Grace Energized Women – Teach And Model Godliness

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Titus Two Women-03 Teaching Good. Life Models .doc

Women Energized by Grace-03 Teaching Good and Life Models

Titus 2:1-13

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When the Gospel of the life-changing grace of Jesus Christ entered the Roman world of the New Testament, the condition of family life was very bleak. Paganism had all but erased the plans God had left for marriage and the family.

When Christ’s church entered the world sharing His grace, life was very dark. Christian marriages and homes were started in a sin-warped, sin-darkened world of mixed-up marriages, sin-scarred lives, and confused families.

Men didn’t know about their role as men in the home and church; and women didn’t understand their gender-specific roles in the home and at church.

Husbands had never heard about servant leadership, and women had never had gracious, Spirit-energized submission modeled for them by their mothers or anyone else they knew.

The grace that Titus 2:1-13 offered empowered the believers to overcome every level of culture in the New Testament world that was completely antagonistic to the Christian home.

First, the Old Testament Jewish culture had moved away from God’s plan for marriage and the home by expanding the divorce provisions of Deuteronomy 24 to include anything a husband didn’t like. By Christ’s day divorce was commonplace and expected. Many men felt women were only an object to be used. A common prayer that has survived through the centuries contained the following words that reflected the perception of women held in those days: “God, I thank you that I am not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.” Grace taught them to deny this error.
Next, the secular Greek culture that had influenced the world before the New Testament times had decimated women. In Greek society men were allowed to have concubines and consorts and maintained wives for legitimate heirs. Culturally across the pagan world, women were considered to be little more than servants[1]. Grace taught them to deny this error.
Finally, the first century Roman society, built upon the Greek society, plunged the family even deeper into darkness. Divorce became widespread, and as affluence increased, family life decreased. Many women of the Roman world chose to not have children because it ruined the looks of their bodies. Grace taught them to deny this error.

So what plan did God have to penetrate such an antagonistic culture? How would God get His gospel to the furthest corners of the Roman World of Paul’s day? The plan was simple. God said His saving grace would change people from the inside out. Then His grace taught, modeled, and exhibited by Paul and Titus would produce mature believers.

Steeped in such a family-unfriendly culture, men and women who were gloriously saved did not automatically become great wives and mothers, or husbands and fathers. When they came to Christ and were forgiven, God graciously gave them everything they needed to become godly wives, mothers, husbands, and fathers. But, they needed something else. They needed worship services that taught them to believe correctly, and then they needed mature believers to disciple them in how to behave correctly.

Then mature godly women would each find a younger woman in the church and spend time with her teaching her how to change her attitude, her marriage, and her family.

These new believers needed coaching, training, modeling, and encouraging in a one-on-one relationship. Godly behavior is a series of choices; and those men and women had to be nurtured in daily skills that would lead to loving marriages and families.

Modeling seems to be among the big dreams of many young ladies in our culture today. But the best and most rewarding modeling career is with God. The spiritual shape of a woman is what matters eternally, not her physical shape. And, with godly modeling the rewards last forever!

And that is the vital spiritual mentoring ministry which we find captured for us in Titus two.

Christ’s Church Used Coaches in Godly Living

Christ’s church grew into the potent force for changing the world in the quiet, nurturing sessions that Titus two men and women performed in practical discipleship. Just as important as the preaching and teaching of the doctrines of God’s Word was the modeling and nurturing of individual saints through practical hands-on lessons in godly living.

For just a moment please follow along in your Bibles in Titus 2:1-8, as I again read those 12 special character traits for men and women. Then we will go back to our word-by-word look at the Titus two woman of God.

v.1 But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: v.2 that the older men be:

Sober,
Reverent,
Temperate,
Sound in faith,
[Sound in] love,
[Sound in] patience;

3 the older womenlikewise, that they be

Reverent in behavior,
Not slanderers,
Not given to much wine,
Teachers of good things— v. 4
That they admonish

the young women

To love their husbands,
To love their children, v. 5
To be discreet,
Chaste,
Homemakers,
Good,
Obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

6 Likewise exhort the young men

To be sober-minded, v. 7
In all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works;
In doctrine showing integrity,
Reverence,
Incorruptibility, v. 8
Sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you. (NKJV)

When God gets to pick the curriculum for His Church, what does He choose to be taught? He lays down–

The Twelve Characteristics of Women Highly Useful to God

Women who are highly useful to God have these characteristics. The long-term goal of their lives is geared towards being useful to God. Parents who want their children be useful for the Lord begin early on to point their children towards the high calling and great joy of being a Titus two woman and the Titus two man.

The whole goal of a Titus two woman is to train younger women in Biblical, simple-to-measure, Spirit-empowered, love-based living.

Paul did not call for Titus as the pastor to train all the women in these qualities God wanted them to cultivate; rather he called upon the godly older women of Christ’s church. He singles out the women of faith, those who had already learned to love their husbands, learned to love their children, and learned to be reverent, godly, modest and wise, and charged them with seeking out and meeting with every younger woman in the church.

The older women are to have mastered all 12 and the younger women are trained in the last seven.

3a “the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior” (1) Living as a Priest for God.

First the godly character of the older woman in the faith is profiled. Without a reverent lifestyle behaving like a living sacrifice, dedicated to God, none of the rest even matter. That is why Paul starts here first!

Paul first draws a word from the Roman world to capture the entire bearing of these godly role model women in Christ’s church. The Greek word translated “reverent” is used only here in the Bible, and it conveys the idea of priest-like. That word for ‘acting as a representative of a god’ is the word Paul uses to describe the devout and godly character of the Titus two woman. Older women are to live like holy priests serving in the presence of God. Their sacred, personal devotion to the Lord has slowly come to influence every aspect of their lives.

Godly older women have simply taken Romans 12:1-2, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, and Galatians 2:20seriously.

Bodies presented as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God, not conformed to this world, but with transformed and renewed minds, in bodies that are temples of the Holy Spirit glorifying God in your body and spirit, which are God’s; no longer living for me, but Christ living through me.

They have presented themselves to the Lord, they have begun to live life the way God asked them to live—as a walking temple of God, as a consecrated priest of God, as a living sacrifice, and as a bondservant of the Lord.

Godly women Living as a Priest for God;

3b “not slanderers” (2) with Guarded Tongues

Next Paul turns the spotlight on the hardest member of the body to control, according to James, the tongue. Twice in his epistles Paul targets a woman’s habits of her speech, saying it is a spiritual qualifier or disqualifier. Though this is a universal problem we all face, Paul specifically says to women who want to serve Christ’s church, guard those tongues. 1 Timothy 3:11 “In the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.” (NIV)

James 3:2-6 tells us that a tongue out of control indicates a life out of control; and both can cause much destruction. James goes on to note that the source of all wickedness, especially of an uncontrolled tongue, is hell; and it is Satan who is at the root of all gossip, all harmful talk, and all slander. If you are damaging the reputation and ministry of others, you are a tool of the devil.

In fact the word “slanderers” here in Titus 2:3 is diabolos, the very name of Satan used of him 34 times in the New Testament. Satan has been a false accuser and so each time he incites a believer to do so, they are doing Satan’s work. Satan is the ultimate source of all evil, the root of all wrong behavior; and since James says the tongue is capable of causing great evil, Satan is always close at hand.

Godly Titus two women never are to surrender their tongues to the devil.

They are prompted by the Holy Spirit to make sure that what they say is absolutely true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report before they say it—lest they discredit their ministry effectiveness as a godly Titus two woman.

One common type of talk that hurts is called gossip and comes in many forms that all of us, and especially those who earnestly seek to be a Titus two man or woman, should always avoid: malicious talk, rationalized gossip/talk, and “innocent” gossip. This usually starts with proper motives and desires but gets off course with unwise sharing of sensitive information, then curiosity sets in and soon the conversation is far beyond the problem and the solution and has become malicious, slanderous, harmful gossip.

So what should we avoid? Never use our mouth in an un-regenerated way! What should we do? Tame our tongue by the Holy Spirit as His Word richly dwells and permeates all our lives. Why not, like David, make some plans now to change our usage of our tongues?

Here are three great ways to change:

Think first: before starting to say something pause a few seconds and ask are these words–true or false; exaggerated or accurate; healing or cutting; grateful or complaining?
Talk less: it is a biblical fact that the less you talk the wiser you appear. Plan, prepare, concentrate and enrich each opportunity to speak. Make each a time to speak as 1 Peter 4:11 If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.
Start now: like David, ask God to fit you for a word retainer, get braces put on that tongue. Don’t waste your greatest tool.

Godly women, living as a Priest for God, with guarded tongues.

3c “not given to much wine” (3) and No Excesses

The third godly characteristic Paul focuses upon is the self-controlled moderation that is to characterize women of every age in Christ’s church. Godly women are Spirit-controlled in every part of their life. They resist excess in any area of daily life. They are not slaves to any substance, to any amusement, to any fashion, or to any attitude that does not please their Master in Heaven.

Most women in the early church were formerly pagans. Drunkenness was the norm for many women in that society. Drinking was the best way to forget about the problems of being a “slave” to a pagan man who looked upon his wife as a convenience that bore him legitimate children and enhanced his reputation in the community. Because this life was all there is to a pagan, hopelessness led to drunkenness. Paul said that prior to salvation they all were “without hope and without God (Ephesians 2:12).

Coming to Christ changed everything, but old habits are hard to break. The old ways of their husbands would come back, old pains from emotional and physical abuse would resurface, and the temptation to slip back to the intemperance of slavery to wine would grow strong. Lack of physical control of any appetite points to a spiritual immaturity. Both Timothy and Titus were told to beware of women returning to their old habits in this realm of drinking.

Today “not given to much” goes far beyond merely wine. There are so many forms of alcohol never imagined in the Biblical times that can be abused, plus drugs (both acceptable and unacceptable kinds) that can be abused, tobacco that can be abused,, wonderful varieties of food that can be abused, beautiful varieties of fashionable clothing that change with every season that can be abused, housing options, exercise options, recreation options—all that can be abused and become addictions.

There is a generation of believers who have never tasted a drop of alcohol and pride themselves in that choice—while overeating with daily regularity; and both are condemned by God in Proverbs 23:19-21 side-by-side.

Because of Romans 14:15-21 and I Corinthians 8:9-13, we see that though the Bible never forbids wine drinking, our liberty is limited by the consciences of other believers and our testimony to the world. The lesson of temperance is consistency.

We must be cautious of any intemperance; and “not be given to” too much of anything, be it the use of money, the enjoyment of leisure, or the establishment of a house to live in. Whatever we do is to be tempered by the glory of God. He must be the object and focus of all we do. 1 Corinthians 10:31Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. NKJV

“Modern society has elevated fashion almost to the point of idolatry. Clothing stores, newspaper and magazine advertising, and television commercials are like giant billboards that continually proclaim, “We covet clothes.”

Expensive, often ostentatious jewelry for both men and women is becoming more and more prevalent as a means to flaunt material prosperity and glorify self. We are continually goaded to put our bodies and apparel on parade.

Godly women are Spirit-controlled in every part of their life. They resist excess in any area of daily life. They are not slaves to any substance, any amusement, any fashion, or any attitude that does not please their Master in Heaven.

Godly women live as a priest for God; with guarded tongues; and no excesses. Godly women seek to be reverent in their behavior, careful in all their conversations, and never enslaved to anything but Christ.

3d “teachers of good things” (4) with visible integrity

The fourth type of godly behavior in Titus two women is spiritual integrity–godly women live what they teach. They train others in the pattern they have learned. Their walk speaks louder than their talk.

Their life is daily placed under God’s control in all areas: their tongues, their appetites, and their habits. They do not overindulge themselves, they are not overweight gluttons, they are not pleasure-hungry, and they are not malicious talkers.

These godly older women were noble in everything, and in the way they lived life they taught by their actions what is good!

Titus 2:3 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. NIV

Paul always stressed preaching and teaching what he was already living. In his instructions to Timothy he said:

1 Timothy 4:16 Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things; for as you do this you will insure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. NASB

Titus was to encourage these older women to develop a ministry of teaching younger women what is good.

Younger women with children were to keep their primary focus at home (see Titus 2:4-5), but the older women would do well to reach outside their homes and share what they had learned with those who would profit from it most.

A godly woman teaches by her life what is good in God’s sight. She carefully chooses the “better part” as Mary did in contrast to Martha. Titus two women see every area of their lives as an open book that should and does teach Christ’s gracious Lordship. They can say as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 11:1 “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” NKJV

And who is an older woman? Technically, in this passage it was a woman who was past raising her children. Some commentators even say the age of sixty, as Paul does in the widow’s list of I Timothy 5. But in reality there is no chronological age given.

For every woman in this church there are some older and some younger. To those older, you are to look and see if they are an example of Christ—if they are, ask them to show you what they have learned and how they do it. For those who are younger, you are to seek to get into their lives and help them bring every area of their lives under the gracious Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Every young lady and woman in this church should have as their highest desire the goal of being first a Titus two student of some godly older in-the-faith woman. And, the highest honor, the greatest goal in the life of every older woman in this church is to have the honor of being that older woman-in-the-faith.

If you have children, that is where you must start. If they are grown and gone, ask God to begin filling your lives with younger women into whom you can prayerfully pour the love and wisdom of Christ gleaned from His Word and by your years of walking in the Spirit!

Every godly woman has the opportunity to teach the younger generation of women in the church. This instruction is to occur in informal settings, such as one on one, small groups, or women’s Bible studies. And this instruction is both by word and example. Many young women today were not raised under a biblical family model. That’s a challenge for the older women in the church.

Godly women seek to be reverent in their behavior, careful in all their conversations, never enslaved to anything but Christ, and teaching by example the way to follow Christ.

Godly women live as a priest for God; with guarded tongues; and no excesses; with visible integrity.

v.4a “that they admonish” (5) as earnest mentors

This one word is variously rendered into four different English words by the top four versions: “teach” (KJV); “admonish” (NKJV); “train” (NIV); and “encourage” (NAS). The context and the word imply that this was to be a process of teaching, explaining, encouraging, training, and holding the young wives to a standard that was unfamiliar to them and yet vital for the success of their marriages and families.

One of the strongest forces for spiritual ministry in the local church lies with the older believers. Those who are retired have time for service. It is vital that we mobilize and use these important people. In my own 30 years of pastoral ministry, I have been constantly helped and encouraged by godly older saints who knew how to pray, how to teach God’s Word, visit, troubleshoot, and help edify Christ’s church.

In teaching what is good they “encourage the young women” (Titus 2:4). This opening phrase ofTitus 2:4 “that they admonish” is one Greek word in Paul’s letter, the word is sophronizo and means, “to train someone in self-control, restore to senses, admonish and exhort earnestly.”

“You will note the similarity of this form to characteristics of elders, “prudent” (1 Tim. 3:2), and older men, “sensible” (Titus 2:2). Older women are to train the younger women to learn the art of self-restraint. This training process requires that you older women be committed to being responsible, confrontive, and affirming in an ongoing relationship with a younger woman.”

The first four spiritual qualities are all present to make this quality work. God wants a godly woman whose life speaks louder than her words. A woman whose character is noticed prompts other women to examine their own lives and seek to emulate her joy, her peace, her walk in the Spirit in evident and practical ways. The Titus two older woman-in-the-faith’s life is a pattern for others to use in shaping their own lives.

So the older-in-the-faith, godly women of the church were:

To behave like holy priestesses of the Almighty God,
To show restraint and discipline of appetites and words,
To live what they speak so that the younger women want to learn from them how to live and please God in their lives and families.

So what was their very first lesson? Training younger women in loving their own husbands!

Godly women live as a priest for God; with guarded tongues; and no excesses; with visible integrity; as earnest mentors

4b “the young women to love their husbands” (6) Wives who are their husband’s best friend

A Christian home in a pagan culture was a radically new thing.

Young women saved out of paganism needed to get accustomed to a whole new set of priorities and privileges; and those who had unsaved husbands would need special encouragement.

The Titus two Models had the responsibility of training the younger women how to be successful wives, mothers, and housekeepers; and the younger women had the responsibility of listening and obeying.

Among the Bible believing women of the first century, there was a big challenge in “loving” their husbands. For various reasons and in various degrees those women found themselves with either minimal or no “feelings of love” for their husbands. Believing wives almost always want to obey the Lord, thus they submit and fulfill their responsibilities to their husbands—but often only dutifully and not lovingly. It’s not just that loving your husband is a virtue, Paul says that not loving him in a way that he can feel, is a sin!

In Paul’s day, men and women were saved out of a culture where romantic love usually did not exist in marriages. Wives were only seen as the trusted keepers of the home and bearers of the children. Emotional love, psychological needs, and sexual desires were satisfied outside of marriage by most husbands. The opportunities for illicit sex in the Roman world were endless. For most women this was in some ways a relief as they did not have to “perform” sexually on a regular basis for their husbands. But the emotional super-glue that the marital relationship produces was thus absent. Salvation stopped the immorality in most believing men’s lives back then, but salvation did not make them or their wives instantly close, intimate, and life-sharing friends and lovers.

Just as modern pre-marital moral laxity has scarred many young couples into a troubled, often superficial marital relationship, so were most of the marriages of the New Testament church. What was Paul’s Spirit prompted answer? What was to be the way to solve the distant, detached, and constantly tempted husband daily buffeted with the overpowering allurements of the flagrantly immoral Roman culture?

Christ led Paul to deploy a legion of older-in-the-faith, godly women to go from house to house, become a close and trusted friend of those young wives, and train them in how to become their husband’s best, closest, dearest, and most intimate friends.

Physical or sexual love without romance is soon empty and meaningless; and as Solomon (who had a lot of experience) said, soon becomes “Like gravel in the mouth” (Proverbs 20:17). Paul knew that to protect those newly believing husbands and fathers from the tidal waves of temptation, they must have a vibrant, attractive, satisfying emotional and physical relationship with their wife. Husbands who are drawn to think about and want to see their wife throughout a day away from home, are protected from attraction and distraction by a wicked world about them. Loving, caring, romantic wives are trained not born.

The key to understanding this bold new dimension of the early church’s training is in the word Paul uses for love. Every believer has already repeatedly been commanded to “love” with agape love, which is an action. We are commanded to act in a loving way towards each other, our saved and unsaved friends, and even our enemies. This agape love is not a feeling, it is an action. Paul explains agape love in Ephesians 5:25 and Colossians 3:19 as a husband acting towards his wife in the same self-sacrificial way as Jesus loving the church.

Women were also commanded to obediently submit respectfully to their own husbands (Eph. 5:22;Col. 3:18). Peter adds that they were to cultivate a gentle and quiet spirit that was beautiful to God and of immense value in the marriage (I Peter 3:4). This was the reciprocal relationship of a godly marriage on a behavioral level. The commanded attitudes and behavior of believers in marriage is the foundation and the formula for a Christian marriage. But soon it gets back to dutiful, obedient, often unemotional, and detached relationships. So Paul says that it was imperative to go further. Titus is given the key to flourishing marriages and homes—train the younger women in how to cultivate a loving friendship (phileo) with their husbands. This is emotional love.

Agape love is never used in the Bible to describe sexual love or responsibility because emotional love can’t be commanded. The beautiful, intoxicating love that God designed for marriages to have sexually is emotional and those emotions can’t be commanded. We can’t make someone feel a certain way; we can command them to “do” something but not “feel” a certain way. Genuine, Biblical, marital, sexual love is emotional intimacy in the highest degree. God commands willful, agape love; but the emotional phileo love of friendship and sexual intimacy can’t be commanded—it must be learned.

When the younger women saw how the older women loved, respected, admired, and were best friends with their husbands, they were drawn to see that close and intimate friendships with husbands were possible and very profitable for daily life. They learned how to encourage their own husband, how to build him up, how to surprise him with their affections, and how to cultivate a life-long growing and deepening friendship.

“Younger women” refers to those women who are able to bear children or are still rearing children. Since women can bear children well into their forties and the main duties of raising a child last for about twenty years, a woman under sixty could be considered young in the biblical sense (1 Tim. 5:9).

What qualities ought to characterize her life? Love their husbands: One word in the Greek text, philandrois is translated “love their husbands.” Paul used the same terms to describe godly widows (1 Tim. 5:9). It means to be a woman totally devoted to one’s husband. Some women say that their husbands are no longer lovable; but having that attitude is disobedience to the clear Word of God. To help your attitude, keep in mind that loving your husband doesn’t mean you’ll always feel the rush of emotion that characterized your love at the beginning of your relationship. Marriage is a contented commitment that goes beyond feelings to a devotedness—to a level of friendship that is deep and satisfying. If you don’t love your husband, you need to train yourself to love him. Serve him kindly and graciously day by day and soon you will make such a great investment in him, you will say to yourself, I’ve put too much of myself into this guy not to love him! It is a sin to disobey this command.

The best way to fill a home with joy and peace is to have a husband and wife who are best friends–intimately, emotionally, and spiritually.

What are some practical steps a Titus two woman mentoring a younger woman in the faith would teach? Here would be some wonderful starters:

Decide that you will make your own husband your number one most important human relationship of life over your parents, brothers, sisters, and friends.
Start to seek your husband’s friendship and love ahead of all other human relationships, including your children.
Begin examining your lifestyle and schedule to see if you are intentionally “spoiling your husband rotten” if you are doing so as a way of life, then you can be sure that you are his best friend and are truly “loving” your husband.

Here are some habits to cultivate to keep on in your love for your own husband:

Pray for your husband daily.
Plan for him daily things like: special acts of kindness, special dinners, special times alone, special meals alone, early bedtimes for the children, going to bed at the same time.
Prepare for him daily: prepare your heart with being clothed with God’s love; prepare the house; prepare your appearance; prepare your greeting; set the table; clear out all visitors; stay off the phone; pray for his arrival.
Please him daily.
Protect your time with him.
Physically love him, let him know that you are available at any time that would please him.
Positively respond to him.
Praise him.
Pray without ceasing

The classic book on Christian marriage by Ed Wheat summarized the marriage God wants us to have in four rules to be followed contained in the acronym BEST. For the best marriage possible live God’s way by a series of small choices: Blessings, Edifying, Sharing, Touching. Wheat defines these areas as:

Blessing: means to speak well of your husband or wife, show kindness towards them, express gratitude and thankfulness for all they do, and pray for God’s richest blessings upon them.
Edifying: means to build them up. A husband does this by praying for his wife; and the wife does this by seeking to respond in a positive way towards her husband.
Sharing: means always looking for how to do things together like—listening to each other, admiring each others accomplishments, learning more about each other’s likes and dislikes, investigating ways to please each other, and finally reporting on your day to each other so they share your life.
Touching: means to just like to be as close to the one you love as is physically possible. Either remember what you were like when you were dating your wife, or notice some young couple headed towards marriage. They intentionally just can’t stay apart, they laugh, talk, look at each other, hold hands every moment possible, sit as close together as possible, and so on. At that stage they can face any problem and go on because they are so strengthened by the warmth and depth of their love.

God commands us in Proverbs to be intoxicated by the love of our partner (Proverbs 5:18-19). If you are married and not intoxicated by the love of your partner, you are missing the best marriage possible.

Go back and by God’s grace rekindle the blessing, edifying, sharing, and touching that always builds a strong, close, encouraging partnership for life. Be a beacon of Christ’s love reflecting to an empty and hopeless world that true love is possible and can be shared for as long as you live.

The greatest priority in a home should be love. If a wife loved her husband and her children, she was well on the way to making the marriage and the home a success. In our Western society, a man and a woman fall in love and then get married; but in the East, marriages were less romantic. Often the two got married and then had to learn to love each other. (Eph. 5:18-33 is probably the best Scripture for a husband and wife who really want to love each other in the will of God.)

Godly women live as a priest for God; with guarded tongues; and no excesses; with visible integrity; as earnest mentors of– wives who are their husband’s best friend.

[1] Demosthenes (384 BC to 322 BC) wrote, “We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure, we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation, and we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and being faithful guardians for our household affairs?” The Biblical family also faced the challenge of feminism as “women desired to do everything men did, some women went into wrestling, sword fighting, and various other pursuits traditionally considered to be uniquely masculine, and increasingly took the initiative in getting a divorce”. MacArthur, John F.,The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Ephesians 5, electronic edition (Chicago: Moody Press) 1983.

Transcript

Turn to Titus chapter 2. In fact, if you want to look at the chapter backward, it starts and ends with the same idea. Look at verse 15. Paul tells his son in the faith, his mentored young pastor friend, Titus, this. Verse 15, speak these things, exhort, rebuke with all authority, let no one despise you.

And then he started in verse 1 with the same idea, but as for you, speak the things which are proper. He said, this is so vital. This was God’s plan for penetrating the dark Roman culture of mixed up everything. He said, I want you to go out empowered by my grace. That’s verses 11, 12 and 13. And see these people deny their whole culture, deny their whole upbringing, deny the whole way they were raised, and go my way.

This is a very exciting passage. It’s not just for the older women that we’re looking at, verses 3, 4 and 5, it’s for all of us. And I would encourage you, if you’ve never looked at Titus 2, as your marching orders for how we are to take the Gospel out and transform the world, one person at a time, that maybe the Lord will stir your heart in that way.

When the Gospel of the life changing grace of Jesus Christ, that’s verses 11, 12 and 13 of chapter 2, entered the Roman world of the New Testament, the conditions of family life were very bleak. In fact, the family was very much under attack, more so than even in our day, in the ancient paganism of the Roman world.

That paganism had all but erased the plans that God had left for marriage and the family. And when the church of Jesus Christ was deployed into that world and began sharing His grace, Christian marriages and homes began to be started. Now think about this. In a world where sin had warped the very culture, where sin had confused and messed up the very people that were supposed to establish these Christian homes, and into a sin darkened world of mixed-up marriages, and sin scarred lives, and confused families, the glorious, gracious work of Jesus Christ began. Men didn’t know their role as men in the home and the church. Women didn’t understand their gender specific roles in the home and the church. Husbands had never heard about servant leadership.

Women had never even seen or heard about the gracious, Spirit-energized submission that was to be modeled for them by their mothers or anyone else they knew. They had not had that exposure. So, how did Paul deal with that? Sounds like our modern day, doesn’t it? As the Gospel goes out. The grace that Titus 2:1-13 offered empowered the believers to overcome every level of the culture that the New Testament world surrounding them had begun to be. This culture, antagonistic, and they had to overcome every level of culture antagonistic against the Christian home, and the Christian family. Sometimes we don’t think about how hard it was. We so often are myopic. We think of our own world and all of our struggles. They had just incredible obstacles to the Christian home. And I think about the history.

First, the Old Testament Jewish culture. That’s, remember, where the Gospel began, right there in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria. In the Holy Land. The Old Testament Jewish culture had moved away from God’s plan for marriage and the home. They had expanded the divorce provisions of Deuteronomy 24 to include anything a husband didn’t like.

So, they could get a legit temple approved divorce for anything. And the stories are unbelievable to read about. Anything from burning the toast, to not looking pretty enough. They just divorce them. By Christ’s day, divorce was commonplace and expected. Many men felt that women were only an object to be used.

And a common prayer that survived through the centuries contained the following words, which really reflected the culture’s perception of women. And this was the prayer. God, I thank you, I’m not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. Grace taught those believers to deny that ungodliness and improper belief.

Secondly, the secular Greek culture, and that’s what Alexander the Great had basically imposed upon the whole civilized world, it had influenced the world before the New Testament times and decimated the place of women. In Greek society, men were allowed to have concubines, consorts, maintained wives, only for legitimate children.

That was the culture. You had a legitimate wife for legitimate heirs, for legal purposes, but that’s it. And culturally, across the pagan world, women were considered to be little more than servants. But grace, God’s grace, taught the early church to deny that error. Finally, In the first century Roman world, like Crete was a part of the Greco Roman world of the first century.

The first century Roman world and that society, which had been built upon the Greek society, plunged the family even deeper into darkness. Divorce became widespread. And as the affluence the great materialistic Roman culture, with all of its conquests and all the wealth, as it increased, as affluence increased, family life decreased, and many women of the Roman world chose to not even have children because it would ruin their looks of their bodies.

And so, grace, again, taught them when they were saved to deny this error. So, how would you reach a culture like that? How would you reach a culture that had the Bible and turned from it? That had this Greek influence, this paganism that said the family is nothing and that you’re just to live for pleasure.

And then the Roman society that promoted the total dissolution of family and marriage with serial divorce. What was God’s plan? To penetrate such an antagonistic culture. How would God get His Gospel to the furthest corner of the Roman world of Paul’s day? The plan was simple. Titus 2 says, God would pour out His saving grace.

His grace would change people from the inside out. See, that’s the wonderful Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s not getting enough external influences on a person to prop them up and change them. It’s not getting them to enough classes and with enough support that finally they’ll be propped up and they can become a little pillar in society.

It’s an internal life transformation. It’s God giving us a new operating system. A new heart. And so, God says, I’m going to pour out my grace and change people from the inside outward. And I’m going to transform society that way. And God’s plan was His grace would be taught, modeled, and exhibited by Paul and Titus.

And that would produce matured believers. But it didn’t stop there. That’s how we got to this. It wasn’t the professional level, the professional missionary church planter, Paul, that was heavily involved in what needed to be done. It wasn’t his just specially trained Titus his top lieutenant.

It moved down from there right into the very individual lives of the church. And that’s what we’re seeing in verses 3 and 4. What individual godly believers, particularly women, were supposed to do to influence the culture. Because steeped in a family unfriendly culture, men and women who were gloriously saved did not automatically become great wives and mothers, or husbands and fathers.

You think about that. They didn’t just listen to Paul’s sermon and say, Yes, I want Jesus and then walk out being this perfect, exemplary husband, and father. It didn’t happen that way. It doesn’t happen that way today. It’s a process from the inside out of us learning, Titus 2:11, to deny ungodliness.

And so, they were being taught what they needed to deny. And God graciously gave them everything they needed to become godly wives and mothers, husbands and fathers. But they needed something else. After their salvation, they needed regular gathering together in the corporate meetings of the church, the worship services.

And they needed to be taught, and they needed to worship, and they needed to have proper doctrine. But it didn’t end there. This passage takes us to the next level. The level where everyone participates. They needed the gracious, life changing work of the Spirit of God in marriages and families to be lived out and modeled for them.

And that’s what this chapter is about. Godly mentoring, modeling, disciple making of individuals. And Paul tells Titus to call for matured believers to disciple these new converts in how to behave correctly. Not just believe right. Behave on a daily level. Those mature godly women would each find a younger woman in the church.

They would spend time with her, teaching her how to change her attitude, her marriage, and her family. These new believers needed coaching. They needed training. They needed modeling. They needed encouraging in a one-on-one relationship. Godly behavior is a series of choices. And these men and women had to be nurtured.

In the daily skills that would lead to a loving marriage. Can you imagine in a dark world how bright a loving husband wife relationship would be? How radically just transformational it would be to have a mother that had this godly home in the midst of a pagan, dark culture. See, this was a groundbreaking move to go into specifically the island of Crete with its history of human sacrifice and horrible paganism.

And many Bible scholars believe that those mean old Philistines, as in Goliath of Gath, were the Sea Peoples that had left Crete and invaded the Holy Land in the 14th century B.C., and the 15th century B.C., and the 13th century, and became those Philistines. So, if you want to know what Titus’s congregation was, think of Goliath, okay?

That’s who he was facing with. The relatives, the forebears, the ancestors of Goliath and the Philistines were the people that were still living on Crete. And he says, I want to change this island, one person at a time, as God’s grace pours into their life. And all of a sudden, as they began to be mentored in the grace of God lived out in a marriage, in parenting, in a home, and in life of that society. Modeling seems to be among the big dreams of many young ladies in our culture today. But the best and most rewarding modeling career is with God. The spiritual shape of a woman is what matters eternally, not her physical shape. And godly modeling with God gives rewards that last forever.

And that’s the vital spiritual mentoring ministry we find captured in Titus 2. Christs’ Church using coaches in godly living. And that church from Crete and across the ancient New Testament world grew into the potent force for changing the world in those quiet, nurturing sessions that Titus 2 men and women performed in practical discipleship.

Just as important as Titus’s preaching and teaching the doctrines of God’s Word were the modeling and nurturing of individual saints through the practical hands-on lessons that these older men, and older women, were to perform. For just a moment, I want you to follow along. We’re going to read Titus 2 again.

And I’m going to emphasize again the list. And we’re going to cover all these eventually. We’re going to especially look at the older women part. That’s where we still are. But Titus 2, verses 1 on down through the chapter. Starts with older men, then goes to older women, then goes back to the young women, and then back to the young men.

But wherever you are in your spiritual pilgrimage, these are the elements, the characteristics, the lifestyle God’s looking for. Verse 1, Titus, Paul says, But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine, that the older men be, here’s the list, sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, and then understood, sound in love, and sound in patience.

So, there’s the men’s list. Verse 3, the older women likewise, that they be, number one, reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given too much wine, teachers of good things. Verse four, that they admonish, it’s not enough just to have this character, you, to be a godly woman, you’ve got to go a step beyond and start modeling that in someone’s life.

Not knowing it, not talking about it among your peers, but actually deployed. That they admonish younger women. See, that element makes that godly woman. It isn’t just that she’s got this somewhere in her life. She goes into and penetrates into the life of a younger woman. That’s the final one, the wrap that makes that godly older woman.

She gets into the life of a younger woman. Here’s what she teaches, in the middle of verse 4. The younger women are taught to love their husbands. That’s the number one, first of all, priority. That will change everything. That changes a society. That changes a home, a family, a marriage. That changes a whole culture.

When women truly, biblically, not agapao. This is not the 1 Corinthians 13 love. This is phileo. This is being best friends. Would most women in this church say that their husband is their best friend? In conversation. Is that normal, to have that type of relationship? That’s what they were to be trained in. To be loving, phileo, best friends with their husband. Secondly, to love their children. Verse 5, to be discreet. That’s the third element. Chaste, the fourth element. Homemakers, the fifth element. Good! And finally, number seven, obedient to their own husbands. Why? Why should they love their husbands and children and be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, and obedient to their own husbands?

Why? The end of that verse, 5, that the Word of God may not be blasphemed. When families, when individuals, when younger women are not this way, the culture blasphemes the God we say we serve. Finally, verse 6. Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober minded, verse 7, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works, in doctrine, showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, verse 8, sound speech that cannot be condemned.

Why? That the one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you. Let’s bow for a word of prayer. Father, I pray that Your Word would sink deeply into our hearts. And that, especially that older women those who know You, and have walked with You, and love You, and have offered themselves reverently back to You to be Your servants, I pray that they would be stirred in their hearts to not allow any more time to go by without them prayerfully finding a younger woman, to pour the grace they’ve experienced in their life and home and marriage into another’s life.

And I pray that You would raise up a wonderful moving of godly older women across every part of this fellowship, mentoring the younger women in loving their husbands and their children and living this life that is such a light in our dark world. And we’ll thank You in Jesus’ name, for what You do, through Your grace, we pray. When God got to pick a curriculum for His church, this is what He chose to be taught. And what He chose to be taught are twelve characteristics for highly useful women. These twelve characteristics for the older women and the younger women are what God says will make you highly useful for me.

Now all that really matters in life is whether we’re useful for God. It’s not so much whether we accomplish anything or possess anything, because all that will pass away. The only thing that will make it through the fire of the judgment seat of Christ is what in our life was useful for God. What brought Him glory.

So, we need to rethink our priorities and our time commitments and what we dream, and invest in, and whether or not the characteristics that make women highly useful for God are present in your life. Women who are highly useful to God have these characteristics. The long-term goal of their lives is geared toward being useful to God.

They measure their priorities and their time and their resources by how can I make myself most useful to God? And that colors and that predicates all that is done. Parents who want their children to be useful for the Lord begin early on to point their children toward the high calling and great joy of being a Titus 2 woman or a Titus 2 man.

It’s a great passage to memorize. It’s a great passage to ponder. It’s a great passage to work through with your wife and with your daughters and with your son. It’s so important. The whole goal of a Titus 2 woman is to train younger women. Train them in Biblical, simple to measure, Spirit-empowered, love-based living.

It’s amazing. It’s so easy to get up in the kind of the ethereal things and neglect the reality of everyday life. In fact, if you look at most of the elements of the fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of the flesh, the majority of them are involved in interpersonal, either positive interpersonal relationships or negative.

The fruit of the flesh is all the manifestations of the flesh in interpersonal relationships. That’s the reality of the Christian life, is how we behave toward one another. Paul did not call for Titus as the pastor to train all the women in these qualities God wanted him to have cultivated. Rather, he called upon the godly older women of Christ’s church.

He singles out the women of faith, those who had already learned to love their husbands, who had learned to love their children, who had learned to be reverent and godly, modest and wise. He charged them. was seeking out and meeting with every younger woman in the church. And what did he tell them to do?

Look at verse 3. Reverent in behavior. What does that mean? What does it mean to be reverent in behavior as an older woman? The character of this older woman in the faith is profiled. And what Paul says is, to Titus, unless this first characteristic is there, the rest won’t matter. Your life speaks so loud if your lifestyle is not reverent.

That word reverent is a very unique word. Paul drew it from the Roman world to capture the entire bearing of these godly role models. The Greek word reverent is used here, and only here in the Bible, to describe this priest-like behavior. This idea of a total dedication as the servant of God.

Godly older women have simply taken into their hearts the commands of the Scripture. Their bodies are presented as living sacrifices. Their behavior is holy and acceptable to God. Their lives are not conformed to the world. Their minds are transformed and renewed by the Word. Their bodies are walking temples of the Holy Spirit.

Their actions are glorifying to God, both in their body and their Spirit. They realize they’re owned by God and don’t belong to themselves. They no longer live for me, but it is Christ living through me. And that’s basically the message of Romans 12:1-2, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and Galatians 2:20. These godly older women have presented themselves to the Lord.

They’ve begun to live life in the way God asked them to live. As walking temples of God. As a consecrated priest of God. As a living sacrifice. As a bondservant of Christ. Godly women living as priests for God. Remember how Peter described us that we’re a kingdom of priests? Paul’s just, for a moment, targeting one sector of the kingdom and he says, Godly older women are reverent.

They’re living sacrifices, walking temples, of God. Now this isn’t a select few, this is the calling of all women to desire to be reverent, living as a priest for God. The second part of verse 3 says that they are not slanderers. That means they have guarded tongues. Right after that, reverent behavior.

Right after that behavior that is like a priest of God is what comes out of their mouth. That’s the second area. Paul says, you’ll be discredited from your ministry if you do not have a guarded tongue. In fact, the word, slanderers, Paul turns the spotlight on the hardest member of the body to control, according to James, which is the tongue.

You can always tell what part, or what level of maturity someone has, whether or not they can control their tongue. Specifically, whether their tongue is used for slander. Now, you remember what this word is? It’s used 34 times in the Bible as the proper name or description of Satan. It’s the word, diabolos, slanderer, the devil.

So, what you could say is, verse 3, that they are to be reverent in their behavior, not devils. That’s literally what it says. Not devils. Not bedeviling people with their tongues. Not using their tongues to criticize and to cut and to slander other people. Paul specifically says to women that want to serve Christ’s Church, guard those tongues.

He said it earlier in 1 Timothy 3:11, he said, in the same way, the wives, in the context of the spiritual leaders, are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers. Why is he harping on that? The very first epistle in the New Testament Church was the epistle to the church of Jerusalem and to the wider scattered tribes of Israel by James in that epistle emphasized the power of the tongue.

James says that the tongue is like a fire. It’s like a flamethrower. Remember World War II saw the use of the flamethrower which turned the tide in the Pacific battle and really helped with those embedded enemy positions. They threw flames. It was started in World War I, but perfected in World War II. You know what? Flamethrowers have been around ever since the beginning. Because when we use our tongue, without the guarded nature of the Holy Spirit in our lives, they become, our tongues become, flamethrowers. And this is what James says. He says a tongue out of control indicates a life out of control. And both cause much destruction. And James, chapter 3, goes on to note that the source of all wickedness, especially of an uncontrolled tongue, is Hell. Satan. That’s what he says. He says, and it, the tongue that’s out of control, is set on fire by Hell. So, if you think about it, it is Satan who is at the root of all gossip, all harmful talk, and all slander.

And if you are damaging the reputation and ministry of others, you are a tool of the devil. And not a godly example. That’s what he’s saying. He says, watch out. You can have the position if you don’t have the behavior. You need to stop and change. No slander. No unguarded tongues. In fact, that word slander, diabolos, the very name of Satan, is used most often in the New Testament for him.

Satan has always been a false accuser, so each time he incites a believer to do that, they are doing Satan’s work. Satan is the ultimate source of all evil. He’s the root of all wrong behavior. And since James says the tongue is capable of causing great evil, Satan always is looking for a spare tongue to use for his purposes.

Godly Titus 2 women never are to surrender their tongues to the devil. They are prompted by the Holy Spirit to make sure that what they say is absolutely true, always honest, always just, always pure, always lovely. It says a godly person, you ever read Psalm 15? You know what it says? A godly person has a rule that they live by.

They never take up a reproach against their friend. They don’t take something hanging out there and grab it. They say, no, have you talked to them about that? I can’t accept that. You can’t tell me that. Until you go to them. And after you’ve gone to them and you haven’t resolved it, take me with you and go to them.

But I won’t listen to you tell me that. You can call me on the phone, but I won’t listen to that. Or even pray about it. If it’s unverified. See, that’s where the slander and the gossip just goes and goes. And he talks about that. He said, don’t go from house to house doing this. Now we don’t have to leave our home.

What do we have? Yeah, the omnipresent phone. And it’s so dangerous. One common type of talk that hurts is called gossip. It comes in many forms. That all of us, and especially those who earnestly seek to be a Titus 2 man or woman, should always avoid. First of all, there’s malicious talk. That’s what 1 Timothy 3:11 is about. That’s just talk that intentionally sets out to destroy someone. We usually reserve that for junior high students that want someone else’s boyfriend or girlfriend, so they just keep hammering away and maliciously talking totally untrue stuff until they think they can win them. But you know what? It doesn’t stop in junior high, in high school, in college. It just goes through life. Malicious talk is always wrong. Then there’s rationalized gossip talk, where we think that we need to manage someone else’s life, so we have to tell everybody about what they do wrong. And that’s ungodly and a tool of the devil.

And then finally, there’s innocent gossip, usually starts with proper motives, a desire that is noble, but gets off course, an unwise sharing of sensitive information and curiosity set in. And soon, the conversation is far beyond the problem and the solution. And it’s become malicious and slanderous and a tool of the devil.

And Paul says, if you want to be a godly woman, avoid that. Never use your mouth in an unregenerated way. Tame your tongue by the Holy Spirit. Allow His Word to richly dwell and permeate all of your life. And make a goal. Remember what David said? He said, I will set a watch at the door of my mouth that I sin not with my tongue.

He says, I’ve got a garrison there and I’m not going to let words out that I don’t first think about. Are they true? Are they honest? Are they just? Are they pure? Are they lovely? Is that a good report to share? That’s a watch we set at the door of our mouth. We need to, like David, make some plans to change our usage of our tongues.

Some great ways to change are to think first. Before starting to say something, pause a few seconds and ask, are these words true or false? Are they exaggerated or accurate? Are they healing or cutting? Are they grateful or complaining? Remember, Proverbs says if you pause before you talk, everyone will think you’re a genius anyway.

They’ll think you’re wise. Just pause. And think through those words. It says in Ecclesiastes 5, let your words be few because God is in Heaven and He hears them all. And we should be cautious. Secondly, we should not only pause, we should talk less. In an abundance of words, there’s more opportunities to do something that is malicious or unhelpful.

It’s a Biblical fact, the less you talk, the wiser you appear. Plan, prepare, and concentrate to enrich every opportunity to speak. In fact, just for a second, leave Titus and go to the right to 1 Peter 4:11. I love this. This is a great guardian in my own life. It says in 1 Peter 4, in verse 11, that whenever we speak, verse 11, 1 Peter 4, if anyone speaks, okay?

Now this is man, woman, child, young man, young woman, anybody, grandparent. If you’re going to speak, Peter says, look at this, let them speak as the oracle of God. If you’re going to talk to someone, when you pull that phone, when you flip your phone open, when you press the speed dial, when the phone rings and you hear a familiar voice, Just before you launch into what you’re going to say, in your heart say, I am speaking as an oracle of God.

That might curtail what you’re going to say, right? You know what an oracle was? It was someone that declared on behalf of God. And Peter said, every time you and I talk, the primary motivation is we should speak as God’s mouthpiece, as His oracle. I remember a couple years ago, we were in the Oracle of Delphi, in those temples, and it was a real, it was a real con job. They had a person behind there, and these people would go in this courtyard, and they had these little holes where they would speak to the people out through these little holes, and they would speak out to them, and they would think it was God. You know what? You and I, we’re not charlatans, we’re not fakes, we really are.

Peter says, look at verse 11, If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. Whoa. Talk less. And start now. David said, I’ll set a watch right now, at the door of my mouth, that I don’t sin against You with my tongue. Don’t waste your greatest tool. Our tongues are how we give out the Gospel. Our tongues are how we train and teach.

How we encourage and motivate and inspire. Don’t use them for the devil by slander. That’s the second element. The third one, look down at Titus 2. Let’s go back to Titus 2 and verse 3 at the next part, the third element, not given to much wine. The third godly characteristic Paul focuses upon is the self-controlled moderation that should characterize women of every age in Christ’s church.

Not given to much wine. That almost jumps off the page what’s that there for? In our culture, we say, oh, that shouldn’t even be in there. They shouldn’t even be, around drinking. But Paul was talking to a culture where drinking was a part of the culture, the Biblical world. And Spirit-controlled people are Spirit-controlled in every part of their life.

They resist excess in any area of their daily life. They’re not slaves to any substance, be it wine or anything else. They’re not slaves to any amusement. They’re not slaves to anything. They have an attitude that they want to have every part of their life under the gracious lordship of Christ. They want every part of their life to please their master.

So, they’re not given to much anything. Actually, the word is very strong. Not enslaved to wine. Not enslaved to something outside that can control you on the inside. Not enslaved to that. Very strong word. Most women in the early church were formerly pagans. Drunkenness was the norm for many women in that society.

Drinking was the best way to forget about the problems of being a slave to some pagan man. A man who looked on his wife merely as a convenience to bear him legitimate children. To enhance his reputation in the community. Because of that lifestyle, because of that culture, women were basically hopeless.

And especially in Crete, the older women were known to be just heavy drinkers. Because they just drank to drown out the pain of life. They were enslaved. Paul said prior to their salvation, they were without hope, without God, to the saints in Ephesus. It wasn’t any different across the ancient world.

Coming to Christ changed everything, but old habits are hard to break. These women, these godly older women, they were saved, and they were in the church, and they were learning this reverent behavior. But every time problems came up, he says, you may not be enslaved to that. You may not go back to that old habit you had.

The old pains from emotional and physical abuse would resurface and the temptation to slip back into the intemperance of slavery to wine would grow strong. But lack of physical control of any appetite points to a spiritual immaturity. Both Timothy and Titus were told to beware of women returning to their old habits in the realm of drinking.

And though that might not be on the front burner of most of your lives today, it might be on some, but not on most. The principle has not changed. Don’t be enslaved to anything. Today, not given to wine goes far beyond merely wine. There’s so many forms of alcohol never imagined in the Biblical times that can be abused.

Then there are drugs, both the acceptable ones, the prescription ones, that can easily become something to be enslaved to, as well as the non-acceptable kinds. They can be abused. Tobacco can be abused. People can become enslaved to tobacco. Wonderful varieties of food can be abused. Look at our culture.

You ever seen the photo essay that New York Times recently did? They took backward shots of Americans in restaurants. And the chair is this wide, and the Americans were this wide. And bar stools. This wide and they talked about America is the most over enslaved to eating nation on the planet.

Don’t be enslaved to anything. Whether it’s the wonderful varieties of food that can be abused, the beautiful varieties of fashionable clothing that change with every season. Americans are enslaved to fashion, as is the rest of the world. All of these can be abused. They can become addictions.

There’s a generation of believers who’ve never tasted a drop of alcohol and pride themselves in that choice. That’s us. Never touched a drop. Proud that we haven’t. And yet, we overeat with daily regularity, and both are condemned by God in Proverbs 23, verses 19 to 21. Side by side. God equally condemns the drunkard and the gluttonous.

Just like that. He doesn’t even take a breath between them. He says, they’re both vile in My sight. Terrible. We should be cautious. Because of Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, we see that though the Bible never forbids wine drinking, our liberty is limited by the consciences of other believers and our testimony to the world.

The lesson of temperance should be consistency. We must be as cautious of any intemperance. We must not be given to or enslaved to much of anything. Be it the use of money, the enjoyment of leisure, the establishment of houses to live in, whatever we do is to be tempered by the glory of God. He must be the object and focus of what we do.

Remember what Paul concluded that whole section on questionable things with? Whether, therefore, you eat or drink, or whatever you do. So, there he covered everything. Eat, drink, or anything else in between. Do all what? For the glory of God. It’s just like that slander thing. I want to be the oracle of God. I want to glorify Him by what I say.

I want the reverent behavior like a priest. I want to glorify God. Therefore, I’m not going to allow my life to become enslaved to anything that doesn’t magnify and glorify Him. Modern society has elevated fashion to almost a point of idolatry. So, that’s another thing that the godly older women need to be teaching the godly younger women.

Be careful about the idolatry of clothing. Clothing, stores, and newspapers, and magazines, advertising, and television commercials, are like giant billboards that continually proclaim, we covet clothing. And if you don’t have that clothing, you’re nothing. And if you don’t look like that, you’re nothing.

Expensive, often ostentatious jewelry for both men and women are becoming more and more prevalent as more and more flaunt their material prosperity and glorify themselves. We are continually goaded to put our bodies and our apparel on parade. Godly older women don’t do that. There is no given to enslavement by excesses of in their lives.

They’re not perfect. How do they do this? Look at verse 11 and 12. The grace of God that brings salvation. So, when you and I get saved, God’s grace, operative in our lives, accomplishes the second element, verse 12. Look at that. Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly.

It’s the grace of God. When the older women launch into this mentoring ministry. They are not doing it in their own energy. They’re not saying, Oh, I hope I can hold on and keep up this lifestyle. It is an internal transformation that the Spirit of God, through the grace of God, produces in our lives.

It starts with salvation. The grace of God, verse 11, that brings salvation. Verse 12, for those who are saved, they have the power to deny ungodliness. It’s the grace of God inside of born-again people that teaches us to deny ungodliness. And a godly older woman is a Spirit-controlled woman in every part of their life.

They resist excess in any area of their daily life. They are not slaves to any substance, any amusement, any fashion, or any attitude that does not please their master in Heaven. Godly women. Are reverent in behavior. They live like priests for God. They’re not slanders. They have guarded tongues. They are not given to much wine.

They have no excesses. Godly women seek to be reverent in their behavior, careful in their conversations, and never enslaved to anything but Christ. The end of verse 3. It says, they are to be teachers of good things. This is the fourth element, if you’re keeping track of these elements that, that Paul is telling Titus about.

The fourth type of godly behavior in the Titus 2 woman is spiritual integrity. A godly woman will live what they teach. In other words, they go beyond that. In fact, I remember when I was in seminary, they used to teach us, they said, don’t try and live up to your preaching, preach what you’re living. It’s much harder that way.

Deal with your own life while you’re going through the text so that you can speak about something that you are, by the grace of God, living. That’s a Titus 2 woman. They speak what they’re living. They live what they’re teaching. They train others in the pattern they have learned. Their walk speaks louder than their talk.

Their life is daily placed under God’s control in all areas. They daily give their tongues, their appetites, their habits. They do not overindulge themselves. They are not overweight or gluttons. They are not pleasure hungry. They are not malicious talkers. These godly older women are noble in everything. Their life lived is a lesson to be watched.

They’re not perfect. They’re so aware of their imperfections that they have surrendered them consciously to the grace of God for His power to teach them to deny that. And then they share with that younger woman how they’re learning and have learned to deny those areas in their lives. Paul always stressed preaching and teaching what he was already living. In fact, look back at 1 Timothy. Go back one book to 1 Timothy 4 and verse 16. Because we always see this pairing of what you preach and how you live. Always going side by side. 1 Timothy 4 and verse 16. This is what Paul’s instruction to Timothy, another young pastor in an even larger setting, in Ephesus.

He says to him, 1 Timothy 4:16, pay close attention to yourself first, and then to your what? Yeah, your teaching. What comes first in God’s sight? Pay close attention to your lifestyle, your behavior, then to your teaching. It doesn’t matter how great your teaching, how long your doctrinal statement, if your life just abnegates and abrogates and denies everything that you say you believe. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. Persevere in these things. For as you do this, you will ensure salvation both for yourself and those who hear you. Titus was to encourage these older women to develop a ministry of teaching younger women what is good.

Now back to Titus 2 verse 3. Younger women with children were to keep their primary focus at home. But the older women would do well to reach outside their home and share what they had learned with those who would profit from it most. So, see, these younger women, their primary sphere and role and priority of ministry was the home, but the older women were to, because their home was established, because their home was in order, because their children were generally raised and grown up, were to be moving out of their home and visiting and ministering in the home of these younger women.

And so, they were to teach them what is good. A godly woman teaches by her life what is good in God’s sight. She carefully chooses the better part. Do you remember Mary and Martha, that whole scene with Jesus? And remember what Jesus said about Mary? She hath chosen the, what? The better. Nothing wrong with serving.

But serving and being all flustered and tattered and running around as my country mother used to always say, like a chicken with its head cut off. You ever? It’s awful to see that. That’s a very vivid sight because we did that and raised chickens. What an awful thing. Don’t run around like a chicken with its head cut off.

It’s to have this godly older woman saying you can bring your life into order. You can have a peaceful, serene home. And so, they go into the homes, and they teach them that, like Mary and Martha, they can say, as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 11:1 imitate me, because I’m imitating Christ. Isn’t that a great, Paul, the sinner, the chiefess of sinners said, I want you, Corinthians, because I’m older in Christ and in the faith than you, I want you to imitate me, because I’m imitating Christ. And he shows us if the chiefess of sinners could say that Paul was imperfect, and he confesses that. He had all the struggles. 2 Corinthians, he gives us a whole chapter of his struggles, and his just temptations and all that he faced. But he says, I’m following Christ, imperfections and all, because His grace is reigning in my life. You follow me, because I’m following Christ. And that’s all a Titus 2 woman, Titus 2 man, says in their life. By the way, who is this older woman? Sometimes we wonder who we’re talking about. Technically, in this passage, it was a woman who was past the raising her children years. Some commentators even say the age of 60, as Paul says in the widow’s list of 1 Timothy 5.

But in reality, there’s no chronological age attached to this. And so basically, we could say this. For every woman in this church, there’s some older and some younger. You are older in Christ than someone else. You are older in your spiritual maturity than someone else. And you are younger than others. And so, there is a continuum here.

There is an accessibility for all to be older than someone. What I love about some of the churches that are so easily criticized is they have mobilized their churches that if you have been saved for a week, more than the guy that’s getting saved this week. So, you need to get to work. Sometimes around here, you have to have a PhD before you can do anything. You just got to keep hoping that you get high enough to do something, and that’s not how it is in Christ’s Church. If you are older in the Lord than someone else, you can turn and share in the power of the Spirit of God and the authority of His Word with another person.

Older. Every young lady and woman in this church should have as their highest desire the goal of being first a Titus 2 student of some godly, older in the faith, woman. And the highest honor, the greatest goal in life of every older woman in this church should be to have the honor of being that older woman in the faith to another.

Every godly woman has this opportunity to teach the younger generation of women in the church. This instruction is to occur in informal settings such as the one-on-one small groups or in women’s Bible studies. This instruction is both by word and by example. Many young women today were not raised under a Biblical family model.

That’s the challenge for the older women in the church. Godly women seek to be reverent in their behavior. Careful in their conversations. Never enslaved to anything but Christ. And always teaching by example the way to follow Christ. And then it says, look at the beginning of verse 4. They teach good things, but then it says that they admonish the younger women.

The highest goal is this bringing this earnest mentorship. In fact, this word at the beginning of verse 4, this one word is variously rendered different by four different words. Every one of the editions of your Bible, the versions, you probably have a different word. It says admonish. In King James, it’s that they teach the younger women. In New King James, admonish. In NIV, train. In New American, encourage the younger women. All of them are true. These godly older women are to live as a priest for God, constantly guarding their tongues, with no excesses, no enslavements, with visible integrity. Their life speaks louder and more clearly than their words.

And they, when they have this reverent behavior, this tongue that’s never bedeviled, this life that’s never enslaved to anything but Christ, and this integrity of modeling Christ, they launch out and they start finding younger women to teach and encourage and admonish and train. As we’ll see next time, what’s the first lesson they’re supposed to give them?

Learning to phileo. To be close, intimate, best friends with their man, their husband. When this began in the first century, it was radical. And it’s no different today. But it’s all because of God’s grace. Let’s bow for a word of prayer and ask for the Lord to bring these to pass in our life. And as we pray, I want you, wherever you are, to think about are you reverent in your behavior, whether you’re a man or a woman, or a young man or a young woman?

Are you one who guards your tongue and never lets it be used by the devil? Or have you had a little devil time with your tongue this week? Are you not enslaved to anything but Christ? Is there anything that you can’t go without? I met someone in my Bible study, and they said they regularly try everything out.

They go for, a certain amount of time with no television, none at all. Not even if there’s a tornado. They just, pfft, showing that they can get along without it. And then they go without coffee for a while. Then they go without their favorite sport for a while. Then they go without movies. And they just say, I never want to be enslaved by anything.

And then are you modeling? Do you have integrity? Do you teach what’s good? If not, while we pray. Let the Spirit of God point to something in your life. Let’s bow together.

Father in Heaven, I thank You. I thank You for Your plan. Back then, how to infiltrate and conquer the pagan, dark, Roman world, it was one life at a time. As the grace of God that brings salvation taught individuals to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in everyday life. And as they learned that they would turn to someone that they were further down the road, and they’d turn to that individual that was behind them, and they’d say, can I show you what the Lord’s taught me? What I’m living, what I’m modeling, can I train you in that? And that swept the ancient world. And the early church was a vital, powerful force. They weren’t an institution. They were a living family of older serving younger and training and younger responding and honoring and revering the older. I pray that’s what You would do in our midst, more and more as we see the day of Your return approaching. And Father, I pray for any that have not yet partaken of the grace of God that brings salvation. That they would realize that they cannot change their life, they can’t get rid of their fears and problems and dreads in any other means than a spiritual one, and that is through Your grace that was shown by You putting Your son upon a cross of wood to die in the place of sinners. That all who would look to Him lifted up, bearing their sin, that You would give everlasting life. I pray that anyone that has never looked to Jesus Christ, seeing that He wants to take their sin upon Himself, and become their Savior, that they would, because You long that all would come to You and find life. And Father, for those who are knowing You and following You, may we appropriate more of Your grace and live this way. I thank You for those who have spiritual needs. I pray at the end of the service, as they come, and meet with the pastors in the front that You would work in hearts, and anyone with prayer needs that you would meet those needs. Anyone with salvation, never partaken of, that they would come to know You. Thank You for this great day we commit it to You. In the name of Jesus, we pray. And all God’s people said, Amen. God bless you.