Women Who Showed the Way #1

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

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Thanks for joining us as we continue teaching God's people God's Word. Don begins a new message today, so without further delay, let's join him right now in The Truth Pulpit. I invite you to turn to Ephesians chapter 5. We've taken a brief pause in our regular studies to consider marriage, and eventually what I plan to do is to just go through this entire section on marriage, Ephesians 5, 22 through 33.

For tonight, I'm just going to read the first three verses and continue a little bit of background on godly women, you might say, that will inform our study when we get to it, probably on Sunday. So Ephesians chapter 5 verse 22 says, As wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Now last time, on Sunday, we considered the high dignity of true women, the high dignity of what God has created when he made a woman, and when he created women as part of humanity, and even the dignity that he bestows on those of you here in this room that love Christ and want to honor and glorify him. Our church is filled with women like that, and seemingly the Lord brings more with each passing month, and we're grateful to that.

A church cannot function and be all that it's meant to be without godly women, and that's certainly true, and I won't take the time to defend it. What we saw last time is that Scripture teaches that women share equally with men in the image of God, the gift of salvation, the promise of eternal life, that God has established social structures in the family and in the relationship between husband and wife and parents and children for their position of dignity to be honored by those that are around them. We saw that Jesus extensively honored the dignity of women, and the gospels are full of such indications from our Lord as he healed women, as he taught women, as he forgave repentant women. And you see the broad biblical background, and then you see how Jesus, God in human flesh, interacted with women, and you don't see any of the coarseness that marks some in supposedly evangelical circles today as they talk about women.

You don't see any of that coarse language coming from Jesus, just the love and the kindness and the compassion that he showed to them as he spoke with them and ministered to their hearts according to their need at the time. And our point last time, this is just a little bit of review, is that Christ conferred dignity on women, he treated women with kindness and respect, and as a result of that, we are to honor women as well. It would not make any sense for those of us that claim to be disciples of Christ to have a different attitude and approach and conduct toward women that Christ did. And so young men should learn and should learn from Christ that women are not, well let me approach it this way, that means that as we consider women in our lives and women that we encounter, that we should never think about them apart from the dignity that Christ bestowed on women as a segment of humanity, the better half of humanity you might say. We should never think about women, we should never think about our wives or our daughters apart from Christ. We see how Christ treated women broadly, generally, consistently, and we say okay that carries over into my relationships with women today, and so that we don't view our wives as simply ours or to perform tasks for us, we view them to the extent that the Spirit enables us, we view them through the eyes of Christ. Now, as you continue reading, we kind of looked at Christ toward women and what Christ acted toward women. Tonight what I want to do is kind of take the reverse approach and just look at Scripture and see how women responded to Christ, and let that be a model for us today that actually instructs us as men as well.

And I want to set this up with a bit of a contrast you might say, and just to remind you of why this is important for our study on marriage. As I said last time, wives come from the realm of women. I know how funny that sounds, but wives come from the realm of women, and so if women have a high dignity conferred upon them by God and by Christ during his earthly ministry, then it is ours, both men and women, to keep that in mind as we interact with women. For men, we honor them, as I've been saying, and for women, watch this, for women to see in the pattern of women in the time of Christ, a pattern for their own spiritual lives and for the way that they should aspire to be in their character, in their heart. Scripture says that the heart of a godly woman, a gentle and quiet spirit in a woman, is precious in the sight of God.

That's in 1 Peter 3. And so as we see this illustrated in the women that were around Jesus, it's going to teach us some very valuable things that benefit us all. And just kind of keeping in context with Matthew chapter 5, let me just give you a brief definition or a brief statement that you could write down and try to remember. The high dignity of women is manifested through humble, faithful devotion to Jesus Christ. The high dignity of women is manifested through humble, faithful devotion to Christ. Now that sounds, if we don't give a contrast to that, it won't come out in the clarity with which it should.

So let me give you a contrast here. The high dignity, the humble, faithful devotion to Christ manifested in a gentle and quiet spirit, well we see this laid out for us in the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5 verses 3 through 12, which are for men and women both, but just focusing on women and knowing what lies ahead here. When we talk about humble, faithful devotion to Christ, when we talk about being a woman of dignity, as Scripture defines that, it's going to be manifested through the heart attitudes that you see expressed in the Beatitudes. Poverty of spirit, confession, mourning over sin, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, a woman of mercy, a woman who is a peacemaker, those are the kinds of things that Jesus said mark those who belong to the kingdom of heaven.

And he says that every person who is in the kingdom of heaven will be manifested by growing expression of these spiritual characteristics. And we've studied those in the recent past and I won't go any further, I just allude to it sort of in passing. Now, I want to make, I want to bring that out, this humble devotion, this high dignity of women, I want to bring it out through what might prove to be a somewhat controversial contrast. But if any controversy comes from it, if it serves to clarify things in your mind, then it's well worth the effort that it takes to do so. Think back to this, we just recently completed a series titled, Are You a Christian? And I went through 14 different points to expose false faith, false hope, so the fact that you're a Christian is not proven merely by the fact that you go to church, that you said a prayer, that you had an experience or anything like that. And so we drew these contrasts to show what is not a true Christian in order to set it up with an understanding that to be a Christian means you believe the gospel and the power of God has come upon you and changed you, and given you spiritual ability, a new spiritual relationship with God, spiritual life, spiritual power, and we set up that contrast so that you could see the deadness of the letter versus the life that is in the spirit. It's in that kind of spirit that I want to lay these things out to you that I'm about to say, remembering just to keep things very fresh in everyone's mind, that we said that this high dignity is expressed through the godly character found in the Beatitudes. Okay? That's really, really important. Jesus is the one who said, these traits mark the ones who belong to my kingdom.

Now, this is just a contrast, it's a bit of an illustration to help bring out the point to you, to see it in relief. Godly dignity in a woman is not the same thing as being a homeschool mom. Godly dignity is not the same thing, for example, as being a homeschool mom. Now, I'm married to a homeschool mom, at least she used to be before our kids all grew up. I have a place of affection in my heart for godly homeschool moms. You can be a homeschool mom and be very godly, but it's not the same thing, and it's very important for us to recognize a distinction so that we don't equate the wrong thing with the real thing. Some homeschool moms are outwardly fine until you cross them as a husband or in some other capacity, and then the real condition of their heart comes out. Far from being peacemakers, you find that they're itching for a fight, that there's a self-righteous spirit about them, there's a combativeness about them.

And it turns out that there's venom beneath those soft-spoken lips, not interested in peace, but in making their point, in having their way, in asserting themselves. And I don't need to go into any more detail than that, I don't think, but I just use that as an illustration for this reason. You know, a church like ours attracts homeschool families, and that's great. I love having homeschool families. But homeschool families can come with their own set of presuppositions that they actually aren't looking to be taught as much as to find someone or to find a church that affirms them in what they already think and in what they're already doing. And when the accountability of Scripture is brought to bear or matters of godliness are questioned, then, you know, I could open up my coat jacket here and show you the scratch marks from years gone by. And so, the tendency for some ladies, I fear, is to be satisfied with being a homeschool mom as if that proved their righteousness. And it's not the case. That is not where you go to establish the high dignity and the godly character that marks a woman of high dignity. What is the difference here?

What is it that I'm driving at? Well, as we're going to see in Scripture here, the women that were around Christ during His earthly life, they manifest, first of all, they manifest humble faith in the promises of God. Humble faith in the promises of God, and we'll come back to this. The women around Christ that were following Him, they had a teachable spirit under the Word of God.

And thirdly, they gave careful attention to the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can be a homeschool mom without having humble faith in the promise of God. You can be a homeschool mom without having a teachable spirit under the Word of God.

You can be a homeschool mom without careful attention to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Listen, those things are so clear and obvious that I take it as a given. These things are axiomatic, if you want to look up a word later.

These things are axiomatic to me. These are matters that are self-evident, that the two are not necessarily equated. When you've heard a homeschool mom yell angrily at her husband in front of others, when you've had homeschool moms act in other ways that had nothing to do with peacemaking and everything about exacerbating a conflict, then these things become very clear to you. And so, to the extent that there's a narrow band of homeschool moms that would ever hear this message, take these things to heart.

These are all for your own well-being. For the rest of us, just to see in an example that could be multiplied in other areas many times over, just to see that the high dignity of a true woman is manifested in humble faith in the promise of God, a teachable spirit under the Word of God, careful attention to the gospel of Christ. And a woman like that is simultaneously going to be manifesting the fruit of the Spirit as Jesus taught it in the Beatitudes. These things are not the same. The mere fact that you hold and you do something in an outward position and you've stationed yourself in a particular manner of life is no proof one way or another about the godliness of your heart.

And so what I want to do tonight then, with all of those things said, is to set your aspirations in the right direction, to help you see what it is that a godly heart, a peaceable and quiet spirit, what that is like. And we see it illustrated in the women that surrounded Jesus in his ministry. Let me state it one other way. Look, I'm not preaching against motherhood here, okay?

That should be obvious to everyone. But we need to have it clear in our minds that devotion to your family is not the same thing as devotion to Christ. A woman who is devoted to Christ will be devoted to her family, but the mere fact that a woman is devoted to her family is not sure and positive and irrefutable evidence that she's actually devoted to Christ in the way that we see in Scripture.

So that's my point. I don't want anyone to fall short of true devotion to Christ, and so that's what we're going to look at here. So we're going to look at three different things here this evening.

The points are simple. We're going to look, first of all, at women and the birth of Jesus, and then secondly, we're going to look at women and the earthly ministry of Jesus, and then thirdly, we're going to look at women and the events of the gospel. The birth of Jesus, his earthly ministry, and then the culminating events of his life, his death, his resurrection, those things that are the historical basis of the gospel that we preach. So that's what we're going to look at here this evening, and I consider it a high privilege to be able to do this with you here this evening. And may the Spirit of God open our minds, open our ears, soften our hearts, and lead us in the right direction. And just one last statement here. All of this provides background for our more direct study of Ephesians 5, which I expect to start on Sunday, and what follows is somewhat selective. It's not at all comprehensive of all that we could say.

I cut a lot of things out of my notes for the sake of time. But let's just look briefly at number one, women and the birth of Jesus. Now, as students of Scripture, we are more accustomed to, when we come to Scripture, we're more accustomed to thinking about the male disciples of Christ. After all, the 12 apostles were men, Paul was a man. Scripture says that, you know, church leadership is for men, a woman is not to teach or exercise authority over a man in the realm of the church and spiritual teaching.

So we're accustomed to thinking about things as they relate to men. But tonight, what I want to do, I don't want us to lose sight of, I want to maybe, for some of you, introduce you to the women who are woven into the fabric of the gospel accounts about Jesus. And let's remember, first of all, that it was through a woman that God sent His Son to us. Apart from normal human conception, in a miraculous way, God used Mary and formed Christ in her womb apart from the contribution of a human male.

That immediately gives us a sense that there's something special here when we talk about women. And if you'll turn with me to the Gospel of Luke, much of what we have to say will come from the Gospel of Luke here this evening. Just turn to Luke chapter 1, and what we find is that in the women that we're going to look at, they showed humble faith in the promise of God.

They submitted themselves and trusted the promise of God. So that, you remember the angel came to Mary, said, verse 31, You'll conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and on it goes. This is Luke chapter 1. And in verse 38, Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.

Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. And then in verse 45, we read Elizabeth saying to Mary, Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. And then the prayer of Mary is given in the verses that follow there. The angel came in a supernatural way, giving a supernatural announcement to Mary. And this dear young woman believed what was said, received it, accepted it, submitted to it. And as you go on to the birth of Jesus in chapter 2, you will remember that there was a prophetess named Anna who welcomed him in the temple.

And look at verse 36 of Luke chapter 2 with me. We read that there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Fanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin. And then as a widow until she was 84, she did not depart from the temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. The promise of a coming Messiah to the city of Jerusalem, a coming Messiah to the people of Jews. She knew that promise.

She believed that promise. She affirmed it and reinforced it as she looked upon the Christ, serving in the temple night and day for decades upon decades. Here's a woman of dignity around the time of Christ. And the simple point that we're making here as we look at these women in the birth of Jesus is this, is that they showed a humble faith in the promise of God. This is part of godliness, a humble faith in the promise of God. This immediately opens up worlds of growth, perhaps, I should say, in our hearts as we reflect on the anxious way that we live our lives, some of us.

The uncertainty and the fear, perhaps, that grips the hearts of others. Look, the women around Jesus show us and manifest for us what godliness looks like, what the true dignity of women looks like. A godly woman can be identified by her humble, quiet trust in Christ. That's the heart of godliness, not how you educate your kids, not what you do necessarily with your husband.

Those things are secondary. They are peripheral to the core issue of being a godly woman is going to be God-centered in her life. A Christ-centered woman is going to be Christ-centered in her heart, and that starts with humble faith in the promises and in the word of God that he's revealed. And so when we speak of the dignity of woman, we're laying forth, we're holding up the prospect of a woman that believes the word of God and trusts in it.

That's the starting point. Well, my friend, there is no substitute for reading the word of God for yourself and spending the time day by day going through the Bible in a systematic way so that you have a full exposure to everything that the word of God says. It's remarkable the way the Spirit of God works through the word to minister to our hearts in that way. And to help you do that, we have a couple of different Bible reading plans available on our website, thetruthpulpit.com. If you would go to thetruthpulpit.com, click on the link that says About, you'll find a sublink there that takes you to two different Bible reading plans that you can choose from. It's free, it's there available to help you in your reading of God's word, and I know that the Spirit of God will use that in your life if you're not used to reading God's word on a regular, systematic basis. Make this the day that you start something new and move in that direction, and join us again next time here on The Truth Pulpit as we continue teaching God's people God's word. 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.