well we're coming to the end of our true woman 201 study and over our time together we've studied those elements that Paul identified as components of godly womanhood discernment honor family affection discipline virtue responsibility benevolence and disposition Paul told his young pastor friend Titus that these were the essentials for women in his congregation to learn but it's significant to note that it wasn't tight as his job to mentor women in these essentials Paul gave women the responsibility to teach and pass on the legacy of godly womanhood from woman to woman older to younger every woman
was to be fully engaged in instructing and nurturing other women in the ways of the Lord today we're going to talk about how you can join in passing on the legacy of godly womanhood to the next generation well Mary we're coming to the end of this series and we've looked at some amazing elements who knew that in just a few short verses here in Titus two three verses there'd be so much to unpack and what I love about the part we come to you today is it takes all of those subjects those different things we've
learned loving husbands and children working at home being self-controlled not slanderers etc and it says there's a forward motion from one generation to the next a passing of the baton and that a true woman is a spiritual mother and she's leaving a legacy and that comes out in this passage where it says that the older women this is what they're to look like this is the kind of life they're to have but then they're supposed to be not only models they're supposed to be Mentors exactly but and what's interesting about this is this this is
a letter written to the pastor Titus and Paul is writing to Titus but Paul is not is is not telling Titus that he needs to teach all the women he's saying make sure that your women are equipped to train the other women and so there's this motion from from the truth of God being passed on from generation to generation not just in general terms but from woman to woman and what it means to be a woman is to be taught from woman to woman and it says older women are to be teachers yes they're to
teach what is good and so train the young women now that's not always a chronological age thing that course can involve being physically chronologically older but it may be just more mature in the faith that there's a responsibility not only to live the faith ourselves but to be sharing it there have been women at every stage of my life that have had input and I think of when I was in high school the lady that was mentoring me her name was Diane North and I saw her as an older woman now she was just 23
or 24 years old she was a sounding board for for my ideas and she just really encouraged me right up front to get into the Word of God and to be a student of the Word of God and to be conscientious about how I used the word so I learned a lot from her on how to conduct a Bible study how to talk to other girls about my faith and she mentored me in in some aspects of leadership and drawing women in and and taking them from stage a two stage B two stage C in
terms of their growth and disciple immense oh I learned a lot from her I've had a number of different women over the years who kind of took me under their wing lady I haven't thought about for a long time but her name was Leda Fisher she and her husband were an older couple in our church and she would have me over to her house periodically and we would sit and have tea and just over the little kitchenette table there and read scripture together and pray and she'd want to know how she could pray for me
and there have been those women who inspired me who've there's been a woman in my life more recently a pastor's wife who's just about 10 years older than I am but she's walked in some places that I haven't and we've been connecting on the phone on a regular basis and she'll ask how she can pray for me how's it going in specific areas usually if you told me the other night that she had asked you how is your joy doing yes Annie there put her finger on it she's very direct and to-the-point it's just I've
been praying for you about this joy thing are you doing with that but then other practical areas of my life now I had to be willing to share with her what I'm struggling with what the issues are but then she prays about it she Britt comes back with Scripture she remembers and the next time we talked she says well we talked about this the last time I've been praying about that how's it going in this area I've been so thankful to have this woman investing in my life even now that I'm an older woman I
love it yeah I love it when I get around a older godly woman a woman who is chronologically older than I am and has walked in godliness I feel like I just want to be a sponge and like you know to her and well just just absorb write the word information and absorb life wisdom I just love being around those older women I also love being around younger women for years I've said that everyone needs an older woman younger women need older women in their lives but now is I'm an older woman I'm realizing how
much we need younger women in our lives these women so stimulate my thinking because they're asking questions that fit their culture what they are facing some of the issues they are facing are somewhat different than the ones that I faced when I was their age and yet the truth of God's Word is applicable to all generations and all ages and all cultures so wrestling with alright well what does this look like in your particular culture cultural pressures that you're facing and I think it's easy as an older woman to feel a little intimidated by the
cool factor and think I don't have any cool factor meri you're cool but I think you know these I'm gonna be like a fuddy-duddy to these women and yet it's amazing how if you just love and listen and ask questions that this hairstyles the clothing styles those things really are so insignificant when you get into relationship with these women and I think of Elizabeth Elliot who's been a mentor to thousands of women including to us through her writing and her ministry over the years and she never made an effort to be cool but she was
incredibly popular with college students yeah back when she was speaking a lot she was a thinker she I loved her because she was so thoughtful and because she she addressed she used her mind to address scripture and she didn't shy away from hard quest she was forthright and she didn't give fluff she didn't sugarcoat the truth she just gave it but you knew that she cared that's the key I think and that's the key when I think of the women that impacted my life in every case I knew that they cared about me I think
sometimes women are so intimidated by this passage older women and they go well I'm not a teacher how can i you know I don't want to heat how do I teach what's good I have nothing to offer I have nothing to teach and the fact is we're all teaching we're teaching by our lives we're teaching by teaching by our words the question is are we teaching what is good as this passage says we're supposed to or are we teaching what is bad so this the mentoring this discipleship this life to life investment we're talking about
legacy here isn't sitting down in a classroom it's not you know opening up your laptop and having a PowerPoint presentation or it doesn't mean you have a classroom and it can be very much as a light in life very informal in the car in the laboratory of life in the context of everyday life and so I think it's easy for a lot of women maybe even doing a study like this listening to a conversation like this to think oh Mary and Nancy are teachers they're doing Titus two but this passage says to me that all
older women as they mature spiritually are to be teachers they are teaching they are teaching here's what I love about true woman-101 the stories that I've heard as I've listened to various people report to me what's going on in their churches what I love hearing and what I hear often is how much it's intergeneration yes and how this the that studying womanhood there are teenagers and women who are married women who are single women who are in midlife women who are empty nesters and then even senior citizens and 70 80 90 year olds all in
the same together grouped together and what a delight that is and the younger ones are loving it and the older ones are going oh my goodness I love this and and they're benefiting from one another and it's interesting as we've talked to younger and older women over the years I don't know how many times I've heard older women say these younger women they don't want to learn they don't you know they're not interested in what I have to offer and then I hear the younger women say these older women aren't available they're not interested in
investing in me and you have a standoff and I think it's important to say whether you're younger or older you take the initiative exactly you reach out find a if you're an older woman ask God to bring you across the path of a younger woman in your church it doesn't have to be a formal program it's just could we can we just get together mm-hmm just can we have a visit together and you don't have to say have to say this is a lifelong commitment but to engage to connect if you're younger don't wait for
the older woman woman to come to you ask God to show you an older woman in your church who is you know her life is worthy of respect and and say could I ask you some questions can we get together and the the bringing together of these life to life relationships multi-generational can be so powerful it can be powerful and I know that in my life as I've interacted with women who are younger I've had many women who have come to me and said Mary can you disciple me can you mentor me and often I've
had to tell them well I don't have time for doing sort of depends what you mean by that yeah if you mean by that that you want to hang around and just learn from me well sure come to the hockey rink and we'll watch a hockey game together and talk and at that actually happened with one girl she used to chase your son playing hockey right it was my son play hockey so so as I was going and as I was engaged in the life of my family or inviting them over for dinner saying well
it's you know a little bit chaotic around dinnertime and you get what you get but drop in at five and we'll have dinner and you can help me clean the dishes right and and so that is the context in which the discipleship that I've seen when I've mentored women it's happened in that type of context I think another thing that keeps some older women from really letting down their guard to be engaged this way is feeling like they've blown it mmm that they haven't succeeded at you know maybe their marriage did fail maybe they have
shame in their past about not having been pure they say I just I don't have anything to offer because I failed I think it's really important that we teach out of failure too yeah they say I've needed God's grace I know that in my life that's the place that I've learned the most is in those hard times and those times of failure in those times when I have come to the end of myself and hit a wall and there's nothing but pressing in and and leaning into God and learning from him and so I agree
with you I think that failure we can teach share our failures and say this is where I'm struggling this is where I am having a hard time with this this is how I have had a hard time with this this is what I've learned this is what I wish I wouldn't have done yes the share out of the regrets as well because we all have them we do I love the definition of mentoring that we talk about in true woman 201 simply drawing on your life experience in the context of everyday life to provide encouragement
and exhortation to those who are younger mm-hmm that makes it not so not donford yeah it's so hard God has given us all as women this mothering nurturing instinct and we ought to be reproducing spiritually life in the life of others and that happens physically in through physical motherhood but it also happens spiritually and the scripture talks about women who have not had physical children even though they have not had physical children they can be the mother of many children that's been one of the great joys of my life because God hasn't blessed me with
marriage and physical children but I have people ask me do you have children I say I have adopted children all over the place and now those kids are having children elevated you were in telling me that tonight I'm going to four year olds birthday party old invited can you come to my birthday party so yeah it's a joy to have younger people and then as they grow up their children to be plugged into those families to be investing with them you know motherhood is something that every woman can and should experience exactly and God isn't
ever going to give me physical children but I am a spiritual mother I've been spiritually mothered and going back to the first woman Eve what is her name her name means life Giver she's giver of life and I believe that that is a prototype in a sense for all of us as women that that God has given us this capacity to to give life and to nurture life and to to be a mother hand to someone I think of one girl that I know she was infertile she wasn't able to have children and it was
such a heartache she wanted them so badly but you're after your nothing no no children and yet that woman used those years and was fruitful those years of Baroness and she was the volleyball coach and so she coached her volleyball team and she meant heard them and discipled them and those relationships that she has with those girls are actually against some of them going to be lifelong relationships because she invested in them so much in terms of just mothering them and caring for them you know a sign of physical normalcy and health is the capacity
to reproduce the capacity to have children and I think that's a sign of spiritual maturity spiritual life spiritual vitality if if unless something's wrong there should be a capacity to have children you should be growing you should be mature and then you should be spiritually reproducing and as I get older I think more about this what kind of legacy am i leaving who am i investing in if when I'm lying in a box under the ground on my body is who is going to be carrying that torch and that baton of spiritual motherhood and biblical
womanhood and that isn't gonna just happen we need to be thinking intentionally and consciously about how to pass that baton we need to consider what is it that we need to teach the younger women and we have it late right out here for us in Titus right and these are not things that we need to be rocket scientists in order to unpack them we just need to share the journey share the journey of growing and discernment share the journey of growing in wisdom and in purity and in holiness and in kindness and to share our
struggles and journeys with with the women in our sphere you know one of the things I'm finding as I get older and I watch even older women is there is a tendency it's easy to fall into the habit of looking at the younger generation and becoming critical you know they don't have that they do they what in the world are they thinking you know and I think we need to be careful about that this older women yes there are issues and their generation and our but you know rather than being critical what if we rolled
up our sleeves and prayed for that younger generation they need it desperately we needed it when we were younger we still need it and invested in their lives love them and you know when we see a whole generation of younger women in the church who have this issue in that issue and this I think we have to ask do we bear some responsibility for this mm-hmm have we not modeled to them what a different kind of christ-centered life looks like have we failed to train them have we failed to obey Titus two because if we
haven't done this then we really can't complain if those coming behind us don't get it and some of these young women are they're clueless in this they haven't been mothered they haven't been spiritually parented and they just need someone to come and take their hand and encourage them and love on them and pray for them and say let me let me encourage you and I just think that we also need to develop just such a grace to give them grace for the journey I just think of where I was at 40 years ago 30 years
ago 20 years ago and say no I mean I was my life looked a lot different than than it does now and so to give that grace to go she is at a different spot and God is working in her life as he was in mine and just to delight in that journey and to allow allow them to ask questions and to disagree into one better and to fail you know there's a beautiful passage in Psalm 92 it is an Old Testament passage that this give gives us a challenge about this whole matter of legacy
the righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon they are planted in the house of the Lord they flourish in the courts of our God that's the first key word flourishing flourish she growing planted but then they're not just flourishing listen to what the next verse says they still bear fruit in old age they are ever full of SAP and green they're vital there they're fruitful to declare that the Lord is upright he is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him you know there's there's that those two concepts
they're flourishing and fruitful and I think in our culture you know young is it yeah and a lot of older women as they get older feel I'm useless that's right and we need to say no you should there should never be a time in your life when you are not flourishing when you were not growing and when you were not fruitful that can be true of every season of our lives I look at my mom who is 87 years old and she is still fruitful and I and she always says to me well I'm still
alive today so there must be something that God has for me to do today I've asked the Lord to let me serve Him with a whole mind if it would please him until I'm 85 now he may not have nearly that long for me he may have longer so he says our times are in his hands but my heart and yours is that you know it ministry may look different it will yes our capacity will change and the calling God has in our lives will be fleshed out in different ways but I want to be
flourishing mmm and I want to be fruitful and I want to be leaving something for the next generation that they can then in turn pass on to those who are coming behind them so Mary lead us if you would in that prayer all right Heavenly Father thank you for your plan of passing on truth from generation to generation it astonishes me sometimes that you pass on your truth through such broken vessels and that you pass on truth through human instruments and that you desire me to speak truth to someone and that she speak truth to
someone else and she passed that truth on to someone else so father I pray that we may be faithful we may be faithful in passing on a legacy we may be faithful in the a new flourishing in the Word of God and the ways of the Lord but also in being fruitful in just pouring ourselves into the lives of others and just loving them and speaking for the faithfulness of God from generation to generation is in the name of Jesus amen [Music] you [Music] you
![Harvard Professor reveals the Science of Happiness in 15 minutes | Arthur Brooks [ARC 2025]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/w8a0T5XLrXc/maxresdefault.jpg)
