On Being a Young Christian Woman #1

Your only hope of living out the life that God has appointed to you as a young Christian woman comes from devoting yourself to understanding and embracing the principles that Paul has laid out for us here in these verses in Titus chapter 2.

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and we're continuing our series, Titus, God's Glorious Plan of Grace. Today, Don has part one of the message titled, On Being a Young Christian Woman. Don, we've heard what's expected biblically of mature women. And now you're going to turn our attention to the younger women in the congregation. Their calling is also a high one, isn't it? Well, ladies, my sisters in Christ, this program is especially for you today because that's where God's Word has brought us.

It's to a text addressed to younger women. And what you're going to find is something that is very counter-cultural, as opposed to the world's calling into success and fame and leave your family behind, you see that God's Word calls you to focus on your family, focus on your home life, focus on biblical purity. It's a high call according to God, and I'm glad that you're with us as we open God's Word together today on the Truth Pulpit. Have your Bible open to Titus chapter 2 as we join Pastor Don Green now in the Truth Pulpit. Turn to Titus chapter 2 as we kind of zero in on the passage that's ahead of us here. Just by way of reminder, we've been studying chapter 2. And the Bible said in chapter 2 verse 1, as Paul was speaking to Titus, he said, We looked at what the Bible says to older women. Verse 4. There in those eight verses, you see a comprehensive view of what life is supposed to be like in the Church of Christ. He addresses older men and younger men, older women and younger women.

That pretty much covers the bases. And we've come to consider what the Word of God has to say to young women in light of the great doctrines of salvation. Now, I want to say this up front, and this flavors everything that I'm going to say for the next however long it is. Our church is blessed beyond measure with godly young women who want to pursue Christ and live for Him. We are blessed with women who are seeking to exemplify what is expressed in this passage. And I'm grateful to the Lord for that.

I realize that for some of you young ladies, when you're wiping the nose again and picking up the Cheerios again, that it seems like mundane details. What I want you to see from the Word of God is that this is exactly the life that God has called you to. That this pursuit of godliness is lived out in a daily life that is different from the world around you. The work of Christ should produce a woman of Christ. Here in Titus chapter 2, God has shown us what He wants the life of a godly young woman to look like. And the fact that we have women seeking to be like this, living this way, is a mark of the favor of God on truth community.

And I'm grateful for it. But just as the men and the women needed the instruction of the prior verses, God has brought us to this point so that the Word of God could sift us and affirm exactly what it is that God wants in the life of young women in the church. As we look at this, as I see some light shining off the heads of some of the men, as I see some of the other ladies that are in the church, this speaks to all of us. Paul addresses this to young women, but we'll understand that this is an outworking of principles that are based in a common salvation.

There's something for all of us to learn from this as we walk through this. And for those of you that are married to such a godly young woman who's trying to live this way, God's given you a treasure. Proverbs says, He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.

Well, if you have a wife that's like this, you need to treasure her and encourage her and affirm her. The work of Christ should produce a woman of Christ. What does godliness look like in the life of a young woman?

Well, here we go, ladies. It is a radical break from everything that you hear in the world, that you hear in the media, that you see at a supermarket counter. It's a radical break from all of that.

And your only hope of living out the life that God has appointed to you as a young Christian woman comes from devoting yourself to understanding and embracing the principles that Paul has laid out for us here in these verses in Titus chapter 2. It's a radical break with what you're told and what you do with your time. It's a radical break from selfishness and self-centeredness. It's a radical break from seeking your own glory and seeking your own accomplishments. The call of God on a young woman is found in what we see in verses 4 and 5.

Let's look at them here together. He says the older women should encourage the younger women in this way. That they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands so that the word of God will not be dishonored. We're going to give you four priorities of a young Christian woman here. Paul speaks and addresses, as it would be in the culture, that the young women are primarily married. I realize that not all of the young women here are married, but the principles of character that are here are common.

Married versus unmarried, as we'll see. We're going to look at four priorities that should mark your life. And these are the deep-seated commitment to right priorities. This, ladies, is part of the radical break from your past that God has called you to embrace. This is not the word of a pastor preaching what he wants for you to do. We're only trying to honor what God has said in his word. And these are the priorities that God has given to young women who belong to Christ. This is the life that you're to devote yourself. First of all, the first priority that Paul mentions is the priority of your relationships. The priority of your relationships.

Look at verse 4 with me again. So that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children. The word for encourage here has the sense of training them in self-control. That women would be trained and learned to live this way.

That they would be encouraged along the path. We all understand in this room that, ladies, that your husband sometimes is not the best object of your affection by the way that he treats you and talks with you. We get that. What you have to understand is that the call on your life is not based on the merits of your husband, but on the call of a pristine holy God who saved you from sin. And this is what God calls you to do. He calls you to love your husband and to love your children.

What can we say about that? Godly women, in contrast to the smart-mouthed, sassy image portrayed in the media, that makes men look foolish and women look really dominant and strong and sarcastic and critical of the men around them. Ladies, reject all of that and understand that what God calls upon your life is for a godly woman to bring love to her relationships. That you are going to be a fountain of sacrifice and service to the relationships around you.

When the scriptures talk about love, it's not talking primarily about the power of emotion or the power of romance or anything erotic. It's talking about the virtues of sacrifice and service. And ladies, the call of God on your life is to live that out in the context of the most intimate relationships that he's given to you. Your husband and your children are to be the objects of your service and self-sacrifice. Now, I realize that if we approach this with a worldly mindset, say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute!

That doesn't sound too good! What's in it for me? Ladies, that's not the godly way to think. That's not the godly way to respond to this. And I want to help you with this because the only way that you're going to have a proper perspective on what God is calling you to is to remember what Christ has already done on your behalf. Turn to Matthew chapter 20. Matthew chapter 20.

And remember, ladies, I'm preaching this from a spirit of love and encouragement to you. I am pointing you to Christ in everything that we say in this message. Matthew chapter 20, verse 26. You're here as a woman that says, Christ has saved me. Christ has redeemed me. I love Christ.

That has implications on your life that have nothing to do with the quality of the man that you're married or this level of obedience that your children bring to the household on a day-by-day basis. What God is calling you to in Titus chapter 2 is simply a specific application of the greater principle that animated Christ when He saved you from your sin and from your rebellion against Him. Look at Matthew chapter 20, verse 26.

Actually, let's go to verse 25. Jesus called His disciples to Himself and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. Jesus is saying, This is the mindset of the world, authority, boarding it over others, getting what you want out of life. Jesus says, verse 26, This is the radical break that we've been talking about straight from the lips of Jesus, ladies. This is Jesus talking to you, in a sense, through His Word and by His Spirit. Jesus says, It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many.

Ladies, start your thinking there. Look at the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at the reality of the fact that He looked on you in your sin, in your undeserving condition, and in anticipation of bearing the wrath of God against your sins on the cross, He stepped into this world to serve you. To serve you. He came to serve you by accomplishing salvation for you, which you could never do on your own. If you are a Christian woman, you are the recipient of undeserved grace and undeserved service that Christ gave to you.

That is the fountain, the ever bubbling fountain of the health of your soul. It is a prior act of self-sacrifice by the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God, giving Himself up for you, serving you with His very lifeblood. That is how you became a Christian.

That now becomes the defining perspective of the way that you view what you're going to do with your life. As stated by the Lord Jesus Himself. If you want to grow in godliness, if you want to become a godly woman, understand that the principle starts right here. That greatness in the kingdom of God belongs to the one who will make Himself a servant.

Just as Christ was the greatest servant, the perfect servant on our behalf. And so ladies, follow me here. This actually isn't very complicated.

This isn't complicated at all. Ladies, do you see how Christ loved you in your sinfulness? Do you see it?

Do you see how He laid Himself down when you had no claim on His affections? Do you see Him sacrificing the glories of heaven in order to walk on this earth for 33 years in order to fulfill the law of God on your behalf? Do you see Him carrying the cross, bearing the cross to Calvary? Do you see Him being nailed to that cross and hoisted up between heaven and earth, spilling His blood for sinners like you? Do you see it? Do you love Him for that? Is your heart melted before such undeserved grace and mercy, the King of kings serving you with His own lifeblood? Do you see it? You see it, right? Well, ladies, if you see that, then realize that the power of that Spirit of Christ, the Spirit, the self-sacrificial that animated Christ, now courses through your veins and is to become the defining mark of your life.

And how do you apply that? It's obvious, isn't it? Don't think about the starving children in Africa. That's too remote.

It's too distant. In one sense, it doesn't matter because it doesn't affect your life. No, no. Start, say, this spirit of service, this starts with the people who are closest to me. God wants me to start at the circle that's closest to me and then work out the circles in an ever-broadening way. And so you look at your family, you look at your husband, you look at your children, and you say, right there is the providential circle that God has given me to live out and to exemplify the Spirit of Christ who saved me with his own act of service on my behalf.

Wow. And so, ladies, we can say it this way. Your husband and your children should be the primary recipients of the best of your time and affections if at times their response does not seem to be worthy of the effort. We all, if we're thinking rightly about ourselves, we all realize that our own life is not always a worthy response to Christ, and yet he continues to cleanse us and hold us and keep us, preserving us for heaven. Ladies, your own life is not always worthy of Christ, is it? Well, and Christ does not change his disposition of grace toward you. Well, understand that the weakness of your husband and the weakness of your children and the headaches that they sometimes bring does not change the spirit that animates your heart.

Your goal is to honor Christ by somehow reflecting to the circle of people God has given you the same spirit of sacrifice that he showed to you. And that's why Scripture says, love your husband and love your children. You give priority to those relationships. That's the call of God on a Christian woman.

Pretty searching. And even if you don't have a husband and children yet, you can still cultivate that same spirit of faithfulness until God brings the right man along. You cultivate faithfulness in your responsibilities, and you know what? When you live that way as a single woman and cultivate graciousness in your speech, cultivate faithfulness in your relationships, you know what you'll do? You'll carry that right over into your marriage relationship. You'll carry it over in your family relationship. But if you're an angry, rebellious woman now as a single woman, you're going to be an angry, rebellious woman when you get married too. So the fact that the passage speaks to husbands and wives for you single ladies doesn't mean that you can't respond now.

Just cultivate it in the relationships God has given you and trust him and wait for that right man, that godly man, to be brought to you. It's a priority of relationships. Now secondly, there's another priority that's laid forth for Christian women, young women in particular, as Paul addresses them.

And it's this. Point number two is the priority of righteousness. The priority of righteousness. And you see this kind of in the way that you view yourself and how you conduct yourself there in verse five. When he says, to be sensible and pure.

Sensible and pure. Really what he's saying here, it's a very delicate way for Paul to put it. But what he is addressing here is that this is a positive statement, a positive New Testament expression of the biblical commandment against adultery. Paul is saying that there should be a purity that animates your physical life. The Bible, the Bible, let's turn over to Hebrews 13.

We need to do this. Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13, verse 4. It says, marriage.

Huh. Marriage. We were just talking about husbands and family.

Maybe this has something to help us. Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. God intends for relationship of intimacy to be reserved exclusively for a man and a woman already married in a lifelong monogamous relationship. Anything else is sinful. Anything else God will judge, he says.

That's the standard. That's the standard of God for relational purity. Now, what Paul is saying here, turn back to Titus chapter 2, verse 5.

I want to deal with this carefully. He says to be sensible and to be pure. Now, this purity of which Paul speaks is more than simply abstaining from an illicit physical relationship. The Bible is very, very clear on this. When you see the idea of sensibility and purity being brought out to your attention by the Word of God, this starts with an attitude of the heart.

This starts with a demeanor that understands this. For you ladies who are married, understand this, ladies. When Paul talks about purity, we can start it this way and then we'll look at a couple of passages to say this. Ladies, your physical allure is for your husband alone in private. It's not for you to display publicly to whoever walks by and sees you. This is biblical purity that views your physical attraction in a way that says this is the purity. God calls this to be exercised within the marriage relationship. There is a veil of secrecy and intimacy that belongs to my husband alone, and I don't flaunt this out in public. I don't flaunt this to other men. Your desires and your purity are aimed at your husband and your husband alone.

And this goes to far more than just a physical relationship. Look over at 1 Timothy, for example. We need to see the fullness of what the Bible calls you to in this purity. And once again, beloved, once again, once again, the call of Scripture is to radically break from the world in which you live.

This is a radical break of which it speaks, and I don't even need to describe media to you for you to understand this. You're smart and intelligent, and you get, when I read these verses, you'll get how anti-cultural this is for our world today. 1 Timothy 2, verse 9. Paul says, when the Bible talks about purity for a young married woman, purity that even a single woman would aim after, here it is. This is the word of God, not the word of man.

No man would write these words. Verse 9, likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. Ladies, God's call on your life is to a godly, modest life of good works, not to be displaying yourself in public.

The word of God condemns that, the civious approach to life. Relationships and righteousness are two of the major priorities for the young Christian woman. Pastor Don Green will bring you two more important ones on our next broadcast. Join us then on The Truth Pulpit.

Right now, Don's back here in studio with a special invitation. Well, friend, if you are anywhere near the Cincinnati area and you don't have a good church home, I invite you to visit us at Truth Community Church. I'm in the pulpit almost every Sunday, and we have a loving congregation that would simply be thrilled to meet you and welcome you to our body.

We are striving to manifest the principles that you heard taught today. Why not come and see us? Bill will help you find us on our website. Just visit thetruthpulpit.com for directions and service times. There you'll also find out more about our ministry. Once more, that's thetruthpulpit.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time for more from The Truth Pulpit.