Sermon: Holy Women - Pt. 3 (Titus 2:5)

Holy Women – Pt. 3 Sunday, October 12th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Titus 2:1-5

Prayer

O Father adorn our soul with gladness, make our lives to mirror the life of Jesus, who from love for You, laid down His life for us. Conform us now to the image of Your Son, as we hear his word preached, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

A few weeks ago, in our first sermon on Holy Women, we asked the questions, What is beauty? And, What makes something beautiful?

• In answer to those questions, we said that beauty is that which gives pleasure upon being seen, and we said that what gives pleasure to our sight is the beholding (the apprehension) of three qualities: 1) Unity, 2) Due Proportion, and 3) Splendor. When we see that something is 1) united as an integrated whole, 2) ordered and well-proportioned in all its parts, and 3) that it has good color and appropriate brightness/clarity, we cannot help but say that that thing is beautiful.
• Now this morning we are going to consider 4 more virtues that God wants the older women to teach the younger women, and which if acquired have the potential to make a woman beautiful in the eyes of God. Those virtues are enumerated in verse 5 of our text and they are: 1) Chastity, 2) Domesticity, 3) Goodness, and 4) Obedience to one’s husband.
• Now before we consider each of those virtues in depth, I want to highlight why I said that these virtues only have the potential to make a person beautiful in the eyes of God. That is because without Jesus, without genuine love for God as THE REASON WHY you are pursuing these things, no changes you try to make will be of any ultimate value to you. It will not serve your salvation if Christ is absent from your efforts.
  • As we heard earlier from 1 Timothy 2:15, women will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control. That is a big IF.
  • To put it another way, the “trad life” without Jesus is just another way to hell. Conservative politics without Jesus can only get you so far. Yes, we must reject the feminism of our age. Yes, we must oppose the many assaults on the natural family. But recovery of good traditions and family values must be animated by an authentic love for Jesus, otherwise, what we are? We are Pharisees, cleaning the outside of the cup when the inside is still filthy. Or worse, doing what Jesus condemns in Matthew 15:6 when he says to them, Thus have ye made the commandment of God void by your tradition.
  • Christ wants a vessel that is clean inside and out. And how do you clean the inside of your soul? It says in Acts 15:9, God purifies our hearts by faith. Faith is what make all things pure to the pure.
  • It says likewise in Hebrews 11:6, without faith it is impossible to please God.
  • And in 1 Corinthians 13 Paul says, without charity, I am nothing.
    • So you must always keep before your eyes those things most essential, namely the ultimate WHY of your actions, the WHY of your pursuit of chastity, or homemaking, or goodness, and submission.
    • It it’s just because you want to fit in at Christ Covenant Church, okay, but that isn’t the same thing as living faith. Or if it’s just because you want to rebel against the absurdities of our technocratic globalist age, again that is not the same thing as faith working by love. What must motivate our acquisition of new virtues is that we simply want to please God. We love Jesus and want to make him happy. That’s Christianity 101 and we must never forget it.
    • Heaven and Hell hangs on that distinction. And so I want you to hear this sermon within that larger gospel frame. It says in Colossians 1:17 that in Christ all things hold together. Meaning, without Christ, your life, your efforts, will fail and fall apart.
    • So what is the gravitational center of your soul? Is it truly Christ crucified, resurrected, and reigning, or is it your petty self? Is what your words and actions revolve around the Holy Spirit of God, or is it worldly desire? This is the warfare of all the saints between virtue and vice, and this is the contrast Titus 2 is setting up for the Christians in Crete. Paul is describing for them what a life that harmonious with gospel can blossom into.
  • And so with that in mind let us consider these four virtues each in their turn.

Again, we read in verse 5, Paul says t