Sunday, October 12th, 2025
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
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?
Again, we read in verse 5, Paul says to Titus. I want the older women to teach the younger women to be chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. So the first virtue we have here is chastity. What is chastity?
#1 – Chastity (ἁγνάς, pure, holy)
This word chastity comes from the idea of chastising/disciplining your natural desire for pleasure, especially physical or sexual pleasure.To be a chaste woman then is to keep your sensual appetites in subordination to the law of God. This means no adultery, no fornication, no sex outside of marriage, no wanton lustful looks, no seduction, no romantic attachments to people who are not your husband. More positively it means desiring union with your husband as one of the great blessings of marriage, and then also desiring spiritual union with God through a chaste soul.Of bodily chastity, it says in Hebrews 13:4, Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.That is to say, sex within marriage is a wonderful gift (it is honorable), but outside of marriage it brings shame, it brings destruction, it defiles you.Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5 that regular intimacy within marriage is also a protection against sin. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.So chastity is this virtue of sexual contentment and benevolence. It is seeking your spouse’s good above your own, and acknowledging that your body belongs to the person you are one flesh with.This also means being patient with one another when sickness or providence prevents you from coming together.It means imitating the example of Job, who says in Job 31:1, “I have made a covenant with my eyes; Why then should I look upon another?”A chaste woman moderates and directs her passions, so that the words of Song of Solomon 7:10 become true of her, I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me.We learn in 1 Corinthians 6 that what we do with our bodies has a direct impact on our spiritual condition. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.We learn also in 2 Corinthians 11:2, that sexual chastity is the analogy for spiritual chastity. Paul says to the whole church, For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.So your physical chastity is to be ordered towards your spiritual chastity, because our bodies belong to God, our spirits belong to God, Christ died to purchase us entirely, and thus we want to remain pure for Him. So chastity is how we keep covenant with God and the person we are married to, it is sexual fidelity.This brings us to our second virtue which is…#2 – Domesticity (οἰκουρούς)
In Greek this is just one word, οἰκουρούς, which means to keep watch like a guardian over the household.So when the KJV has “keepers at home” the idea is not passive, as if you are on house arrest and cannot leave, being kept at home, but rather that you are the one doing the keeping, actively watching, managing, fulfilling the household duties. You should think of Adam in the garden, his job was to tend and keep it. Just so a woman tends and keeps the home.Other translations go with, “homemakers” (NKJV), or “working at home” (ESV), or “fulfilling their duties at home” (NET). And so I think our English word domesticity/domestic helps capture this idea of homemaking as an art, and as a vocation.In 1 Timothy 5:13-14 Paul says something similar about why he wants the younger widows to get married, And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not. Therefore I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house (οἰκοδεσποτεῖν), give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully.So God wants women to manage the house under their husband’s authority, not wandering about as busybodies. If you recall our four sermons on the Proverbs 31 woman, that passage and those sermons are really an exposition of what this single word domesticity can look like for a Christian woman (this is a huge category). So go back and listen to all those if you want more details on this subject.For now, just observe that our culture is at war with this virtue, and has set up major economic, legal, and social obstacles to the very existence of productive households. Many women would love to be homemakers (working at and from home), but it’s just not feasible for many families.So sometimes people ask me, “Is it a sin for a wife to work outside the home?” And my answer is usually very disappointing because it’s usually something, “well it depends, how much time do you have?”If the woman is willfully neglecting her duties before God as a wife and mother and homemaker, then yes, that is sin (and something needs to change!). But there are also circumstances where it can be good, lawful, and wise, for a woman to earn wages, even from some outside employer, especially when that work is in service of the household and does not prevent her from doing her most essential calling.It really is a question of your priorities, your duties, your stage in life, the ages and number of your children, your skillset, your husband’s vocation, and your current financial commitments. It is also a question of your trajectory. Maybe you are still paying off certain debts, and Psalm 15:4 applies to you which says, He who swears to his own hurt and does not change.So depending on what those prior commitments are, and whether or not you can be released from them, God has a plan for your flourishing (He always meets where we are not only where we should be), but it might require sacrifices (in fact it almost always does!), it might require a change in your standard of living, or where you live, or how big your house is, it might require a plan with multiple phases to it.Whatever the case, it is here that you really ought to seek out wise counsel. Pray with your husband, pray for your husband, ask God to guide him so you have a shared vision for your life and future together.And as you sort through that counsel remember the words of James 3:16-17 which says, For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.If that is the spirit in which you are seeking heavenly wisdom, God will show you the way.God knows your heart. He knows if you are abdicating your duties and being selfish, or honestly desiring to fulfill them. Keeping the home is a duty he assigns to you as wives and mothers. So embrace it, aspire to get better at it. Treat your homemaking like the art that it really is, and remember the words of Colossian 3:23-24, And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.So older women set the example here, teach the younger women to be domestic, and to serve Christ in and through keeping the home.This brings us to our third virtue which is goodness.#3 – Goodness (ἀγαθάς)
And this virtue does not need too much explaining. Goodness, like beauty, is a transcendental. And we define goodness as simply that which is desirable. Goodness is that which is desirable.Jesus says in the gospels that God is very goodness itself. His nature is goodness all the way through. This is what Jesus means in Matthew 19:17 when he says, Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.So any creaturely goodness that we possess down here is only a participation of God’s more perfect and heavenly goodness that He is. And therefore, the more we align ourselves to God and His will, the more good that we become.Again, this is why faith and love are so essential if you want to become good. As it says in Psalm 16:2, I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.In practice this looks like not repaying evil with evil, insult with insult, but rather like God, being patient, kind, compassionate and merciful.Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:15, See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all.He says likewise in Ephesians 4:31-5:2, Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.What is Goodness? It is the best smelling perfume a woman can wear. It is desirable in the eyes of God, and makes you more desirable to your husband.Fourth and finally, Paul says, the women are to be obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.#4 – Obedience To Your Husband (ὑποτασσομένας τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν)
Here is perhaps the hardest of all virtues for most women, to submit to and obey your husband, when you do not agree with him.And this is really the test of faith (through many trials we must enter the kingdom). Do you believe that God knew what He was doing, when he made this a universal command for marriage? Did God not know that men are sinners? Did God not anticipate that your husband would sometimes (or often) get it wrong? Do you think yourself wiser than God, and that you can setup marital roles better than He can?Countless Christians pay lip service to the doctrine of headship and submission,but many women have never obeyed their husband, cheerfully, reverently, honoring him from the heart. Maybe you have submitted begrudgingly, on the outside, you’ve done the thing, while inside you are furious, resentful, and bitter. Is that Christian submission? No. If that is you, you need to seek forgiveness from God and your husband for that kind of attitude.So I could give here all the appropriate warnings to husbands about not exasperating your wife, and being unreasonable, but that is not this sermon. And if you look at our text, Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit does not add any qualifications to this command. He just says it and moves on. And so here we can practice not being wiser than God? Let’s just hear it, obey it, and not make excuses.Remember that warning from earlier in Titus 1:16, Paul says there are people in the church who profess that they know God; but in works they deny him. Do don’t be the woman who denies God by refusing to obey her husband.Don’t pretend that your situation is somehow always the exception to the rule. Here’s the general rule: Unless your husband is commanding you to sin, God says obey him.And if you wonder what to do when your husband is not obeying God, God also has an answer for that. It says in 1 Peter 3:1-2, Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear.Fear of what? Fear of God. Because remember it is God you are submitting to when you obey Your husband’s lawful commands.Remember the argument in 1 Peter 3 starts way back in 1 Peter 2 with the command for all Christians to be in subjection to the civil authorities.Peter says, Having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men—as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king (1 Peter 2:12-17).This is the same logic as what Paul says here in Titus to the women. Women are to be obedient to their own husbands, so that the word of God be not blasphemed.Our marriages are either shining testimonies of the gospel, or they are cause for people to blaspheme. Those are the stakes.So how seriously do you take the word of God? Do you trifle with it, do you scoff at it, do you pick and choose which things you want to observewhile ignoring those things that would inconvenience you?Jesus says in Matthew 5:16, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.Martin Luther once said, “through faith we are justified, through good works God is glorified.”So young women, wives, glorify God by honoring your husband from the heart. Not with eyeservice as pleasing men, but truly as pleasing God.Conclusion
Imagine these four virtues are like precious stones buried in the earth. 1) The pearl of Chastity, 2) the diamond of Domesticity, 3) the emerald of Goodness, and 4) the ruby of Obedience.What faith in Christ does is discover these virtues, it digs them out of the ground,it cuts them into the right shape, and polishes them to show off their splendor. Faith beautifies the virtues.And then what love for God does is bind them all together, like gemstones perfectly set within a golden crown.And what your life here is meant to be, is the seeking of that crown so that by it, God may be praised, hallowed, and glorified.It says in Revelation 4:9-11, Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: “You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created.”Ladies, God created you for glory, to reflect His infinite beauty, and so pursue these virtues from faith and love, for the glory of Christ, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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