Ladies
it is truly a joy to be here with you this evening, at the end of the day the
Lord has made, let us finish off this day and week by rejoicing and being glad
in it together.
Because
I don’t know many of you, or most of you actually, I want to share a little bit
about myself and my background.
Obviously, my name is Nicole Tsui.
I attend Bethel Church PCA in North Dallas where my husband serves as a
part time assistant pastor and I’ve called both Bethel and Dallas home for
about 5 years now.
I’m
not from Dallas or even Texas, but I grew up in a small town on the coast of
California, it’s called Pismo Beach. I
was born in Seoul, South Korea and was adopted by a Christian American family
when I was about 2 ½ months old. Because
of the grace of the Lord I can say with zeal that I don’t remember a day when I
haven’t known the saving power of Christ. That isn’t to say I haven’t made
mistakes or bad decisions, some of them really bad, or that I haven’t rebelled against
my calling as a child of God but that each time I could, and still can and do,
repent and ask for forgiveness because I know that God is good, all the
time.
As
a child, youth and young adult I attended a very large church where I was
afforded many opportunities for service through their youth group, Sunday
school programs, puppet ministry (yes we had a puppet ministry and it’s a great
work out for your arms) and the church children’s choir. I so loved hearing your beautiful voices
tonight because, and if you were near me tonight you know this to be true, I am
slightly/very much tone deaf. This was
confirmed to me in 6th grade in my church’s choir where I had landed
the coveted lead part. It was also the
one and only time the church has given away the lead solo to another
person. I was told it was to “give other
kids a chance to shine” but I knew it was because of my off key voice. It also
may have been because the year before they gave me a duet and on night of the performance
I panicked and just mouthed part of the song (demonstrate) instead of actually
singing it desperately hoping no one would notice.
In
my church’s youth group in middle school and high school I was encouraged to serve
others through community service and outreach projects and not so much on the
singing side of things. The Lord was
using a pastor’s wife to informally disciple me at the time, although I don’t
know if either of us knew it. The church
I grew up in was not a PCA church or a reformed church and the theology wasn’t
always 100% solid but I so appreciated their earnestness for evangelism and
their deep desire to be salt and light in sinful and broken world. They also taught me the importance of
community through Christ, a lesson so ingrained that I longed for a church body
in college.
After
high school I attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where I
majored in something that’s really going to help us tonight, biology. Of course, biology won’t be applicable here
but I am so thankful for my time in the sciences because it was humbling (what’s
got 2 thumbs and had to take organic chemistry two times? This gal!) and it
helped me to bond (eh? ok that was a chemistry joke) but it really did help me
to bond with my future husband, Brian.
We
have been married for about 2 ½ years and don’t have any children so it’s just
the two of us right now. This picture was taken a few months ago on Christmas
day in my hometown when we were visiting my family.
Last
tidbit of personal stuff, my husband’s ordination service was last September
and Rolf was the commissioner and he was such an encouragement to us personally,
it was an honor to have him there and, to no one’s surprise, I’m sure, Rolf did
a great job and Bethel was richly blessed by his wise words.
As
Andrea said I spoke several months ago at the North Texas Presbytery retreat in
September so if you were at that retreat or if you’re on the North Texas
presbytery women’s ministry mailing list (whew, I’m glad I made it through
that!), then my name probably looks familiar since I send email correspondence
on behalf of the presbytery women’s board. At that retreat I spoke on mentorship which
brings to mind, just for clarification, you’ll hear me use the phrase
“mentorship” “discipleship” and “spiritual mothering” interchangeably, and they
all mean the same thing. I’ve tried to keep consistent language but sometimes
my tongue gets the best of me so if you hear these three phrases know that they
all mean the same thing. Hopefully that won’t be too confusing!
When
I look around the room I see a lot of women, go figure, at a women’s retreat!
As women we have a lot of roles and relationships. Where we find our identity is of the utmost
importance, especially in a world that constantly tries to tell us what our
identity is based on what we wear, our youth (or lack thereof…) or how much
money we have. As Christians we know
these things are wrong but truly, where are we finding our identity in the day
to day routines of life. Are we defined
by who we married? I’m a pastor’s wife, or at least part time since he’s a part
time pastor. I was born in Korea, so should I identify myself first and
foremost as Korean? Some of you are mothers, are you defined by the number of
children you have or how well they behave?
What if you’re a teenager, are you defined by your grades or athletic
performance? Tempting to think so isn’t it?
Sounds like quite the identity crisis!
Praise the Lord that we don’t need to ponder or wonder where our
identity lies. We know our identity lies
in Christ and our relationship with God the Father. Because our relationship with God has been
restored through the gospel work of Christ, it defines and gives life to the
relationships we have with one another.
Because
this is a momentous and awesome thing we’ll focus tonight mostly on our
vertical relationship or our relationship with God and spend more time tomorrow
focusing on mentorship or discipleship so if is frustrating that you’re at a
retreat about discipleship and we’re not talking about explicitly about discipleship
it’s because tomorrow we’ll focus in more on our horizontal relationships and
practical aspects of woman to woman discipleship.
I
know your hand out has 2 verses on and I want to throw in another verse if
that’s ok. I want us to look at 2
Corinthians 5: 17-19 which says:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new
creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All
this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the
ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in
Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the
message of reconciliation.”
We
will see from this passage that Christ:
·
Has restored a broken relationships (Our reconciled relationship with
God is through the Lord Jesus)
·
We have been transformed by our reconciled relationship with God
·
We cling to our reconciled relationship with God
Reconciliation means that
God has restored a broken relationship.
God’s
plan of reconciliation comes to us because of a broken relationship with God.
In what ways was it broken? Our first thought is, of course, sin! And that’s
not wrong but I want to look a little more specifically at how sin affects our
relationship with God.
Our
relationship with God and what we think about God is most often revealed
through our interactions with others. We readily say with our mouths that God
is good, that He is sovereign and in control of everything. But in our day to
day lives we worry. We get angry and we’re afraid God won’t take care of us
unless we do our part. Our actions usually point to what we think about God far
sooner than our words do.
A
few months ago I worked up the courage to be vulnerable with one of the older
woman at my church and I confessed that in a moment of anger at my husband, who
wasn’t doing what I wanted, my anger bubbled over and I ended up grabbing a
tomato off the kitchen counter and throwing it on the floor. Revealing this was embarrassing (and still
is).
My
angry and frustrated actions do not just communicate how I feel about my
husband. And when we act in anger our actions don’t just communicate how we
feel about our children, our in-laws or the driver who is going 55 in the fast
lane on George Bush.
In
those moments of anger there is one unmistakable fact - God is nowhere in these
situations. I don’t mean God isn’t present, we know God is omnipresent but what
I mean is that during these moments our love for God does not control our
thoughts or our actions. Our minds are pre-occupied with upholding our cause,
in our way, in our timing, with our methods.
We have made ourselves the god of the universe and want all things to
revolve around us.
What
began as a conflict between me and my husband was actually very related to what
I really thought about my God. Instead
of loving my husband and being gentle, it’s as if I was saying, “Certainly God
is not able nor willing to show my husband he is wrong so I must do it with
anger, yelling, and a squashed tomato, never mind that it was organic and twice
the price of normal tomato.”
Our
broken relationship with God isn’t always revealed in just our anger. It can also be revealed in our anxiety and
worry. Perhaps you’re a single woman who behaves as if God can’t provide a
husband when you so desperately want to be married. We worry about our family, money (is there
ever enough?) and approval. What if my
kids don’t go to college? What if the church runs out of money? What if women
don’t like the retreat? Or the speaker?
Our
broken relationship with God can be revealed in our discontentment. It reveals our hearts desire to consume. Yes, ok I get the gospel, but God isn’t
enough. I’ll be complete once God gives
me a husband. I’ll be satisfied once God
gives me more vacation time or maybe just time in general. Things will be good once God gives my husband
stable work, then we’ll be happy.
Our
broken relationship with God is revealed in many more ways but I want to point
out these three specifically (anger, anxiety and discontentment) because I’ve
seen a lot of women in a lot of churches struggle with these three areas or at
least know someone who struggles a lot in these areas.
We
who struggle with many if not all of these things need someone to reconcile us
to God and God shows us through the scriptures that the only avenue for a
restored relationship with God, a relationship that defines all our other
relationships, is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The reconciliation that God
brought came through Jesus Christ.
The
basis for all the things we do, for the very reason we were created, is to
glorify God and enjoy him forever. Our relationship with God affects and
defines ALL other relationships we have. Yet it is so easy to take that for
granted. I want to encourage you as
God’s children to examine your relationship with our Father and to be
encouraged by the work of Christ especially as you consider growing and
building the body.
The
familial relationship we share in is made available to us, as I’ve said,
through the work of Jesus Christ. 1
Corinthians 15:3-4 tells us:
For
what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on
the third day according to the Scriptures
Christ
was crucified and died for our sins. He
who knew no sin became sin on our behalf that we may be called righteous. Christ’s death was not ordinary, it was a
substitutionary death, He was put to death for our sins. That’s the marvel of the gospel, Christ takes
away my sin and guilt and gives me his righteousness and fellowship with God in
exchange! Two Sundays ago I was
explaining the great exchange to a 2nd grader during children’s
Sunday school. When I told him Christ received our sin and shame so we could be
heirs of God he looked at me with all sincerity and said, “That doesn’t sound
that great.” I asked him what he meant
and he said, “Well, it doesn’t seem great for God, only for us.” He realized, and
reminded me, that God gives generously and not just fulfills his promises but
typically overfulfills his promises.
Christ’s
resurrection and ascension into heaven gives us hope for his second coming, for
the new heavens and the new earth and our new bodies, when every knee shall
bow, even unwillingly, and all of creation will confess Jesus Christ is
Lord. Until Christ returns, he has not
left us hopeless. He has left us his holy spirit and the comfort of knowing
that he is at the right hand of the father and all authority in heaven and
earth has been given to him. This is
the reality we live in and this is the reality in which we view our
relationships with one another. I so emphatically bring this message to you
tonight because, as Martin Luther so aptly put it, we need the gospel every day
because we forget the gospel every day.
When you think about building relationships with one another think first
of how your relationship with your Father was built on his promises and on his
son.
We have been transformed by
reconciliation
Remember
the three of the vices I spoke of earlier? Anger, anxiety, discontentment?
If
I have been reconciled to God that means that my anger can be extinguished
because I know my God sees the injustices done to me. Our God knows how I feel
when I do not receive a thank you from my husband. God knows how it hurts to see
your child openly rebel against you. God is painfully aware of your situation
when someone at church makes a nasty remark about your family or an activity or
event you poured yourself into. Our God knows how we feel when we get cut off
in traffic. It seems so often anger is
the only way to be since we’re so often mistreated. Didn’t God send his Son so
that my life wouldn’t be so full of injustice? Isn’t Christ supposed to protect
me from attacks? No. Actually, God says
I will be mistreated for the sake of the gospel and he tells me to love, even
my enemies. Why? Because Christ loved me when I rejected him and shook my fist
at him and his ways of giving life. When I was his enemy he loved me, and knows
when I suffer injustice.
If
I have been reconciled to God I do not have to be anxious about anything. As people we struggle with a lot of fear and
I’ve noticed in my years of women’s ministry that we as women tend to struggle
with a specific fear more often than not, fear of man. We worry about what people think of us and our
families because they reflect on us too. Yet, God has already told me that I am
beloved and accepted by God himself because of Christ. I do not have to be
anxious about possessions because I have an inheritance in heaven where moth
and vermin do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. I do not have
to be anxious about money because money is just that, it is money and not my
God. I will not let money dictate my emotions and control my relationships and
disposition. One of my favorite things
is food. And I was reading a food blog
about manners and someone had commented that they invite someone out to eat and
refuse to spend time with them again unless their invite is reciprocated
because they shouldn’t be expected to bankroll the relationship with free
meals. I was surprised by comment but
even more shocked and saddened by the many people who endorse and practice this
style of friendship. It’s defined by what they get, not what they give. Because of my reconciliation to God through
Jesus Christ my emotions, relationships, and disposition in life now flow from
the gospel.
If
I have been reconciled to God I do not have to be discontent with my life
because I know my true purpose now. I know I am not defined by how big or how beautiful
my home is. I don’t find my contentment in money or searching for a purpose in
life. I know my purpose in life, God tells me exactly what it is and it is all
about Him. We know that our purpose is to enjoy God and glorify him in that
process.
We must cling to our
reconciled relationship with our Father
As we have been touched by all that Christ has done to reconcile us to him, this verse also tells us we have been given the ministry of reconciliation which means, when I say that we are committed to reconciliation, I mean that Christ has already committed to us and because of that everlasting commitment I refuse to trust in anything but Christ and him crucified.
When
I falter and stumble I am committed to repeated and regular repentance and
faith, resting on the promises that I am truly forgiven and there is nothing
standing in between my relationship with God because we are truly reconciled. There
are no strings attached when it comes to my relationship with my Father in
heaven.
In
light of all this this we can look to our theme verse. I’ve been working with Andrea for the last
few months and I was so excited when she told me about the growing theme for
this weekend and your theme verse, Ephesians 4:16 (NIV) “From him the whole
body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds
itself up in love, as each part does its work”.
This
is a beautiful verse because it graphically depicts the relationships we have
with one another and the tie that binds our hearts as sisters in Christ.
As we look at Ephesians 4:16 the
chief concern is that the body of Christ, the church, would operate properly.
Because of our context now, as women in a women’s retreat, we can focus in on
how we as women can properly
build one another up in love through mentorship and our relationships with one
another.
This goal that Paul sets before
us, building one another up in love, is helpful because it reveals to us that
growing and building is neither natural nor easy. It is multifaceted and can be complicated. Paul’s words cause us to evaluate the body to
determine if we’re operating well.
What’s the difference between proper or healthy growing/building and
improper growing/building? It’s the age
old children’s Sunday school answer…Jesus! I don’t say that to be flippant or
sarcastic, but because as a body if we’re not being guided by Christ and his
gospel, then we’re not operating well. We’re like a broken down car with a missing
piece and the gifts and roles we have as women as not shining as brightly as
God designed.
A few years ago, I used to live
in an apartment complex near 635 and 75, it was a nice place and they promoted
a lot of community amongst the residents.
One of their big parties was a graham cracker house party a few weeks before
Christmas, it’s like building a gingerbread house, but with graham crackers
instead, and you use lots and lots and LOTS of frosting for the glue to keep
the whole thing together. So at this
party I arrived and there were large tables COVERED with not just graham
crackers and frosting but beautiful bowls of colorful sprinkles, candy canes,
candies and food coloring for building these houses. It was truly the best of the best ingredients
for these houses, each bowl carried ingredients that were distinct and unique. But, as you’ll learn over the next few
sessions, I am not a creative or gifted person when it comes to crafts. I
slopped together a house the best I could while my neighbors glanced on me with
a mixed look of horror and pity. It
didn’t matter how good the ingredients were, I wasn’t using them right.
We’ve been generously blessed
with gifts and talents, they are the absolute best because they are from our
Father and be used to grow one another up in love. However, when we misuse or abuse our gifts
we’re taking the best of the best and building a horrifying, lopsided graham
cracker heap.
The goal of working together in
love is stated so simply in our verse but if you’ve ever been involved in
ministry or any relationships in general you know, and I know, that
relationships both in and out of the church are a messy business because we’re
messy people.
When we see this verse sometimes
we’re tempted to think “ok, be loving. Got it, that’s not too bad, I can be a
nice person.” But oh sisters, if only it
were that easy. We need Christ in every
word we say to each other, in each thought we take captive and we need him
magnified in all things in our lives, especially our relationships. I’ve seen years of encouragement and growth
effectively destroyed by a single comment or action. I’ve seen relationships destroyed because of
bitterness that goes unresolved for years. I say this not as a discouragement
but as a reality check. That we may
humbly approach the throne and ask for grace when we inevitably make mistakes
knowing that our Father is loving and good.
You may have your own horror story of relationships gone wrong or
ministries that are broken and I encourage you to take them to the Lord knowing
that he uses everything FOR our good even though not everything seems good.
As we think about Ephesians 4:16
we approach it with cautious optimism knowing that Christ is building us up as
one body yet keenly aware that as we pour into one another that we do so in a
broken world full of messy people. And yet, that is somewhat encouraging. And I
know what you may be thinking, “broken world, sin, messy people…where do I find
encouragement in that?” We know that the
sin that prevents us from building one another up in love has its roots in
supernatural evil and the only hope of ever growing together as women must have
a supernatural remedy and that’s our encouragement because we know that the
remedy we need is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And that we already have him.
As we are transformed by the
gospel we begin to see that Christ has taken us and made us a community of
believers or, actually, more than just a community but, as Paul says, one body.
Many
times we read scripture and we think first of our individual commitment to
apply what we read. We often think, how can I use these truths and words and
apply them to MY life? And that’s not wrong, we should look for ways to apply
scripture to our lives. However,
tonight, since we are gathered as part of the body I want us to remember these
words from Ephesians and Corinthians weren’t written to an individual. It was
written to a community and when we hear these same words, rather than think,
“How can I respond” I encourage us tonight and tomorrow to consider, “How can
WE respond?” How can we, as sisters,
part of a living body, respond to the work and person of Jesus Christ? Because
there’s a key element here, that we are part of a body, something that is
living and, God willing, growing. This is not a club based on shared interests
but a family bound by love. Our fellowship and love for one another is a
reflection of the great love our Abba Father has for us as his children, heirs
to his throne, co-heirs with Christ himself.
So
we see that even our instruction to operate as one body building ourselves up
in love already has, it presupposes a relational aspect. You can’t be a body of one! We need each
other in order to operate as one body and we need to know that our
relationships have their foundation in Christ, our head.
We
can thank God that he has given us all we need to thrive, not just
survive. God has given us His son and,
His Spirit and His gifts. These spiritual gifts are not for us to hoard, they
are for our fellow believers. We were not given spiritual gifts or talents for
our own glory or self-service, but to grow and build up each other and to give
all the glory where it belongs, to God.
As sisters we are servants to something greater than ourselves. We are
made in God’s image, each of us uniquely blessed to serve one another. When we think about how the Lord has gifted
us our attitude is not “look at me sisters, I’m the queen of administration!
Let me inspire you!” but rather, “the Lord Jesus has given me something to
share and I want you to benefit from it! Just as Christ washed his disciples
feet I want to wash your feet.”
This attitude, this love, it’s not natural, it’s supernatural. It’s an overflow of the great love our Father showed us when he extended his hand to us and took the scales from our eyes and removed our heart of stone. So tonight and tomorrow as we consider relationships think first of your relationship with your Abba Father, made available to you through the work and person of Jesus Christ. Before we break out into small groups let me close this time in prayer.
Saturday Morning Part I
Ladies,
you sound lovely this morning! Let me pray for us before we begin.
[PRAYER]
This
morning we’ll spend time feasting on the word of God together by chewing our
way through Titus 2:3-5 and snacking on 2 Corinthians 4:7. But before we dig into the Word, let me start
by telling you a personal story about how discipleship has affected me
directly. For the last 3 years I’ve been
discipling a young girl in our church, she’ll be 12 this year. About 3 years
ago the women of our church went through an adult Sunday school series about
discipleship and I was moved by words of Titus 2 and the excellent teaching I
received. However, when I thought about
application I felt lost, at this point no one had discipled me, I had no
excellent stories of what a great mentorship relationship looked like. I felt I
was flying blind. But the Holy Spirit was
pricking my heart and I’ve learned through my years (and lots of mistakes) that
it is not wise to ignore the Holy Spirit’s prompting.
I
knew I had to engage but no idea what it looked like. So I grabbed a book about being a woman of
God, scheduled a time to meet with this young girl and have met almost every
month with her ever since. It didn’t
start off with deep theological conversations or spilling our life
stories. We started by baking cookies
and making bracelets and other crafts.
The funny thing about the start of our relationship is that I am a not
so great baker and, if you were here last night and heard about my failed
graham cracker house, you know I am particularly terrible at crafts. Just to give you another example of the
depths of my awfulness with crafts, the ladies from my church once gathered
together to make these super cool wreaths from burlap and we had different
letters and flowers and silk plants to glue to them. As I was making my wreath I stuck one thing,
ONE THING on it and the lady leading the craft looked at it. Looked at me. Looked back at the wreath and said in a very
genuinely sweet and loving tone “so….how about we start over?” All the while the women around me are
creating beautiful and wonderful things for their home. I tell you that to tell you this: that it was
not in my own strength or confidence that I asked a younger woman to make
crafts with me, I was prompted to look to the Lord. Providentially, the little
girl I’m discipling is also terrible at crafts so we craft together in the land
of mediocrity, population 2.
Despite my serious inadequacy, using crafts was a
way to open the door. It gave me time to
learn her friends names, talk about family and discover what a wonderful sense
of humor she has. Over the several years
our relationship has evolved and grown.
One time last fall we met and we talked about women’s roles in the
church and home. She shared with me that she was afraid of hell, afraid her
grandmother might go to hell because she didn’t go to a PCA church and this
little girl felt burdened to share the gospel with her because she started to
believe her grandmother’s salvation rested on her actions. These are situations and moments we yearn for
as mentors. Not because she was in pain but because you see your sister’s heart
laid out, longing for answers, comfort, scripture and encouragement, there is a
transparency available only through the work of Christ and his holy
spirit. I knew that this meeting was no accident
but a moment orchestrated by our heavenly Father. My heart broke as she shared
the burden of carrying her grandmother’s salvation because I struggled with the
exact same fear when I was her age. My heart was burdened to share the gospel
with my friends. I thought if I didn’t
share the gospel with them and they died it would be my fault they were in hell
and God would be sorely disappointed in me. For years I prayed to God every
night for forgiveness because I hadn’t saved anyone that day. Thankfully, I now have a deeper understanding
of God’s mercy and hand in our salvation and was able to point this young girl
to Christ and God the Father using scripture. But this moment didn’t happen
overnight, our relationship has been a marathon, not a sprint.
When you meet with a younger or older
woman in the church, we must ask ourselves, what is the point? We’re busy. We’re tired. We live far away. We have enough
friends, thank you very much.
When I met with this little girl my
goal was not to make the best cookies and certainly not the best crafts. It
wasn’t even to give the best advice or be the best example. My role in her life was and is to point her
to Jesus because:
DISCIPLESHIP
RELATIONSHIPS ARE CHRIST CENTERED
AND GOSPEL FOCUSED.
Titus
2:3-5 says: Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers
or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young
women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working
at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may
not be reviled.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE GOSPEL AND GODLY IMITATION
First
off, what does “older” and “younger” mean? One obvious thing is our age. It’s not super popular today to be called
“older.” We are in a culture where youth
is prized and women spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to just look a
few years younger. But Proverbs tells us
“Gray hair is a crown of glory.” That’s pretty counter culture and sometimes
it doesn’t feel like a source of comfort when we find our own gray hairs. And I
know that because I have a lot more gray hairs than you’d think, seriously I
can show you later it’s really taking over.
“Older” is a relative term here, there is no age
group that we can point to and say “ok yes, it’s the women in their 70’s,
that’s older.” Or “ok, you hit 55, happy birthday! Welcome to the older woman
club” No,
the point is this, there is wisdom in looking to older women
because of their many years of life experience and their many years of walking
with the Lord.
However,
Paul isn’t just dividing the women up based on the time they were born. We know
that typically with age comes maturity.
The same principle applies to our spiritual lives. The longer we walk with the Lord the more we
know him and who he is. The longer
you’ve walked with the Lord the longer you’ve had to see him deliver on his
promises, to provide for you and the church, to see the fruit of the Holy
Spirit. You see your great need for a
forgiveness only the Lord can provide.
So
if someone in their 50’s walks into your church and wants to know about this
Jesus guy because they are a brand new believer, if you are in your 30’s and
you’ve been walking with the Lord a long time it would be appropriate to
disciple them should the Lord lead you that way. Ultimately, we should never look down at a
discipler or disciplee because of their youth – physical or spiritual. We all have some to give and something to
learn.
We
know that when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the truth, that everything
changes and whether or not we engage in formal discipleship relationships what
we say, do, how we react and love one another is being noticed and copied. You’ll notice the passage ends by saying
“that the word of God may not be reviled.”
The
chief concern here, in our discipleship relationships, is not your reputation,
not your behavior, not your ability to make crafts, but the lifting up of God’s
word that it may not be dishonored. I’m
going to borrow a definition from the book “Spiritual Mothering” By Susan Hunt.
Spiritual mothering, discipleship and mentorship as I said last night are
different words for the same thing and I like the way Susan Hunt describes this
Titus 2 relationship by describing it as “when a woman of faith and spiritual maturity
enters into a nurturing relationship with a younger woman in order to encourage
and equip her to live for God’s glory.”
The focus of the relationship is never ourselves but always God and His
glory.
So,
looking at Titus 2, Paul’s exhortation for the older woman seems strict because
it is strict!
There
are many specific and serious characteristics of a Titus 2 woman.
Older
women are to be “reverent in behavior” they need to watch what they say, watch
what and how much they drink, to be self-controlled, pure, hard working, kind
and submissive. Whoa! That’s kind of a
tall order. I will never be that perfect
Titus 2 woman, I can’t do all these things or maybe even any of them. The point of Paul’s exhortation here is not
to burden you or to make you feel oppressed but to remind us what older women
are communicating to younger women. Older women are communicating that there is
a relationship between the gospel and Godly imitation.
Do
not misunderstand me here, I am NOT saying that older Christians are better
than younger Christians or unbelievers, or that once you believe in Christ your
sinful tendencies wane and are no longer an issue. I am NOT saying that as
Christians we are perfect copies of Christ or that our salvation can be
measured in what WE do. I am NOT saying
that the more Godly you appear, the
more you get the gospel. What I am saying is that the gospel message is mighty
to save and mighty to change. The fruit
of the spirit that comes from the transforming our hearts are familiar to many
of us, - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. These are
fruits of gospel transformation in someone’s life. We do not want to communicate that a life
transformed by the gospel produces the fruit of slandering, drunkenness,
disobedience, selfishness, and all out rebellion to our great God. Yes, we struggle in these areas every day
because we are a messy people who live in a fallen world. But that does not negate our high and holy
calling to represent Christ and his gospel message to the younger women.
We
must also remember that when we minister to younger women in our lives, that
our temptation is to focus on the fruit but we must never focus on the fruit
without forgetting the tree. This is
summed up by one of my favorite quotes by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, he says “we
must never present the benefits of the gospel without the benefactor himself.”
When we teach younger women the fruit of Godly imitation we must never do it apart from God himself, we
are to make disciples of Christ, not disciples of ourselves. Our job is not to send younger women away
with the message, “do better. Just try harder.” If that’s the message we’re teaching
and training we’ve missed the gospel message entirely. We must also not take pride or measure
success in our discipleship relationships based on behavior or how WE are doing
but on how Christ is being uplifted and shining on our relationship. If we go into a discipleship relationship
with a focused goal outside of Christ we set ourselves up for failure, even if
these goals are Biblical. Maybe you’re
discipling a young woman who is struggling with personal devotionals. Guilting her into reading her Bible every day
or shaming her into studying the word produces the results you want but doesn’t
point her to Christ, it points her to herself and to you. Surely this is not the fruit we want in a
discipleship relationship.
As
you consider the calling of an older Titus 2 woman you may be concerned and
thinking: I may be older but I so far to
go. I have nothing to give. I struggle with sin, it seems more now than ever.
Or maybe you’re thinking I’m still too young, surely I’m not supposed to be
discipling someone, this is my time to take, not give or serve.
Conversely,
you may be excited and already thinking of who you want to disciple you or be a
discipled by. Whether you’re rearing to go and start a formal discipleship
relationship today or you’re anxious and afraid, we all have at least one thing
in common: we need to depend heavily on the grace and mercy of Jesus
Christ. Hopefully no one here thinks
about discipleship and says “Titus 2 is based on my life, I’ve got all the
answers and I’ve got everything together! I don’t need help. I don’t need to
depend on Christ.” Rather, when we think about our relationships, or really
anything in life, we realize we can do nothing in our own strength - only when
we rest in the strength of the Lord do we become more than conquerors. I want to assure you sisters, that when we
pray for help in our discipleship relationships we are praying for something we
already have. We have the Holy Spirit that lives within us. We have help that comes in the form of the
word of God, upon which we are called to feast in our personal devotional
times, in our weekly Bible studies, in our family devotionals and more. And we have the gift of prayer, a direct
communication line to God!
Titus
2 tells us, Older women are to “teach what is good and train the younger
women.” This tells us that as women,
being self-controlled, loving, pure, kind, submissive, these things do not come
naturally to us. We must be taught and trained.
We need to work together to encourage and build one another up. And we
need to remind each other of Biblical truths and how they apply to our
lives. As women we are faced with so
many lies. Today’s women are told they need to be power hungry, that greed is
good, that marriage is a trap and children are a prison. We’re told by the world that true beauty can
be bought in the form of creams, clothes, make up and accessories. But we know where true beauty comes from, we
know that our best quality is not our hair (gray or not), our clothes, or
radiant smiles. But the light of Christ that shines from within us. We also know that because of original sin we
are born rebellious. This original sin
never goes away while we’re here on earth but sometimes we’re just better at
covering our trails.
My
husband’s best fried has a son who is about 17 months old now. This past Monday we were all at a Bible study
together and this child started chewing on the crayons. His mom told him no
several times as he frantically tried to continue shoving fistfuls of crayons
into his mouth. He clearly understood that what he was doing was wrong. After
several “no’s” he took a black crayon, looked around to see who was watching
and held it right here (demonstrate), right NEXT to his mouth leaving a large,
black crayon mark. The marks of rebellion
were literally stained on his face! We
may not walk around with black crayon on our faces because as we’ve gotten
older we know how to hide our transgressions more deceptively but our hearts
still need continual training and teaching no matter how old or spiritually
mature we are.
This
verse also tells us that loving one another is something we need to be trained
in. This verse specifically calls out
our relationships with our husbands and children, those relationships are very
intimate and if you are married and/or have kids, you know those relationships
take up a lot of your energy and time. And I say that, with some confidence
even though I don’t have children because once a quarter I serve in the nursery
watching toddler and afterwards I need a nap!
I’ve also seen many families in my church and have observed that
Biblical parenthood is much more than feeding and clothing children but
requires discipline, gospel teaching and lots of grace. As a wife and/or mother our husband or
children are incredibly sanctifying tools in the redeemer’s hands! And aren’t
these the relationships where we find ourselves snapping the most? Where we
find our sin overflowing? Where we find ourselves throwing tomatoes on the
floor? Sometimes we can keep it together at church on Sunday mornings in front
of everyone but as soon as we get in the car the happy mask comes off.
But
what if you’re not married or you don’t have kids. Certainly Paul does not let you off the hook
here. In fact, for all of us marital and
motherhood status aside, the broader view of this command is to think about ALL
our relationships and how to train young women to love in every relationship in
their life. Remember last night we said
our relationship with God defines all of our relationships and we must find our
identity in Christ before we can grow and build one another up in love. We forgive because he has forgiven us first.
We love because he loved us first. We
show kindness because of the kindness God shows us. In Titus 3 it says that “when
the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but
according to his own mercy.” God
extended his kindness to us when we were his enemies. We didn’t deserve it. And as good Presbyterians we KNOW that but
sometimes the way we live it doesn’t fully measure up to our beliefs and I say
that not to embarrass us but to show us our great need for Christ ALL THE
TIME. In our own sinfulness we often
deem many people in our lives unworthy of kindness or mercy forgetting our own
unworthiness. Perhaps your teenager rolled her eyes at you again and you feel a
flash of anger or rage. Maybe your
husband had a long day and is criticizing your housework. Maybe the checker at Target is being rude to
you for no reason; doesn’t she know she’s in the service industry? It’s at
these times we have an opportunity as women, young or old, to show others the
kindness and love of our Father, to intentionally model the Titus 2 mandate
because what we do and say matters. And
when we find ourselves using love to cover a multitude of sins the Lord shines
through us and we are able to show kindness as we remember it’s not because of
our strength but the love of Christ overflowing from us.
My husband and I like to shop at Central Market and
we try to encourage each other to model Christ as we grocery shop which sounds
easy but when you’re shopping Saturday afternoon and the store is crammed with
people and kids are running everywhere and the all the cheese samples are gone
it’s easier said than done. One day as
we were checking out with our groceries the checker asked my husband, “Are you
a youth pastor?” To be completely
honest, I was SO full of pride at that moment. “We arrived!” I thought. We modeled Christ and it worked, we did it. I started cataloging our past interactions,
trying to pinpoint what I did that
showed them the love of Christ. My
husband answered her, “yes, I am a pastor and work with the youth group.” The checker nodded and continued to scan and
bag our items. All that arrogance I was
feeling about how great we modeled
Christ was quickly deflated when our checker said, “That’s what I figured
because you always wear youth camp t-shirts when you shop here.” (*whaw whaw*) The Lord quickly and rightly
brought me low. I now that it’s still
vital to my witness as a Christian to model Christ wherever I go, even Central
Market, because there is a relationship between the gospel and Godly imitation
but I’ve been rightly humbled to remember that it’s the Lord’s work and His
Spirit that brings change, not me or my husband’s free youth camp t-shirts.
Titus 2 also tells us that we must be trained to be
subject to our husbands. If you’re not
married then again, you’re still not off the hook here! The broader view of this command that applies
to all of us is to be submissive to authority.
The topic of submission is incredibly unpopular in our culture today and
it should be discussed with wisdom. For
younger women who have not been taught what God glorifying submission is this
topic can be jarring. I grew up thinking that women were not only equal to men
but better. TV and movies taught me that men drag you down because they are
inept and should be treated as such. The world and sometimes our own hearts
tell us that submission and equality are opposing forces and it’s not fair that
we have to submit when we’re the same or better. Make no mistake, men and women
ARE equal in value but we are also different.
If you’ve ever met a man you know that to be to be true. Submitting to our husbands or any authority
(including the church), is not natural for us. Our natural, sinful tendency is
to rebel against the order God has created and to desire to rule over our
husbands and pretty much everyone else we meet.
Only when we point each other to Christ and remember that we are to
glorify God in our relationships is submission even possible, and that includes
submission to God himself.
The older Titus 2 women are not to be “slaves to
much wine” and to teach “self-control.”
Being a slave to wine, or a slave to anything, is about lack of
self-control. Perhaps we’re a slave to wine or to social media or shopping. Maybe we struggle to control a sharp tongue
and are quick to cut down our husbands or engage in gossip. As Christians, we know that when we were dead
in our trespasses we were slaves to sin.
But now, as children of God, we are slaves to righteousness. We will never exercise self-control perfectly
but we have a help and a hope. We can
encourage and build one another up towards holiness and purity and enjoy the
privilege of being built up ourselves.
Discipline in our lives is important and we can encourage one another as
we work towards implementing discipline in our lives, all the while keeping our
eyes off our works and on the Savior of the world.
I was teaching a Sunday school class once and talked
about this very thing, our slavery to righteousness. One of the kids asked how being a slave could
be good, and how it is even possible to be a slave to sin or wine or
anger. They were confused because
control or anger can’t tell you what to do. Wine can’t bark out commands like a
slave driver. But it’s when these things
are our idols, when we will do whatever it takes to get to them that we realize
we are enslaved to them. The same thing
applies to our righteousness, when we will do whatever the Lord requires of us
to be more like him and to glorify his name, we know we’re a slave to Him and
his righteousness.
I
would be remiss in my personal mentorship examples if I did not mention that
mentorship is a two way street. I’ve
always heard this but now I also have lived it.
I have learned just as much from the young girl I am mentoring as I have
taught her, maybe more. And the Lord has
used this relationship to show me my sin and my great need for a savior. I
started discipling this girl before I got married and a few months after I
married Brian I met with her in my home.
At the time our church had a ministry on Wednesday nights for 1-6th
grade girls that I co-taught with another woman. I told this young girl I wanted to have a
sleep over with her and all the other girls and leaders from the Wednesday
night group so we could watch movies and eat cookie dough. As I was telling her my idea, I made a
flippant remark about my new husband in a conversation I will never forget. I
told her “I’d love to have you girlies over. And we can kick Mr. Brian out, he
can just go wherever.” And she repeated me in my joking tone. “Oh yeah, we can
kick him out and he can go wherever.” I
had just disrespected my new husband in our own home and my blatant disrespect
for him was thrown back in my face. I
realized that what I had just taught her was the VERY opposite of Titus 2! In that moment I felt embarrassed, ashamed
and weak.
However it was also in that moment that I learned that God’s design is
that we mentor in weakness so that the light of Jesus shines on the
relationship
2
Corinthians 4:7 says: But we have this treasure in
jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to
us.
Your greatest joys
in discipleship will not be dependent upon your strength, your wit, your
talents, your charm, and thankfully not your crafts or baked goods….but rather
your weakness.
What are you being
called to do as a mentor? You’re being called to minister Christ to your fellow
sister at every opportunity. Your life
experiences, your knowledge or your sage advice apart from the work and person
of Jesus Christ is not what we are being commanded to do. We are called to minister Christ because our
sin points us to our need for a savior and no amount of advice or life
experience is going to save us or anyone else.
What about when we
are ministering to someone who is struggling with habitual sin? Our natural
response is to be frustrated. We think
she just won’t change. She will never get it. But this isn’t a time for
frustration, rather it is a time for you remember that you do not have the
power to convince someone to change or to stop being foolish. When you minister to difficult people or to
someone struggling with habitual sin you must remember that when someone is
blind to their sin or the gospel message, they are supernaturally blinded and
their blindness requires a supernatural cure, the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ. You need to also remember your
relationship with God the Father, something we really dove into last night. We
need to recall that we were ones who wouldn’t change. We were one who wouldn’t
get it. We were one who was blind to the gospel message. And while we were in that blindness Christ
died for us, calling us to himself.
Think of our own sin, if the gospel is powerful enough to save a sinner
I like me, I have no doubt that it can save anyone.
If you are an older
woman you must remember that you can’t change a younger woman’s heart, you
can’t change her past or even her present. If she is hurting from a difficult
childhood or is living in a difficult marriage, you can’t change or fix
that. But you can minister to her in it
and that’s what we’re being called to do, to minister Christ not “fix” people
or bend them to our will.
When you realize
that the power to bring change is totally out of your hands you begin to
understand weakness and you begin to understand what Paul is getting at when it
says that we have treasure inside jars of clay. The clay is weak and the clay
is cracked but the treasure shines through the cracks. Imagine a candle inside
of a cracked clay pot. It’s through the
biggest cracks that we see the most light. The power of Christ shines through
our cracks or our weaknesses and brings light into our relationships. And isn’t that what we want? Don’t we tell
each other and ourselves we want to show more Christ and less of ourselves? In
order to do that we must show our weaknesses in our relationships. Pretending
that we have it all together when we don’t is not glorifying Christ, rather it
stifles the candle in the jar. It draws
attention to the pot, not the light inside.
And when we reflect
on the commands in Titus and the characteristics of an older Titus 2 woman we
feel weak. But that’s ok, even desirable
because Chris is showing us where he shines the brightest. We boast not in our
own works but in the works of Christ.
Saturday Morning Part II
As you know my husband is
a pastor and one of the things he’s learned in his growth as a preacher is how
important application is. Filling up on
theological and Biblical truths without application is like buying the finest
ingredients from the store and letting them sit in the fridge. When we think about applying the scriptures
to our lives we’re taking these ingredients and making a meal. In this session we’ll take a look at some
real life examples of discipleship and see that there is no “one size fits all”
discipleship pattern. This truth is very
dear to my heart because I was once told that unless I had a long-term, regular
meeting style relationship with someone I wasn’t being a true spiritual mother
or engaging in “real” discipleship. I
felt very bad after hearing this and my true hope and prayer is that you would
NOT feel the same way after this afternoon.
So as a woman who is interested in discipleship, what
kind of resources are available to us?
There are several books
available to you about spiritual mothering or discipleship. These books are available online or you may
find them in Christian bookstores. You
can read these books on your own or you can read them with a younger or older
woman. There are also many devotional
guides and Bibles studies that can help you as well that aren’t just women’s
discipleship books. I am being mentored by an older woman in my church and we
study whatever the women’s ministry is studying that semester. We also talk
about current women’s ministry events and activities. That being said, you
don’t have to use a book or a guide in your discipleship relationships,
because, as I said before not every discipleship relationship is going to look
the same.
Here are just a few books
I’ve found helpful when studying and learning more about discipleship:
“Spiritual Mothering” – By
Susan Hunt
This book was instrumental in flaming my personal passion
for disclipleship. The women at my
church studied this book together as part of a Sunday school class and I was
moved by Susan Hunt’s words. This book
focuses intensely on what she calls “the Titus 2 mandate” and exhorts women to
make discipleship a priority in their lives.
Along with scripture study it gives practical tips for practicing
healthy discipleship practices.
This book is pretty much what it says it is, a guide to
discipling. It has a lot of wisdom about
discipleship relationships and encouragement.
“True: Discipleship
Journal” – Susan Hunt
This isn’t a book, as the title says it’s a journal. It goes along with Susan Hunt’s books
“Spiritual Mothering” and “The True Woman” and is written for junior high and
high school girls. This journal does not
require the students to read the books but helps distill down the main themes
and applies it to youth and their common life circumstances. It’s meant to be used in a group or at least
in a one-on-one situation. There is a
leadership journal that goes along with it for the leader of the group or
mentor and that DOES require you to read the books. The leadership journal points to specific
chapters and pages of each book so you need to have the books to lead the study
so it is more work, however if you are looking for a lot of guidance and step
by step help for leading a group or study for young girls this is a great place
to start. I think there’s 3 journals and
it’s suggested you use them in order.
The Legacy of Biblical
Womanhood – Susan Hunt and Barbara Thompson and The True Woman – Susan Hunt
These two books aren’t as specifically focused on
discipleship but do touch on the topic.
The Legacy book discusses Biblical womanhood in light of God’s design,
ways to apply these spiritual truths to your personal life and to the church. The True Woman by Susan Hunt is essentially
an apologetic for Biblical womanhood.
This is a very short list
and I encourage you to ask around and get advice and suggestions or
recommendations from your fellow sisters.
And if you choose to study a book as part of a discipleship relationship
as I said before it doesn’t need to be one of these or even a book on womanhood
or discipleship.
So, what does a discipleship relationship look like in
real life? How do I get started?
So far we’ve talked about
our identity and vertical relationship, our relationship with God. We’ve talked about what a Titus 2 woman, in
theory, looks like based on scripture.
We’ve talked about relationships conceptually but what about our real lives,
right now, today. As I just said,
discipleship relationships are going look different for each of us. They depend
on the women involved, your stage of life, your circumstances and more. For some reading a book together is a great
way to connect and break down walls. For me and the younger woman in my life it
was failing together at crafts and sneaking candy at the graham cracker house
decorating contest at my apartment complex because we both gave up halfway through.
You may
or may not have examples of Biblical discipleship in your life to look to as a
model. Whether you do not, the Bible
gives us some very clear examples of discipleship between women. In Luke 1 we see Mary and Elizabeth living
out a beautiful picture of discipleship.
As you recall, Elizabeth was
pregnant and Mary had just been told she would be giving birth to the son of
God. Mary was very young and unwed. We
don’t know how she was feeling but we can guess she may have been terrified or
at least highly stressed out. It would
have been easy to panic, curl up in a ball and cry, or eat half a sheet cake in
the dark. But one of the first things
Mary does is run to Elizabeth. And one of the first things they do together is
praise the Lord. Worshipping God and
giving him praise is a distinct pleasure and honor we have as believers. One of
the most intimate things we can do with one another is praise the Lord and
worship him together. We see that
Elizabeth and Mary have a loving, nurturing relationship in the way Elizabeth
reacts to Mary’s news. She exclaims in Luke 1 verse 42, “blessed are you!” She doesn’t fret about Mary being unwed and a
virgin (“my word Mary, what WILL people say?”). She doesn’t make it about
herself and her own pregnancy. She
doesn’t lay into Mary all the things she should do to be a good mom. Instead, Elizabeth
gives all the glory to the Father and loves Mary and encourages Mary to worship
God.
She also
verbally affirms Mary. Words are
powerful, James tells us that the tongue is a small member but can set forests
aflame. From the same mouth comes
blessing and cursing. Words can pierce
like a sword or bring healing. What we
say (and HOW we say it) matters. When
you are mentoring someone they may come to you afraid, seeking advice. They may
be struggling with sin. Typically when a
young woman approaches an older woman with a tough situation or a habit of sin,
she has already condemned herself. She
doesn’t need more condemnation from an older woman. For a younger woman to approach an older
woman is a big risk on the younger woman’s part. Older women, are you
approachable? Elizabeth was. Being unapproachable and unavailable are some
of the biggest obstacles to forming relationships of any kind.
If you’re
like me, your life seems like it moves at 100 mph. Are you telling women you’re too busy for
them? Do you struggle with showing warmth to those you don’t know? Perhaps you know a younger woman who is
awkward and maybe even uncomfortable to be around. You glorify God when you love her and you
make yourself approachable and available to her.
There is
a woman who used to go to Bethel and has since changed churches but keeps in
touch with me via e-mail. She made herself available to me whenever I needed
advice, wisdom or just to talk! She always made me feel welcome and loved, I
knew I could and can go to her without fear of condemnation or cold judgment.
Mary and
Elizabeth were also focused on God. When
you relationships and world view focus on glorifying God everything
changes. Humility replaces pride,
appreciation replaces resentment, selflessness replaces selfishness.
Mary and
Elizabeth paint a beautiful picture of pointing one another to God in a very
tense time. But what about the day to
day? I am not birthing the Messiah. But
I need help. I want to form a connection
but I’m scared. What do you just walk up to someone and say, “hey, nice weather
we’re having, want to be my mentor?” You
could. I did, I am actually being mentored by a lovely older woman at my church
and I just walked right up to her and asked her to mentor me and meet with
me. We’ve met almost monthly ever since,
for almost 3 years now. You may be
thinking “yeah, so I’m not going to do that.”
Or I don’t have time. Or what if things go badly? I have a friend who
asked an older woman to disciple her and instead of saying no, the older woman
just never spoke to her again. Ouch!
That sounds painful, is that worth the risk??
Perhaps
you’re thinking, Nicole, I’ve heard the Titus 2 talk before. But my life has
changed and I’m busy, or I have more kids or I just don’t know if I’m up for
it. So I few practical tips and applications for you….
Discipleship
relationships can be formal or informal
I have 2
very formal discipleship relationships in my life, one where I am mentoring a
younger girl and one where I am being mentored.
But there are MANY women in my church who are pouring into me without
knowing it. There is a family in our
church who is experiencing trial after trial and all the while the mother in
the family is clinging to the cross and pointing the whole body to Christ. That
encourages my soul and informally disciples me. When she encourages the body
she’s not thinking “hey, this will really disciple Nicole” but it does.
Many
women in my church have invited me and my husband into their homes, their
hospitality points me to Christ. You can
invite a younger woman into your home and have coffee with her, letting her
observe you love your husband and children.
What better way to train and teach than to show them firsthand what it
means to submit and love. And yes, when
you fail as a wife or mother, you can repent and show the younger women what it
looks like to glorify God in your weakness.
You can model Christ’s love to the younger women by the way you welcome
new faces on Sunday morning at church.
In
February I gave a brief devotional at a women’s prayer breakfast at my church.
I was supposed to be there at 9 so in classic Nicole Tsui fashion I rolled out
of bed at 830 and left at 845. I saw
another elder’s wife there and she mentioned she was up at 6AM. I asked her
why, doesn’t she know it’s Saturday?? And she responded that she was up to make
her husband coffee before he went to presbytery, the same presbytery meeting my
coffee-less husband was at. I was shocked and humbled, she was committed to
serving others and I could barely wake up to say good bye to my husband. This
comment has stuck with me and informally disciples me during early mornings.
Perhaps a
formal commitment seems like too much right now. Perhaps your plate is too full or your family
is in crisis and needs you. But don’t
think that just because you’re not in a formal discipleship relationship that
Titus 2 doesn’t apply to you. You can start applying this command to your
everyday life by reflecting Christ in all your relationships, by showing
kindness and mercy to others. If you are
a younger woman keep your eyes open and watch how the older women love their
families and the church. And be bold, don’t be afraid to ask for help or to ask
someone to mentor you.
Discipleship
relationships can be long or short.
Formal or
informal discipleship relationships can be short or long in duration. You can
ask a younger or older woman to meet with you once a week or every other week
for 2 months. The benefit of a short
term commitment is that it’s not as scary as saying “want to meet with me every
week for the rest of my life??” It also gives you insurance in case the
relationship does not work out or becomes toxic.
If you
are mentoring or being mentored by someone you don’t know well, knowing there
is an end date gives you the energy to persevere and look for fruit in a new or
difficult relationship. If things work
out wonderfully you can always “renew” your short term agreements to meet
regularly. It also allows for breaks,
you can commit to a month or two months and then take a break and start up
again. Short term commitments are also good for busy women. One woman told me
her story as an empty nester, all her kids had moved out of the house. She
began discipling several women in her church. Another young lady asked her to
mentor her. The empty nester agreed to disciple her but could only commit to
once a week for 6 weeks. This satisfied the younger woman and made things very
clear in the beginning of the relationship so after 6 weeks the younger woman
didn’t feel neglected or abandoned and the older woman wasn’t stretched or
overburdened.
Other
discipleship relationships can go for a long time or be indefinite, as I said
before I have been engaged in two relationships for almost 3 years now with no
end in sight. (Don’t tell them that though!) My husband discipled a young man
who was having a crisis of faith for about 6 months. The young man eventually got plugged into a
college ministry and church so he does not need regular meetings with Brian but
Brian still checks in on him periodically.
A woman may come to you in crisis and need help either for a long time
or a short time.
Discipleship
relationships can be long distance.
Not all
discipleship relationships need to be face to face. You can disciple or be discipled by someone
via letters, phone calls or emails. What
if you move half way across the country and don’t know anyone? You can be discipled
by women in your old church or by women through their writing. Great female authors like Amy Carmichael or
Elizabeth Elliott can “spiritually mother” you.
They can provide you with encouragement and equip you with the tools you
need to live for God’s glory.
When I
moved from Santa Barbara to Dallas it was not an easy transition. I packed
everything I owned into my VW beetle and drove for 3 days across the country.
After each leg of my trip I sent out an email to a few close friends and fellow
church members about my adventures.
Older women would email me back, encouraging me to feast on the word of
God and trust in Him and his goodness, not the new tires on my car or my own
knowledge and wisdom.
Discipleship
relationships change over time.
As you
establish trust with someone and as you grow together in the knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ your relationship will change. As is normal for relationships, the more time
you put in the closer you will become.
As I said before, my relationship with the girl I am mentoring has
changed a lot over the last few years.
When we first met we talked about school supplies and memorizing
scripture. Now we can talk about hell, fear and sin – not every time but she knows
she has a safe place to ask tough questions. Sometimes discipleship
relationships, especially long term ones, are like a marathon, not a
sprint.
Think of
your relationship with God. The Lord
uses our whole lives to make us more like him and shows us unending patience
and grace. We may see spurts of growth in our sanctification or holiness, but
our normal day to day sanctification, the process by which we grow more like
Christ and less like ourselves, is a slow change. Trust in a discipleship
relationship can be the same way. You may not notice big leaps and bounds of
growth in your relationships but do not lose heart. The Lord your God causes all things to come
together for the good of those whom he loves. Your relationship may also change
over time as your life stages change.
Change doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
Discipleship
relationships require relational wisdom and clear communication.
Discipleship
relationships should not be co-dependent.
As an older woman you are called to train and teach women to rely on
Christ and to grow in their knowledge of him.
As your younger women ask you for advice about what ministries to be
involved in there will be a time to encourage them to make the decision on
their own in their own spiritual maturity so that your word does not become
like a new Bible to them.
I’ve
sadly seen someone use their mentees to accomplish THEIR will in the
church. If you think your mentee would
not survive or thrive without you, your relationship is unhealthy because your
mentees should depend on Christ and Christ alone. That’s not to say you’re not
a key supporter but you’re not the foundation upon which their faith
grows. You also need to be able to able
to evaluate your own life and circumstances before engaging in a formal discipleship
relationship. Are you overcommitting
yourself? There’s a difference between being available and overdoing it. Are you forsaking your marriage or commitments
as a mother in order to pour into others? Are you “playing favorites”? There’s nothing wrong with disclipling
someone who is popular in the church or community but listen carefully to the
spirit’s prompting even if you don’t like the way it’s pushing you.
Clear and
healthy communication is also key, as I said before, if you want to establish a
formal discipleship relationship you should communicate clearly with your
mentor or mentee so boundaries are established.
Will your mentor share what you two talk about? Sometimes
confidentiality is assumed and not established so one party is hurt when they
hear their mentor/mentee shared words that were said. Are you meeting
regularly? Or sporadically? For a long time or short time? These conversations
can be awkward, and being transparent in them can be even more so but in the
long run a little awkwardness can save years of pain and hurt.
Communicating
well is also important. Are you a texter? Or do you thrive on e-mail? Take time
to know your own communication style and be flexible to others.
Using
your words to give life, like Elizabeth did with Mary is also a key part of
communicating well with one another. Use
your tongue to bring words of healing and love, not to cut down one another or
the church. I’ve sadly seen discipleship
relationships devolve into gossip fests and complaint sessions about others and
the church. I say this not to present a
“goofus and gallant” scenario but to remind us that the church is the bride of
Christ, the one upon whom our discipleship relationship should be focused.
What if I
were to say to you, have you met John and Jane Doe? John is incredible, smart and a great
husband. But Jane….ergh. I mean, how did
that even happen? Doesn’t John know he can do better? If I were to say these things to you I’m not
just denigrating Jane but John too. When you denigrate a man’s wife you
denigrate him too. The same principle
applies to the church. When you talk about Christ’s bride in a way that shames
her groom you’re criticizing Christ himself.
The
church certainly has her warts because we’re a messy people and time there’s
people there’s sin! And it is good to be identifying the deficiencies of the
church so they can be further reformed by Christ and the gospel. But desiring and striving for reform is way
different than a pessimistic and critical attitude toward the church. As mentors you have the opportunity to teach
younger women in the faith to love the church. Not just specifically this
church, Redeemer McKinney, but to love the church wherever they go to worship.
Discipleship
relationships are Christ centered and gospel focused
This morning
I said, if
we go into a discipleship relationship with a focused goal outside of Christ we
set ourselves up for failure, even if these goals are Biblical. Like discipling a young woman who is
struggling with personal devotionals. As a discipler we need to remember
that your main objective is to show your disciplee the Lord Jesus Christ. If
you teach them to read their bibles they will read their bibles as long as you
ask them “so have you been reading your bible?” but once you’re gone the
discipline often goes away because they have not been shown and spent
sufficient time dwelling on Christ. If we
teach your mentee to love Jesus, cling to him, and crave him they will read
their bibles for a lifetime. He alone is
the root the produces the fruit of reading your bible.
Discipleship
relationships are for all women.
We
discussed Paul’s exhortation for mentors this morning and it was a little
intimidating but we see that discipleship is for all of God’s people.
However the Lord works out discipleship relationships
in your life or in your church you must always remember that the Lord your God
is good. That yes, we are just a bunch of cracked clay pots, but before the
formation of the world God knew you. He loved you and he sent his son to die
for you. You have been washed in the
blood of Christ, you have been given a heart of flesh, what was once crimson is
now white as snow. And because Christ died for sinners, the righteous for the
unrighteous, we can view our call as women of God as something to be
celebrated, it is freeing, not burdensome.
Ladies, please pray with me as we consider this command and all that it
entails.
[PRAY]
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