When it comes to our local church becoming a gospel-forward church, it isn’t going to happen unless we pray, individually and collectively, that God will open our eyes, and free up our time. It means we will start planning gospel encounters with the unconverted. What does that look like? You tell me. I think it can begin with asking leading questions of those God puts in front of you daily, the plumber, the hairdresser, the co-worker. Make a list, and then resolve to find out if those people are Christians. (Don’t wait until you get to heaven to find that out. You need to know now.)

A friend once told me about the time he visited his old seminary in Philadelphia. One professor, long retired, had helped to shape his ministry, and he enquired where he might find him. He was given directions to his nearby home, but as he turned onto the street, he stopped short. There, sitting on the sidewalk, surrounded by neighborhood children, sat the venerable Cornelius Van Til, telling Bible stories about Jesus.
What has that got to do with Reformed missions? Everything.
I say that because missions are about the gospel, and if they are not, they will fail. Indeed, the sooner they fail, the better. When the Philippian jailor asked Paul “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30), Paul did not explain the doctrine of election, or enter into a discussion about how his ideas about church were superior to those of some of those folks back in Jerusalem. Paul wasn’t there to make sectarian proselytes, he was there to bring the good news. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31).
I think the picture of the esteemed professor of Apologetics, down on the sidewalk telling children about Jesus is an excellent reminder about staying on mission. I can’t count the times I have failed miserably to present the gospel, and instead got sidetracked into presenting the superiority of Reformed theology and practice.
Don’t get me wrong. Reformed theology and practice is superior. It can, and should guide our discipleship of new converts, but first there must be new converts. Too often, what we call missions is simply an attempt to attract people who are already converted and, preferably, already Reformed. We are gleaners in the field, not sowers and reapers. So, how do we change that? How do we bring people, not merely to an institution with rules and traditions, but to Christ? Can we really plant Reformed churches this way?
We can, and we must. It starts by being gospel-forward. That means, we stop trying to convert people to the church, and focus, instead, on the conversion of the lost to Christ. There will be a lifetime of discipleship to deal with everything else. Also, unlike the disgruntled visitors from the church down the street, they will have the new convert’s eagerness to submit to Word and Sacraments.
If we would be gospel-forward, that means bringing the good news to the unconverted. How will this change what our mission works look like? Obviously, we will spend less time trying to find that new Reformed family that just moved to town, and a lot more time talking to everyone else. But how, exactly, do we do that? It is obvious that we cannot teach ourselves what we do not know, but we do have sister denominations that are having success planting new churches. We need to study what they are doing, attend their missions conferences, and ask the Lord to open our eyes. I spoke to one missions director who told me they look for church plant opportunities where they can build a congregation of “three to five hundred.” What’s more, “we want that new church to have church-planting DNA,” meaning that church would plant others. It’s obvious that there is more at work here than just gathering in the already-converted.
But wait, should not our existing churches also be gospel-forward? Are we also just waiting for that new Reformed family in town to find us?
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The Christian narrative starts with God, who is eternal, creating the universe. God creates people in his image, with particular purpose, moral codes, and values. Which accounts not only for our normal intuitions, but also explains other religions. Romans 1 says that God gave created things to humanity to be good gifts, and we turned them into gods.

“Actually, we believe that Christianity started at the creation of the world.”
I was going back and forth with one of my friends who was giving his account of why he didn’t believe in any religion. He spoke generally about the age of religions. About how Islam was predated by Christianity which was predated by Hinduism which was predated by various forms of paganism.
This is where I felt that I needed to interrupt him. India is a context where there are many coexisting religions. So there is power in a narrative that not only lays out your beliefs, but the reasons for the beliefs of those who don’t believe like you. And for that, you don’t just need moral systems, you need a cosmology.
Cosmology is just the story of how the world came to be. This matters because it frames all of our other discussions. And because culture is so pervasive, even in our own thoughts, we can assume the secular story without even realizing it. To say that Christianity begins in Genesis 1 is to derail the secular cosmology. It is to respectfully say, “you believe certain things about the nature of the universe that I do not believe, and both of us cannot be correct.”
The secular cosmological narrative goes something like this. There was the Big Bang, which started the universe. As the gas and pieces of rock cooled, they formed into galaxies, solar systems, and planets.
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The woman has an incredible responsibility for the future blessings of her home. She gets the right and the privilege of finding the kind of man who will love her like Jesus loves the church. And once she has found that man, she gets to help, encourage, and spur him on so that everyone and everything her marriage touches will be blessed. Far from being a trophy wife, she is central and critical to the blessings of her home. 

3 The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 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. – Titus 2:3-5 NKJV

Where We Have Been
As you will remember from last time, the apostle Paul used the word blasphemy when it comes to denying God’s view of womanhood. He was saying that if there were any older women, or anyone else for that matter, who was teaching a view of femininity that is contrary to God’s vision, then they have blasphemed God’s Word (a crime punishable by death in the Old Testament). Yeah, God takes womanhood that seriously. 
Instead of blaspheming God’s Word, Paul instructs older women how to come alongside the younger married women in the community. He calls on them to teach the younger women how to love their husbands and their children. Instead of loving them in a purely sacrificial way, which is so common for women, Paul admonishes the young women to become joyful “husband lovers.” Paul’s goal was not for women to slave away in the kitchen and dutifully serve their families as embittered slaves. On the contrary, he was calling women to be the lifeblood of the home. To fill the atmosphere and the aroma of her castle with abundant mirth, overflowing joy, and infectious delight for all who know her. 
These were the first two of seven essential concepts about womanhood that Paul was teaching, and again, we looked at these things in part 1. This week, in part 2, we look at the final five concepts that the older women are to teach to the younger women so that the Word of God will not be blasphemed. 
Supposing you are still here because you would not like the Word to be blasphemed, I say onward. 
#3 Teach Them to be “Moderate”
In addition to husband-loving and child-loving, Paul calls younger married women with children in the community to adopt a moderate lifestyle. The word he uses for sensible in the NKJV above (σώφρων – Soph-ron) really means embracing a life of moderation by living in the middle. He is encouraging women not to find themselves on the polls of things or to live in the extremes but to find her place somewhere in the balanced middle. Paul says if life were like a seesaw, then stand on the pivot point. This contributes to healthy womanhood. 
Now, before anyone can accuse Paul of being a world-class sexist, remember that he just commanded the men to be moderate as well (Titus 2:2). And, when we remember that Paul also gives this character qualification for anyone aspiring to the office of eldership (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8), we should not view this as being peculiar to women, but simply an excellent quality to cultivate for any human. Paul is not saying that men are more moderate and women have some work to do. He says we are all prone to excess, and both genders need work here. 
For instance, Men are disproportionately prone to the kinds of immoderation that lead to risk-taking, aggressiveness, adventure and merry-making, overworking, accumulating shotguns and rare bottles of whiskey (on the gluttony side of immoderation), and neglecting emotional aptitude, communication, relationship-building, and physical health (on the anorexic side of immoderation). While women can certainly be immoderate in these ways, it is far more likely that a woman will struggle with moderation in spending, emotional overexpression, communication, comparison, dieting, perfectionism (On the high side), and isolation, bitterness, and jealousy (On the low side). 
These are generalizations, but Paul’s point in this passage, in particular, is for women to live moderate lives. To be content with that, she has. To avoid excess. To avoid asceticism. To live in the middle. And by doing that, she will live richly and conform to the pattern God has for her. 
#4 Teach Them to be Pure
Along with moderation, Paul encourages younger women to remain pure and chaste in their behavior and life. Like a young virgin who is keeping herself pure for her future marriage (1 Corinthians 11:2), and the man who sets His mind on the pure truths of God (Philippians 4:8), the godly woman will also keep herself pure in mind, heart, and body within her marriage. She will prioritize holy purity with her God. She will weed out sin, give no occasion for the enemy, and offer to her husband the continual gift of tender, loyal, and loving fidelity for a lifetime. This, of course, will bless and build up womanhood. 
#5 Teach Them to be Workers at Home
Some of the strongest language in the Bible has to do with when, where, and how men and women will spend their time. For the man, He must leave the home to gather resources. If he lazily loiters around the house all day, twiddling his thumbs and refusing to go to work and provide for His family, Paul says that man is “worse than an unbeliever” and that he has “denied the faith” (1 Timothy 5:8). Ouch! On the other hand, a wife is called to stay home. And this is not unclear in this text. Paul says if a wife and mother leave their home to join in the rat race, neglecting her house duties, her husband-loving, and all the needs of her children, then she has blasphemed the Word of God. 
The reason Paul speaks this way is because men and women are not the same. We are equal in personhood yet distinct in our roles. As male and female, we have a divinely appointed complementarity in the roles God has given us. 
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