The 21st Century Woman of Grace: Teachers of Good Things “Modeling Godliness in An Ungodly World”
As we open God's Word to the end of Titus 2:3, we arrive at the single most powerful quality of the entire Titus 2 men’s and women’s lists. This single word in the Greek language, sums up the entire reason we live on Earth. This statement of God’s plan for all women, in one word sums up all that will last forever. This word explains how to keep from suffering loss at Christ's Judgment Seat. This word ties together what God wants and how we receive His well done.
This word describes teaching from example. The next and final word for older women of the faith is the word “admonish” which speaks of confronting those who may not even have ever thought of God’s claim on their lives, and bring them to their senses.
Simply stated:
Jesus Wants Women to Model
God’s Plan Expressed in His Word
As I read this verse and describe the previous qualities, do a mental check up on how you are doing ladies. God says all ladies young and old are to either be living this way, or be headed towards living this way:
1. Reverent in Behavior: Living holy in an unholy world;
2. Not Slanderers: Speaking gracefully in a graceless world;
3. Not Given to Much Wine: Disciplining appetites in an undisciplined world;
4. Teachers of Good Things: as the Greek word kalodidaskalous is rendered in the NKJV, ESV, NAS, and NIV. God is looking for godly, mature women who will surrender their minds, bodies, appetites, conversation, and time to Him so that they Model Godliness in an Ungodly World;
The Lord God who wrote the Book here explains to us a plan for living.
He reduces every choice, every decision, every plan, and every goal in life for a believer down to one of two types. Either that plan, thought, or action was good, and God saves it forever, or it was bad and God burns it. It isn’t worthy of Heaven, eternity, nor His Presence.
According to Jesus, there are only two settings on God’s sorter. And with that sorting system, God sorts our lives into two piles: save or burn.
Have you ever noticed that Jesus always dealt in sharp contrasts and absolutes? Look for a moment at Matthew 6, and think of what He said:
• There are only two Banks: the one where things get lost, stolen, rusted, and moth eaten; and the one where things are secured eternally (Matthew 6:19-21).
• There are only two masters, but only one can be loved, served, and pleased by our lives (Matthew 6:24).
• There are only two roads that we can walk while on Earth: one to Heaven one to Hell (Matthew 7:13-14).
That means that for all of God’s born-again children, Christ Jesus only has two categories that He uses to rate everything we do, as He sorts out the constant stream of activities His children do in life.
Each of us live out our life in front of God, like a pipeline:
Poured out
Before God
Have you ever thought about that? Our lives are like a pipeline stretching up into Heaven that spews out every action, thought, and motive at Christ's feet.
At the start God judicially erases, zaps and gets rid of every sin, so that is never in the pipeline. But everything else in life flows upward from us and into the very Presence of God. As it comes it is sorted. One pile is Good, it is worthy of God, it is pleasing to Him, and it is worth God keeping forever.
The other pile goes into the incinerator. It is bad, worthless, unworthy of God, and not worth saving in eternity.
Last night, as we swept the basement the buddies for the first time saw the pipes and heard the clatter of objects as they were swooped up and ended up far away in the garage. That is central vac.
Did you know that this very moment, God has the vacuum running, He is gathering up every word, every thought, each motivation, and all actions. They are swept up as we live and they clatter along until the pipeline delivers them not to the garage: but at the very feet of Jesus who loves us and bought us. There He separates and sorts out our lives to see how much is good and how much is worthless.
What are you delivering moment-by-moment to Him?
As our lives are lived, at the instant of salvation all sin is forgiven, paid for, and eternally gone. After salvation, with sin taken from the record of our entire life, all the rest of our lives can be classified as either good or bad.
The sorting is called the Judgment Seat of Christ. The description of the event is in II Corinthians 5:10. The fire is already burning, and the products that last are starting to pile up, the ones that are worthless are burning. The results we get to see.
Look with me t those verses, and ponder the one word definition of what matters in life.
II Corinthians 5:9-15 Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 11 Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences. 12 For we do not commend ourselves again to you, but give you opportunity to boast on our behalf, that you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
Pray
Good: that is what God says is the currency of Heaven, and that is the label that marks what the Lord of All says is worth pursuing.
If you were shopping for anything and there were two brands offered for sale: one certified as worthless and the other certified as good, which would you choose?
How about if you also knew that, at the end of the day anything with the certified worthless label would be stripped away from you, tossed into an incinerator and it would be forever gone, what would you choose to get?
Everything is either
Good or Bad to God
That simple choice “good or bad” is what God says all of life is about.
In Titus 2:3 we find that the simple desire that God has for each woman of grace to live for is that they live for what is “good”. God has explained exactly what women of grace are to live for, and women of grace are to model, and all women are to seek. But what is the “good” that makes our lives count?
Now think about the most powerful lesson in this entire passage:
• The Lord who says that He wants women to teach what is good, explains exactly what will make it through the fires of Christ's inspection;
• The Heaven Father who rewards those who do His will explains precisely what is expected at Christ's Judgment Seat;
• The Wonderful, Merciful Savior that we will forever adore, has told us in specific detail, what will count as eternal rewards in Heaven.
You may be asking, “Tell me, where is this specific plan God has for me contained among the 31,000 verses, arranged into 1,189 chapters, spread over the 66 books of God's Word?”
The answer is right in front of us.
Titus 2 is the one place in the whole New Testament where God commands a set of lifestyle choices, for every man, woman and child in the church.
The Lord has said: teach these life-choices right here in this passage to every woman; model these characteristics stated in these verses all of your life; admonish any woman that is not living the way this chapter explains and ask her to come to her sense, live for what pleases God. It is right here. As I read Titus 2:3-5 think of it as:
God’s Simple Plan to
Make Your Life Last Forever
First, understand that God has specific desires for every mature woman. These five qualities in v. 3-4 are to become the life-priorities for grace-energized women.
1. Reverent in Behavior: Living holy in an unholy world
2. Not Slanderers: Speaking gracefully in a graceless world
3. Not Given to Much Wine: Disciplining appetites in an undisciplined world
4. Teachers of Good Things: Modeling Godliness in an ungodly world
5. Admonish: Investing in others in a detached world
Second, respond in obedience to the God who says He has seven desires for every young woman. These qualities in v. 4-5 are to become the life-priorities for every young woman of grace.
1. Love Their Husbands: Self-sacrificing love in a selfish world
2. Love Their Children: Nurturing love in a loveless world
3. Discreet: Focusing on God in a foolish world
4. Chaste: Pursuing modesty in an immodest world
5. Homemakers: Pursuing homemaking in a hostile world
6. Good: Pursuing kindness in a harsh world
7. Obedient to their Husbands: Pursuing submission in a rebellious world
When the Gospel of the life-changing grace of Jesus Christ entered the Roman world of the New Testament, life was very bleak. Paganism had all but erased the plans God had left for marriage and the family.
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 women from the inside out. Then His grace taught, modeled, and exhibited would produce mature believers.
Steeped in such a family-unfriendly culture, women who were gloriously saved did not automatically become great wives and mothers. When they came to Christ they were forgiven; 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.
Models of
The Truth
God instructed the mature godly women would each find a younger woman in the church and spend time with her teaching her by their example, 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 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!
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 how to do the same, starting with their age-appropriate priorities of husbands and children and so on, then maturing into powerful, older women of the faith.
Teachers of Good Things
Live and Teach these Characteristics
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.
Godly women are “show-and-tellers”. They live what they teach. They train others in the pattern they have learned. Their walk speaks louder than their talk. Their life is 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.
A godly woman teaches by her life what is good in God’s sight. She carefully chooses the “better part” as Mary did over Martha. Titus 2 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
The Good Results of Titus 2
Women in Ministry
Titus 2 women of grace are willing to come alongside of other women and ask for permission to lovingly turn over the pieces of their life and look at the tags. Everything in life is clearly marked by God: good, eternal, worthy of God; or bad, worthless, and worthy only of the fire. 90% of all women will respond to the loving words from the heart of a godly woman of grace when they say, “That activity, that habit, that pursuit does not PLEASE God”. Few women are there that would brush such a loving word away.
So God is calling every woman to live this life, walk this walk, model these 12 truths, and reach out to someone else in the love of Christ.
God rewards women of grace who teach wives that they can offer to Him an eternally rewarded “good work” when they invest time in their husbands: who will then feel deeply loved by their wives.
• What was the first thing that the Holy Spirit chose to have taught to the young married women believers? LOVE THEIR HUSBANDS.
• Can you imagine what a deep and lasting impact upon this local body of Christ's church to have men coming home to a wife who is earnestly being taught how to love her own husband?
• Such love is a powerful testimony in a culture where women are being pressed into being worldly, self-seeking, independent, and do-their-own-thing women.
• If nothing else, every family at TBC would be enriched if every younger woman was taught in a practical, simple, and personal way how to love her own husband.
God rewards women of grace who teach mothers that they can offer to Me an eternally rewarded “good work” when they invest time in the hardest and yet most rewarding investments in life—children: who will then feel deeply loved by their mothers.
• The Holy Spirit emphasizes very clearly that the key to raising children is LOVING them.
• Titus 2 women train, teach, model, and mentor moms into the deepening of love for their children that can be felt.
• One of the most common complaints of the 21st century child is that they don’t feel loved. Most mothers love their children, but many children are not feeling that love.
• Titus 2 women are coaches that tutor and mentor young moms in ways to show love that can be felt.
God rewards women of grace who teach younger women that they can offer to Me an eternally rewarded “good work” when they invest time in becoming discreet, sensible, and wise in the decisions and choices they make.
• What a rich resource for new marriages and families to have a young woman walked through those days side-by-side with a godly, Spirit-filled woman who will regularly, personally, individually mentor, mother, coach, and cheer on younger women in skillfully living as a wife, mother, and woman of God on a day to day basis.
• Titus 2 women weren’t primarily found in classrooms—they were in the kitchen with a younger woman, in the dining room, in the nursery, at the grocery store.
• Titus 2 women were hands-on tutors nurturing younger women in the laboratory of life--walking through life together praying, sharing, learning, and loving.
God rewards women of grace who train younger women in the holiness and purity that pleases God and unleashes the power of the Spirit.
• The training that a Titus 2 older woman gives is immensely practical not theoretical. Modesty, purity, chaste behavior must be learned, modeled, and practiced.
• God directed the power of godly, Spirit-filled women of Biblical maturity sitting over a cup of tea discussing with younger women what pleased God in dress, in behavior, conduct, and so on.
• Christ's church needed younger women who learned Biblical modesty through a godly older woman lovingly applying God's Word to choices made in daily life.
God rewards women of grace who model and train younger women that central in God’s plan is a woman’s priority of her home.
• Homemaking is a learned art and so many women never have the hands on training that is needed.
• Life is so full that our culture has moved away from homemaking and few young women get mentored in the godly, Biblical art of home making.
• God placed the first two priorities on the Titus 2 list as loving husbands and loving children. Younger women are called to see the priority of their homes; and the only way they can learn that priority is by a long-term relationship with a godly woman that has mastered that art.
God has chosen what is good in His sight.
He has written down what we can do in life on Earth that counts for eternal reward in Heaven.
The Lord God who wrote the Book explains to us a plan for living. He reduces every choice, every decision, every plan, every goal in life for a believer down to one of two types.
Either that plan, thought, or action was good, and God saves it forever, or it was bad and God burns it. It isn’t worthy of Heaven, eternity, nor His Presence.
Your life is lived out in front of God, like a pipeline:
Poured out
Before God
Today our lives are like a pipeline stretching up into Heaven that spews out every action, thought, and motive at Christ's feet. At the start God judicially erases, zaps and gets rid of every sin, so that is never in the pipeline. But everything else in life flows upward from us and into the very Presence of God. As it comes it is sorted.
According to Jesus, there are only two settings on God’s sorter. And with that sorting system, God sorts our lives into two piles: save or burn.
One pile is Good, it is worthy of God, it is pleasing to Him, and it is worth God keeping forever.
The other pile goes into the incinerator. It is bad, worthless, unworthy of God, and not worth saving in eternity.
The sorting is called the Judgment Seat of Christ. The fire is already burning, and the products that last are starting to pile up, the ones that are worthless are burning. The results we get to see. What is in your pipeline?
Did you know that this very moment, God has the vacuum running, He is gathering up every word, every thought, each motivation, and all actions. They are swept up as we live and they clatter along until the pipeline delivers them not to the garage: but at the very feet of Jesus who loves us and bought us. There He separates and sorts out our lives to see how much is good and how much is worthless.
What are you delivering moment-by-moment to Him?