| THE WAY OF A GODLY WOMAN Titus 2:3-5 The Christian message is a simple message. We are all sinners. Our sin separates us from God and brings us under His eternal judgment. But in His love God has no desire to judge us. He doesn’t want to see any person in hell. And so, because of His love, God became a man in Jesus Christ and as a man He died on the cross to pay the full penalty for our sin. And, then, having paid our penalty Christ conquered death in His resurrection and He lives today offering forgiveness and new life to any one who will trust Him as Savior and yield to Him as Lord. That is the good news. That is the gospel. That is the Christian message our world desperately needs to hear. But very often our world doesn’t hear. Sometimes unbelievers don’t hear the truth that can save them because they don’t want to hear. But that’s not always the reason. Sometimes unbelievers don’t hear the truth about Christ because, in the end, our actions speak louder than our words. It’s one thing to hear about God’s grace. It’s another to see that grace at work in you. What good does it do to tell someone that Jesus changes lives if they see no change in us? In the end, it’s not enough to say right words when we share Christ. We must live right lives. That’s what Paul says to a young minister named Titus in Titus 2:3-5. In Titus 2:3-5 the apostle tells the young pastor Titus what he should teach when he teaches the older women in the church. But more than that, Paul tells Titus why he should teach. Paul tells Titus he should teach the older women that they should live godly lives not for their own sake, but for the sake of the Word of God. Listen to Paul as he writes these words in Titus 2:3-5. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. Do you see what Paul says here? Paul says that a woman’s life has the power to change the way God’s word is heard. A godly woman can open ears to the good news about Christ. The life of a careless Christian woman can cause the lost to curse God’s word instead of hearing it. You see, sometimes when unbelievers won’t listen to us it’s not their fault as much as it is ours. Let me say right now that if God’s word is to be respected and heard, Christian men need to live godly lives every bit as much as Christian women. But in these verses Paul specifically talks about the kind of life a woman ought to live so she can enhance the reputation of God’s word. And so it is to the women I primarily speak today. Women, what kind of life should you live? What habits and practices will draw the lost to God and His Word? Let’s begin to answer that question by reading Titus 2:3 Paul writes, Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live… If you are a woman in Christ, this is your primary calling. God calls you to be reverent in the way you live. But what does that mean? Well, in Paul’s day, the word the NIV translates, “be reverent in the way you live” referred to the performance of sacred duties in a temple. And so what Paul is saying is that a woman should learn to live every day of her life with the idea that she is serving God in everything she does. In other words, every thing you do as a woman ought to be done for God. Every word you speak ought to be spoken for Him. This probably sounds like an insane question, but I’ll ask it anyway. When you change a diaper or clean a toilet, do you do it with the attitude that you are performing a sacred duty for God? Think about it this way, your baby is an eternal being. That baby is a person God loves. In the same way, your family is God’s family. When you serve that baby or work for your family, you work for God. And remember that God is interested in your work outside the home as well. When you work well, your work is witness. So when you work, work for Him. Let all your service be service for Him. Now if a woman’s life is to be given in sacred service to God she must reject certain practices. We see that again in verse 3. Paul says, Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Paul says that we can’t live reverently and slander others at the same time. Following Christ means controlling our tongues. If you want your life to count for God stay away from gossip. Don’t listen to it. Don’t share it. If you’re not willing to say something to a person’s face don’t say it at all. In the same way, as a Christian you can’t hold grudges and verbally knife people you refuse to forgive. Here’s the bottom line. Unbelievers shouldn’t only be able to see the difference Jesus makes in our lives. They ought to be able to hear the difference He makes when they hear us talk. Women, and men too, we need to learn to honor God with our lips. But not only must a godly woman reject slander, she must also reject drunkenness. Paul says that a woman who has devoted herself to living for God will not be addicted to much wine. I’m not going to stand here today and tell you that the Bible says a Christian cannot taste a drop of alcohol. It doesn’t. But Scripture clearly says that drunkenness is sin. And it seems to me that the best way never to be drunk is simply don’t drink. There’s one other thing we need to consider. We live in a society in which millions of lives are being destroyed by alcohol. Even if God has given you the freedom to have a drink, you still need to consider if that drink might cause someone around you to stumble or to not be open to your witness about Christ. Now let me speak to the women like I spoke to the men last week. If you’ve got a problem with alcohol or prescription drugs or even illegal drugs, don’t try to hide that from the people who love you. Talk to me about it. Talk to another woman in the church you can trust. Let the church family help you find freedom in Christ. Paul says that as a woman grows older in Christ she ought to live reverently. She ought to live her life in service to God. Her life ought to be free of slander and free of drunkenness. But in living reverently she must not only consider her own life and habits, she must consider the lives of others too. At the end of verse three Paul says an older woman must be a teacher of what is good. And verse four goes on to say, Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. A godly woman is not only a woman who looks ahead and fixes her eyes on Jesus she is also a woman who looks back over her shoulder at those who come after her. The godly older woman knows that being a disciple means discipling younger women. I want you to notice something about the first ten verses of Titus two. In verse one Paul commands Titus to teach the older men. In verse 3 he commands Titus to teach the older women. In verse 6 Paul tells Titus to teach or encourage the younger men. And in verse nine Paul tells Titus to teach the slaves. Do you notice that there is only one group in the whole church that the young pastor Titus is not instructed to teach? What group is that? The young women. In verse four Paul tells the older women to teach the younger women. Teaching the younger women in the church is not Titus’ job! Huh, I wonder why? You know why. It’s dangerous for young men to teach young women. It’s dangerous even for a sincere man of God like Titus. You don’t believe it? In a recent survey of Bible-believing, born-again pastors one out of every 8 of those pastors admitted to committing full-blown adultery with someone in their congregation. One out of every 5 pastors admitted to engaging in some form of inappropriate sexual contact with someone in their church. Those numbers ought to make us all ashamed. Do you know one reason why it’s happening? We are letting young men teach young women when we ought to be encouraging the older women to do that job. Pastors are exposing themselves to temptations they ought not expose themselves to. Now that doesn’t mean that a pastor shouldn’t have contact with the women in the church. But I do think it means that he should not engage in long-term one-on-one teaching or counseling relationship with women in the congregation. Long term one-on-one discipling relationships ought to be between the older women and the younger women. That’s God’s design and it’s a design we need to get back to. It ought to be the goal of every girl and woman in this church to grow mature in Christ so she can help and teach the young girls and the young women of the church. Are you growing in Christ so you can help others grow? That’s God’s plan for every Christian woman in this church. But exactly what are the older women supposed to teach the younger women? Look again at verses four and five. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands… In Paul’s day, far more than in ours, women were expected to be married. It’s not surprising then to see that much of Paul’s instruction for young women had to do with their role in the home. Now, while the social situation has changed some, the general principles of Paul’s commands still remain true for us today. Let’s look first at the command that a woman is to love her husband and her children. Love means commitment. Love means meeting needs. Women, you need to love your husbands even when he’s not lovable. You need to support him. You need to care for him. You need to invest yourself in him. And by the way men, before you get too excited about what I just said, you need to take out your Bible and read Ephesians 5 starting with verse 25. Your responsibility to love your wife is even greater than her responsibility to love you. And then, women, there is the command to love your children. We don’t live in a world that knows much about loving children today. We live in a world that rips babies out of wombs and calls it mercy. We live in a world that defines love as satisfying your child’s every selfish desire and never saying “No”. We live in a world that demonizes discipline and the teaching of self-control. We live in a world where it’s OK to dump toddlers and infants into day care with workers making minimum wage. We’ve live in a world that spouts off some line about “quality” time with children being more important than “quantity” time. Don’t you believe it! Loving children doesn’t mean giving your kids more toys, it means giving them more of yourself. It means sacrificing for them. It means setting aside what you want so they can have what they need. It means hard work. Sometimes it means monotony and frustration. But never forget, it also means joy. But not only are older women called to teach younger women to love their husbands and their children, they are called to teach them to be “busy at home”. The literal translation is “home-workers”. Now does that mean that a married woman cannot work outside the home. No. But here’s the catch. A woman ought not work outside the home if it interferes with her God-given ministry of being a wife and a mother. I know that there are circumstances where a woman has to work outside the home. I’m not talking to those of you who have no choice. But I do believe that a woman with toddlers and pre-schoolers ought to be home with her kids if she possibly can. And shame on you husbands and fathers who push your wives to work because you want more money for more toys. Your children need their mom more than you need a bigger house or a newer car. You betray your family and disobey God when you push your wife out the door to go to work when she doesn’t really have to. But that’s still not all. Paul says that a woman ought to be self-controlled. Do you remember what we said about self-control last week? Self-control means knowing how to say “no” to yourself. If you’re going to be God’s woman you can’t do everything you want to do, say everything you want to say, or have everything you want to have. In addition, Paul says a godly woman must be pure. Moral purity is what Paul has in mind. So are you morally pure? I don’t mean just physically. I mean mentally. What kinds of things do you watch? What kinds of things do you read? A lot of men have problems with pornography. A lot of women have problems with things like soap operas and romance novels. You can’t feed yourself trash and expect to keep your mind morally pure. If you want to be God’s woman you need to examine the books and magazines you read and the TV shows and movies you watch. All of us need to stop tolerating trash. We all need to begin choosing God’s Word over this world’s garbage. Paul also says that a godly woman is a kind woman. Are you kind? How about when you don’t get your way? How do you treat your neighbors? How do you treat your husband? How do you treat your kids? How do you treat your brothers and sisters in Christ? Are you kind? Do you care about others like you care about yourself? And finally Paul says that a godly woman is subject to their husbands. Are you willing to accept your God-given role in marriage? The feminist movement has not changed God’s design for marriage. Marriage is a partnership. But the partner who has the ultimate responsibility to lead is the husband. Wives, do you make it easy for him or hard? Husbands, before you say a thing go back a second time and read Ephesians 5 starting with verse 25. I pray that God would raise up in this church godly women. Older women who can teach the younger women what it means to follow God. And I pray that younger women will learn to hear them and be teachable. Women, do you know that the way you live your life can change the way people hear God’s word? Does your life make unbelievers sit up and listen? Do you live in Christ so they can hear about Christ? God Bless You |
 |