The sermon titled 'The Power of the Single Daughter in the Church' by Scott Brown focuses on the importance of young women in the church and their role in learning, exercising their gifts, and investing their talents. The speaker emphasizes the need for young girls to be constant learners and to focus on the teaching in the church. He also encourages them to identify and exercise their spiritual gifts to strengthen others in the church. Additionally, the sermon highlights the significance of investing one's talents for the glory of God, particularly in the context of the church and the home.

Well, this afternoon I'd like to take a few minutes and give a second deposit on messages to young women. Last week my focus was life at home. This week life in the church. And it is a little odd addressing just young women in a setting like this. I haven't really ever done it until last week, except lots and lots of father-daughter retreats where we're looking our daughters in the eye and preaching to them, those are always a real joy.

But I want to just reiterate what I said in the first session, dealing with the power of a daughter at home and what's a girl to do, how can she be productive? And what I wanted us to do in that last session was kind of look under the hood of the duties and life of a woman, and I gave six examples, and I wanted to make it clear, and I'll make it clear again. God paints targets for both men and women, and He says, put your energy here. And He does it for a blessed purpose. And In the last session, I wanted to try to make it clear that the matter under the hood of biblical womanhood is a transferable objective, and that's taking dominion.

And There's a transferable skill, and that is diligence. And I gave six examples, Adam and Eve, as an example of taking dominion, ruling, and subduing 2nd Priscilla and Aquila, who had a big life together, a church in their house, they were making tents, they were a theological powerhouse in Turkey. And then third, the Titus II woman, fourth, the unmarried woman in 1 Corinthians 7 who is concerned about the things of the Lord. And then finally, not finally but fifth, the instruction to widows in 1 Timothy 5, how they wash the feet of the saints. And then sixth, the Proverbs 31 woman, which really depicts a tremendous life of productivity and effectiveness, focused on her home, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

So I also wanted to make it clear, if you're a young girl in your parents' house, don't obsess about getting married. In a sense, forget about being married, but just be a Christian. Follow the Lord, that will prepare you. Becoming like Christ prepares you for everything you'll ever face. So that's the primary objective.

So I want to give you three things for a young girl in the church. Now you'll recognize these things as being applicable to every single person in the room. But I really want to speak in terms of my applications to young women who are single in the church, but they really are applicable to everybody. I'll give you the three right at the top and then I'll go through them. First, learn.

That's 1 Timothy 2.11. Second, exercise. Third, invest. Well, it's exercise your gifts and it's invest your talents. So, Okay, let's start at the beginning here.

First, learn. First Timothy 2-11 says, Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, but to be in silence. I want to focus hard on that word learn. A woman should be a learner, and I want to be a voice to the young women in our church to accelerate your learning, be filled with the knowledge of God.

This means that a woman, a young woman, should focus herself when she is in this church. Now, we've just had various kinds of instruction this morning. What I'm advocating is that if you're a single daughter, get focused on the teaching. Get focused on learning everything you can. And here's what I pray for, that the young girls in our church would be like on the edge of their seat for the teaching.

Pray about that. If you don't have that heart, then ask the Lord to give you that heart, because God gave the instruction of the church to help you and and he makes a command to women to learn. Let a woman learn. This really gives a sense of what God really desires for women to do at their time. They should be constant learners.

Learn all you can, learn intently, meditate, take the doctrine that you hear, put it into practice in dozens of ways, in your home, with your friends, in your church. Let the doctrine flow out of the way you treat your brothers and sisters, the way you relate with your father and mother. Let the doctrine be adorning your cooking, your talking, your driving, your listening, because daughters were meant to be learners, be a learner. And so I would just encourage you to be very focused on the teaching in the church. Well, let's get really practical.

We just finished listening to a sermon on the law of God. Charles Spurgeon said that explaining the interaction between the law and the gospel is one of the most difficult things to describe. Well you just heard somebody try to do it today. Praise God. There are a lot of really helpful things said.

You know, become, your young daughter, become an expert in the law of God. And you're going to have an opportunity because Mike is going to launch into a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments after giving this introduction. We're studying the gospel of John. Become an expert in the gospel of John. Here's my encouragement.

Why don't you just read the gospel of John from start to finish one day? It doesn't take that long. And really get to know the gospel of John. Become Johannine scholars. You know what a Johannine scholar is?

Well, it's just a fancy way of saying that you know a lot about the gospel of John and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John and the book of Revelation. That's a Johannine scholar. Daughters should work hard at scholarship. You know, for the rest of their lives they will have lots of words to say, and they should be anointed by the Word of God. You know, the most blessed people you can be around are the people who, in whom's speech constantly comes the Word of God.

I love to be around people like that. Be a woman like that. And you do that by starting young and you have an opportunity to do that. Listen, Learn, read. Oh, let's stop on read for a minute.

Some of the most blessed times in our lives happen when we're reading a good book. I would encourage you to read good books. Read the Bible and read really good books. They stimulate you, they move your heart, they give you thoughts that you didn't have before. I was just at lunch talking to some girls, young girls in our church, and one of them was telling me about four books she was reading.

I loved those books. I was so energized by hearing that. And, you know, I'll just say it publicly, send me some great quotes from those books, you know. It's wise to have a good book going and the Word of God flowing in your life. So be a learner.

Set yourself to stimulate your intellect and your spirit by the reading of the Word of God and by acquiring the wisdom that comes from the preaching that happens here. Now I know you have to work really hard to find wisdom from the preaching here. You gotta really scratch, you know, but just scratch as hard as you can. The reality is the more you scratch, the more you get. That's how it works.

Okay? Learn. That's my first exhortation. Be a learner. You know, the kingdom of God shouldn't be filled with a bunch of dumb women who don't know much.

You don't want your women growing up without understanding the Word of God and sound doctrine and theology. It's the thing that will carry them for the rest of their life. So don't let them leave home without it, you fathers and mothers. Number two, exercise. Second.

So the first is learn, the second is exercise. Exercise your gifts. If you're a Christian, you are gifted by God. God gives gifts. Ephesians 4.8, we read, he ascended on high and gave gifts Romans 12 6 that all are having differing gifts first Corinthians 7 7 every man has his gift first Peter 4 10 Everyone has received a gift first Corinthians 12 11 all these gifts work by one Spirit.

Ephesians 4, 11, He gave gifts to men. So all that to say, you are gifted. Exercise your gifts. I want to take us to some passages of Scripture that speak of the gifts of the Spirit. First of all turn to Ephesians 4-11.

He gave gifts to men. I'm sorry Ephesians 4-1. The apostle speaks to that church there, I beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were also called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father who is above all and through all and in you all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore when he ascended on high he led captivity captive and he gave gifts to men." So God gives gifts. Now we should think rightly about gifts. My view of the gifts of the Spirit is that they are the things that God uses in your life to help other people, to strengthen other people in the church. And it's very important that we understand what it means to have a ministry. To have a ministry is not to have a title.

To have a ministry is not to be somewhere in the organizational chart of some structured ministry. To have a ministry is to is to have the Holy Spirit and that's why I've said it many many times in this church I'll say it again. What is your ministry? Your ministry is the next person you meet. Okay?

That's how God works. And He fills you with His Holy Spirit, and then you're able to be a blessing to strengthen others. You know, Paul wanted the Roman church to be benefited by his gift, And in Romans 1, 11, and 12, He said that He wanted to impart some spiritual gift to you. Not that He would have some mystical, oh, I'm going to throw down a gift upon you. That wasn't what he was talking about.

He was saying that he wanted to be a gift and impart some manifestation of the glory of God to them. And he said, to impart some spiritual gift to you. Why? That we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. To have a gift is to have a way to strengthen your brethren.

So young ladies, set yourself to strengthen your brethren. What a wonderful way to live. How about that? What if you were known by the fact that in your heart you wanted to strengthen every person that you came in contact with? That's the use of the gifts.

Here's something I want us to understand. It's not really important to know what your gift is because you're exercising it anyway. Don't worry about what your gift is. Be filled with the Holy Spirit, set yourself to strengthen your brethren, and so ask yourself, who can I strengthen today? Who can I be a blessing to?

We know that spiritual gifting like this can be developed. This is part of sanctification. 2nd Timothy 1, 6 makes that very clear where the Apostle tells Timothy, you know, stir up the gift within you. And there are three lists of gifts in the Bible, and there are two different kinds. Some are word-oriented, having to do with what you say, and some are deed-oriented, having to do with what you do.

So let's go to some texts. First, Romans 12. Romans 12, 6 through 8, The apostle Paul in verse 4 says, all the members do not have the same function. Verse 6, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. And then he makes a list of gifts, prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leadership, and mercy.

Those are all different ways that you strengthen your brethren. Prophecying, my view, is that it has to do with speaking the Word of God to people, bringing the Word of God to bear in a conversation, serving, doing something that's beneficial to others, teaching, giving some kind of instruction. That's helpful. And then you have encouraging and giving and leadership and mercy. So these are different things that the Spirit of God flourishes in your life.

The second text, 1 Corinthians 12, 4 through 11, again he says there are differences of ministries but the same Lord and there are diversities of activities and in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 7 it says that the Spirit was given for the profit of all. So and then he lists various other gifts. He makes a list. I'll give you the list There's the word of wisdom. I think that is the moment That you experience when you get helpful wise counsel from someone The word of knowledge, I think that is helpful information.

Knowledge has to do with knowing something. Then there is the gift of faith, like George Mueller or somebody like that. And there is healing and miraculous powers and prophecies and distinguishing of spirits, which I think is just a particular kind of discernment. And you have these, you have two that are listed here that I believe don't exist in the same way that they did with at the hands of the apostles, healing and miraculous powers. I do believe that God heals, but I don't believe that there are specific healers.

If anyone wants to find one, please bring them to me. I don't think they exist. They're certainly not on television. Speaking in tongues, I believe that was languages that was given so that people could understand the gospel when they heard it. So you have these lists.

You step down to verse 28 and you have helps and governments, in other words, organization, and then diversities of tongues. But the whole idea is that the body gets together and there are various gifts that are working, you know, throughout the church and we need all of them. We need the encouragement, we need the knowledge, we need the organization, we need all kinds of things in the church. And the Apostle Paul makes it very clear that the hand can't say to the eye, I don't need you. We need all of them in the church.

You know, your muscles do very different things than your eyes do, and it's really helpful to have both. And so that's what that is all about. The third text is 1 Peter 4, 7 through 11. I bring this one to bear because there is the issue of stewardship. In other words, you've been given something by the Lord and you have a responsibility to be a good steward of it.

And that's why the apostle says, Above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins, be hospitable to one another without grumbling." Isn't that interesting? Sometimes your loving, gracious act of hospitality causes you to grumble later on. How about that? Has that ever happened to you? As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

Then he says, if anyone speaks, let him speak the oracles of God. This is a manifestation of the grace of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies. That's the person who is serving. It's the same word that we use for deacon, servant.

That in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever, Amen. All this to say, God gives gifts. Young ladies, if you're a Christian, God has gifted you. You know, don't think for a minute that this is like your parents' ministry. This is yours.

You know, you belong to the body of Christ. The hand can't say to the eye, I don't need you. And the young person should not be saying to the old person, I don't need you, nor vice versa. We need one another and we need the youngest members of our church to be exercising their gifts. When you walk in here, I just encourage you, pray that God would manifest His glory and that you would manifest the gifts of the Spirit.

What a blessing. And you know what it looks like. Well, it looks like love joy peace patience kindness Goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control what a church that is With that kind of giftedness running through it Okay first exhortation learn be a learner. Exercise your gifts, number two. Third, invest, invest.

Learn, exercise, invest. Invest your talents. I want to take us to Matthew chapter 25 and speak of the parable of the talents. It's a parable of a businessman who leaves on a long journey and he leaves resources with people. And I'll read part of it here.

Before I read it, I want to define a talent. A talent is something in your life that God gave you that's a good thing. It's a deposit that God made. And I'll go a little further in that in just a moment. Matthew 25, 14, for the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.

And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability. And immediately he went on his journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them and made another five talents. Likewise he who had received two, he gained two more. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground and hid his Lord's money.

After a long time the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents saying, Lord you delivered to me five talents. Look, I have gained five more talents besides them." His Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You are faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things.

Enter into the joy of your Lord." He also who had received two talents came and said, "'Lord, you delivered to me two talents. Look I gained two more talents besides them.' His Lord said to him, "'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your master." Then he who had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

And I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours. But the Lord answered him and said, You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents.

For to everyone who has more will be given and he will have abundance but from him who does not have even what he has will be taken away and Cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth well on the one hand it's a happy story, on the other hand it's a very tragic story. But the heart of the matter is that everyone has been given talents. Everyone has something that God has given to them. They are different, I believe, than spiritual gifts.

These are skills. They may have to do with knowledge and expertise. They may have to do with wisdom. They may be connected with your wealth or your experiences. Everyone has been given something.

Some have cars, some have houses, some have friends, and God expects you to take everything that you have and invest it and use it to multiply it for God's glory. God expects His people to improve everything and really to multiply everything. That's what Christians do. They bear fruit. You know, the status quo is not a biblical strategy.

God desires growth. He desires fruit from us for the good of His church and for the good of others. We have people in our church who are gifted in finance, some in administration, some in organizing, some in writing, some in doing various kinds of things. I could, the list could go on. And you girls, you have skills that God gave you, you have resources that God gave you, You have talents that had been bequeathed upon you by virtue of the life God gave you, and everybody has them.

But there will be a day of reckoning. The way that we use our talents will be accounted for. The books will be opened. So let's examine ourselves and ask ourselves, are we using the talents that God has given us to the full and putting them all in play for the glory of God. You know things discouragement and things like that often really slow down the investment of our talents and the multiplication of them.

You know it's really it's really wise to get rid of your discouragements and just trust the Lord because those things really slow down the multiplication of the things that God has given you. You have time, you have skills. You know, I'm not clued in to what all the young women do in this church in taking their talents and putting them into service. But I know that they're involved in a lot of things, food preparation and cleaning and all kinds of industry happens around here as a result. You know, some of you have marvelous, you know, musical talents in that sense.

You know, the talents can be used in a lot of different places, you know, at Carillon, at the abortion clinic, at various means of evangelism, you know, various ways of edification. You know, over the years, I've been the beneficiary of some of the young single women in our church who will send me book recommendations. They'll tell me about something they read. They might send me a quotation that they know I'll love, because They've heard me preach enough to know what I would love. Sometimes I have received things connected to my sermon.

It's been very helpful to me. These are encouragements. Some of you have the ability to teach younger children, you know, maybe you could do something like that. But it's really important that you understand that you have talents and to put them into service. So My urging is just ask yourself, what has God given me that can be beneficial to the body of Christ?

What skills, what knowledge, what wisdom, what time? You know, Time is a resource. It's a resource that God gives everybody. Everybody gets 24 hours a day, you know? How are you going to use your time?

Okay. Number one, learn. Be a learner and pursue and accelerate your learning, 1 Timothy 2.11. Second, exercise. Exercise your gifts, 1 Corinthians 12.

Third, invest. Invest your talents. Matthew 25. So there you have it. Now I know many of you are thinking, well that applies to me too.

Well that is true, for sure. But I want the young girls in our church to be mighty in the scriptures. I want them to be mighty in service and love and happiness and putting all that God's given them to play in the Church of Jesus Christ. There's no better place to invest your life than the Church. God has given you the Church and the home.

These two institutions are the most important institutions. They are the places where the glory of God's demonstrated, where children are raised, where people are saved and built up, you know, invest in these two massively important institutions. My prayer for the young girls in our church is that they love the church so much and they're willing to put their talents and their learning and their gifts in play. Now by the way, I see that happening and I'm really thankful for it. And again, as I said last time, I'm not bringing a rebuke at all to the young ladies in our church I'm really thankful for the young ladies in our church like super thankful and I I Just see so many good things happening.

So excel still more Will you pray with me? Lord, thank you for giving us your Word to teach us how to live, how to conduct ourselves while you give us years of life. We thank you for the day that you've given us, the hours ahead, that we can enjoy your presence, meditate on your goodness, give thanks for your mercy and your justifying work on the cross, setting us free with no curses hanging over our head. Oh Lord, thank you for that. Amen.