Calvary Bible Church of Kalamazoo, Michigan

Today we celebrate mothers. For a moment let's meet all the moms here this morning: all the moms, please stand; and as you stand, to all the moms here and those who are not, we all owe a debt of gratitude.

We all owe our very life to our mom.

May each of you mothers know the joy of your children rising up and blessing you.

As we open to Titus 2:4 we are focusing on the second priority God desires in all younger women. God has called for all women of grace to be characterized by love. But never forget that we are looking back into a world where so few had ever known or felt real, Biblical love. The New Testament church was born into the culture of Rome.

The culture of Rome, and even to every person living where this letter to Titus arrived, on the island of Crete was a world framed by mighty armies, where daily life was lived around over-powering architecture, when most cities were fed by aqueducts with gravity-defying engineering, and with Emperors known for their absolute life and death power. So most people had grown up:

Living in a World without Love

For some this morning, you may have been raised in an environment of conflict, hatred, abuse, or danger. You understand what it means to have grown up in a world without love. Others have known and felt the warmth of a loving parent's embrace, the encouragement of their words of affirmation, and the depth of their loving investment.

So all of us either relate to the world of Rome without love, or to the love God calls us to shape our families through. But wherever you came from, this passage is a call to choose to have a lifestyle of Nurturing Love in the midst of a Loveless World. Please stand and hear God's Word to us in Titus 2:4-5:

that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

PRAY

To those steeped in the Roman culture of Crete, anyone seen as loving, sensitive, and caring were considered to be weak. Only the tough could endure all the hardness of the day.

So to be told by God that He desired a lifestyle of tender, gentle, nurturing love; and that priority made up His top-two qualities all wives and mothers were to possess-must have been shocking to these early followers of Christ on he island of Crete. Lifestyle change, social non-conformity, and peer-offense were all the probable results of such a significant change of direction.

But for a moment, think back to what you know deeply about our God from His Word: God is love, the greatest of all Christian virtues is love, and love energized by God lasts forever. So what God desired in Crete He had always desired in the past, and still expects it today.

What Does God Say Can Last Forever

And, what does God say will last forever from all the endless and mostly unseen hours of work that being a wife and mother entail? God has promised that ALL the deeds wives and moms have offered in obedience to Him as Lord, prompted by grace-energized-love, are ETERNAL, front-line ministry, that shall never go unrewarded.

So today we learn what can be the most powerful aspect of a wife and mother's life on earth as she obeys God's calling for her life: her grace-energized love.

Titus 2:4 contains the key, that produces eternal rewards from every day of a godly wife's marriage and a grace-energized godly mother's family. Paul explains that the key is love. The first calling of a wife and mother in God's Word is to do all she does, and say all she says prompted by God LOVE.

If you miss everything else today from this message, remember this. If you do all your duties as a wife and mother prompted by God's love, He will give you an unending reward. Everything you say as a wife and mother that is prompted by God's love will generate from Him an unending reward. That is the most liberating and motivating truth that any woman of grace could ever learn! Listen to this same idea once more:

[Our] gifts, [and our] ministries, all one day will cease to exist because they will cease to have purpose or meaning. But our showing love [to our husbands and children], practicing [that] love, [and] living [that] love now-are of utmost importance, more important than having any of the other virtues or gifts, because love is the link God gives us with His eternal Self.[1]

God is love (I John 4:8), and everyone who is born of God loves (I John 4:7)-so the greatest of all the virtues, the one that will last forever, is love (I Corinthians 13:13).

The key to lives, marriages, and families that will have eternal rewards and maximum earthly blessings is love.

Just as love that is prompted by the Spirit and energized by God's grace as Peter said, "covers a multitude of sins" (I Peter 4:8), so the absence of that love causes a multitude of sins. Love is eternal, love is supreme, and love is most like God for God is love!

Love was rarely seen in everyday life and culture in the Roman world. So this gentle, sensitive, grace-energized love was to become a powerful witness in the culture of century one.

Jesus had already told His disciples that "by this shall all know that you are My disciples, by your love" in John 13. So that is why Paul says to all women of grace: cultivate nurturing love even when surrounded by a love-less world.

For older women of grace, who seek Christ's reward and want to serve His church this quality is to be seen in their lives, and is to be taught by their words.

For younger women this is the second highest priority of their daily lives. That is what we find in the second phrase of Titus 2:4, which states:

To Love Their Children

This characteristic is one word in the Greek text, philoteknos; and it means to be a lover of children, so grace-energized mothers love their children. That is what God says through Paul. This love is described precisely by the Spirit of God in the word He chose. God says I want phileo love that can be felt. That is a grace-energized-mother's special ministry in Christ's church!

Just the fact that these words were inspired by God to come to His saints means that this was not common, this was not easy, and this was not normal. This type of love just doesn't "happen" because God wants it. It is a choice, it is a lesson to be learned, and it is a factor that determines a believer's eternal reward in Heaven.

From time to time it becomes so very hard to take care of children that a mom of any century in history no longer "feels" positive feelings towards her children. So how did God instruct Paul to prepare Christ's church for these great social challenges and family pressures? Again, Titus 2 has the solution. God says that the way that tired, burned out, and depressed mothers get relief is from the faithful army of Titus 2 grace-energized role models.

The Bible clearly explains and illustrates this love that was modeled by Christ. This special phileo love is demonstrated by Jesus Himself. This type of close, companionship and friendship, emotional love is how Christ's relationship is described with Lazarus (John 11:3) and with "the disciple He loved" named John (John 20:2). This is also the word used in Revelation 3:19 for Christ's love for true saints in His church.

Jesus demonstrated His love to Lazarus and all who saw that friendship knew how close they were. The same was seen in Christ's closeness to the Apostle John. That is how Jesus loves us, and wants us to know He loves us, feeling His closeness, and enjoying His friendship.

And that phileo love that is emotional, close, and visible: is what the Lord asks from grace-energized mothers towards their children. God desires mothers to show love that their children can feel. The acid test of this love is to ask yourself: "Do my children feel my love"?

Without attending the actual classes Paul helped Titus begin, where would we start for a way to understand, in a practical way, this love that was to be characteristic of those energized by God to live by His grace in the homes and marriages of Crete? I believe that-

Jesus Showed Us How to Love

Christ's life reveals a perfect example of love[2]. That is why Peter, writing just after Paul wrote to Titus, tells us that Jesus Christ's life is an example and that we should follow ‘in His steps' (I Peter 2:21). As we consider how grace-energized mothers love their children, we can learn so much from the ways that our Lord Jesus Christ loved those He came to serve during His earthly ministry.

Jesus communicated His love to the disciples and others in two very clear ways. He told them that He loved them. He showed them that He loved them (like serving them and touching them). Jesus is the perfect model of showing love that could be felt. One of the clearest ways Jesus showed His love was when He spoke and blessed His disciples.

What was the last memory all the disciples had of Jesus? As we turn to Luke 24 let's remember some details about when Jesus ascended into Heaven. What was He doing as He left? Have you ever noticed that little insight Luke gives us?

We already know from Acts 1:8-12 that Jesus took the disciples to the Mt. of Olives and then ascended up into the clouds and out of their sight. That is the picture of Christ's final moments with the disciples we remember most, but there is a second account that gives some precious details we have often missed. Turn back to Luke 24:50-53, and relive with me this precious event:

Luke 24:50-53 And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. 51 Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53 and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. Amen. (NKJV)

Those men would never forget walking with Jesus for 3 ½ year, they would never forget Christ's death, burial, and resurrection; but what would be riveted in their minds?

It would be that incredible moment of the last time they saw Him here on Earth.

Their friend, their Savior, their most precious Lord of all left them in a most touching way.

Jesus lifted up His hands and gave them the most unforgettable expression of His personal love as He touched each of them with His blessing!

Think about that. Jesus was very careful what He did as He left His disciples, and the picture they would have deeply etched in their minds is Christ's loving, prayerful blessing raining down upon them as He was lifted upward and out of sight.

Christ's Words Powerfully Expressed His Love

Those words of blessing raining down upon them must have been remembered over and over in the days ahead.

Words have such power for good or evil. What kind of words do you "rain down" upon those you are speaking to in life? And what are those who listen to your words remembering? Are they "blessed" by what you said?

Turn back with me to what Peter told us in I Peter 3. After talking about the basic building blocks of society and the church (marriage and family), he concludes with an incredible postscript:

1 Peter 3:8-9 Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; 9 not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling (spoken curses), but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.

In the New Testament a "blessing" we offer to a loved one is basically a prayer of encouragement for them. So, women of grace are-l

Loving Mothers Who Bless Their Children

Blessing is a verb[3] used 44 times in the New Testament that means: "to praise [your loved one], to celebrate [them] with praises [that] invoke [God's] blessings and consecrate [your loved one] with solemn prayers [that] ask God's blessing on [your loved one] to cause [them] to prosper, to make [them] happy, to bestow blessings [that they be] favored by God."

That is why Peter says to the church so strongly, watch out for how you "rain down" your words upon others.

1 Peter 3:9 not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.

So Peter basically says those who love with Christ's power, "sow words of blessing and you will reap a harvest of blessing." What a powerful motivation to primarily use our words, mouths, and voices to bless others in Christ's Name!

And that is what we get from nearly every one of the 44 times the word "bless" is used in the New Testament (14 x in Luke). Here are some of the key verses:

• Mark 10:16 And He took them up in His arms, put His hands on them, and blessed them. [blessing often involves touching]

• Luke 2:34 Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, "Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against [blessing often points to the future]

• Luke 6:28 "bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. [blessing is usually hard but always very rewarding]

• Romans 12:14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. [lest we miss it Paul repeats the habit of blessing as part of Christ's church's mandate]

• 1 Corinthians 14:16 Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the uninformed say "Amen" at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you say? [there was a Spirit-prompted work of blessing in the early church services]

• Hebrews 11:20-21 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. [heroes of the faith made it their last act like Christ's to stretch out their hands and bless those they loved]

Why should we learn to share a blessing with our families? Because a blessing shared and the whole expression of love that it gives helps those we love know in a visible way that we love them. Blessing those we love is a memorable way they can remember feeling and hearing our love.

Give the Priceless Gift of Love

Do you ever remember your mother or father telling you out loud, in a clear and loving voice, that they loved you and admired some qualities they had seen in your life?

Those words just stay in our hearts for a lifetime. My own mom and dad often told me how much they saw the Lord's Hand in my life and what great things they believed God would do in my life-and my dad to his final day in ICU struggling to breathe, continued one last time saying to me what a blessing I had been to him. For all my conscious life for the last thirty years of my dad's life, I think he told me something like that saying that on a weekly basis!

This type of love expressed is actually a reflection of what God taught as one of the key instructions to the priests. In the Jewish community the priests were the public servants, they inspected for disease, they protected the food supply, housing, dealt with domestic issues, and of course represented the people to God. In the New Testament we are to all be priests, and, in a real sense, we are called like them to bless those around us.

Numbers 6:23-27 (NKJV) "Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, ‘This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them: "The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace." ' "So they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them."

This idea of the blessing of the people was so woven into the fabric of the life of God's chosen people of promise, the Jews, that they began to make a specific verbal blessing time to be part of the private family Sabbath meal.

One of the most moving Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath) traditions is the blessing over the children given on Friday night. There are many variations on how the blessing is made. The most common custom is the father walks around the table, puts his hands on each family members' head, and blesses them. Parents, moms, dads, grandparents-if you are alive today it is not too late to start, or restart the habit of blessing those you love.

Start on the way out today, say something that will bless and encourage those around you. In the car, go out of your way to ask for a moment of silence and then say what a blessing your wife, or your children, or your husband, or your parents have been. In fact, what would be best is for everyone in that car to practice telling the others just one simple, small way they have touched your life that you are thankful for.

Shower those you Love With Words of Blessings

Go back in your mind to where we started.

Luke 24:50-53 And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. 51 Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,53 and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. Amen. (NKJV)

Those men would never forget walking with Jesus for 3 plus years, they would never forget Christ's death, burial, and resurrection; but what would be riveted in their minds? It would be that incredible moment of the last time they saw Him here on earth.

Their friend, their Savior, their most precious Lord of all left them in a most touching way.

Jesus lifted up His hands and gave them the most unforgettable expression of His personal love as He touched each of them with His blessing!

Think about that. Jesus was very careful what He did as He left His disciples, and the picture they would have deeply etched in their minds is Christ's loving, prayerful blessing raining down upon them as He was lifted upward and out of sight.

They felt His love. Those words of blessing raining down upon them must have been remembered over and over in the days ahead.

Words have such power for good or evil. What kind of words do you "rain down" upon those you are speaking to? And what are those who listen to your words remembering?

Do they feel your love?

Women of grace who are mothers, have as their second highest priority for life to cultivate a nurturing love that can be felt by their children in a love-less world. Start today and make this the very best Mother's Day of your life!

[1] MacArthur, John F., The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: I Corinthians 13:13, (Chicago: Moody Press) 1983.

[2] Jesus and phileo love are seen in the New Testament as: the love God has for Christ (John 5:20); the love Jesus had for Lazarus (John 11:3, 36); the love God has for us, and that we have for Jesus (John 16:27); the love Jesus had for John (John 20:2); and the love Jesus has for believers (Revelation 3:19).

[3] Enhanced Strong's Lexicon, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1995.