Motherhood Is Great.

Steve Gentry

[0:07] Well, good morning. Welcome to Village Church. If this is your first time here, my name is Steve. [0:11] I’m one of the pastors here at Village Church. And as always, I am thankful and grateful to see each [0:16] and every one of you. If you have a Bible, go ahead and open it to Proverbs 31. We’re going to [0:21] be starting in verse 10 there this morning. We will be in other texts as well. If you don’t have [0:27] a Bible, it will be on the screen behind me. And if you don’t have a Bible, there’s one in the [0:32] foyer that you can take. It will be our gift to you this morning. But we’re in a series on family,

[0:39] and this is the final week of that series. Next Sunday, we’re going to be starting a new series [0:44] in the book of Matthew. It’s going to be part one of what will be probably a four-part series in [0:50] Matthew. And we’re going to go from Matthew 1 to Matthew 7, finishing with the end of the Sermon [0:55] on the Mount in that series. I think it’s going to be great. I’m excited about it. And so please [1:00] join us for that. But as we’ve been talking about family, we started really with what is a [1:06] 15,000-foot view of just the overarching themes of family. We’ve talked about marriage,

[1:12] talked about parenting, and then these past two weeks, we’ve talked about the two specific [1:17] leadership offices that God has ordained for the family. First, we talked about fatherhood last week. [1:24] This week, we’re going to talk about motherhood. And have you ever been to a men’s conference? [1:29] Men’s conferences, I’ve been to a lot of them in my life, and they basically beat men up for [1:35] being terrible for a couple of hours, and they go say, do better. Women’s conferences are the [1:40] polar opposite. Women’s conferences tend to spend a couple of hours reassuring you that you’re good,

[1:46] that you’re great, that you’re wonderful, that you’re beautiful, that you are the apple of God’s [1:53] eye in every possible way. And both of them are extremely unhelpful, in my opinion, because men [2:00] leave just trying to be more moral and having really low self-esteem. Women leave thinking, [2:06] I don’t have to repent. I am good. And both of those polar opposites are ridiculously unhelpful, [2:14] which is why, by and large, don’t necessarily buy into the theory behind either one, [2:20] just being all the cards on the table for you this morning. And so when I last week spent some

[2:26] time addressing where men need to change, here’s what happens. Men are used to it.

[2:33] That’s what they get from pastors. It’s what they get from leaders is that they’re not measuring up, [2:39] and masculinity has at one of its base values, which is healthy. I need to measure up. So men [2:46] are a little bit comfortable with change. Then we get to this week.

[2:53] Hey, can I be honest with you about something? I’m not a woman. I don’t know if you know that. [2:57] Yeah, it should have been glaringly obvious, but maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know. I am wearing a [3:07] male. I’m a guy. All right. I’ve never been a woman. I never want to be one. Last week, [3:13] I said being a man is good. Well, being a woman is good, but I’m not a woman, but many of you are. [3:21] And so let me just begin by telling you that being a woman is good. It is how God [3:28] designed you. It is what God designed you for. You should find joy in how God made you as a woman,

[3:37] and you should glory in that, because when you glory in how God designed you, how he made you, [3:44] you are then worshiping God for doing what he has done in you, for you, and what he is going to do [3:52] But women, you need to change just like men need to change. All right? And some of the issues that [4:00] we run into is that all women think men need to change so that they’re more like them. [4:07] Well, if them becoming like you wouldn’t take away the need to change, then you need to change, too. [4:13] And so the base level that I’m starting at this morning is that men and women are both created

[4:20] in the image of God, equally valuable to him, equally by his design, bearing equally the image [4:27] of God, and men and women are both sinners in need of a Savior, and his name is Jesus Christ, [4:34] and when he redeems you by faith, he starts a process of restoring you to his design for you, [4:42] which necessitates a lot of change. And so I want to talk about two things before I get into [4:50] text. The first one is, and I meant to say this last week, but I didn’t have time, so it got cut, [4:56] but I’m just going to take the time this week. Don’t hear what I’m not saying, because that

[5:02] happens a lot of times, all right? Is that I will say something, and then when you confront me with [5:07] it sometimes, and I do get confronted with some things, and that’s always fun, but when I get [5:11] confronted with something, oh, did you mean? Well, probably not, because if I had meant, [5:20] I would have said, but since I didn’t say, I didn’t mean. So sometimes you will receive what I say [5:28] twisted around to mean something about some specific issue that just is a thorn in your side [5:36] and bugs you, and you don’t want that, so that’s what you hear. But let me liberate myself.

[5:44] I refuse to be held responsible for things I don’t say. That’s just kind of a base that I [5:48] come from. And so if you hear this morning things that I didn’t say, don’t put that evil on me, [5:55] all right? That’s on you. You carry it this week because I’m not going to, all right? And if you [6:01] want to bring it to me, what I’ll say is, I didn’t say that, so obviously I didn’t mean that. [6:06] All right? Now, second thing. This is about the Bible. I am constrained to the Word of God, [6:14] and what that means is that when I come up here, I have never come up here with the attitude of,

[6:21] I want to put across my message to these people. I come up with the attitude of, I want to put [6:26] across God’s message to these people, and so I feel constrained to presenting to you the biblical [6:33] ideal for how God has presented things should be. And yes, I am telling you to pursue the ideal [6:41] because I believe in his grace. Jesus is empowering us to albeit imperfectly pursue his ideal for our [6:49] design. And so in that, I want you to understand that many of us have different personalities, [6:55] and in those personalities, we will say that we believe that all of the Bible is the Word of God,

[7:01] which is true, by the way, but in that, we will have specific texts in the Bible that are like a [7:08] warm blanket on a cold night. It just inspires us. It gives us vision. It lets us know everything [7:15] is going to be okay. You know, God has a plan for you, plan to flourish you, and you’re like, [7:20] oh, it’s a warm blanket because I was unsure of that, and I’m so thankful that God addressed that. [7:25] And so you also, though, will have other verses that don’t fit your personality type as well. [7:31] And they’re not like a warm blanket. They’re more like a body-sized blanket of sandpaper.

[7:37] And you can’t really comfortably wrap yourself up in that verse as easily because it rubs you the [7:41] wrong way, and it doesn’t make you get all the feels. It makes you feel bad. It shows you where [7:47] you need to repent, and you don’t necessarily feel comfortable with that type of atmosphere, [7:52] right? But what I want you to understand is both of those texts, the one that comes natural to you [7:58] and the one that doesn’t come natural to you, are both from God. Therefore, they are both [8:05] equally true. And so sometimes when something isn’t as natural, we will immediately get offended,

[8:15] and it’s off-putting to us. And so this morning, if you are going to get offended by something I say, [8:22] understand that there’s potential that it is just the Word of God hitting you at something that you [8:28] are not naturally pursuing, and God wants to change you, and you say you want to change until [8:33] you actually need to change. Then when you actually need to change, nah, you’re not too [8:39] comfortable with that. And so if we’re going to trust the Word of God, which I believe we should, [8:45] we need to let it steer our ideals rather than something else steering our ideals.

[8:51] Proverbs chapter 31 states this,

[8:56] An excellent wife, who can find? Now, it’s a question, but it doesn’t mean you can’t find her, [9:03] all right? In the Hebrew, what he’s doing here is he’s saying that this is such a valuable thing, [9:10] you need to pursue it as if it is a treasure, and if you find it, you find excellence. [9:16] She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her. He will have no [9:21] lack of gain. She does him good and not harm. All the days of her life, she seeks wool and flax and [9:27] works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant. She brings her food from afar.

[9:32] She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. [9:38] She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hand, she plants a vineyard. She dresses [9:44] herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. [9:50] Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the [9:57] spindle. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not [10:02] afraid of snow for her household, and all her household are clothed in scarlet. Now, that’s a

[10:13] language. The first half of that verse, when she talks about snow or when the author talks about [10:18] snow, he’s stating this for the purpose of her husband. And in the original language, it has [10:24] this idea that her husband has gone out into weather, and she is not afraid for what will [10:28] happen to him because she has clothed him for the elements. The second half is about her children. [10:33] All of her household is clothed in scarlet. Therefore, she’s provided clothing for her [10:38] children. She makes her bed coverings for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple.

[10:43] Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes her [10:47] husband look good. She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant. [10:52] Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She laughs because [10:56] she has no fear of the future. She’s prepared. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching [11:01] of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, does not eat the bread [11:06] of idleness. That’s vital. The scriptures warn women in two specific scenarios against idleness.

[11:14] One is here, and the other is the apostle Paul, and it is something that we’ll deal with later [11:20] in the message. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. [11:25] Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. Husbands, do you want to be kind to [11:36] your children? Number one, motherhood is built on femininity. If fatherhood is built on masculinity, [11:50] motherhood then is built on femininity. In Proverbs 31, the text that I just talked about, [11:57] we’re not going to go verse by verse and phrase by phrase, but I want to talk about the overarching

[12:01] idea of what he’s talking about is that he is giving a vision for what a woman should pursue [12:08] with her life from the lens of a father telling his son what type of wife to look for. [12:16] In our society, we have belittled this vision of femininity in many ways, so much so that we have [12:24] the audacity to even say that God has designed the wife and the mother to have her primary focus [12:33] on building a household for her husband and her children. It hits people in very offensive ways [12:41] in a way that is uncommon in human history. It is only in the last four to five decades that we have

[12:48] sought as a society and culture to redesign what feminine beauty is and the outcome of what that [12:56] does in providing for a husband and in children. And so by and large, the feminist movement has [13:02] ripped the soul from what femininity was designed by God to look like and has done great harm to it. [13:12] I’m trying to find the kind words. I wholesale and the Bible wholesale rejects the feminist [13:18] movement because it is not healthy. It has not done women any good. It has taken what is beautiful [13:25] about the feminine nature of God’s design and has turned it into something that is by and large

[13:31] statistically causing destruction to the family because it programs us and has wired us and has [13:38] began this journey towards gender fluidity that we find ourselves in right now to where what started [13:45] this movement was saying that men and women are not just equal in value, which they are. [13:52] God has given his image into both men and women. We are both equal in love from God, so God has [14:01] decided that his design for us will be that we both bear his image, but in distinct ways. So we are [14:10] different in design. We are not equal in design. We are different in ability. We are not equal

[14:16] in ability. We are different in office. We are not equal in office. But as a society, as the lines [14:22] between men and women and how they are to function in different ways has become completely blurred, [14:30] so has our construct as a society on gender. And it is the feminist movement that has begun [14:37] this march towards the damnation of gender. And so this gender fluidity is completely unhealthy [14:44] in every single way. And that begins in the home and the way that we raise our children. [14:50] You are to raise boys to become men. You are to raise girls to become women. There is no other way

[14:57] to do anything else would be a blasphemy against the God of the Bible. And so we as Christians [15:04] have become conditioned more by the culture around us than we have the scriptures. And so what [15:10] happens is that we see kind of the blowback from unbiblical ideals being put into practice. [15:19] And because it has sought to destroy the family, what sin programs us to do is to reject God’s [15:25] design and say, he is the problem. And to go into the very thing that is destroying the family [15:30] to begin with, which is the breakdown of the roles of men and women inside of the biblical

[15:37] design and construct of marriage. But in Proverbs 31, we see in the text states that she is an [15:44] excellent wife. This is not belittling. This is encouraging. He is raising her up. He is saying [15:51] how wonderful she is. Note the few things that it says. It says that she is creative. [15:55] She is industrious. She’s intelligent. She is resourceful. She’s enterprising. This is an [16:02] amazing woman. And what the author is saying is, son, if you can find one of those, you have found [16:09] the good life. This is the woman that you can build a family with. But these attributes are

[16:18] focused. They are not pointed in all different directions. Note that he is saying that this is [16:25] the design for femininity. He is not saying you can point femininity in any direction under the [16:31] sun that you want to, given the special circumstances that you find yourself in. No, he is saying this [16:37] is the mold and there is no other one. And so what we have is quite often a generation that thinks [16:44] about a woman that uses her skills to build a home for her children and husband as giving up on [16:50] her dreams and giving into monotonous drab. If it’s one thing that I know motherhood is not, it is

[16:56] not monotonous drab. It is very difficult work. It is very laborious. But man, I’ve got three kids [17:04] and I have my own personality. My wife always has something interesting going on. I’ll tell you that [17:09] It is not monotonous drab. It is very hard work and it is very rewarding work that God promises is [17:16] always worth it to seek his design. The problem is that we have allowed culture to give us a [17:23] different truth. Cultural commentator Anthony Esselen notes, he says, [17:28] we look with pity in our culture on a grandmother who in a single day did 50 skillful things

[17:35] for people she loved rather than spending eight hours fielding phone calls in an office. [17:41] See, his point is not that there is a besetting evil on a woman having a job or a career. His [17:47] point is the motivation behind why both men and women do what they do. He goes on to state, [17:52] work is not something you are supposed to balance against the claims and needs of your family. [17:58] If you are not working in the first instance for your family, then something is severely out of [18:03] We live in comforts that the riches of richest of aristocrats not very long ago could never have

[18:10] dreamed of and yet we claim that we are too poor. The truth is in the reverse. We are too rich. [18:16] We are too committed to work for work’s sake and to purchase to the purchase of prestige mansions, [18:22] the best schools and toys for grownups. His point is we have lost our vision for family [18:29] and biblical femininity always has as its goal the flourishing of the family under the right [18:37] priorities. In that sense, it is just like the mission of masculinity. It needs to be pointed [18:44] towards building the family in the design and function that God has. And so if we want to

[18:50] flourish the society around us, that does not begin with you grabbing a pet cause outside of [18:57] your lifestyle. Instead, it begins with you living under God’s design for your family [19:04] and flourishing your family because when families flourish, society around it flourishes. [19:11] God’s design is what always flourishes society because it flourishes it to the next generation. [19:18] And so in that lens, we are supposed to be as Christians a peculiar people because we live out [19:28] ideals under the structure of God’s design rather than any other design, no matter what the pressure

[19:35] of society around us might be like. But the goal of femininity does not terminate on itself. [19:43] You’re not just being feminine for the sake of being feminine. You’re not just being feminine [19:47] for the sake of your family. It all must go past the very actions to the designer of those actions. [19:54] And so our ideal that we struggle with is applying lifestyle application to God’s design. [20:02] When you live out biblical femininity, you are following Jesus. When you are living out God’s [20:10] design for a woman, you’re following Jesus. When you’re living out God’s design for a wife,

[20:14] you’re following Jesus. When you live out God’s design for a mother, you are following Jesus. [20:19] The labor becomes soul-sucking and joyless when you allow it to terminate on itself and [20:26] cease to function under the realization that what you are doing goes beyond the very thing [20:33] to the designer of the thing. To be feminine for the woman is an act of worship. And you must live [20:43] that design. Number two, biblical womanhood requires faith. Now here’s what I see oftentimes [20:51] is that we want to cater faith to our personality type. Our faith to, like I said earlier,

[20:58] to what comes natural to us. And so in that sense, what we will often do is we will look [21:03] to God’s design. Something just, I don’t know about that for me. I mean, you know, I’ve got [21:09] quirks and got a quirky personality. And so you’ll look at that. And so you will begin to [21:14] deconstruct what God has constructed under his design. And you will begin to alter it and [21:21] reconstruct it under something that either A, becomes natural to you, or B, you’ve bought into [21:27] the claim that it will give you more pleasure. But in that, even under your reconstruction,

[21:33] you will say, well, this is the design that I’m living out, but I’m still following Jesus. You [21:39] will make that faith claim. Here’s the key. You aren’t. Anything by your own making is just you [21:46] looking in the mirror, trying to feel better about you. Following Jesus requires a submission by [21:54] faith into what he says the ideal is supposed to look like. So you can’t deconstruct, reconstruct [22:01] a new design and say, I have faith. No, you must see the design that God has made, submit your life [22:07] to it. And then you can say, I am living a life of faith in which I am following Jesus. And this

[22:14] is vital to the worldview of how we look and understand everything that’s going on around us. [22:21] And then how we construct the life that we are living. Now, what’s interesting is that word that [22:28] used submission. It’s vital. In everything to faith, understand submission is always involved. [22:39] Now, what we need to understand about the Bible, though, is that it is the definer of what [22:44] submission looks like. In 2 Peter 1, 20, Peter notes this. He says, know this, first of all, [22:49] that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever

[22:53] produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. [23:00] Now, why is that important in this scenario? Because this is an instance in the Bible where [23:05] God literally looks to people, looks to me, he looks to you. And he says, I don’t care what you [23:10] think. And that’s never something you want to be told ever in life. But what he’s saying is, [23:16] is that you cannot look to the Bible, say that you believe it’s God’s word, [23:23] and then twist it to conform to your image. He says, no, the Bible’s meaning is never about what

[23:31] we think it is. And it is always about what God says it is. So he’s saying no matter what culture [23:37] you come from, no matter what backgrounds you have, no matter what baggage you are carrying, [23:42] no matter what preconceived notions you have, no matter what, you know, natural desires you think [23:48] you may or may not have, God isn’t interested in how you want to define his truth by presenting, [23:56] well, this is my truth. God is always only interested in what he says the Bible means. [24:04] And the great task of being fully human is living your life to discover it and how it outplays

[24:11] in your life. And so submission begins by submitting to God over anything else.

[24:23] Colossians chapter 3, verses 18 through 19, sum up the Ephesians 5 teaching in a shorter [24:30] phrase, so I’m going to use it. In verse 18, he talks about wives submitting to your husbands. [24:37] And that’s hard sometimes, because not all husbands deserve it. Am I right, ladies? You know, [24:44] not all husbands deserve submission because we’ve got some real dunderheads, don’t we? I mean, [24:50] some husbands are just kind of dumb. All right, they’re just stupid. They, you know, that you’re [24:55] on an 1987 Chevy Cavalier budget, and he took it and traded it in for a 2019 F-150, and you’re like,

[25:03] how are we going to pay for this? All right. Men sometimes are sinners. And so what happens [25:09] to a woman in that scenario is you receive the scriptures under that lens, and you say, [25:18] well, I would submit to him if he lived up to God’s standard. But he goes on. And there’s [25:27] another phrase in there that’s very important for qualifying that first phrase, as is fitting in the [25:33] Lord. And so what he’s saying in this text is that biblical submission from the wife to the [25:41] husband is less about the husband and more about the God of that husband. He’s saying

[25:47] biblical submission in the marital relationship is about God before it is ever about the husband [25:55] and wife and whether or not they measure up to specific ideals. Why is that such a struggle? [26:01] Well, Genesis 316 puts it this way. God is literally judging Adam and Eve for their [26:06] sin in the garden. And to the woman, God said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. [26:12] Now, I’ve witnessed this on a few different occasions, and it isn’t just a curse to her [26:17] because my feet were hurting so bad after so many hours of standing there.

[26:26] No one was bringing me a chair, and I just had to stand. And so I had pain, too, [26:33] ladies and gentlemen. I had pain. No, man. My wife’s over there. And so you guys often [26:42] wonder what does his wife think about this? She sits there. I don’t know.

[26:47] To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain, [26:52] you shall bring forth children. But note what he says next. Your desire shall be contrary to your [26:59] husband, but he shall rule over you. Sin breeds conflict. And so God in this text is literally [27:10] saying, I am not going to compromise on my design. Marriage is what I said it was going to be, [27:19] even if two sinners who can’t get along are in that marriage. And so part of sin and the judgment [27:26] for sin is that he’s supposed to rule over you, but you think you’ve got a better idea

[27:31] and you think he’s stupid and you think he’s not measuring up. Well, there’s sin. And the answer [27:38] to sin is not subverting the design of God. The answer to sin is always repentance. But you say, [27:44] how do I endure that? If he is not living up to what a husband should be, how can I live up to [27:50] what a wife should be? Because of who you are ultimately submitting to is not him. [27:56] You are submitting to God. Here’s how Peter puts it in 1 Peter chapter 3. Likewise, wives. It’s so [28:07] wives be subject to your own husbands. And then that’s when we will say, but what if?

[28:12] And Peter says so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the [28:18] conduct of their wives. When they see your respectful and pure conduct, do not let your [28:23] adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you [28:27] wear. Note what he’s saying. He’s saying that just because your husband isn’t a believer in Jesus [28:34] Christ, that doesn’t mean you can undo God’s design because following Jesus is always about [28:40] reinforcing God’s design. Even if he’s a follower of Jesus, just because there are some really

[28:46] glaringly obvious sins in his life that he needs to repent of, that does not mean that you can [28:53] subvert God’s design. Let me qualify, even though I already did at the beginning of the message. [28:58] I am not talking about extreme examples here. If you are in a situation where the husband is [29:05] physically or mentally or emotionally abusing the wife, you need to get the legal authorities [29:11] involved. I would never advocate for a woman staying in a situation where her or her children’s [29:19] lives or physicality may be in danger. That’s not what I’m talking about here. But note, I said legal

[29:26] authorities. Then pastoral authority can come into play. I’m not first, I’m second. That’s above [29:32] my pay grade. Now some churches have gotten themselves in trouble, so I don’t want to get [29:36] myself in trouble. If somebody hits you, don’t call me, call the police. They have handcuffs. [29:42] I will get in trouble for using handcuffs. So you want them, not me. We can talk later. [29:49] First things first. But in this situation, what Peter is talking about is a wife that maybe she [29:58] has come to faith in Jesus Christ and her husband didn’t. Well, should she divorce him? No. She should

[30:04] live the biblical ideal. He needs to see her changed life. Why is she being so much kinder [30:10] to her husband? Why is she being so much more respectful? Why is she beginning to live out [30:15] these new biblical feminine ideals in ways that she did not used to do? And then the Bible says [30:20] this is the only place in all of scripture where it advocates preaching the gospel without words. [30:27] It says that you will in the power of the spirit, supernaturally communicate the gospel to your [30:34] husband in silence. That’s how powerful feminine witness is to a husband. And that tells us something

[30:43] very important. There is never in the history of the world but a wife who has nagged her husband [30:48] to go to heaven. It’s true. You’re not going to nag him into heaven, ladies. So stop trying. Because [30:55] this is how men are. If you nag your husband, he will literally be so dumb as to look to you and [31:01] say, I will burn in hell forever just to spite you. All right. But note that when a woman is strong-willed, [31:12] she’s a virtue of society. Strong-willed woman. When a man is strong-willed, he’s a dumb ox.

[31:21] We got it a little off, don’t we? We’re not quite measured with the balanced weight, are we? We need [31:28] to understand that stubbornness in marriage never gets anybody anywhere with either place. It’s all [31:34] about God’s design. So you respect your husband and he will see the glory of God in your life [31:41] and he will repent of his sin. Whether it is he doesn’t believe in Jesus or whether it is he’s [31:48] not yearning for discipleship in the way that you are. But I often see the activity within a marriage [31:54] of a wife tries to shame her husband with her feminine mystique. That doesn’t work. You’re not

[32:01] going to shame your husband into being a better follower of Jesus Christ, but you will submit to [32:07] and respect him in such a way that he will be ashamed of himself for not leading.

[32:15] That’s why verse seven is so vital of first Peter three. It says, likewise, husbands, [32:21] live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel [32:26] since they are heirs with you of the grace of life. Now I used to love this verse, [32:30] but for unbiblical reasons, I would use it as like ammunition. Women are weaker. All right. [32:37] But that’s not what it’s meant to do, actually. And they are in the original language, the idea [32:42] when he says weaker vessel, if you’ve ever been to an art museum and you’ve seen beautiful

[32:46] antiquities and you’ve seen like a nice vase that is worth thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands [32:53] of dollars, the way that that vase is put out is not that a couple of guys in the janitorial staff [33:00] just went in the back, picked it up, Hail Mary did across the room and said, Hey, Ralph, put it [33:05] over there. All right. No, what you have in those situations is a curator who will even put on the [33:12] finest of gloves so that his oils on his hands won’t touch those fine antiquities and diminish [33:19] the beauty of it. And so they will very carefully carry it, very carefully place it where it needs

[33:25] to go because of the worth of the object, not because of the weakness of the object. And he [33:34] says, husbands, if you want to get your wife to be feminine in her ideals, you will not [33:43] authoritarian her to it. You will not lord your authority in such a way to do it. You will not [33:50] abuse her into that lifestyle because abuse breaks honor, dignity and ascribing worth to something [33:59] is what shows the value of that thing to her. So if you are a husband and your wife does not measure [34:08] up to whatever standard you think that she is supposed to measure up to, the answer is not to

[34:15] criticize her and to say harsh things to her and to make her cry and to do unloving and uncaring [34:23] things to prove your point. The answer is always to treat her like a weaker vessel so that she will [34:29] see her supreme worth in your life, so that she will see her supreme value in your life, so that [34:36] she will see just what it is that you add into your life by being with her. And so when I go home [34:46] today with my wife, I am to treat her like she has the utmost value in my life. I’m not to treat her [34:57] like a dog on a chain. And if you’re a husband and that is what you are doing, let me tell you

[35:03] something. The outcome will not be a more feminine wife. You will just simply breed resentment. [35:13] You will breed an unhealthy home that does not bring glory to God. Show your wife the great value [35:23] that she adds and you will have a wife that takes joy in her femininity. That is the answer, [35:30] because the husband is to lead. And we lead in that way. We are partners in the family. Being a [35:38] leader of the family does not mean that you treat your subordinates poorly, but note also the [35:44] submission aspect does not say husbands make your wives submit. You know that? I mean honestly,

[35:50] I’m a guy and sometimes I wish I did. I wish I could make people, all sorts of people, do exactly [35:57] what I want them to do. So this is not a top-down vision for authority. This is a bottom-up posture [36:06] of authority. The way that an officer in the military of a lower rank makes a willful decision [36:14] to honor those of a higher rank. So the wife is the one who is responsible for making the choice [36:24] to submit to her husband. And that is very important because what he is doing, because [36:30] this is the way it is presented by Paul, this is the way it is presented by Peter. The submission

[36:37] is an act of worship from the wife to God. And the leadership is the act of worship of the husband [36:46] to God. Because the husband, like we said last week, submits to Christ, and the wife submits [36:52] to the husband as he submits to Christ. So men, if you want to lead, follow Christ. [36:59] Women, if you want to submit, make the decision and do it. Do not wait until your husband deserves [37:06] it. He does not. He does not. And if he has a brain, he knows that. I am not perfect. I do not [37:18] do this right all the time. I do it wrong many times. If she was up here, she would be able to

[37:23] tell you that. But by God’s grace, through her willingness to submit to God’s design for the [37:31] family, I am inspired to constantly repent and seek God’s ideal for my life by seeking to follow [37:38] Jesus in all things. That is how this works out. Now, the faith comes when you actually see that [37:47] you need to repent to do these things and you actually do it. Number three, true motherhood [37:52] steers a generation to trust the gospel. True motherhood steers a generation to trust the gospel. [37:58] Motherhood can’t terminate on itself. I believe because of the way Scripture words itself so

[38:04] many times that the vision for femininity is motherhood. All right, again, don’t hear what [38:11] I’m not saying there. But I do believe that Scripture gives us a pathway that the dreams [38:17] of young women should involve a family. Just like I believe the dreams of a young man should involve [38:25] a family because it is God’s design the great majority of the time for that to be the way that [38:33] your life is going to play out. And so a feminine ideal needs to be motherhood and we need to glory [38:40] in that the way that the Scriptures glory in that. In the first Timothy chapter two,

[38:46] Paul says something very interesting. Now, I’ve never heard this text preached at a women’s [38:51] conference. If they invited me, I would, but they don’t. First Timothy chapter two, the apostle says [38:58] this, Adam was formed first, then Eve. Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became [39:03] a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love [39:10] and holiness with self-control. Now, that’s a controversial text for sure, but the key is an [39:17] understanding just what is it that the apostle Paul is presenting for Timothy here. And there’s a

[39:22] couple of things to keep in mind. First, this is not a letter to a church. This is a letter to a [39:27] pastor of a church. Timothy was seeking to lead the church at Ephesus at this time and Paul was [39:34] writing to him as someone more seasoned in pastoral ability to tell Timothy just how to pastor. Now, [39:40] Thomas Leah, who note what he says, he is not the most conservative of commentators in the way that [39:46] he views the New Testament. He writes this. He says, Paul faced a problem in Ephesus because some [39:52] church leaders have lost any semblance of godliness. They were apparently influencing women

[39:57] to follow them in their practice of contentious, self-seeking rebellion. The women in Ephesus had [40:04] neglected home responsibilities and had selfishly tried to claw their way to a position of dominance [40:11] in the local church. Paul wanted to see the practice of serious Christianity make a return [40:18] to Ephesus. Now note, the key here is that the apostle wanted women to understand that the key [40:25] to this was a Proverbs 31 model of femininity in the home. And what is so difficult for so many women, [40:35] and I know this because I’ve had these conversations, is that when you get to raising

[40:40] children, when you get to seeking to build a home under and for the Lord, you find out just how much [40:48] hard work it actually takes. It is, I believe, the most difficult job that you can have under the sun [40:56] and that is why femininity needs to be praised in our culture. Is that it is difficult for some women [41:03] to see how this anonymous, laborious task that no one usually notices outside of your own family, [41:14] how it could possibly contribute, number one, to your spiritual growth and number two, to building [41:21] the kingdom of God. And what the apostle Paul is doing in 1st Timothy is he is instructing Timothy

[41:27] to engage the women of his church, to return them to the biblical ideal for femininity, [41:34] to let women know that when you are raising children, you are following Jesus [41:41] because you’re submitting to his design. And why is that woman’s work, I guess, could be the [41:48] question that would ask. It’s an offensive way to ask it, but that’s usually the way you pose it to me. [41:52] Here’s why. For 14 years of marriage, I’ve been trying to get pregnant.

[41:59] I mean, I’ve been really trying and it ain’t happening. It’s not. This just doesn’t get [42:07] pregnant. I don’t know why. I just lack the plumbing. I lack the right parts. I can’t get [42:14] pregnant. But my wife can and has. As I’ve tried, she has flaunted it in my face. Dare you.

[42:26] Also, first couple of years of our children’s lives, my wife was able to provide sustenance [42:34] to our children through her natural biology and try as I might. I don’t lactate.

[42:44] I tried. It just didn’t work out. All right. And I know somebody’s going to send me an article [42:49] this week of this guy that they found in Croatia because of some nuclear fallout. Don’t send that [42:57] to me. All right. I’m not talking about weird stuff. If you’re a man who lactates, you might [43:03] see a doctor. But God has designed the feminine body and the feminine being to function in a way [43:15] that the masculine body is unable to contribute towards in any real way to bear another life [43:25] and to sustain that other life by natural means that are not chemical.

[43:31] And that is something that God is seeking to tell us through natural revelation. Now, I always pick [43:38] on childbirth and talk about how hard it was for me, but it was not difficult for me. But even in [43:45] the face of bearing children under what I’ve been told, never experienced, is extreme, excruciating [43:52] pain. God has designed women to endure it with a joy that is unparalleled in my life to where they [44:00] I want to do that again. And they are able to provide for children in a natural and biological [44:09] way that I am unable to do. And in our society, we need to look at that, especially from a masculine

[44:17] standpoint and ascribe worth, ascribe honor, ascribe dignity to the ability that God has given women [44:26] to produce life and say, there is something in you that deserves honor and praise the way Proverbs

[44:35] 31 verses 28 and 29 say, I am to praise you for that as my wife.

[44:44] Instead of seeking to tear something down, all of our hopes and dreams need to be built up with a [44:49] for healthy marriages and healthy families. Because it doesn’t happen by accident. [44:57] It’s something that must be pursued by both men and women under God’s design. You see, friends, [45:04] motherhood brings holiness back to the forefront because it is the way God designed for women [45:13] to pursue. Now, motherhood is the most loving thing that you will ever watch. [45:21] My wife has an ability and all women have an ability to nurture in a way that men do not

[45:28] naturally nurture. And that means that motherhood is loving in the way that obeys the mandate to [45:33] love your neighbor as yourself. That’s natural to that relationship in a way that’s unparalleled. [45:40] Motherhood is also faithful, rooting the family in love. That is a dignified ability and a [45:49] dignified action. In Titus chapter two, and we’ll finish with this verses three through five, [45:54] the apostle writes to another pastor and he says the older women, okay, and I just want to preface [45:59] the older women part with it isn’t saying find any old woman. All right. It is more speaking,

[46:06] not to chronology of age, but to experience and being a veteran in producing a fruitful marriage [46:14] and family. All right. So if you’ve been divorced eight times and your kids won’t call you even on [46:20] Mother’s Day, I might not sign you up for this. All right. Nothing personal. All right. Older [46:26] women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slaves to much wine. Why? Because they [46:33] are to teach what is good. So train the young women to love their husbands and children, [46:38] to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands that the

[46:45] word of God may not be reviled. That’s discipleship. But note when he says working at home, all right, [46:51] that’s an interesting term because in the Greek it’s one word. It’s a word in which he combines [46:57] the Greek word for employment with the Greek word for home and that’s where we get the idea [47:02] of homemaking. He says that older women are to teach younger women by their experience at doing [47:11] it well, how the younger women can follow in the same path of following Jesus that they are following [47:18] in producing faith to the next generation through their home. That is how we will be peculiar

[47:29] in this world. That is how we will assure faith always goes to the next generation. [47:36] God isn’t interested in our design for how that happens. He is interested in his design for how [47:42] that happens. And when we submit to the design of Jesus Christ, we submit to a life of worship. [47:50] Every Sunday we reflect through communion. The bread on the tables represents the broken body [47:58] of Christ. The cup represents the shed blood of Christ. As we eat and drink, we proclaim to [48:05] everyone around us, I will follow Jesus. I believe his gospel. This morning, if you’re willing to say

[48:15] that, if you really do believe that, tables in the back and the tables in the front will be open to [48:20] you. But if you’re in here and you are a wife, you are a mother, I want to speak to you specifically. [48:28] This week, I invite you to survey these texts to really ask yourself, how am I seeking [48:37] biblical femininity in my life? And then whatever changes need to be made under the power of the [48:45] Holy Spirit, seek them so that you can teach the next generation what a biblical woman is to look [48:52] like. When you’re ready, come.