ladies.

I just want to say a word to you.

Your life carries more influence than you realize.

All those prayers that you prayed through in those sleepless nights, all of those battles that you fought, all of those times when you chose faithfulness when nobody else was watching.

They've all shaped you.

They've shaped you to be a presence in this congregation.

And you're here, as we'll see in just a moment, to help.

But you've been shaped by grace.

And I don't want you ever to underestimate the value of that and the treasure that God has been building within you.

Because there are people here who need your steadiness.

There are people here who need the calm that's been forged in your difficulties.

And for those of us who have gone through hardships, sometimes it's hard to see beyond the pain.

But, ladies, I want to speak to you who have dealt with a lot of pain.

Where it feels like perhaps you've even experienced more pain than fruitfulness.

Suffering is the very place in which God shapes character often.

And those experiences that you wish you could erase are the very material out of which God builds the portrait of a godly woman.

Because there's not a woman who's never struggled.

And the young women don't see a woman who's never struggled.

They need to see a woman who struggled and found God to be faithful.

They don't need a woman who knows all the answers, but a woman who herself has had questions and found herself driven deeper and deeper into the faith and trust of God.

Now watch how Paul moves from that portrait.

Because he's not only shaping older women, but he's sending them somewhere.

Not only shaped by grace, you are sent by grace.

And take a look at chapter 2, verse 4.

So that they may encourage the young women.

There's a ministry that older women are called to have.

A service of training and encouraging the younger women.

This is a word that has a specific dimension to it about bringing someone to their senses or helping somebody see the pathway that should be walked on and helping them to walk on it.

About forming the whole person, not just giving them information.

And so here Paul is describing this, and he doesn't even have a classroom in mind.

He doesn't have a church program in mind.

He doesn't have a six-week curriculum in mind at all.

He's talking about in the midst of your organic relationship among the body of Christ, that you're embodying a grace-filled shape that can move from your generation to the next.

Of one older woman stepping into the life of a younger woman with steadiness and shape that helps them be steadied and shaped also.

And this is what I call gospel order.

Older women shaped, older women sent, younger women developed into the same shape by the grace of God.

And that relational chain is the gospel transmitted from life into life.

What does that look like in practice?

Well, there are a number of opportunities for older and younger ladies to meet one another.

We have bring your own luncheons once a month.

We have fellowship meals together.

The ladies have their brunches and retreats.

They're saying hello to one another before and after the service.

We have a church directory.

There are a lot of places where we can intersect with each other, prayer meetings on Wednesday night, ladies' Bible studies on Saturdays, and other times.

They're all places to intersect with one another so that there might be the opportunity to say, can we have a little bit of time together?

And it may just be 10 minutes in a pew after most people have already gone home.

Or it might be, come over to the house and let's have a cup of tea or coffee.

It might be a widow who takes a single woman and says, You don't have to be married to have the fullness of life.

Who takes a young lady and says, Let me show you the way.

Ladies, your life is a curriculum, and the young women need it.

You don't need to be perfect to be helpful.

You just need to be available.

You need to have an open door for others to say, I want to enter in.

And that's the ministry, and it's really that simple, but it's really that profound, also.

And so, young ladies, I want to I want to say something else here.

You are not meant to navigate your circumstances alone.

God has given you resources, and the resources are around you right now, they're with you.

And so we have older ladies who are meant to be available, and younger ladies who have a need.

And let's see what we can do to close the gap between that.

Sometimes it means asking, sometimes it just means offering.

But it does mean connecting in every way because none of us were designed for isolation.

We're in this together.

And so Paul is saying here that these older women are not only shaped, but they're sent into the lives of the younger women.

And that the younger women, though they might be hesitant, are to seek those older women out and ask them questions and invite them in and find out where they've struggled and where they've sought God in the midst of those things, or where they're suffering and how God has been faithful through that, too.

Because you both need to know that you belong and that someone else is carrying the same burdens and is shaped by the same grace.

And I know the hesitancy here.

I have dealt with too many regrets in my life.

No one will ever hear my story.

Does that ring in your heart sometimes?

I just can't be that kind of helper.

The enemy would love nothing more than to tell you that and to keep you isolated.

He would love to take every single one of your missteps or every single one of your suffering moments, or every one of many of those what you might deem as failures, and lock you up in silence.

But your story is not meant to be a story of perfection, it's meant to be a story of grace.

And the grace of God saved us when we were rebels.

And we can speak about that grace, so we can also speak about the grace of God in the midst of our difficulties and hardships and even our failures.

Because the young women need to hear that too.

Now, watch how Paul moves not only to shape the older women, but to send, steady the older women and send the older women, but to shape the younger women.

Look at the rest of verse 4 and verse 5.

So that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind, and in submission to their husbands.

That's a lot to carry.

It's really interesting how this is weighted.

The younger women are forming a home, they're shaping children, they're balancing relationships and expectations.

And sadly, expectations are all over the place.

Culture and social media, the rest of your family, extended friends, and sadly, sometimes even in the church itself, expectations.

And those expectations can feel like a burden rather than a blessing.

And Paul is not adding to that weight.

He's showing how gospel order works as it moves from in one generation into the next.

And again, this is not a portrait of a superwoman.

This is a portrait of a lady shaped by the gospel.

And let's take a look at the elements here.

First of all, affectionate love.

To love her husband and to love her children.

And again, the language in the original language speaks of not just a sacrificial giving up, but rather of an affectionate love.

It's a word from which we get Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, which is anything but a city of brotherly love.

But it's talking about a love that's not cold and duty-bound.

It's talking about a warmth and a delight and an affection in that most intimate of relationship that you have with your husband and your children.

One that welcomes the husband warmly at the end of a day, in which you've worked, or he has worked, or you've both worked.

Or the kind that gets down on the level of the child and just speaks with them at that place.

Or someone who treats others with patience and kindness, even though the day's been long.

Because you can be very correct in teaching and starve the people closest to you.

You can lead a Bible study and you can wound your children.

But here, grace is shaping the heart and shaping it by love to make you warmer and deeper and more reflective of the one who loved us with an everlasting love.

Self-controlled.

It's interesting this one pops up again because it's the exact same thing that's said about the older woman back in the earlier part of verse 4, but it's also what's said about the older men and the younger men.

This is the single one characteristic of the family of God in every dimension in Titus chapter 2.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

This is family-likeness for everybody.

Self-controlled.

This is our family resemblance, in which the inner ordering of our life, being shaped by the grace of God and formed into Christ's likeness, is what leads us to live our life in a distinct way.

And so younger women need to learn from older women what it means to have their life ordered by the gospel, to have their priorities set by the grace of God.

And that shows in the next one, pure, pure.

This is not just mere, this is not just moral purity, this is single-heartedness and single devotion.

A whole-hearted focus.

This world wants to divide us and to compartmentalize us.

But here is an integrity of life from the inside that is wholly devoted to Christ.

The world tells women you're not enough and at the same time too much.

And here, scripture is saying, make your whole life focused on Him.

The next one is to be workers at home.

And it's been dismissed as outdated because people don't really wrestle with what it actually says.

Because Paul is not saying that the only place that a woman should be is in the home.

He's not talking about where they are to be, he's talking about what their res where their main responsibilities are.

Paul is talking about a stewardship.

And the home is not a place, it's a domain.

And that they are to be workers in this domain.

Because the intimate place of your relationships is the most significant place of your influence.

It is the place where formation happens.

It is the center of gravity for your family.

And younger women are entrusted to bring influence into that intimate place with wisdom and grace as they take over the responsibilities of it.

And so you reflect the love of God and the wisdom of the spirit.

So think about it, for example.

Here's a woman whose children are in school.

She works three days a week, and she's overseeing the home.

And it's not just micromanaging the chores that need to be done, but she has a governance over the home itself.

This is her domain.

And so she pays attention to the flow of the household.

She notices the mornings that are starting to get a bit frantic.

And so she adjusts the whole family schedule, including her husband's, so that some good rhythms of routine can be rebuilt back into the home life.

That's her influence.

She shapes the weekly rhythm so her family isn't constantly scattered.

And so she works to protect evenings or some other time in the home to where those things can be brought where they belong, to center itself on family love and as believers, growth in Christ.

She not only pays attention to the flow of the household, she also pays attention to needs that might be coming.

Sees a daughter who's overwhelmed with schoolwork and tries to help her restructure her schedule so she has some breathing room.

And it might mean we're skipping music lessons this week.

It might mean it doesn't matter if you get an A this time.

And restructuring those things so you can bring back a sense of pace and life into the life of your children.

She takes control of that so she can initiate a reset of the frantic pace of life that we sometimes get ourselves caught up into.

She has domain in the holes in the home, so she coordinates hospitality.

It's not a performance, but a ministry.

This is about stewardship.

It's not about where you have to be, as so much as what you take charge of.

It's your domain.

It's where people are formed, it's where peace can be cultivated, and it's where the grace of God can be visible in those patterns of life that you're shaping.

The next word, kind, kind, really means strength under control.

The choice to soften when the world would want you hard.

The choice to build when the world would want you to tear down.

The choice to extend grace when it would be easier to be judgmental.

That's what it means to be kind.

Because to be kind means you have to make an intentional focus on those things to be soft and to build and to extend grace.

That's kindness.

A kindness that steadies your relationships and diffuses the conflicts and brings an inviting atmosphere in the midst of conflict or confusion.

And then, last of all, number six, in submission to their husbands.

Now, Paul comes to this last quality, and again, one that requires some careful handling and thinking.

What this is talking about is a voluntary ordering, a willingness to enter into a relationship as structured by God's design.

It doesn't say a word about domination, it doesn't say a word about eraser of a woman's voice or a woman's gifts or a woman's opinions or a woman's dignity at all.

At all.

Again, it's a posture.

It's one that mirrors the humility of Christ Himself, who submitted him to the activity of saving humanity by becoming human in the incarnation, by going to the cross in suffering, by dealing with all of those things, so that we might be able to say, thanks be to God through Christ Jesus, my Lord and Savior.

Now, the husbands aren't mentioned here in Titus chapter 2.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

We could go to Ephesians chapter 5 and find them mentioned here.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

And there the husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

That the husbands are to be seen as bending toward their wife in sacrificial care and love, so that just as the church is not only saved, but sanctified and eventually presented into the presence of God in full glory, so a husband is to bend himself toward his wife in sacrificial love, so that the wife is strengthened and settled and sanctified in the grace of God.

I'd like to think of it like this: like a dance.

The beauty of a dance is not found in one partner overpowering the other, or two partners in conflict with each other.

It's found in the harmony of their movements.

It's found in the middle of trust and attentiveness and a shared focus.

That's a good dance.

Yes, one leads, another follows, but the following is never passive, and the following is never forced.

It is an active, responsive, skilled, and essential part of making that dance beautiful.

And this is what Paul's talking about here: to move together in step with one another, by the grace of God, so that you might display the love that Christ has for his people, and to do so in the midst of every day, in the ordinary rhythms and patterns of the day.

That's what a Christian marriage is: a beautiful dance.

Now, some of you are not married, and some of you don't have children.

Is Paul excluding you here?

I don't think so.

Because every quality that he's named so far, love and self-control and purity and stewardship and kindness and a willing submission to God's ordering, that could apply to all of us, whether we're married or not.

The sphere might look different, but all of our relationships need warmth and affectionate love.

All of our lives need ordered by God's self-control.

All of our lives need wisdom and stewardship.

All of our lives need to be in a place where we're kind, in which we deal with work or other things in society according to God's order.

Again, we're here pointed to Christ, young ladies.

We're here to see Christ who loved perfectly, who loved patiently and sacrificially and unwaveringly, who extended love even to those who rejected him.

Christ Himself, self-controlled, perfectly pure, the steward of what he was given and kind, and also perfectly submissive to the Father's plan as he went to the way of the cross.

Now I want you to see the purpose statement behind all of this, not just for the older women and younger women, but also for the older men and younger women, younger men.

Take a look at the last phrase.

So that God's word will not be slandered.

Paul is lifting the eyes of the older women and the younger women, lifting the eyes of the older men and younger men, and he's lifting us beyond ourselves.

He's lifting us beyond our homes.

He's lifting us beyond the church.

He's lifting our eyes to the watching world.

And he's saying the way that you live your life as a believer is not just a private matter.

The way you love your wife or your husband, the way you love your children, the way you steward your home, the way you speak, the way you treat one another across generational lines, all of that communicates and all of it's being watched.

And the watching people are drawing conclusions about God.

But when grace shapes us, the word of God is adorned, the word of God is made beautiful, the word of God is given credibility.

Because people will look at the life of a gospel-shaped man or woman and say, Whatever they believe, that's producing something I know I'd like to lean into and move toward.

But when the world patterns shape us, when slander flows, bondages remain, and the home is indistinguishable from every every other home on the block, the word of God is going to be easily dismissed.

It's not because the gospel has failed, it's because the gospel hasn't been put on display.

And that's our calling as God's people.

To know that sound teaching is not just something for our head or even for our emotions and our heart.

It's something for our very hands.

And it's meant to be produced in the character that we have and shown in our interactive intergenerational relationships with each other.

And all of it is made possible by what's there at the end of this chapter in verse 11.

The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lust and live sensible, righteous, and godly way in this present age.

Isn't passive.

Grace has brought us to Christ, and grace is shaping Christ within us, and grace is meant to be shared across the generations so that we might one day put Christ on display to this watching world.

Happy Mother's Day, all of you.

Let's be Father, we thank you for showing us something about the steady character of godly women through their reverence and their speech, through their freedom and their teaching.

We thank you for giving us responsibilities to one another, older women and younger, older men and younger.

And we thank you for the clear instruction of how a younger woman here is to be shaped, but also all of us in our own way.

All of it so the Word of God will not be reviled but adorned.

That the watching world would see a life of gospel beauty, one that can't be explained by our personalities or our culture or our efforts, but only by the grace of God.

And so, Father, this morning, as we've honored the women in this church, the women, the mothers who are in the thick of the hardest and most beautiful work on earth, and grandmothers whose faithfulness has shaped generations that they may never see, for the spiritual mothers who have never borne a child but have shaped the hearts and lives of others' women, for the single women here whose lives are filled with purpose, for the widows, though they carry grief, have also carry a quiet strength.

For the women who long to be mothers, for the women who carry grief today, who miss their mothers or their children, or the life they thought they would have.

We honor them, Father.

But we want to honor them most of all with this wonderful life-giving truth, that the grace of God has come, and the grace of God has come to deliver us from judgment and from all the pollution of this world, so that we might be shaped into gospel beauty.

And Lord, I pray that you would be with them.

I pray that you would shape the ladies in our congregation through all of their seasons, so that their stories might be shared with one another, that the grace that's mentioned here would flow freely from generation to generation and from life to life and heart to heart.

We pray that the Word of God would never be reviled because of us.

We pray that it would always be adorned and made beautiful, made credible, made visible through the grace shaped lives of your people here.

And Father, we ask this in the name of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself up for us.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.