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The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

著者： Aaron Ventura
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 The Local Christendom Podcast is hosted by Aaron Ventura.Copyright 2022 All rights reserved. キリスト教 スピリチュアリティ 社会科学 聖職・福音主義
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  • Sermon: Holy Women - Pt. 3 (Titus 2:5)

    Sermon: Holy Women - Pt. 3 (Titus 2:5)
    2025/10/13
    Holy Women – Pt. 3 Sunday, October 12th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Titus 2:1-5 Prayer O Father adorn our soul with gladness, make our lives to mirror the life of Jesus, who from love for You, laid down His life for us. Conform us now to the image of Your Son, as we hear his word preached, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction A few weeks ago, in our first sermon on Holy Women, we asked the questions, What is beauty? And, What makes something beautiful? In answer to those questions, we said that beauty is that which gives pleasure upon being seen, and we said that what gives pleasure to our sight is the beholding (the apprehension) of three qualities: 1) Unity, 2) Due Proportion, and 3) Splendor. When we see that something is 1) united as an integrated whole, 2) ordered and well-proportioned in all its parts, and 3) that it has good color and appropriate brightness/clarity, we cannot help but say that that thing is beautiful.Now this morning we are going to consider 4 more virtues that God wants the older women to teach the younger women, and which if acquired have the potential to make a woman beautiful in the eyes of God. Those virtues are enumerated in verse 5 of our text and they are: 1) Chastity, 2) Domesticity, 3) Goodness, and 4) Obedience to one’s husband.Now before we consider each of those virtues in depth, I want to highlight why I said that these virtues only have the potential to make a person beautiful in the eyes of God. That is because without Jesus, without genuine love for God as THE REASON WHY you are pursuing these things, no changes you try to make will be of any ultimate value to you. It will not serve your salvation if Christ is absent from your efforts. As we heard earlier from 1 Timothy 2:15, women will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control. That is a big IF. To put it another way, the “trad life” without Jesus is just another way to hell. Conservative politics without Jesus can only get you so far. Yes, we must reject the feminism of our age. Yes, we must oppose the many assaults on the natural family. But recovery of good traditions and family values must be animated by an authentic love for Jesus, otherwise, what we are? We are Pharisees, cleaning the outside of the cup when the inside is still filthy. Or worse, doing what Jesus condemns in Matthew 15:6 when he says to them, Thus have ye made the commandment of God void by your tradition. Christ wants a vessel that is clean inside and out. And how do you clean the inside of your soul? It says in Acts 15:9, God purifies our hearts by faith. Faith is what make all things pure to the pure. It says likewise in Hebrews 11:6, without faith it is impossible to please God. And in 1 Corinthians 13 Paul says, without charity, I am nothing. So you must always keep before your eyes those things most essential, namely the ultimate WHY of your actions, the WHY of your pursuit of chastity, or homemaking, or goodness, and submission. It it’s just because you want to fit in at Christ Covenant Church, okay, but that isn’t the same thing as living faith. Or if it’s just because you want to rebel against the absurdities of our technocratic globalist age, again that is not the same thing as faith working by love. What must motivate our acquisition of new virtues is that we simply want to please God. We love Jesus and want to make him happy. That’s Christianity 101 and we must never forget it. Heaven and Hell hangs on that distinction. And so I want you to hear this sermon within that larger gospel frame. It says in Colossians 1:17 that in Christ all things hold together. Meaning, without Christ, your life, your efforts, will fail and fall apart. So what is the gravitational center of your soul? Is it truly Christ crucified, resurrected, and reigning, or is it your petty self? Is what your words and actions revolve around the Holy Spirit of God, or is it worldly desire? This is the warfare of all the saints between virtue and vice, and this is the contrast Titus 2 is setting up for the Christians in Crete. Paul is describing for them what a life that harmonious with gospel can blossom into. And so with that in mind let us consider these four virtues each in their turn. Again, we read in verse 5, Paul says to Titus. I want the older women to teach the younger women to be chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. So the first virtue we have here is chastity. What is chastity? #1 – Chastity (ἁγνάς, pure, holy) This word chastity comes from the idea of chastising/disciplining your natural desire for pleasure, especially physical or sexual pleasure.To be a chaste woman then is to keep your sensual appetites in subordination to the law of God. This means no adultery, no fornication, no sex outside of marriage, no wanton lustful looks, no ...
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    35 分
  • Sermon: Holy Women - Pt. 2 (Titus 2:4-5)

    Sermon: Holy Women - Pt. 2 (Titus 2:4-5)
    2025/09/30
    Holy Women – Pt. 2 Sunday, September 28th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Titus 2:4-5 Prayer O God of grace, to whom all majesty belongs, bestow upon us now the warmth and radiance of thy heavenly light. Send forth the brightness of thy Spirit into our dark and frigid souls, revive in us again the roaring fires of charity, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction When a girl is young and unmarried, she has all kinds of hopes, dreams, and expectations for what her future “real life” shall one day be. Depending on the kinds of novels she reads or does not read, depending on the kinds of movies and shows she watches or is not allowed to watch, depending on the kinds of stories that capture her imagination in youth, she will inevitably develop some very (either) reasonable or unreasonable expectations for what falling in love will one day be like. Perhaps she imagines her future husband will be handsome, tall, and wealthy. Oh, and a Christian, of course. Perhaps she imagines meeting him when she is just about to graduate college (or high school, depending on the girl). Whenever it happens it is at a time most convenient for her. By then, she is 22 (or 18, or 28, whichever she prefers), she knows who she is (or at least thinks she knows), she’s an educated young woman who has made her parents proud. He has a job and can afford to take care of her, her parents like him. So, they get married. Awhile later they have a child. And then another child. A few more years go by a few more children arrive, and suddenly this formerly young unmarried girl is living that “real adult life” she was always looking forward to. And it is then that the question becomes: How does real life match up with those youthful expectations? Does it meet them? Does it fall short of them (or exceed them)? Is life easier or more difficult than you thought it would be? Whenever reality falls short of our expectations, we are tempted to become disenchanted, discouraged, disappointed. And while that can actually be good for many people who have unbiblical or unrealistic expectations for their life, for the Christian, God intends for us to live a life that is constantly enchanted by the Holy Spirit. This word enchantment comes to us from the Latin incantare, which literally means to sing into. And the idea is that a person can be filled, either by evil spirits, the music of the world, demons, and sorcerers, OR, it can be filled by the Holy Spirit, as Paul says in Ephesians 5:19-20, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is what Christian enchantment is supposed to look like. Moreover, this is what God expects to be normative amongst His holy saints (you and me), not the exception. According to Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, basic Christianity is more like a musical than anything else. And the fact that God gave 150 inspired songs to sing, is proof that this is the case. So what is the soundtrack of your life? What is the music and melody and lyrics animating your soul each day? Is your life enchanted by the beauty of God and His infinite wisdom, or is it bewitched by the things of this world that are passing away? Now I begin with this idea of enchantment, because in our text this morning, Titus 2:4-5, God has 8 specific exhortations for young wives and young mothers. For this class of younger women who are often tempted to become disenchanted, and discontent with their husbands, their children, and their very busy and sleep deprived lives. Marriage and motherhood can be a most romantic and rewarding vocation, if you are virtuous. It can also be a hell of your own making if God is far from your thoughts. And so God, knowing exactly what you need to hear, assigns 8 virtues for younger women to pursue, and which if pursued, shall re-enchant them to a life of joy and thanksgiving in the Holy Spirit. That is the true enchantment God wants for all His people. And so this morning we are going to look at just the first four of these virtues, and then in a future sermon we’ll look at the last four. So let me read again verses 4-5, and recall that these are all things the older women are to teach the younger women. This is the core curriculum for biblical women’s ministry. Verses 4-5 4That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Outline of the Sermon The first four qualities the older women must embody and then teach to the younger women are: 1. Sobriety2. Love for her husband.3. Love for her children.4. Discretion So let us consider these together. #1 – Younger women are to be sober (ἵνα ...
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    38 分
  • Sermon: Holy Women - Pt. 1 (Titus 2:3)

    Sermon: Holy Women - Pt. 1 (Titus 2:3)
    2025/09/23
    Holy Women – Pt. 1 Sunday, September 21st, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Titus 1:15–2:10 Prayer O Father of all goodness, fountain of all life, pour forth now Thy Holy Spirit into our hearts, fill us up again with love for heaven and heavenly things, that we may attain to that vision of You in the age to come, through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen. Introduction Do you know what a beautiful soul looks like? Do you know what spiritual beauty is, and how to acquire it? In 1 Peter 3:3-4, the Apostle begins to answer this question by saying, Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel—rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.Notice that the Apostle describes here two places that beauty can be found. First, there is an external beauty of the body, the hair, the jewelry, the clothing, all things the eye can see. According to the classic definition of beauty, beauty is simply: that which gives pleasure upon being seen. If it delights you when you see it, that is what we call beautiful. We could go further on and discover that there are three qualities that make something pleasurable to our eye, which the best theologians identify as: 1. Unity. 2. Due proportion. 3. Splendor. Where there is Unity of the whole, Due Proportion of the parts, and Splendor in color, when these three come together our eye cannot help but enjoy the sight. That is just how God made us as image bearers, and indeed we image/reflect a God who is the source of every beautiful thing and even beauty itself. All the beautiful things we see down here are imperfect participations of the perfect beauty that God is. Now if physical/external beauty is that that which gives pleasure upon being seen, how then might we define this spiritual beauty that the Bible talks about, which is invisible to the naked eye? I think what 1 Peter 3 and other passages suggest is that spiritual beauty is that which gives pleasure to God when God sees. It says in 1 Samuel 16:7, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. And in Hebrews 4:13 it says, there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. So the God who sees all, knows all, and judges the beauty or ugliness of every human heart, has told us in His word how we may become beautiful in His sight (How we may please Him). And that is what this section of Titus 2:3-5 is all about. It is a guide for the women in the church to adorn themselves with a spiritual and imperishable beauty which is then reflected in their words, their actions, their attitude, and yes even in how they dress and do their hair. And so our focus this morning will just be on verse 3, so let us hear these words again and then examine them in depth. Verse 3 3The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; Outline Here Paul sets down four areas where the older women are to be exemplary in their conduct. And we should notice that all four areas fall under the special domain of the virtue we call temperance/modesty. This also happens to be the virtue most closely connected to making things beautiful. Recall that beauty consists in the unity, due proportion, and splendor of a thing’s form. And what temperance/modesty does to the soul is: 1) Unify the heart’s desires, and gives us integrity (wholeness, soundness in faith) 2) It maintains and keeps the due proportion between what is excessive and what is deficient. 3) It (modesty) seeks what is honorable in every situation and circumstance, and it is that honor/fittingness that gives splendor to a thing’s form. So consider now these four areas Paul speaks of through this lens of temperance and modesty. 1. As regards a woman’s clothing and demeanor, Paul says she should be in behavior as becometh holiness. Some translations have “wearing holy attire.” 2. Second as regards their words Paul says they are to be, Not false accusers. 3. Third as regards their bodily appetites, Not given to much wine. 4. Fourth as regards the content of what they teach to others, they are to be Teachers of good things. So let us take these exhortations one at a time. #1 – In behavior as becometh holiness (ἐν καταστήματι ἱεροπρεπεῖς, in habitu sancto) Some translations have reverent in behavior, or as wearing holy garments, and the idea is that a godly woman is to conduct herself like a priestess serving in the temple of God. Whatever work a woman does at any age, when done for the glory of God, is holy work. As Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:5, it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. So young ladies (especially those at CKA), when ...
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    37 分
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