A Woman Adorned and Adorning: Beauty Secrets of Titus 2

over the next couple of days we're gonna put three verses under a microscope Titus chapter 2 verses three through five and in this opening session before we start unpacking all the different parts and pieces of that passage I want to give us a context for the whole passage and a sense of the bigger picture now the book Titus as you probably know was written by the Apostle Paul who was the pet was written by the Apostle Paul to a pastor named Titus the pastor of a tiny startup fledgling Church on the island of Crete and this church faced a lot of challenges they had external threats because the Roman Empire headed by Nero was breathing down their neck and threatening to wipe out Christianity and then there were internal threats there were false teachers who were promoting teachings and philosophies that were contrary to the scripture and Titus tells us these teachers were leading whole families astray they were upsetting whole families by teaching these things so here's this pastor of this new little church and how is this church supposed to survive much less thrive much less evangelize the whole world well God's strategy is what we have for us in Titus and it's probably not the strategy you or I would have written if we'd been asked how to handle the situation so in Titus chapter 1 as we read earlier through the under the inspiration of the scripture of the of the Holy Spirit the Apostle Paul says you need qualified leaders in your church and then he tells them what those qualifications are and then we come to chapter 2 and he says you need a certain kind of people in your congregation and he talks about various demographics various age groups various men and women genders and people in different strata and seasons of life and how each of these demographics are charged to demonstrate the Gospel through their lives and then to pass the baton on to others so as I wrote a book adorned on this topic these verses of Titus chapter 2 we subtitled that book something that I want to focus on in the moments we have here this afternoon the subtitle is living out the beauty of the gospel together living out the beauty of the gospel together that is really an umbrella for everything we're going to talk about in this study so I want to take a look at that concept those couple of phrases in this introductory session first living out the beauty of the gospel in verse 10 of chapter 2 the Apostle Paul says the purpose of all of this is so that in everything they might adorn the doctrine of God our Savior now sound doctrine I think most of us who are gathered here today would agree that sound doctrine is important and we would agree that sound doctrine is true but I want to tell you it's more than true it is true but a lot of people sound doctor and true as it may be sounds dry and boring but I want us to understand and to help other women understand that solid teaching from God's Word is not just true it's also good it's beautiful and the things were going to be talking about make us beautiful because doctrine points us to Christ who is more beautiful than any human being any other created being He is God he is beautiful he is the supreme treasure so this doctrine is supposed to point us to him and when we embrace and when we exhibit this kind of solid teaching we make the truth the gospel beautiful to others so we want to live out the beauty of the gospel now in the book of Titus there are lots of instructions there instructions about our behavior instructions about our relationships and we're gonna walk through a lot of these instructions in our study of chapter two verses three through five and as we unpack these things you'll see this is a really high bar but there's a danger that we would reduce our understanding of what matters in the Christian life and that we would reduce what we teach to other women in our churches to a list of do's and dont's and as we listen to those instructions over these next couple of days some of you and I know you are because your first Born's like me and you're gonna feel challenged and inspired by this standard and you're gonna be tempted to make a checklist and you're gonna walk away from this conference with a list of 20 things you need to change 20 things you're going to change in the next week and you're gonna go home determined to make those changes and I'm gonna just tell you in advance that effort is going to prove to be really really exhausting in fact it's going to be impossible and so some of you you get that you're not first born you might be the second born or the third born you're already feeling overwhelmed by this standard and you're thinking there is no way I can ever live up to this and so you're going to be tempted to compare yourself to others and you become discouraged the throw in the towel before you even get home well it's important for us to realize that all of the instructions all of the requirements that we're going to be looking at are grounded in the context of the gospel the good news of Christ everything Paul calls women to in Titus 2 living a godly life an exemplary life investing in other lives it all flows out of the gospel and we get glimpses of this throughout the book for example in the first paragraph of chapter 1 Paul talks about the hope of eternal life he talks in verse 4 about a common faith in verse 5 of chapter 1 he says grace and peace through God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior this is the gospel then in chapter 2 verse 11 he says for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age what trains us to do that the grace of God that brings salvation it teaches us to wait for our Blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works it all flows out of the grace of Christ chapter 3 verse 4 but when the goodness and the loving kindness of God our Savior appeared he saved us not because of works done by us and righteousness but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration so the message of Titus the whole book or this passage we're going to be doing blazar focused on in chapter 2 the message is not you need to try harder you need to be a better woman you need to check off the things on this list no the message is you need Jesus you need a Savior you need God's grace because apart from him every single one of us is hopeless and helpless but the good news the gospel is that he died to redeem us from all lawlessness to transform us by His grace and Paul is saying to Titus this is what a redeemed life looks like this is what a life looks like that's lived in the power of the Holy Spirit the lists the rules will never make you a godly woman but Jesus can and Jesus will by His grace so we're committing to live out the beauty of the gospel together together in the passage we're gonna be most focused on chapter 2 verses 3 through 5 Paul stresses the importance of women having intentional cross-generational invasive relationships with each other older women younger women and I want to suggest that this is not just a theory Paul's not just pulling out his textbook on women's discipleship this is actually the way that the Apostle Paul Himself did life as a man throughout the book of Titus Paul models and he stresses the importance of relationships of living and growing and serving in community with other believers let me just point out a couple places where that's highlighted I'll take you to the first paragraph of Titus and then I'll take you to the last paragraph so you can see how Paul is committed to this thing of relationships in the opening paragraph Paul writes to Titus my true child in a common faith so here you have Paul who is the seasoned mature anointed appointed apostle of Jesus Christ and he speeches and he's speaking to a much younger less-experienced man but Paul is not condescending he's warm he's loving he's engaging he says you and I Titus we have a common faith yeah I know I've been at this a lot longer than you have but we share a common faith and he reaches out and he takes time out of his busy apostle schedule to encourage this young believer and then to release him into a place of fruitful ministry so sweet and then in the closing paragraph it's very intimate the end of chapter 3 beginning in verse 12 it's personal it's all about relationships serving the Lord together listen it's just so personal here verse 12 when I send Artemis or ticket guests to you do your best to come to me at an accomplice for I've decided to spend the winter there Paul says to Titus his beloved son in the faith I'm sending to men that I know and trust to relieve you there in Crete and when they get there do your best to come and visit me I think that's so touching there's a sense of I need you I want to spend time with you verse 13 do your best to speed seeing us the lawyer a nopales on their way see that they lack nothing he's saying take care of these servants of the Lord make sure that their needs are met verse 14 and let our people that's a relational term but our people learn to devote themselves to good works so as to help cases of urgent need and not be unfruitful and then the last verse all who are with me send greetings to you greet those who love us in the faith grace be with you all there's a lot of plurals in that verse so Paul is not alone he says all who are with me and Titus over in Crete is not alone send greetings to those who love us in the faith both of these men are doing life with other believers they're living out the beauty of the gospel together they're always connecting with other believers and connecting those believers with each other God's grace in your life spiritual growth in your life fruitful ministry through your life will be best experienced in the context of community you see our union with Christ makes us a member of the family of God and that means that we are related my blood we're organically inseparably connected to each other we need each other and the good news is we have each other God has given us women and friends within the body of Christ to help us grow and serve so there really shouldn't be any such thing as a lone ranger Christian and there shouldn't be any such thing as a lonely Christian there shouldn't be any one among us or in our churches who is suffering through affliction or walking through unfamiliar or trying circumstances struggling to make it on their own there's not one woman here starting with this woman who can make it on her own we all need other women in our lives now those relationships are not always easy they're not always neat sometimes they can get messy but I'm gonna tell you done God's Way under his leading and by His grace they can be incredibly life-giving and they are God's Way of making the gospel believable through us to the watching world so the focus of Titus chapter 2 verses 3 through 5 is women living in gospel grace based community with each other living out the beauty of the gospel together and as we start to unfold this passage I'm gonna remind you that we're not talking about only or even primarily formal structured settings where we mentor one another this is not one more thing to put on your to-do list that's more than you already have time than the list you already don't have time for but this is a way of life I want you to keep that in mind as we examine each phrase in these verses through these sessions these kinds of relationships were beautifully illustrated to me 22 months ago plus a week or so on my wedding day and of course the man that I never dreamed of who became my husband that day that was the primary relationship but there were some other really sweet relationships with women one of them with a spiritual mother in my life her name was vaunette bright and she didn't know when she was determined to come from Florida to sweeten Illinois for that wedding that she only had a few more weeks here on this earth she was very ill but she was determined she was gonna be there and I was in the bride's room we had had some time of Prayer and she asked if she could come in and pray and then she saw some other people in the room and basically said can you get rid of them she said I I was hoping I could talk to you alone she was in her wheelchair I sat next to her and she said honey I'm a mama and I want to ask you is there anything you'd like to ask a mama before you get married I won't bore you with the rest of that conversation it's in the adorned book but it was really really sweet fine it had been a spiritual mother to me for all of my life she prayed for me encouraged me she was the one who had the vision to call women together to seek the Lord which has resulted in the true woman and revived conferences over these years she was a spiritual mother infesting in my life caring for me passing the baton of faith unto me but that day there were some women at a very different end of the spectrum there were ten little girls who were children and grandchildren of close friends of mine I'd known them since they were born and instead of having attendants we had these ten little girls come down the aisle before the bridal processional ringing bells and you can see them and they're sweet red and white dresses with their Herald they were just all dressed up ringing those bells it was precious and to me as I looked back on it those little girls true women in the making symbolized my heart's desire to pass the taun of faith unto those little women those young women and then there were some women in my life we kind of call each other this sisterhood I have a lot of sisters and so on this is not an exclusive group but some women who had walked through our courtship with me and they had lots of advice lots of input and those women throughout the wedding weekend they were there in fact when Robert and I got back to our room the women had been there ahead of us there were so many flowers so many petals everywhere food and all sorts of stuff they had decked that place out they love me and we do life together we pray for each other we encourage each other those women are my spiritual sisters among many others you need spiritual mothers you need spiritual daughters and you need spiritual sisters in your life so who is a spiritual mother in your life an older woman who's wise is a godly example and who are your sisters those who spur you on to love and good deeds who encourage you who help you become more like Jesus and who are your spiritual daughters and you may be thinking I'm not old enough for that listen every woman is an older woman to someone so now is the time to start thinking who are the spiritual daughters that the Lord is putting in my life and Oh Lord we pray that over these next hours you would do a sweet work of gospel grace in each of our hearts not to put us under a burden or more things to do but to show us the delight the joy that can be had the fruitfulness the freedom the fullness as a result of learning to live out the beauty of the gospel together that in everything we may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior and we pray it in Jesus sweet name amen you

Channel: Revive Our Hearts

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Keywords: Titus 2, Adorned, Gospel, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Revive 17, Revive Our Hearts

Id: nl3hKmqwoYo

Length: 20min 19sec (1219 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 25 2017