Sermon Tone Analysis

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?