The High Dignity of True Women #2

Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time.

So let's get right to it. Open your Bible as we join Don now in The Truth Pulpit. Now secondly, let's consider Jesus and the dignity of women. Jesus and the dignity of women. It is a remarkable study to look at the way that Jesus interacted with women during the course of his earthly ministry. When you see the broad principles that we talked about with Scripture and the dignity of women, what you see is Jesus extending that, showing us what it looks like, modeling it for us. And we're going to read three passages maybe and allude to several others here. But beloved, and just remembering that we're in a room that acknowledges Jesus Christ as Lord.

And most of you would acknowledge that with your lips even if it's not a reality in your heart. We recognize the unique authority of Jesus Christ. His supremacy as God in human flesh. His lordship over the church. He's the head of the church. And so when we think about women in light of the lordship of Christ, we want to see whether what Jesus did is consistent with the high view of the dignity of women that I've been describing.

And the answer is, it most certainly is. Jesus unfailingly showed kindness and compassion to the women he encountered in ministry. And I just want to say there are so many more texts and examples that we could look at than time allows us to consider. But I want you to turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2. We're going to look at three or four passages in Luke.

When you study the books of the Bible as a whole and look for their themes, often teachers will point out that Luke seems to have a particular theme. One of his themes is Jesus and women. And so the title of our message is The High Dignity of True Women. We've seen scripture in the dignity of women. Now we're going to look at Jesus and the dignity of women, and we'll go through these passages rather quickly. As a youth who was God in human flesh, Jesus Christ honored his mother.

That's an amazing thing to contemplate. Here he is, God in human flesh. Here he created his own mom, and yet he lived in submission to her and honored her.

You look at Luke, chapter 2, at the end of the chapter. His parents had been looking for him, couldn't find him. Verse 48, his mother said to him, Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress. And he said to them, Why were you looking for me?

Do you not know that I must be in my father's house? And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them, and his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

There he is, born under the law, the law which says honor your father and mother. And Jesus Christ honored his mother with perfection, and his mother loved him and treasured up all of the aspects of those things in her heart in a way that we can't begin to contemplate what that must have been like. She knew the angel had revealed to her that this was a unique child. She knew that he was born to her apart from the normal means of human conception. She knew that she needed him as her own Lord and Savior. And yet here is this child honoring her like no child ever honored their mother.

We can only imagine the richness as she contemplated the privilege of being in that position. The point is Jesus recognized the dignity of his mother and honored it. Now secondly, look over at Luke chapter 8.

Luke chapter 8. So when we think of Jesus and the dignity of women, he honored his mother, number one. Secondly, he extended his healing ministry to women. He extended his healing ministry to women.

Look at Luke chapter 8 verse 43. There was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, Who was it that touched me? And when all denied it, Peter said, Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you. He said, How could you ask who touched you? Everybody's touching you. You're in the middle of a mob here of everybody wanting a piece of you.

How could you ask such a question? But Jesus knew that there was someone that had touched him in a special way, touched him, as it were, with the finger of faith, someone reaching out to him in dire need and in a desperate heart. He said, If I can only touch his garment, I know that he will help me.

And verse 46, Jesus said, Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me. And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. You almost get the sense that she feels like she's in trouble.

She touched him unawares. He's asking for her. Now everybody's going to know. Everything about her condition is going to be made known.

There's a combination of shame and fear and all of that. And how did Jesus respond to this woman? Well, he responded to her with the highest of dignity, the highest of compassion and kindness and love. Verse 48, he said to her daughter, that term of endearment, My dear child, you could say, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. There is Christ treating a woman with utmost dignity in the midst of a pressing mob.

We'll go back a chapter to chapter 7. He extended healing ministry to women. He showed grace and kindness to grieving women.

In verse 11 of chapter 7, we read, Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him, as he drew nearer to the gate of the town. Behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. Oh, the broken nature of her heart. She'd already lost her husband, and now her only son was gone too.

How disconsolate she must have been, how broken and without hope she must have been. And yet Jesus comes, and in keeping with the high dignity of true women, look at how he responded. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said to her, Do not weep.

Then he came up and touched the bearer, and the bearers stood still, and he said, Young man, I say to you, arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. He felt compassion on this brokenhearted woman.

Why? Because there was a dignity about her. She was important to him. Her sad situation was going to become a display of his messianic credentials.

He was going to exercise power and display a sign that showed he was someone greater than a mere man. Yes, yes, yes, but don't overlook the fact in the midst of the miracle that there is a personal direction of his affection and kindness to this woman in particular. He had compassion on her, and intervened into her sorrow, and restored her, and restored her son to her.

One more in Luke chapter 7. Jesus in the dignity of women, he honored his mother, he healed women, he showed compassion to women. Here we're going to see he forgave women. Very sinful women, in fact, which those of you maybe here in your life has been one of. You know, promiscuity or whatever. And you don't even like to look in the mirror in light of that.

Well, you don't have to look in the mirror. But let me invite you to look into the face of Jesus and see how he receives women just like you. We're going to read kind of an extended passage here. Luke chapter 7 verse 36. One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Complete, utter, abject humility and repentance at the feet of Jesus.

Very sweet to see. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner. And just the dripping arrogance of that is something that is not difficult to find repeated in certain areas of Christendom today. She's a sinner. She's just a woman and a dirty one at that.

How could you let her touch you? Jesus, verse 40, answering, said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. He said, say it, teacher. A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. And when they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both.

Now which of them will love more? Simon answered the one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt. He said to them, you've judged rightly. Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, now listen, don't lose sight of what's happened here. Simon, critical of Jesus, and condescending and condemning toward this woman that was in his house, and this dear woman, having wept her repentance over the feet of Jesus and humbled herself as she did, no doubt, and she's in the midst of this, she's the object of the Pharisees' parsing discussion with a broken heart, fully conscious of her sins, having nothing to commend herself to Christ. Now Christ is going to speak about her in her presence, and in our day and age, that conversation wouldn't go any better than what the Pharisee had planned, but not with Jesus. Jesus recognized the high dignity of true women. Verse 44, turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman?

I entered your house, Simon. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.

You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, he didn't just ignore the sin, he openly acknowledged the reality of it. Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little. And he said to her, you can almost picture it, if we let our thoughts about the setting go just a little bit, you kind of picture her on her knees, looking up into the face of Christ, not knowing what he's going to say, but hopeful, drawn to him, having expressed her love to him. She looks up, he looks down upon her, and said to her, your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven. What love, what mercy, what kindness he showed to this broken, desperate, sinful woman, and by his authority as God in human flesh says, by my own authority and by my own power, independent of what anybody around me thinks, I forgive all your sins.

I mean, I'm speechless. The kindness that he showed to this woman who was on the bottom scale of society, many Pharisees groups, they hadn't had their last attack on him. Those who were at the table with him, verse 49, began to say among themselves, who is this that even forgives sins?

And he ignores the question, he said to the woman, your faith has saved you, go in peace. It's all, it's okay now. You are under my grace.

I forgive you. You can go in peace. The past has been forgiven, and you have new life now to go forward in. Jesus and the high dignity of women.

Here's what I want you to see, beloved, through all of those things. In word and in deed, Jesus Christ freely extended the kingdom of God to women and did so gladly, did so abundantly, graciously, and freely in a culture that did not give equal status to women at all. This was completely counter-cultural, a fact you could see if you read in John chapter 4, which we're not going to go to for the sake of time.

He freely extended the kingdom to women and honored his mother. I've given you four passages, and listen, time would fail me utterly here this morning if I spoke of six other passages, which are again only representative. You could consider the way Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law in Mark chapter 1. You can consider how he healed Jairus' daughter in Mark chapter 5. You could consider how he honored a widow who gave her last mite to God in the temple in Mark chapter 12. You can consider the Samaritan woman who he made known that he was the Messiah in John chapter 4, a woman who had had five husbands, and the man she was with then was not her husband. You can consider his love for Mary and Martha in John chapter 11.

When their brother Lazarus died, Scripture says he loved them in John 11. You could consider how he provided for his mother while he was dying on the cross. Woman, behold your son, pointing to John. John, in so many words, John, behold your mother.

One of his dying acts was caring for the woman who was his mother. From beginning to end, from the beginning of his life to the end of his earthly life, from beginning to end in his public ministry, there is this remarkable display, this consistent, unerring display of grace and kindness from Jesus Christ to women that if you just look for it, if you spend a week or two reading the Gospels and look for it, you'll see this woven throughout his ministry. And I am just trusting the Lord in this message to be gracious to me for omitting so many other things that would prove the point. Scripture and the dignity of women, Jesus and the dignity of women, if Scripture and Jesus Christ accord this obvious high dignity to women, then this informs everything that we think and do and say in response to every woman we meet.

And my friends, my fellow men, I say this to you with sympathy and realizing that I haven't thought this way throughout most of my life. This rebukes me, sorrows me to realize it, but there's something here that changes the way that we think about 50% of humanity, let alone the ones that are closest to us. One writer said, Jesus Christ honored women, taught women, and ministered to women in thoughtful ways. He honored women, he taught them, he ministered to them. Obviously, he saw a high dignity in women and exemplified it perfectly as he did everything else with perfection. So let's go to the third point, the church and the dignity of women. The church and the dignity of women. I'm just going to say in passing, I hesitate to even mention this, but I know the way many minds work.

And so it's not even part of my notes. Of course, there are distinctions in roles between men and women in the home and in the church. We honor those distinctions here at Truth Community Church.

That's all I'm going to say about it. We're not egalitarian in what we're saying here today. But as we consider the church and the dignity of women, I want you to walk out with these closing thoughts. All of this that we've seen today matters greatly and deeply as we consider marriage in the days to come. Beloved, God is consistent with himself.

The apostles were consistent with the Lord Jesus Christ. When we come to a passage like Ephesians 5 and read, wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, you must understand that the God who has assigned such high dignity to women and the Christ who treated them with dignity and who assigned the apostles obviously, whatever we read that is addressed to women and addressed to wives in Scripture is extending that high dignity, not taking away from it. Oh, I know, it's countercultural. It's counterchurch in most places.

But it is gloriously countercultural. And I would say this is that godly women will embrace it out of love for the Lord when we come to Ephesians 5. But on Father's Day, a word to the men is fitting here today. Being a Christian, and you men look at me. I mean it.

You look at me right now because you need to hear this. Being a Christian impacts the way that you treat women and the way that you think about women. Your wife is not an object for you to use in any way that you see fit. You unmarried men, women are not an object for the gratification of your lust.

They're not. Whether it's your wife, a daughter, a mother, in light of the high dignity that God assigns to true women, isn't it obvious that you cannot treat women with contempt, with anger, as your personal slaves? There's a dignity to them. And if you aspire to be like Christ, there's going to be a sense in which you recognize that woman in your life, especially that Christian woman in your life, as a co-heir in Christ.

The Christ that you say that you love. If Christ treats women, even sinful women, failed women, guilty women, if He can treat them with compassion and love and grace, isn't it obvious that we have no alternative and nothing that we would prefer more than for the Spirit of God to reproduce that in our lives and have us act in similar manner? I think that's enough said. I don't need to illustrate the failures in order to drive the point home to your conscience. We've all fallen short here. That doesn't make it right.

That does not make it right. And so whether we were thinking of a mother, a wife, or a girlfriend, or a daughter, you must honor that dear woman as her high dignity from God deserves. If we start there, we're going to find a path forward in dealing with difficult marriages.

Come back on Tuesday as we continue the theme. Let's pray together. God, You created women. When You created Eve, You made her to be a companion and to help meet to Adam. And we thank You for blessing the human race with the concept with the people of that realm of humanity of women. Thank You, Father, for the women that You've put into our lives. Let us look at them through the eyes of grace, whatever their failings may be, even as Christ did, and to honor them. And Father, may the recognition for ladies, for women here today, for young girls, teenage girls looking forward and deciding the kind of women that they're going to become, Father, help them to set aside the vanity, the ambition, the competition spirit that the world would infect them with and let them come, as it were, like Mary to the feet of Jesus and say, Lord, teach me. Help me to live in accordance with the high dignity that You've bestowed upon my position in life. And whether that's a young woman or an older woman, Father, knowing that the end of the days are near, let them all aspire to that, and may You change us, Father, permanently as we look into what Your Word has said about these things. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, my friend, thank you for joining us here on today's broadcast of The Truth Pulpit, where we love to be teaching God's people God's Word.

And I just want to send a special invitation to you. If you're ever in the Midwest area, come to see us at Truth Community Church. We're on the east side of Cincinnati, Ohio. We're easy to find, easy to get to. We have services at 9 a.m. on Sunday and 7 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday evening for our midweek study. You can also find us on our live stream at thetruthpulpit.com.

That's thetruthpulpit.com. But we would love to see you. And if you do happen to be able to visit us in person, do this, if you would. Come and introduce yourself to me personally. Fight your way through the people and tell me that you listen on The Truth Pulpit and that you're here visiting. I would love to give you a word of personal greeting. So hopefully we'll see you one day in person at Truth Community Church.

You can find our location and service times at thetruthpulpit.com. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's word.