Titus 2:1-8

“As for you, Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching. ² Teach the older men to exercise self-control, to be worthy of respect, and to live wisely. They must have sound faith and be filled with love and patience. ³ Similarly, teach the older women to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers. Instead, they should teach others what is good. ⁴ These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, ⁵ to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God. ⁶ In the same way, encourage the young men to live wisely. ⁷ And you yourself must be an example to them by doing good works of every kind. Let everything you do reflect the integrity and seriousness of your teaching.⁸ Teach the truth so that your teaching can’t be criticized. Then those who oppose us will be ashamed and have nothing bad to say about us.”

So, what does the life of a mature woman look like? 

1. LIFE – What kind of a life are you going to live”

1. Careful with your walk Reverent – Honor God in the way that you live.

When it comes to women Paul tells Titus to teach the older women to walk in a way that honors God. Paul is telling you to stop listening to the lies of the culture and start listen to and live for the Lord. It frees you from being a people pleaser and lets you live from an audience of One. This one verse gives value to women because it reminds you not to get wrapped up in your looks but your life. Are you listening to the Lord or are you listening to the lies? The world says you are here for pleasure, but the Word says you are here for a purpose. When you make it about looks you end up competing with other women instead of coming alongside. You end up being mean instead of mentoring. Don’t believe me, then why do women respond so rudely when they show up to an event and there is another woman wearing the same dress? Why are your first thoughts, I can’t believe she wore that besides I look better just look at her butt it looks so big! Paul is telling you to living for the Lord not for an image. He is calling you to pursue purity not popularity. So let me ask you are listening to the voice of Christ or the critical and crushing peer pressure of this culture?  If I were to ask 10 different women WHAT IS BEAUTY? Would they all say the same thing? God loves variety. If I pulled out different kinds of flowers and said roses are beautiful but lilies are not or carnations are not you would disagree with me. If we really believed that we would try to get all flowers to become roses, we would force carnations to conform to our picture of pretty. You have a few too many pettles so we would pluck and preen them and try to force them into the shape we want. But what we are really doing in the name of beauty is butchering and killing God’s creation. In 2015 the beauty industry generated $56.2 billion in the United States alone. While we are busy trying to mold them into man’s definition of beauty we are missing the bigness of God’s beauty. We have reduced God’s beauty into something that’s small and shallow and evaluates and elevates women based on the sensual instead of the spiritual. Is it any wonder that most women suffer from self-esteem issues? Today the world is telling women to base their life on looks and then we wonder why women are stuck in slavery and being reduced to sexual objects. Basing life solely on looks leads to lust, but basing it on the Lord leads to love. Ladies are you basing your life on truth or on trash? Are you listening to the culture or Christ, ladies this isn’t truth its trash, and yet its what most of you are letting run and ruin your life. Pursuing the Lord frees you from worrying about what the world things. Rather than worrying about the wrinkles we should worry about our walk.