Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] Good morning, 945.
[00:00:07] Good morning. If I have not met you, my name is Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the village church, and I have the joy of bringing to you our last and final week of masculinity and femininity. And this morning, we get to talk about femininity. And I can hear it already. You're like, but you're a dude.
[00:00:28] I know, I know. So there are a couple things that happen behind the scenes that you may not know about, but one of which is there's a group of people who get every one of my sermons every week, and they comment on it and bring ideas to the table. That's a different group than the preaching prep team, where we develop our sermons together. But on our eval team, there is always a woman who reads my sermons before we give them. And this one, we have a whole bunch more.
[00:00:57] It's been really, actually a great. Just exercise and wanting to open up scriptures and be like, listen, we really want to bless our women. So on the front end, I want to share with you our goals. My first goal is to offend women everywhere. This is like, it. No, I'm kidding. That is not my goal. I have no desire to offend. And so if that happens, we can deal with that. Personally, I have a few goals. Number one, to the best of my ability, to simply and clearly lay out Scripture's teaching on femininity. I am not here to tell you what to do. I am not here to control your life. To be honest, I don't have the energy for that. So I am here to answer a simple question. So what does the Bible teach on femininity? Now, can we just say a couple things here as a point of clarity?
[00:01:54] If our culture were to tell, I don't know, parents, that because you're not a child, you have no authority to speak into your child's life. Or if they were to say married people, because you're not single, you have no authority any longer to speak into the lives of single people, we would respond and say, that's ridiculous. Now, as a mom, as a dad, we're going to speak boldly into the lives of our children, et cetera.
[00:02:17] There seems to be this notion that dudes have a bunch of subjects that we're not allowed to talk about. And I just want to say, as a pastor, as your pastor, it is my sacred and joyful responsibility to stand here and address whatever the scriptures teach, no matter what the subject, no matter how weird, no matter how awkward. And especially no matter what our culture says, I am and am not allowed to do. And as a dad who is raising two daughters, I will not allow them to steal my voice from my daughters, period. And dudes, if you are a man and God has given you the privilege to speak blessing, honor, life and truth into the lives of women in your life, you might be a grandparent, you might be an uncle, you might be a friend, you might be a husband. Never let the culture steal your voice to bless, honor and give God's word to whomever you find it. And ladies, don't let the culture steal your voice. Speak blessing and truth to. So this is like one of the joys. We just get to say no to these cultural lies and we get to open up God's word and say we want to know what God's word says. So we're going to do that together. All right? My second goal is to champion all women in your God ordained femininity so that you might flourish in every single way. I want nothing more than for your personal joy, the joy of your family, and if you are married, the joy of your marriage. All right, lastly, goal number three. To challenge all willing girls and women to examine yourselves and come to Jesus as you fall short of biblical femininity. So every man and every woman have fallen short of God's standard. And so we do is we open the Word and we look at it and we declare that God's design is good, God's forgiveness is real, and the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us more and more into the image of Jesus is real. All right, so last week we identified that there are two sinful pendulums that men find themselves pulled between. So on the one side is passivity, on the other side is aggression.
[00:04:36] In the same way, there are two sinful pendulums that most women are pulled between.
[00:04:43] On the one side is being a doormat and the other side is being domineering. And I'm not talking about situations of abuse or extreme neglect.
[00:04:57] Too often when women realize that they have maybe allowed themselves to be a doormat, there is a pendulum swing all the other way to domineering. I will never let someone do this to me again. And yet somehow, just like with the men, in between these pendulums is a beautiful design that God made and intended us to try to learn to live out. So we're going to jump into what femininity is in scripture now. We're going to share a definition. We shared this a couple of weeks ago, but I want to come back to this. And it's a definition that we've used at Village Church to really help guide our view of femininity. And for me, as a dad, as I get to raise two incredible daughters, this has been just a really profoundly helpful definition. It goes like this.
[00:05:44] Women thrive in their femininity when given responsibility to be visibly strong in heart, equal and respectful in collaboration and sacrificial and nurturing toward someone of great value. Lots of words, we're going to break that down. But in other words, if I were talking to my daughters, I would say something like this. God made you incredibly strong on purpose. There is no one better than you or worse than you.
[00:06:16] Bless every team you are on and lean into your God ordained superpower, super strength of nurturing. And if you do this, you will give yourselves the greatest fighting chance of experiencing relational, spiritual, and psychological flourishing. All right, so for the rest of our time, we're gonna unpack what this means. And like last week, due to our limitations, this is gonna so kind of like, as a introduction. So for those of you who kind of want to go deeper into this, this will be a good platform to kind of springboard you. If you are young, if you are old, if you are married, if you are single, if you are a man, this is for you. Because one of our sacred responsibilities is to champion the women in our lives. And if you are a lady, last week's sermon on masculinity was for you, because one of your sacred responsibilities is to champion the masculinity and the men in your life. Sound good? Amen. All right, let's jump in. First, women are intentionally designed by Jesus for responsibility. Women thrive in their femininity when given responsibility towards someone depending on life stage something of great value. So last week we talked about men and what happens when they're bored and when they don't have responsibility. And what you'll find is that most often women are gonna find themselves in this space of boredom when they are not taking care of someone or have responsibility for someone or something of great value. Okay, so last week, here's what we said. Bored men do dumb things. And all the women were like, amen. Amen. And what it can most often look like is it starts with like a, hey, watch what I can do, or, yeah, beat this, right? I mean, we are a funny creature, us men. Okay? So if that's what bored men do, what do bored women do? Okay, so for some reason right now, a bunch of you are bracing yourself for offense. I can feel it. I see it Like, I'm like, ah, before you get offended, I didn't come up with this. Number one, it has been pre read and affirmed by multiple women, including, like first service women. So I'm just delivering the. That you ordered. So let's look into it. Okay? All right.
[00:08:40] Bored women often hurt each other relationally.
[00:08:47] Let me share a quote with you. A woman said it was in a group of men and women. And here's what the woman said. She said, women are vicious to each other.
[00:09:00] And every woman in that group started nodding their heads. And then the men, after realizing the other women were affirming this, all, we affirm what you're affirming. That woman said. We didn't say she said it. We're just affirming what she said. So as a dude who has observed a whole bunch of female relationships, it's very apparent that when women trend unhealthy, this statement, this sentiment tends to be very true. And in fact, for most of the women, there are faces and names going through your brain right now because you have been on the receiving end of, of this kind of viciousness. Now, in modern culture, in female culture, there are things that we're not allowed to talk about, and apparently this is one of them. The problem is that the Bible talks about it. And if the Bible talks about it, we're gonna talk about it. And the Bible isn't like, inferential about this. It's blunt. And so when the Bible's blunt, I wanna stand before you and be like, ah, God said it. I'm just the delivery mechanism of this. First Timothy, chapter five, I'll put on the screen. We're gonna be in verse 13 to start here, but I'm gonna give you some context. So the Apostle Paul is instructing a younger pastor named Timothy. He's effectively the senior pastor of the church in Ephesus. And can we just agree that neither Paul nor Timothy are patriarchal, chauvinistic males who want to oppress women? We'll just start with that as an assumption. Good. Paul's training Timothy on a whole bunch of things, but here he's training Timothy on how to deal with a really specific problem in the Ephesian church. But it's interesting. It's not just in the Ephesian church. It seems to be a problem that most of the churches are experiencing.
[00:10:40] And so Paul's gonna address this very bluntly. And here's the problem that is growing bored women were creating a whole bunch of relational issues in the church. He said it. I didn't Say it. It's in the Bible. I'm gonna show you, okay?
[00:10:57] In fact, there's a subset of particularly bored women who make the most amount of issues in the church. And that group is older widows. Their husbands are dead, their kids are gone. They don't work. They have a lot of time on their hands. And so here's what Paul says in 1 Timothy 5, 13. He says, Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house. And not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies saying what they should not. I told you guys, the Bible is blunt. It's just not playing around. So Paul gives a solution to this pastor for the women of the church. And by the way, he addresses men as well. So this is not like he's picking on the women. The majority of the time, he picks on the dudes. But he's gonna make sure that we're all pursuing Christlikeness. He gives a solution. And we gotta understand this solution also in its cultural context. Okay? So, ladies, if you find yourself widowed or divorced or in need of income, there are so many opportunities for you to find a job in America right now. You can do that. If you lived in Ephesus. There weren't really many jobs that a godly woman would do where you could go provide for your family.
[00:12:19] And so what he basically says is, like, we'll summarize it, ladies. You need to make sure that you are taking care of someone or something of great value. And he's gonna emphasize this in the home because this is the primary place in that cultural moment where someone is gonna take responsibility of someone or something of great value. And so his solution is very simple. It's in 14, he says, so I would have. Well, he already says to the older widows, take care of younger women. Disciple them. Don't just be bored and gossiping. Take care and disciple the next generation. To the younger widows, he says this. Marry, bear children, manage their households. And this is striking. Give the adversary no occasion for slander. In fact, one of the names for the devil is the slanderer. And then he says in verse 15, for some have already strayed after Satan. These are strong, strong words. And he's identifying a proclivity here. And so, ladies, God made you physically and emotionally powerful and inclined and able to carry children and to feed children and to nurture children. And guess what? We are so grateful as dudes, because we cannot do that. And you all know, if we were given the opportunity to give birth, we couldn't do It. We just could not do it. Now, is this all you are?
[00:13:52] No, of course not.
[00:13:55] Does this mean you can't work?
[00:13:58] Literally? No. We're gonna talk about the Proverbs 31 Woman in a moment. And this girl's a rockstar. She's working outside of the house.
[00:14:04] Does this mean that men don't participate with raising children?
[00:14:09] No, we're just not talking about men. We're simply taking a moment, and we are identifying. God made you physiologically, biologically so special and capable of doing something no man can do. And then he added just an extra awesome dose of a nurturing spirit that the majority of men just do not have. And here's his whole point.
[00:14:30] You women were made for great responsibility over someone or something of great value. And when you do this, you begin to thrive in your femininity.
[00:14:41] Now, culturally, you ladies are kicking men's butt at this. There are far more purposeless men that I am aware of than there are purposeless women. So great job on that. Men, we need to step that up. I want to talk about girls for a moment. So just like last week, we ended kind of each of the sections talking about just some, like, arrows or directions or tips for thinking about how we raise our daughters to be godly women. And we're going to do that this morning. So girls need to be trained in three things here to be responsible appropriately for kids, animals, and even events like learning to teach them planning and leadership skills at a young age. It's so important. Number two, to take responsibility for their actions and resolve conflicts biblically and quickly, especially with other girls at a young age.
[00:15:33] And number three, to work hard at school, work, sports, church.
[00:15:38] So for far too many women, singleness, and this is often intentional, sometimes not. Singleness is stretched into your 30s or later. Also, divorce rates are higher than ever before.
[00:15:52] And one of the unique aspects of raising girls in this cultural moment is that we need to raise girls for the very real possibility that they will not get married for a while. And they need to learn how to be the leader, provider, and protector of themselves. Because this is the reality for many, if not most young women in their 20s and 30s. And so we need to teach and train them how to do all these things. This is why we say at the end of these messages, just because we talk about leader, provider, and protector, every mother and woman I know that loves the Lord is a leader, provider, and protector. And every godly man that I know is going to learn how to do these things. We're talking about what uniquely helps you thrive here as a woman. All right. Second, women are intentionally designed by Jesus with incredible inner strength. Women thrive in their femininity when given the responsibility to be visibly strong in heart. So a couple years ago, I was preaching to a group of people about Jesus's design of the female body as physically softer and weaker than the male body. This is not controversial. It's back scientifically. Got it.
[00:17:05] And to counter this, we're going to show you this here in a bit in Scripture that when Jesus designed women, he gave them a profound inner psychological and spiritual strength that is honestly really hard for most men to understand. And so when we say a woman is strong in heart, this is not a patronizing term. It's actually one of the most amazing qualities of the godliest women that I know. Now, after I taught that, yes, women are biologically weaker or softer than men, but they are often internally stronger, I had one pastor come up to me and say to me, no, women are weaker mentally and physically. And he's ridiculous. Okay, turn with me. I'm sorry you girls have to deal with so much. It's insane. So turn with me to Proverbs 31. This woman is incredible. I said this already. But she is just an all star of a godly woman. And Proverbs 31 actually has an interesting origin story because it's written by a guy named King Lemuel. And King Lemuel, this is a poem that he was given by his mother to teach him how to find a godly woman. And so King Lemuel is giving this poem that he received from his mother to his son, because Proverbs is clear that a worldly woman will torture you, but a godly woman will bless you. And she is rare and she is hard to find, and she's worth waiting for. So King Lemuel describes this woman for his son. And verse 25, he says, this strength and dignity are her clothing. And she laughs at the time to come. Or she laughs. Some of your translations will say she laughs at the future.
[00:18:52] So when you meet this godly woman, her inner conviction and confidence are apparent. She is not driven by fear and anxiety, although all men and women feel fear and anxiety. No, she's not driven by her feelings. She's driven by vision. She's not easily swayed by whatever she hears last. No, she is grounded in God's word. She's not desperate. Desperate people do dumb things, as we say. No, she is secure in her identity. She doesn't flaunt her body out of insecurity, but she actually uses her body to bless. And when you meet this godly woman, you are drawn in by her strength and her dignity. Strong women wear this strength in their posture. They wear this strength in their eyes, their clothing. You can feel it. And because she's strong and she's secure, like the older she gets, she gets clear eyes about the just ridiculous immaturity of so many women and men around her. And she realizes, you know what? I am secure in who I am. I know who God made me to be. And I don't need to participate in the undignified behavior of the women of this world.
[00:20:09] Now, that being said, I would like to give a fair warning to every woman or girl who pursues strength and dignity.
[00:20:20] The majority of men and women in this world are deeply insecure.
[00:20:28] And insecure men and women are unusually threatened by a strong and dignified woman.
[00:20:37] And you all know exactly what I'm talking about.
[00:20:40] And they will. These insecure men and women attempt to break your strength through gossip, cutting words. And if they have bad enough character, they'll do worse.
[00:20:53] The great thing about growing strong, though, is that it gives you the fortitude as you grow in strength to endure the blasts of insecure people.
[00:21:02] But I gotta tell you, I know that I am raising strong, secure young women in my home. And I know that every insecure man and woman will try to break their strength.
[00:21:13] Now, if I could be even more blunt about the strength of women, I have unfortunately had a front row seat to the lives of many men and women falling apart.
[00:21:26] Sometimes it's at their own doings, sometimes it's at the doing of other people.
[00:21:31] When I watch a family fall apart, a little bit of pastor math, but I think it's pretty much spot on.
[00:21:38] 80% of the time, the man becomes undone and the woman holds the family together.
[00:21:47] 80% of the time, the man reverts to porn, drinking, drugs, hobbies, video games, laziness, apathy, depression, and is frozen.
[00:21:55] And 80% of the time, it is the woman who rises up and does what needs to be done. Are there exceptions? Of course. That's why it's not 100%. It's 80, 20.
[00:22:06] Ladies. You are. This is not patronizing, this is a fact. You are strong and you have made. You have been made strong by God and a strong, secure woman. You are an unmatched force for good, for your friends, for your kids, and especially especially the men in your life. I cannot think of a more noble pursuit than to be strong and dignified, Biblically speaking. And you know what If I were you, take the blast of insecure men and women as a great, great compliment that you are achieving something beautiful that brings glory to God.
[00:22:45] Another verse from Proverbs comes to mind. Verse 17, Proverbs 31.
[00:22:50] He says, she dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. Women thrive in their femininity when given the responsibility to be visibly strong in hearts. Let's talk about raising girls again. Girls need to be trained, number one. To develop strong identity, character and security that is found in Jesus.
[00:23:13] Girls need to be trained to eagerly invite the voices of other godly women into their lives. Moms, dads. We need other godly women speaking into our kids lives.
[00:23:26] And the girls need to be trained. This is hard to overcome the lie of insecurity. The world needs our girls insecure so that they buy their stuff.
[00:23:38] The world's screaming, you're not good enough. I'll sell you this thing that'll make you good enough. And Jesus declares, ladies, I have made you strong. I have made you beautiful, and I've made you honorable. You are not what the world tells you you are. You are awesome. And all the men in the room said, amen. Amen. It was a little weak, but we'll take it. All right. Third, I know you weren't prepared for it, so it's fine. Women are designed, number three, by Jesus to be equal, but collaborative women thrive in their femininity when given the responsibility to be equal and respectful in collaboration.
[00:24:16] All women have a daily choice to make as you relate to other men and women in your life and you have the choice to choose competition or collaboration. Will I see my husband, my siblings, especially other females, as competition or allies? Now let me bring you into the world of men and competition. So if you haven't noticed, men and women, we compete a little bit differently. Typically when men compete with each other, we compete to quantifiably win. In other words, we prefer our victories to be objective.
[00:24:50] My muscles are bigger than your muscles. I win, I knock you out first. I win, I have more points. I win. I have more money, I win.
[00:25:00] Men tend to be what we call metric warfare, meaning when we compete, we find things that we can measure objectively so there's a clear and objective winner. So we can rub it in your face and then we can gloat about it for all of human history. That's what we like. Okay? 1 Timothy 2:8. Paul says this to the men. He says, I desire that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands. And he's giving them something Alternatively, to do with their hands, he says, without wrath or quarreling. And so when men typically fight, we fight with our strength, which is typically our bodies, or in quarreling or competition. This is how we do it.
[00:25:34] Women tend to compete in a different kind of warfare. Men compete with their strengths, women compete with their strengths. Women tend to compete in what's called relational warfare.
[00:25:45] When women choose competition over collaboration, they tend to, I need you to hear this. Compete to diminish the other person reputationally.
[00:25:57] And this is why Paul tells men not to fight with your fists, and he tells women not to fight with your words or slander and gossip.
[00:26:07] And let's just be clear, it's not that men don't fight with slander and gossip, because they do. And it's not that women don't fight with their fists, because sometimes they do. But when men typically fight, we fight with our strengths. And when women typically fight, they fight with their strengths. Men hate relational warfare because it's not objective. There is no winner, there is no loser. Everybody loses, and especially the one who is having their dignity chipped at one piece at a time.
[00:26:42] The real power of relational warfare through gossip and slander is that you can't undo it and you can't prove when it's right or wrong. Most of the time it's sort of like an everyone loses battle.
[00:26:56] Men think this kind of warfare is dangerous, dirty, and we hate it. Collaboration, though, collaboration looks very different. Collaboration looks like this when you join a team. It could be at school, it could be at work, could be your marriage. Marriage is a team.
[00:27:12] It is loving and identifying your strengths and also your weaknesses. So one of the things that I tell people all the time is listen, we're all good, like great at one or two things, and that's it. All the rest of life, we're mediocre or terrible at one or two things. And when you jump onto a team, come to grips with, I'm really good at one or two things and then everything else out. This is why I need other people, because I stink at most things. And so you learn, like, if I'm gonna be on a team, I'm really gonna understand what am I good at. Collaboration means championing others ideas. It means that probably I am not the smartest person in the room or on this team. And if I am, I need to get new friends and people around me. And it's probably a reflection of deep insecurity in myself. Collaboration means loving when others win and succeed. Like when another woman wins, we're like yes, when one woman wins, everybody wins. In other words, collaboration to be a collaborative woman is. She is strong, she is secure, and she is a champion of other women.
[00:28:14] Let's talk about as a woman collaborating with a man and championing his masculinity. I happen to know a little bit about this. So Proverbs 31:27 says this. It says, she looks well to the way of her household. And what's really interesting about this woman is that she is collaborating in this home in powerful ways. She is investing in fields, planting vineyards. It says, her lamp doesn't go out, she's working. This girl is so productive, it is ridiculous. And none of her productivity diminishes. Her motherhood, her femininity, it's actually seen as, like, amplifying it. This woman is. She's just a rock star.
[00:28:53] Now, her collaboration with her husband has a powerful impact on him. In verse 12, it says, she does him good and not harm all the days of her life.
[00:29:05] In verse 28, it says, as her children reflect on this, her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. And yet, in the male, female dynamic, there is one behavior that is probably the most destructive to a healthy collaborative team, where there are men and women on it. And that behavior, by the way, biblical word, I didn't come up with it. It's disrespect.
[00:29:32] Have you noticed that when a man is or feels blatantly disrespected, married or not, have you guys noticed that? It tends to evoke a very powerful response in him.
[00:29:44] So the scriptures recognize that men uniquely thrive in atmospheres where they are respected, and women uniquely thrive in atmospheres where they are loved. And in fact, the book of Ephesians makes this point. Paul says, however, let each one of you. He's talking about marriage. Each one of you love his wife as himself. And let each wife see that she respects her husband. Yeah, that's about marriage. But this is just a reflection of the unique dynamics of men and the context and atmospheres where we uniquely thrive.
[00:30:20] As a man. I can speak for most honorable men when I say this. There are few greater loyalties a man will have in his life than to a woman who champions his masculinity and he believes, respects him.
[00:30:35] Women thrive in their masculinity, no femininity, when given the responsibility to be equal and respectful in collaboration.
[00:30:44] Girls need to be trained, to learn at a young age to collaborate with other girls.
[00:30:50] They need to learn, of course, to respect all people, but they also need to be taught how to uniquely respect respectable men.
[00:30:59] Number three, they need to be taught to deal quickly with their hurts, big and small.
[00:31:06] Finally, number four, to be trained to value and collaborate with boys rather than crush or be crushed by them. That is an art, but it's worth learning and training, alright? Fourth, women are designed by Jesus for nurturing.
[00:31:22] Women thrive in their femininity when given the responsibility to be sacrificial and nurturing towards someone or something of great value. And nurturing finds its pinnacle in two places. Number one is gonna be in disciple making. So as you grow in the faith, you pour yourself into younger women to help them become the young women that God has made them to be. And then it finds its pinnacle in mothering as well. So whether you are single or you are married as a female, God has designed you not just physiologically, but spiritually and relationally, to be uniquely good at nurturing. It's striking that in Genesis, Adam sees Eve's body for the very first time. We talked about seeing two weeks ago, but I want to come back to this. And he looks at her and he knows immediately that she is biologically, physically made different. So he calls her woman, which in Hebrew is ishah, which means soft. And it's a reflection of her physical, biological makeup. But then when he names her personally, he also gives her a personal name, Eve, that is also a reflection of her biology. And out of her biology, her God ordained one of her God ordained purposes. In Genesis 3:20, it says the man called his wife Eve because what it means is she is the mother of all living.
[00:32:47] And this is just a declaration, like in the very beginning, that biology, the way that God made you, is communicating his desires for your femininity.
[00:33:00] It's really interesting because men are, or women are so uniquely made like this. Some people say women have eyes in the back of their head. I'm just like, how do you guys know everything? Or there's this phrase I came up with. It's not genius at all. I call it a woman's mom stink. It's the mom's instinct. And I'm just like, whenever the mom stink comes up, I'm like, all right. Or your discernment. You know things that are impossible to know, almost like mothers everywhere. Like the moment you have kids, you're like, all of a sudden you have some weird gift of prophecy that God gave. I don't know. It's very strange. It's just striking to me, the balance between the pendulums of domineering and being a doormat. One of the most beautiful ways to express this middle ground, this biblical femininity, is leaning into the fact that God made you and has blessed you to be uniquely nurturing.
[00:33:51] There are so many things in this cultural moment that are making, trying to suppress, I would say, this instinct in women, this good God ordained instinct.
[00:34:01] One of the most challenging parts of our culture is that women are getting married, often intentionally later and later in life, usually into their late 20s, even 30s, some into their 40s. And so this God ordained impulse to be a mother is being shuttered and postponed, sometimes for decades and sometimes permanently. One of the most challenging parts about the exponential increase in infertility is that this desire of so many women to have children, it is being restrained. And it just is so gut wrenching for every man and woman, but particularly woman who has to experience this. One of the most challenging parts of biological men culturally being encouraged to act like adolescents is you have their wives and sometimes their mothers who are like, now I want to be your wife, but now I have to mother you, and I don't want to mother you, I want to be your wife. You already have a mother. We're good. You're a grown man. And so now this proclivity, like, what do I do? I have an adult child living in my home.
[00:35:04] I mean, there are other devastating lies. Like somehow this redefinition of a baby inside of a mother's womb as a fetus. And women are being told, it's not a big deal if the baby's an inconvenience, you can abort the baby. And there are a whole bunch of you in this room who've had to endure this. And you know it was all a lie, that you weren't made for that. You weren't made for this. You were actually made to nurture. And so some of you bought the lie, and now you plead with other women, don't buy the lie. It's a lie. You're made for something different. You're made to care. You weren't made to endure that. No one's made to endure it. No one but you. Uniquely.
[00:35:39] Proverbs 31:27 says this about her nurturing ways. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. This woman isn't bored. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. And the next verse actually tells you their praise of her. They say to her, many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.
[00:36:03] Strong, nurturing moms. You are a picture, a living illustration of God's tender, nurturing care for all of his children.
[00:36:16] When you mom and nurture in the appropriate ways, you are a blessing. When life is hard, moms are safe. Mom will help you. Mom will tell you the truth. Mom will believe in you and send you back into the world empowered to be who God made you to be. You're a beautiful picture of God and his love for us.
[00:36:39] Girls need to be trained to nurture kids and animals, the weak and their friends.
[00:36:47] Girls need to be trained to have a high value for marriage and motherhood. We need to combat this cultural lie that these are liabilities.
[00:36:56] And girls need to be trained to protect all children, starting with, all right, I have a couple. So what's number one?
[00:37:06] Be gracious with yourself and other women. Because femininity, just like masculinity, is cursed.
[00:37:17] Unfortunately, in the garden, we saw that the man's work was cursed. The man's inner person was cursed. The man's relationship with the woman is cursed. But in Genesis, we see that her ability to give birth is cursed. And tragically, her ability to easily champion a man's masculinity was cursed also. But this last curse, it does not need to be her destiny. I want to read to you three just powerful scriptures that are a warning to all women and kind of describe the nature of this curse. Genesis 3:16.
[00:37:46] God says to the woman, your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. Whatever this means, it doesn't sound good. I don't really want to have a desire with my wife and I that are contrary to us. That creates a fight where one has to rule over the other. This is not good. And people wonder, like, what does this mean? In fact, the very next chapter, there's another verse that tells us exactly what this means, because the exact same words are used in a context that we can clearly understand. Genesis 4:7. God says to Cain, before he kills his brother, he says to Cain, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is contrary to you, meaning its desire is to dominate you, but you must rule over it. And so your battle with sin, like, we don't want our marriages to feel like it's the battle we have with sin. And so you have to understand that sin has made women domineering, and it's made men to be ridiculously passive or aggressive or passive aggressive. And you get this sin in each of us, and it just combats against each other. It's like, not the way. And so women, we. We need to figure out biblical femininity and men. We need to figure out biblical masculinity and when we can live together in this space. It's unbelievably powerful, but it requires all of us looking at the Scriptures and saying, the Scriptures tell me, as a man or a woman, what my proclivities are. And rather than being offended by that, I'm going to look in, I'm gonna measure my heart against God's word. And I wanna try to find this middle ground between being a doormat and domineering or as a man, to be passive or aggressive and to figure out how do we live in the space of biblical masculinity and femininity. Genesis 2:18. He gives a better way. He says this. Then the Lord God said, it's not good that the man should be alone. And all the ladies gave me a hearty amen, hesitant amen, we'll take it. The Lord said it, not me. Come on, guys. All right. And then he says, I will make a helper fit for him. And somehow, like, a helper communicates inferiority or something. Strikingly, God the Father identifies himself as the helper. God the Holy Spirit identifies himself as the helper. And listen, ladies, it is your absolute honor and privilege to be a teammate, collaborative with your husband, equal in value, and to help champion him and his masculinity and your family and their calling. It is awesome what a great and honorable privilege God has given you. And you don't need to fight against that. You can collaborate with that. And if you're like, well, what about the men? Go to last week's sermon. We already went after them.
[00:40:16] These conversations, they take on such a more tender and nuanced tone, especially when we try to speak into situations like women who are single or divorced or widowed or disabled. And those are conversations that, if you're in those circumstances, like, dig, keep digging, get as much help as you can. Because what it looks like to be a biblical feminine woman in those really hard contexts, it's nuanced. And so with each other, you know what we do? We look at each other's circumstances. And here's what I can tell you. I've dug deeply enough into enough marriages to tell you whatever you see on the surface is probably not what's going on in reality. And we should probably learn the art of giving an unbelievable amount of grace as people wrestle and struggle through stuff privately in their homes with really unique challenges.
[00:41:11] I'm going to skip my second. So what I want to go to My third one, the greatest leader, provider, and protector over your life is Jesus. Period.
[00:41:24] What I love is that men and women are made in the image of God. And it says, in the image of God, he made them male and female. He made them. And so that what we each do in our masculinity and femininity is we display uniquely attributes of God. And so we find that God is a nurturer, a helper. He is so unbelievably tender and kind. We also find he is our leader, our provider, and our protector. He's the best of all of it. And you might be here and you're just like, I don't even know what to do with God. Here's what I can tell you. Every one of us, we need God to be our leader, provider, protector, collaborator, helper, nurturer. We need all of it. And there has only ever been one way that you and I can be in a relationship with God so that he can be everything that we need in this life, and that is through being reconciled to him. Because your relationship with him is broken through sin and coming to him and owning it and saying, I have sinned against you. Will you forgive me? I believe in the Jesus died for my sins and was raised again from the dead. Would you forgive me? And what I love is that the moment you trust in Christ, your relationship with God goes from distant to him being your heavenly Father, your leader, provider, protector, care taker, nurturer, and helper, which is everything we need to live in this crazy world, isn't it? Amen. So, ladies, was this too painful? No. Good. Amen. Thank you, guys. You're amazing. If you ever want to process more through this, I'd love to talk about it more. And if it was offensive, it was from another woman. And I just said it out loud. All right, let's pray.
[00:43:06] Father, we love you. And I am so thankful that you didn't just communicate in your Word with clarity the things we need. You have displayed your image and masculinity and femininity. And from the beginning, you made us male and female. And biologically, you wove into our physiological design, our spiritual design, our psychological design, our relational design, these unique ways to reflect the fullness of your image and likeness. So just thank you for the joy that we get just by being human, to reflect the image and likeness of our great God. And then as we pursue biblical masculinity and femininity, to display the likeness of our great and glorious God. I pray that you would continue to help us day by day become more and more like Christ. More masculine, more feminine. But God, I also, I pray that yout would help us raise up a generation of boys and girls into godly men and women. Would you give us that privilege? And we want to steward that well to the glory of God. We love you. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
