How to Make a Home Beautiful | Part 1

Do you know what it takes to love worth finding featuring powerful biblical truth simply stated by Adrienne Rogers. As followers of Christ, we know that God is in favor of beautiful homes.

Yet these days, our families face many enemies that threaten to drain us of our splendor. The key to a beautiful home is the wife and mother. Titus 2 shows us what it means to be a godly mother and wife. If you have your Bible, turn there now as Adrienne Rogers reveals how to make a home beautiful.

You open your Bibles to Titus chapter 2. I want to talk to you about the home and how to make a home beautiful. You know, it's possible that you could live in a magnificent house and have an ugly home.

And so we want to talk about how to have not just a fine, magnificent house, but how to have a beautiful home. Titus chapter 2, here's what he says, But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine. Now the word become means to make beautiful. For example, if a lady buys a new dress and her husband says, God is becoming to you, what it means is that is very beautiful.

That looks good on you. Now what he's saying here is to speak that which becomes sound doctrine, he's really saying to make truth beautiful. You have the same idea if you'll go down to verse 10, not purloining but showing all good fidelity that they may adorn the doctrine of God. And then an adornment is that which makes beautiful. This word here is the word literally that deals with cosmetics, that you might put on the cosmetics on the word of God, adorn the doctrine of God. You know, you can take truth and make it ugly or you can take truth and make it beautiful. Some people use the Bible as a club rather than a sword.

And so we need to do that which is becoming the sound doctrine, that which adorns the doctrine of God. You know, most of our precious ladies look better with a little cosmetics. That doesn't hurt.

I don't mean like you're growing your own penicillin. I've seen some. I don't know, they don't know that a little is enough, especially around the eyes.

They look like a jack-o-lantern with a candle out. But they're adoring themselves and we can adorn the gospel of God. Now, we do have some ugly homes and some of them are in some beautiful houses. We have a generation today that's lost its moorings. Our generation is like a ship at sea that has lost its moorings without a rudder and without a compass.

And I am very sad even to the point almost of despair, but because I know God, I am not in despair. And it's not because we are not trying. The sad thing is that we are drowning in a sea of information, seminars, conferences, marriage encounters, counselors, ad nauseam. We're on and on and on ever learning and not able to come to the knowledge of the truth because very frankly, all of these things are not based on the Word of God. We've got to have a standard.

Without the standard, you and I may be watching the very death of marriage as we know it and the homicide of the home. There's some very real enemies out there. I mean very real enemies. Immorality, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, abortion, sterilization, radical feminism, juvenile delinquency, crime, sexual rebellion.

When you're up against something, it's very hard. And all of these things like strands in a cord that are just strangling the family. Now God wants to make a home beautiful. And you know the key to a beautiful home is the wife and mother. So I want to talk to you about what the Bible has to say about being a godly mother and helping that mother to have a beautiful home.

Now let's continue to read now. We started in verse 1. Titus chapter 2, Before he gets to the older women, he gets to the older men. And there's something wonderful about a man who can grow old gracefully, a godly old man. There's nothing more honorable, more beautiful than a godly old man. The Bible says that his gray head is a crown of glory to him and he's to be the glory of his children.

He's to be the glory of his grandchildren. And I want to say on the other hand that Satan has no happy old men. He's got some wild and reckless young men, but he has no happy old men.

I don't think there's anything uglier than an ungodly old man. His eyes are like burned out sockets of lust. His mouth is an open sewer. His mind is like a city dump.

And all he's looking forward to is getting sicker and sicker until he dies and then being stuck in a hole in the ground. But a godly old man is a wonderful thing and a joy to be around. But let's fast forward because we're talking primarily to our ladies. So look in verse 3 and he speaks here to the aged women likewise that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not giving them much wine, teachers of good things that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands that the Word of God be not blasphemed. Now as we talk about a godly woman who makes her house beautiful, her home beautiful, I want you to see about what I'm going to call the legacy that she is to leave. She is to be teaching the younger children. She is to set an example for the younger people.

And how is she going to do that? Verse 3 says first of all with some good old-fashioned holiness. In behavior as becometh holiness. This speaks of the way she lives. It just speaks of her lifestyle. How many really holy women do you know? I know one.

I'm married to her. She is a holy woman and she's a joy to be around. Actually this word holiness, the scholars tell us, has something to do with the priest as he's coming out of the temple. And he's been in there burning incense and when he comes out of the temple you just smell the incense in his garments.

There are no people like that that when you get around them you just, there's something about their presence that is just the perfume of God in their lives. Now that's the way an aged woman ought to be. She is to be holy in her lifestyle and she is to be godly in her speech. Notice again it says she's not to be a false accuser. Do you see that in verse 3?

Let me just give it to you another way. Not to be a scandal monger. This word false accuser is the same word that we get our word devil from. The very word devil, diabolo, means someone who is casting slander about.

It means a slanderer. Gossip is a disease. They get worse with age and some of the worse gossips are older people. And there's something very ugly about a home that is not a holy home in a home that is filled with slander and gossip.

Because of the gossip you're like Satan. Now, and also she's to be free from addictive things. Notice here, not given to much wine. When I say this some people just perk up and they say, aha, that means I can be given to a little wine.

I'm sorry about that but that's not what this means. When it says not given to much wine that's an idiom which says that she really is to stay away from wine totally, completely. We're talking about intoxicating wine. This is a combination of three Greek words, mi, m, e, which means not. And par, p-a-r, is the word we get our word parallel from.

And oinon, mi, par, oinon, which means not close to wine. Not alongside of wine, somebody who not only doesn't drink it but somebody who actually stays away from it. That's what the Bible teaches. And a woman, a godly woman, who is to leave a legacy, she's to be holy, she is not to be a scandal monger and she's not to be addicted to substances and certainly the spirit of this would include cigarettes and pills and diet drugs, anything else that is addictive. Not only is she to set an example for the younger women, we're talking about the legacy she's to leave for the younger women, but she also must teach them. Look again in verses 4 and 5 that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Who is going to teach younger women today to be homemakers? Well, God says we need some older women who are going to teach this thing and actually says, look at it if you will, that which is good, do you see that? That they may teach the young women to be sober and verse 5, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good. The word good literally has the idea of values. It means family values.

You know what we need in America today? Some godly grandmamas and some older women who are going to be teaching these younger women to be homemakers. Our young ladies today are getting married and very frankly they know very little about homemaking. They spend a lot of money on the wedding, very little money getting ready for the marriage.

Some of them get married and can't even cook. They don't even know the recipe for ice cubes. I know the recipe for ice cubes.

It's H2O squared. I can make ice cubes that will melt in your mouth. They don't know the very basic things. Who's going to teach them? We had a group of high school seniors, graduating seniors, the girls in our home, and I went out of the room and Ms. Rogers sat down and talked with these girls about just being a godly young lady looking forward to marriage, looking forward to having a home. We're going to talk a little bit more about that in a moment, but the first thing I want you to notice is the legacy she is to leave. You mothers and you grandmothers and you ladies in the church who have experience, somehow we need to get you with these younger women.

But here's the second thing I want you to see. Not only the legacy that she is to leave by setting an example and by teaching, but the love that she is to learn. Now, what are the older women to teach the younger women?

Look at it. Verse 4, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Did you know that you're to teach the younger women to love their children? Many women today don't really even know how to love their children. How do you love a child?

Well, let me tell you three things you can do. You can tell them, you can touch them, and you can teach them. Tell them over and over again that you love them.

You cannot tell them too many times that you love them. Touch them and teach them day by day, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little. Did you know that many child abusers come from an abusive family? One of the great needs today is for mothers to love children.

The radical feminists have taught women today that having a career is perhaps more important than being a homemaker, and material goods are more important than children. Psalm 127 says, Low children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. We have a generation today that looks at children as burdens rather than blessings. There's something wrong in America when children are looked on as burdens rather than blessings. When in America we put to death a child in his mother's womb, which ought to be the safest place on earth, is rapidly becoming the most dangerous place. Our hearts go out to women who want children and cannot have them.

I've been in counseling sessions with wonderful people. What a shame it is for those who can have them and refuse for selfish reasons not to have these children. In the Bible, women who have blessed this world have been women who have prayed for children, and God has answered their prayer. Sarah was barren until she was 90 years old, and she prayed. And God gave to Sarah Isaac. Our Savior came from the line of Isaac. Rachel cried.

God, give me children or I die. And God answered her prayer and gave her Joseph, who delivered the nation of Israel. Ruth, who was barren, wanted a child, prayed, and she found mercy and became the father of Obed, who was the grandfather of David, Israel's greatest king, and from whose line came the Savior. Elizabeth was stricken in years, and she prayed, and God opened her womb and gave to her John the Baptist. Jesus said, Not a greater was born a woman than John the Baptist. Hannah was in the holy place praying and sobbing so much that the great prophet thought that Eli thought that perhaps she was drunk, but she said, I'm not drunk. I'm praying, asking God to give me a child, and God gave to Hannah.

Little Samuel became the mighty prophet of Israel. The tragedy of abortion, this lack of love for children, is this. Who knows whom we may have killed in the very womb? Perhaps the person who would have given this world the answer to cancer. Perhaps another Billy Graham. Perhaps someone would have had the answer to the AIDS epidemic.

Who knows what kind of a life we have snuffed out? Being a homemaker is not easy, not glamorous, but ladies and young ladies, I want to tell you there is no higher calling. Fathers have influence on their children, but mothers make the greatest impression, and that is a fact. Now, the Bible teaches that the older women are to teach the younger women to love their children, and number two, to love their husbands.

Now, if she can be taught to love her husband, that means that she can love her husband. And we're talking about love. We're not talking about soap opera love. If you're watching those soap operas, my advice to you is cut it out. All that is about is sex and immorality and perversion. That's all it's about.

And you watch that long enough, and you're going to become suspicious. You're going to be wondering, you know, I wonder if my husband is living that way. Love your husband, Mrs. Billy Graham said, it's your job to love your husband.

It's God's job to make him good. And so you think of the legacy she's to leave, and you think of the love that she's to learn. This is what she's been taught. Now, let's shift gears and think a little bit about the lifestyle that she is to live. Verse 5, here's her lifestyle.

She's to be discreet, chaste, keeper at home, good, obedient to her own husband, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Now, what does the word discreet mean? Well, the word discreet means sober-minded. It means serious. It means sensible. It means using good judgment. She's going to use good judgment in her shopping, in her nutrition, bookkeeping, decorating, in her physical culture. The Bible says when you find a wife, you find a good thing.

She'll do her husband good and not evil all the days of her life. And then look, not only discreet, but chaste. The word here means pure, not sexy, not foxy, chaste. Young lady, keep yourself pure. And save yourself for the one you're going to marry. Go to the marriage altar a virgin. Make that your purpose.

Save yourself for the one that you're going to marry. And the older women need to be teaching the young women this. We have mothers today who are giving their daughters advice and birth control pills and all of these things.

I can't believe that. You're to teach them just the opposite, to be pure, to be chaste. And don't think that the high school is going to do it.

The junior high school is going to do it. The last place on earth these kids need to learn about sexual morality is in the secular schools. Listen, our moral sexual education will never work for good, always only for harm, if it is not based with morals and Bible proof. And you better see to it that your kids understand what the Bible teaches. Teach them to be discreet, to use good judgment. Teach them to be chaste, that is to be morally pure.

And teach them to be keepers at home. Does that mean she can't go out of the house? No, this Greek word comes from a word that literally means to be a housekeeper, that is a worker at home.

It comes from two words, one meaning house and the other means to work. That means that her major responsibility is to keep the home. Now we have about 50 million working mothers in America today, and approximately one out of every three mothers with children under three hold a full-time job. But being a homemaker is a full-time occupation. And I've said it often, my heart is out, my hat is off to women who have to work. But if you're working in order to have a bigger house, a finer vacation, a nicer car, and not spending time with those children, especially when they're little, you're making a terrible mistake. 1 Timothy 5, verse 14, Paul says, I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachful.

The mothers to be the queen of the home, there is no higher calling and no greater career than to be a homemaker. And coming up tomorrow, we'll hear part two of this convicting message. But maybe today you have questions about who Jesus is, about what he means to you, or how to begin a relationship with God through Christ. Go to our Discover Jesus page at lwf.org slash radio. You'll find resources there and materials that will answer questions you may have about your faith.

Again, go to lwf.org slash radio and click the tab, Discover Jesus. Now, if you'd like a copy of today's message, you can order one by calling 1-877-LOVEGOD. Mention the title, How to Make a Home Beautiful. This message is also part of the insightful Fortifying Your Family series. For the complete collection, all six powerful messages, call that number 1-877-LOVEGOD, or you can order online at lwf.org slash radio, or write us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Thanks for joining us for today's study in God's Word and as a reminder, if you'd like to start receiving daily devotions and links to other daily message programs, be sure to sign up for our daily heartbeat emails at lwf.org slash radio.

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