Motherhood From A-Z with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

I'm so glad that you decided to spend your time with us on Mother's Day.

Whether you are a mom, a stepmom, an adoptive mom, a grandma, a godmom, or just a motherly spiritual mother in someone's life, we're so glad that you're here.

Today is for you.

And not every year at MetaCurch do we get an actual Mother's Day sermon.

Sometimes we're in the middle of a series.

We always do a lot for you in the lobby and try to make the day special.

But the way the schedule fell this year, we are getting a Mother's Day sermon.

But before all the non-moms check out, this sermon is also for you.

Every time we dive into scripture, it's applicable to all of us.

My message today, the title will make sense soon.

It's Motherhood from A to Z.

Motherhood from A to Z.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you.

We thank you for your unending love for us.

We thank you for our moms.

Pray that today is very special and unique.

That today's message would unburden them, that they would leave here feeling love and special.

And God, we we um just thank you.

Holy Spirit, we know you're here and you're moving.

I ask that we'd be humble enough to have open minds and open hearts.

We pray all these things in Jesus' name.

And if you're ready to learn motherhood from A to Z, say Amen.

Amen.

Today we're looking at the very last chapter in the wisdom book in the Old Testament called Proverbs.

We're gonna look at Proverbs 31, verses 10, all the way through verse 31.

Proverbs 31:10

We're gonna read all of that together, and then we'll spend the rest of our time breaking it down.

It goes like this: Who can find a wife of noble character?

She is far more precious than jewels.

The heart of her husband, trust in her, and he will not lack anything good.

She rewards him with good, not evil, all the days of her life.

She selects wool and flax and works with willing hands.

She's like the merchant ships bringing her food from far away.

She rises while it's still night, provides food for her household and portions for her female servants.

She evaluates a field and buys it.

She plants a vineyard with her earnings.

She draws on her strength and reveals that her arms are strong.

She sees that her profits are good and her lamp never goes out at night.

She extends her hands at the spinning staff, and her hands hold the spindle.

Her hands reach out to the poor, and she extends her hands to the needy.

She is not afraid for her household when it snows, for all in her household are doubly clothed.

She makes her own bed coverings.

Her clothing is fine linen and purple.

Her husband is known at the city gates where he sits among the elders of the land.

She makes and sells linen garments.

She delivers belts to the merchants.

Strength and honor are her clothing, and she can laugh at the time to come.

Her mouth speaks wisdom and loving instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the activities of her household and is never idle.

Her children rise up and call her blessed.

Her husband also praises her.

Many women have done noble deeds, but you surpass them all.

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised.

Give her the reward of her labor, and let her works praise her at the city gates.

Now, to understand the weight of this passage and the instruction that it's giving us, we have to understand quite a few things about its context.

The book of Proverbs is wisdom literature.

That's the purpose.

And it was written by King Solomon, the wisest man to ever walk the earth.

Now, the book of Proverbs is addressed to young men.

It is written to an audience of young men to help them learn how to lead a prosperous, successful, and wisdom-filled life.

Throughout the first 30 chapters, it talks about a lot of other types of women.

And then in Proverbs 31, it gives you the model or the template for a godly woman.

In the first 30 chapters, it tells young men to stay away from all types of women, from foolish women, from seductive women, from demeaning women, and then to pursue a Proverbs 31 kind of woman.

It's kind of an interesting juxtaposition.

It's a letter that is written to a young man, but it culminates with this long template of a godly woman.

Now, we also have to understand the context that the model woman it portrays is set in a world 3,000 years ago in the ancient world.

So most women's daily tasks are not spinning thread or homemaking all of the clothes that their family wears.

What we can learn from is the character and the heart behind these descriptions.

So this passage is instruction on how to be a godly mother, how to find a godly mother, and how to support a godly mother.

Not only is this such a crucial piece of wisdom for our culture today, but this passage we just read in Proverbs 31, I think, is one of the most significant and incredible pieces of literature, not just from the Bible, but from anywhere in the entire ancient world.

And I want to give you a few reasons why.

Number one, it's not obvious to us in English, but in the ancient Hebrew that Proverbs 31 was written in, this passage is a 22-line poem.

And it reads like a poem in Hebrew.

Now, you put things in poetry for one reason to make it easier to memorize.

And you're gonna see the great links Solomon went to to make this passage easy to memorize.

Not only is it a poem, but it is an acrostic poem.

You guys remember acrostic poems?

You probably learned it around third grade, where the first word of every line, that letter also spells out a word.

Like, for example, it doesn't matter who the third grader was, because we don't judge people here and you may or may not know them.

But when when some specific third grader was taught how to make across, they thought it would be funny to do school and make it six cruel hours of our lives, right?

And the teacher loved that, I heard.

Now, acrostic poems are helpful for memorization.

Proverbs 31 is not only an acrostic poem, but it is what's called an alphabetical acrostic poem, which means that the 22 lines of the poem start with the 22 characters that make up the Hebrew alphabet.

Literally, it's teaching motherhood from A to Z or in Hebrew from Aleph to Tov, all the way through their alphabet, which of course, if you're trying to memorize this and you get lost on a line, all you have to know are your ABCs to give you a big hint of where you're at.

Now, that's incredible enough.

Not only is it a poem, not only is it an acrostic poem, not only is it an alphabetical acrostic poem, but it also follows what is called a chiastic structure.

Now, this is a poetic device that has phrases mirror one another.

You may not know this, but you know some chiasms, you've probably even used them in your life.

They're a part of our zeitgeist, like this.

When the going gets tough, the that's a chiasm, the the first mirrors.

It's like you could put a mirror in the middle and it goes, doesn't repeat, it mirrors.

Or a failure to prepare prepares you to fail, right?

That's a chiasm, it's a mirrored structure.

Now that's simple when you only have two lines, but what about when you have 22 lines?

This poem falls a 15-part chiastic structure.

This long poem mirrors itself from top to bottom, with the mirror being verse 23, which means if you get lost, the first thing you have is an alphabetical order for the poem where you can drop down and figure out the next line as you're memorizing it.

And if that doesn't work for you, then if you have the mirror of it memorized, you can find yourself.

I mean, Solomon not only created one of the most spectacular pieces of ancient literature with these 22 verses, but he also, in the Hebrew world, created one of the easiest things possible to memorize.

And why do we memorize things?

We memorize things because they're important.

And all parents know this.

When you want your kid to remember something, you make it memorable.

You put it in a song or you put it in a poem.

If you want to have a great day, you have to learn to obey.

I don't know how many times I told my kids that when they were little.

They probably, Paxton's here, he probably has PTSD hearing that right now.

Like, that just make it memorable over and over and over again.

Well, this is that on a grand scale.

And it's a lot of information because this is the second most important decision anyone makes in their life.

There are two key decisions that you'll make in your life.

The first is who your God is.

And the second is who your spouse is.

Men, are you gonna marry a godly woman?

Women, are you gonna marry a godly man?

These are the two most important decisions you'll ever make in your life, and here's why.

Because the first decision, who your God is, determines on the other side of this life whether you live in heaven or hell.

And the second determines during this life whether you will live in heaven or in hell.

Deeply important.

Important enough for it to be a poem and not just a poem, but an acrostic and not just an acrostic, but an alphabetic acrostic that also has a chiastic structure.

So you can remember this.

Flee from all of the spouses that will lead you to despair and destruction and cling to a godly spouse.

Now, this poem is helpful for everyone, and we're all gonna learn something today.

But my sermon is focused on the moms.

And the reason is in 12 years of marriage, and about 17 years pastoring people, I have come to learn that there is a level of pressure that most moms carry that no one else could ever experience.

Husbands, you may not know this, but there is such a thing as mom guilt.

Now you feel guilty about things every once in a while as a dad.

It's nothing like mom guilt.

And the reason a lot of the husbands do not know about mom guilt is because your wife would feel guilty telling you about it.

It's so intense and it's so permeating in our culture.

Mom guilt is feeling guilt or shame that they're not living up to others' expectations of their role as a parent.

These expectations are set by other moms that are in the classroom with them, other moms in their friend group.

It's set by their own mom who raised them, the grandma who just thinks everything about how you're parenting is absolutely insane, the in-law who raised their kid way different than you're raising your kids.

It's also social media.

All of the mom influencers who are seemingly living picture-perfect lives and have their kids perfectly in order and have a perfect marriage and go on luxurious vacations and always remind you how you're falling behind.

Let me give you an example of how these things hit different with moms and dads.

A husband and wife could sit and watch the same exact Instagram reel, and it's one of these super moms, you know?

And she has seven kids, and all of them are homeschooled, and they're backpacking together through Yosemite National Park, and everyone gets along, and they're all vegans and they're all healthy, and they're all wearing clothes that she made the night before, you know?

A mom will often look at that and feel lesser than for the next 36 hours.

All the ways I'm falling behind.

Can I tell you the dad's takeaway?

The dad is like, vegans, gross.

Feed these kids some red meat.

What's wrong with these people?

And then we just go about our day.

Moms spend almost every second of their day thinking about their kids and interacting with their kids and worrying about their kids.

And when the pressure gets so much that they just need 35 minutes to go get a pedicure, they don't enjoy the pedicure because they feel guilty about wanting to be away from the kids.

That's the standard.

For dads, we're like, are the kids alive?

Yes, we did it.

We will buy ourselves a beer to celebrate no one going to the hospital.

That's the standard.

Mom guilt is obviously unfair, but the pressure is real and it's especially real online, and our world continues to be more and more online.

And so the real question I want to deal with today is moms, whose standards are creating the emotions you feel about your motherhood?

And I think if you can answer that question honestly, it's a question for all of us, but we're gonna focus on the moms.

If you can answer that question honestly and walk out of here being held to the correct standards, you could walk out of here with a sense of freedom that you haven't had in a very long time.

Is your standard being set by some unrealistic accounts on Instagram or TikTok?

Is it the other judgmental parents in your kids' classroom?

Is it your grandma or your mother or your in-law constantly questioning the way that you're raising your kids?

The obvious answer for believers is we are held to God's standard.

What we believe, we talk all the time at Metachurch about living with a pilgrim's perspective, and that's the realization that this world is not our home, it's not our final destination.

We're pilgrims passing through, that eternity is the realest version of reality, and the first thing that happens in our transition to eternity is we stand before Jesus and we give an account for the life that we lived.

And the question Jesus will ask you on that day is not how social media felt about your parenting.

You're not going to be judged based on how someone else's parents thought you did with your kid.

You will be asked what you did with the life that you were given.

Today, the standard we keep in front of ourselves is a comparison to filtered, extraordinarily expensed, virtual realities of influencers and supposed super moms online.

And so Proverbs 31 is also seen as an outdated, way too traditional piece of literature.

What it actually offers us is a resetting of our standards to where we have proper priority in forming the emotions we carry in our parenting.

We're gonna look at three things, three broad categories that Proverbs 31 uh tells us.

And we're gonna look at the cultural's prescription, the cultures, and then we're gonna look at God's prescription for our lives.

It starts like this, and remember it's a chiasm, so it mirrors.

We'll be jumping around a little bit.

It says, Who can find a wife of noble character?

Remember that word, noble character.

She is far more precious than jewels.

The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will not lack anything good.

She rewards him with good, not evil, all the days of her life.

Her hands reach out to the poor, and she extends her hands to the needy.

Her mouth speaks wisdom, and loving instruction is on her tongue.

Many women have done, there's that word, noble deeds, but you surpass them all.

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised.

The word noble, some translations say virtuous, uh, this in the Hebrew is a word that the majority of the time is a military word.

It's about being a commander, someone who the troops are willing to follow into battle, and most homes, the husbands would be happy to admit that when it comes to getting all the troops together and in line and out the door and ready for battle for first grade math or whatever the battle of the day is, uh, that moms often step up into that role and they command that because you can trust their intent and you know that they're for you, and you know that their character is in line.

See, culture calls you to be a character.

God calls you to have character.

So often, the influencers in our society, they're not showing you their real life.

They're playing a character.

You have to wear the right size, dress your kids in the right brands, bake your own sourdough bread, keep a perfectly tidy house, post selfies with Bible verses in the caption, and of course, are you even a mom if you don't carry a Stanley water bottle?

You gotta do all of it.

That's the character.

Now, you may enjoy doing some of those things.

You may enjoy doing all of those things.

In the last year, Katie got into baking homemade bread.

What does it say?

She rewards him with good all the days of her life.

I have got home-baked cheddar jalapeno bread in my house several times a month.

It's beautiful.

It fills her up, she bakes it and gives it away as presents.

It's wonderful.

But if I thought for one second that she was doing that out of some social pressure, and that if she couldn't bake bread at home, she'd be less of a woman or less of a mom, I would just throw all the flour in the pantry in the yard.

She's doing it out of love for the Lord in service to others.

This is great if you do these things out of an abundance of passion or giftings that God has given you.

But the truth is, so much of the character that we try to play in life is not to please the Lord.

It's to please those around us.

It's for Instagram likes.

It's because if you don't get all the way done up before you show up to the class party, what are the other moms gonna say about you?

And so we're playing a character for other people instead of living with character for God.

Being a character is about what's on the outside, it's superficial.

Having character is about what's on the inside.

And you see, I did not come to take Proverbs 31 and leverage it over you to place more pressure on you as a mom.

I came to take some pressure off of your shoulders today.

I came to say that God is saying you should fear the Lord and the Lord only.

And so many of us aren't living with the fear of the Lord, we're living with fear of the culture, fear of our social circles, fear of our social media, fear of what others will say about us.

And moms, you were not meant to carry that.

You will not answer for that at the judgment seat of Christ.

God does not care about that.

God cares that you love him and fear him and love your family and serve your community out of love, using the gifts that he's given you, and let all of the other stuff go.

Character is what's on the inside.

Character is the sleepless nights praying over your children in the dead of night when everyone else is asleeping.

Character is lovingly confronting your kids when you see behaviors that you know are damaging to their future.

Character is helping your husband grow into his full potential as a man, not by ignoring his shortcomings, but lovingly leading him to the Lord, where he can grow into the person he was created to be.

That's character.

It's doing the hard work, the deep work, the internal work, not the superficial work for the praise of those around you.

It says verse 30, charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting.

And most every social media influencer is very charming.

And most of them are very beautiful outwardly.

Those things are fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised.

In other words, you are called not to be a character, but to have character.

It's mirror at the top of the poem.

Who can find a wife of noble character?

She is far more precious than jewels.

God cares about your character.

God cares about your closeness to him.

God cares about your love of his word and his commands.

And if that becomes your focus, then God will instill a character that bulletproofs your life and removes your worries and relieves your pressure because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

And are you walking in freedom as a mom?

Or are you walking feeling constantly chained to the expectations of people who ultimately will not be the judge of you at the end of your life?

Proverbs 31 speaks about character, it also speaks about capacity.

Now we're gonna officially get into the section of Proverbs 31 where the room got really uncomfortable because it sounds like we're about to tell all the women to just get back in the kitchen and cook us a meal, you know?

And so let's get that out of the way real quick.

That some people, some people have used Proverbs 31 almost as the ancient version of the super mom influencer.

Saying if you're not spinning your own clothes and cooking meals before dawn and and this, that, and the other, this is 3,000 years ago.

If you don't cook a meal before dawn, you don't eat a meal at all.

Winter is coming, and you don't have a JCPenney to buy a jacket at 3,000 years ago, it's a different world.

But the heart of this is what matters.

And it's actually talking about capacity.

And people who try to take this section and turn it in to some overly traditional patriarchal call for women to never leave the house are doing this text a giant disservice and are not reading the text for what it actually says.

I I would suggest that number one, some women feel called in their life to a more traditional style.

Of their marriage.

And isn't it interesting?

We live in a culture that will both hate on women for going into the marketplace and hate on women for staying out of the marketplace.

And maybe culture is not the standard we should be holding ourselves to.

We should be holding ourselves to God's standard and living out the calling He's placed on each of our lives uniquely.

Here's what it says: she selects wool and flax and works with willing hands.

It's about heart.

She's not begrudging in the work that is set before her.

She approaches it, and as you'll see, she's a boss.

She's like the merchant ships bringing her food from far away.

Now you can read that real bitter, like, oh, she's got to go all the way to the other H E B because they got the right kind of cheese there.

That's not what it's saying.

See, most people don't get stuff from the merchant ships.

If you can't grow it in your yard, you don't get it because most people in the ancient world live in a sustenance economy.

You eat what you kill.

The merchant ships are bringing people who are in the marketplace.

This woman, through her grind, through her effort, through her passion, through her skill, has turned her family from a sustenance economy into a mercantile economy.

They don't just eat what they can grow, she's in the marketplace.

She's bringing things in.

She's blessing her family.

Well, how does she do that?

Number one, she rises while it is still night and provides food for her household and portions for her female servants.

She's on her grind.

Number six, uh, verse 16, she evaluates a field and buys it.

That alone, this whole idea of this is some patriarchal, traditional, conservative, whatever, this blows that out of the water.

You won't read this anywhere else in the ancient world.

In the ancient world, any other text would read like this she found a field and went and got her husband.

So he could evaluate it and buy it.

That's the way the world worked.

You know what scripture said?

3,000 years ago, always ahead of the curb, always uplifting women.

It said, guess what?

She found a field, she decided it was good, and she bought it with her money.

Not only that, she planted a vineyard there with her earnings, and we know she's an entrepreneur, she will turn profit from that as well.

This is a well-rounded woman.

In verse 18, she sees that her profits are good.

She's in the black, she knows what she's doing, she's accounting for what she makes.

And her lamp never goes out at night.

She extends her hands to the spinning staff, and her hand holds the spindle.

21.

She's not afraid for her household when it snows, for all in her household are doubly clothed.

You know what that takes?

It takes strategy.

Because you cannot start making the clothes for winter when winter comes.

You have to start making it ahead of time.

Not only that, she makes her own bed coverings and her clothing.

So you might think, oh man, she's out there tilling the dirt, she's working hard, she sounds hardcore, but is she classy?

She's wearing linen and purple.

She's elegant.

She's classy.

She's all woman, but she's all business, but she's all mom, but she's all wife.

Verse 24, she makes and sells linen garments.

She delivers belts to the merchants.

She's a businesswoman.

Verse 27, she watches over the activities of her household, and she is never idle.

Just look at all the different things the Proverbs 31 woman is involved in.

She has capacity, and she can do all of these different things at once.

Now you know this because you're alive and you're able to observe things, but typically, women have a God-given capacity to multitask that men just don't have.

And you've seen this play out.

It's not always, but in most cases.

And there are biological, neurological, and physiological reasons for this.

Neurologically, women possess a larger corpus callosum.

This is the brain region responsible for integrating the two hemispheres, the left and right hemisphere of your brain.

This demonstrates that women can transition across tasks because they can integrate across the hemispheres of their mind.

Conversely, men tend to excel in focusing on singular tasks.

And we know this all the way back to primitive man, because we can look at primitive man and we know that the men did the hunting and the women did everything else, right?

That's how people survive.

And so I get it, women, it's probably very annoying that when your husband is doing one thing, he cannot talk to you about something else, right?

He's on task.

But but thank God for that as well.

When we had to hunt to survive, you had to have blinders on because you had to get that animal, and if you didn't get that animal, everyone died.

No distractions.

Hardcore focus.

And the young children stayed home because if they were on the hunt, you would never get any food.

So you managed the house and you gathered and you took care of the kids and you multitasked, and God created our brains to be able to specify into those areas.

There's new research.

This is mind-blowing to me, if nothing else, just to show that the design of God is never matched.

Recent studies have shown that estrogen plays a similar significant role in allowing the prefrontal cortex to multitask.

You probably know that when a mother becomes pregnant, her body is flooded with more estrogen, of course, to help her give birth, but it also prepares her for the complex tasks of managing a baby and then a toddler and then someday a teenager.

And that level of estrogen typically stays at an elevated pace all the way through menopause, which means God has designed you and blessed you physiologically to increase your ability to multitask all the way through the years that you typically will be taking care of children.

God's design is just unmatched.

You have capacity and you are unique.

Let me remind you: the Proverbs 31 woman is not an actual woman.

It wasn't like this is Teresa, and this is like this is all the things she does in a day.

It's a model.

It's showing great capacity.

It's showing attitude and approach and care and diligence and competency.

So what that looks like in your life, you've got to work out between you and God.

But what I know is God has gifted you, and you have talents, and you were created on purpose, and you were created with purpose, and you've been placed on earth during this specific time, and you've been given the family that you've been given, and the children that you've been given, and the passions that you've been given.

And our expectation is that we give those back to God.

Jesus told a parable of three servants, and each of them were given a set amount of money, and the king left town.

They were expected to bring a return, and two of them went and they went to work and they used their capacity to increase and bring a return of investment to the king.

And one of them sat on his gift.

When the king returned, he had nothing to show.

He allowed fear to drive him, and so the two were rewarded, and the one was punished.

Culture steals your capacity.

God instills your capacity.

Culture will deplete your capacity through comparison.

And so when you have a school project to work on with your kid, instead of just living under the standards of God and seeing this as an opportunity to invest time with your kid and to teach them and grow them and nurture them and connect with them and bond with them and create something with them and have something you would be proud of and show to the school instead.

You either are overwhelmed with thoughts of if this doesn't go well, what will the other parents think of me?

How will my kid's project reflect on me as a parent?

You know what that is?

That's not fear of the Lord.

That's fear of the culture.

Or maybe you're someone who does kind of diagram their life on social media, and instead of being in the moment with your kid, you're worried and wondered about the shots you're getting and how many likes or comments they may get and what people may think about it.

And it's stealing.

It's stealing your capacity.

Culture wants to drain your capacity by comparing your family vacation that you can actually afford to some strangers that you follow on TikTok who are traveling all of Europe on camelback for some reason.

Who cares?

That's not you.

You use your capacity.

And how heartbreaking to think that you may be missing out on lifelong memor memories in Galveston, Texas, because you're doom scrolling other people's spring break vacations around the world.

Culture will steal your capacity.

My family's favorite vacation we ever took, it was years ago, and we we borrowed an RV, and we hadn't seen the RV before we borrowed it, and we were very grateful because we didn't have to pay for it.

We got there, and it is the smallest RV I've ever seen.

It's basically a big red can with wheels on it, you know, and it was all of us and our dog.

We were like, it's an RV, we'll bring you the dog, you know.

And we were going, it was fine because we were going to a family-friendly RV park, and there's water slides and basketball courts and playgrounds, and it's like we'll never even be in the RV.

When I tell you, it thunderstorms 23 hours a day for the entire time we were there.

We've gone on some pretty cool vacations.

That is my kid's favorite.

You know why?

Mainly because their mother was there.

And she had the capacity to take a bad situation and turn it into something magical.

And we could have easily doom-scrolled and compared and gotten mad, and our kids would have followed our own emotions, turned around, headed home early when we saw the forecast.

This is the power that mothers have.

And culture is trying to steal that from you.

And I don't know what gifts God has given you, but I know that they're there.

And I don't know what talents you have, but God gave you those talents.

And I don't know what passions or dreams God has placed on your life, but you were meant to pursue those, and how heartbreaking to think that you could miss out on reaching your potential as a human being, as a wife, as a mother, all of us could miss out on our potential because culture steals from us what God instilled in us.

Our job is to use our gifts, our calling, our talents for our family, and God will be pleased.

Proverbs 31 shows us about character, it shows us about capacity.

And last, we'll look at two verses, it teaches us about confidence.

In verse 17, it says she draws on her strength and reveals that even her arms are strong.

This is not just a mentally strong person, an emotionally strong person, a strategically strong person.

This is literally a strong woman.

When I met Katie, she was a single mother of our two boys.

And uh, you know, charm and beauty faded.

Uh but that is typically what attracts first.

She was very charming, very beautiful.

And eventually I realized her character surpassed anybody I'd met.

But even before I knew that, I knew she was strong.

And I know we have single moms here at Meta Church.

And I know you are strong.

And for some of you, you didn't know how strong you were until you got put in this situation.

Mothers, you have a strength that God has placed inside of you.

That the world needs, your kids need, your husband needs, the church needs.

A culture will try and take even your confidence from you.

Here's what verse 25 says: strength and honor are her clothing, and she can laugh at the time to come.

It's interesting, biologically, women are wired to worry about their kids.

And a lot of the moms will say, if I wasn't worrying about them, I don't know that anybody would be, you know, like if I didn't make the doctor's appointments, if I didn't think about their future, if I wasn't planning for their college, it's not always true, but women do that naturally, and that's great.

But if you're living with significant worry, significant fear, significant doubt about the future, not based on the things of God, not based on serving your family, but based on cultural standards, then not only are you burdened today by misplaced standards, you're burdening your future self.

See the Proverbs 31 woman laughs at the time to come.

She's okay when things don't go according to plan.

Not because of her own strength, but because she fears the Lord.

She knows her life is in the hands of God.

And God is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Our God, our Father, is already in the future.

He already has a plan.

He's already making a way, he already has promises for our life.

This is the strength and confidence that comes not even from your own capacity.

Your capacity is a gift to give back to the Lord.

Not even from your own great character.

Your character is how you live pleasing the Lord.

Your confidence is rooted in the Lord.

Your confidence is not rooted in your husband.

Your husband is your best resource, God has given you, but he cannot be your source because your husband will let you down.

Your husband, I bet makes a great husband, he'll make a really terrible God.

You source your life and you source your confidence in God in this world.

Cannot shake you.

The Proverbs 31 woman is strong.

When you live in a culture of 24-7 comparison, it's deadly for everyone.

But maybe the group most affected is our mothers.

Culture kills your confidence.

God fills your confidence.

And if you are feeling your confidence draining from you, you need to set down Instagram, set down TikTok, and pick up the word of God.

Because when you see what God says that you are, that you are a child of the Most High, that you are chosen, that you are purposed, that you are loved and held in the Father's hand, and nothing and no one can take you out of the Father's hand, and nothing and no one can separate you from the love of God.

And that while Instagram and TikTok and your social circle and the influencers will try and kill your confidence through comparison, God will tell you, don't you know, you are beautifully and wonderfully made and purposed to be a life-changing, world-changing person.

I've placed you where I've placed you.

I've given you your children.

Now rise up and live as confident men and women of God.

So for the moms, I am suggesting that the culture around you is an inappropriate standard to measure your life by, to measure your marriage by, to measure your parenting by.

Instead of the cultural standard, God has called us to character.

That's not superficial, it's not external, it's internal.

God has called us to capacity, and he's put something on your life.

He's given you gifts and he's given you talents.

And he wants you to use those, not to impress people who are not your judge, but to use them to build his kingdom and to make his name known.

And he's called us to confidence.

And for many people, this is the hardest one.

And maybe it's difficult for you because you don't feel like you've done a great job as a mom, or you don't feel like you've done a great job as a wife.

And maybe some of that's true.

Maybe some of that is the cultural pressure talking through you.

It's a false narrative.

Regardless, I want to share something about the book of Proverbs.

The book of Proverbs was written by King Solomon.

And King Solomon says in the beginning of Proverbs 31 that this is the instructions to the king on how to live a great life.

A lot of scholars think that that king is Solomon.

It's a self-reflection at the end of his letter.

And he says, This is what I learned from my mom.

So you probably think the wisest man on earth probably had the wisest mom on earth.

She's probably like second place to Jesus and living a great perfect life.

Do you know who Solomon's mom is?

Solomon's mom is Bathsheba.

And you may know the name Bathsheba because she's the woman who King David had an affair with when her husband was away at war.

Not only was she involved in a great sin, but the entire country knew about it.

And God is a God of redemption.

And he took Bathsheba and he gave her a son named Solomon.

She allowed her life to be redeemed to the point of delivering the wisdom to the wisest man who ever lived to end his letter.

To structure in a poetic way to make sure anyone could memorize it, because it's just that important.

God can redeem your story as well.

Now, the rest of us who are not mothers here today, we also have instructions.

Verse 23 says, Her husband is known at the city gates where he sits among the elders of the land.

Now, the gates of the city were a crucial part of the society in the ancient world.

This is where decisions were made, it's where wisdom was shared, and it is where the most influential men were allowed to sit.

And we don't really get this as modern readers, but what verse 23 is saying as the central point of this poem, that this man largely got this level of success because of his virtuous wife at home.

And anyone who has lived with a virtuous wife knows that to be true.

Verse 28 says, Her children rise up and call her blessed.

The second Sunday of every May.

Not just on Mother's Day, also her birthday.

Make sure you.

She wanted me to know the Lord to follow his commands.

And she wanted to make sure I knew I had capacity.

And she wanted me to be confident.

Not cocky, confident.

I know this because I married pretty young.

I was 22, and Katie and I got married.

And I am where I am today.

Number one, because of God, and number two, because of my wife.

She loved me enough to marry me despite many shortcomings, but not to ignore them, to address them lovingly, consistently.

Not because she wanted to put me down, because she wanted to lift me up and help me reach the potential of God who took place on my life.

I married a woman of great capacity.

When I'm feeling like I can't manage all the things I have going in my life, I have an example at home of someone who manages a far greater capacity than I would even know how to wrap my mind around.

I married a woman whose confidence is in the Lord.

Who was a single mom.

Who was strong.

Not from her own strength.

She was strong because she was leaning on her heavenly father.

And we all have a role to play.

Mothers, it's gonna be up to you whether you continue living by the culture's standards and burden yourself, or whether you will reject that, speak true to those lies, and begin to measure your life by God's standards.

I promise, where the spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom, and you will walk in a new freedom you've never experienced before.

Your family needs that, your kids need that, and the church needs that.

Needs people who are being held to God's standard and saying, Whatever the world may think about me, they're welcome to think I care what God thinks about me.

The rest of us have a role to play as well.

Her children rise up and call her blessed.

And her husband also praises her.

Not once a year or twice a year, but all the time.

Husbands, you are called to lead your house.

Not everybody likes that.

I just teach what scripture says.

However, Paul very carefully defines what that means.

He says wives, submit to your husbands, and husbands love.

Your wife, like Christ loved the church and gave his life for her, leading your house does not mean lording power over your spouse.

It means being willing to die for them.

And too many husbands cannot even die to their pride enough to wake up every day and use their words to help shape their wife's character, to help encourage their capacity, and to help grow their confidence.

And that is a part of your job.

Children, to rise up and call your mom blessed, to thank her for what she's done.

And if you are a young person, you think you know what your mom has done, and yet you have no idea.

Make today an example where we live by God's standard, where we use our actions and our words to lift up our mothers, but not just today, also tomorrow and the next day and the next.

The church needs strong, godly women of character, capacity, and confidence.

You are key to this movement, moving.

And I hope today that some of the pressure is off and that God will guide you into a new kind of freedom.

Let's close in prayer.

Right where you're at, you can close your eyes and bow your head.

There's nothing magic about that.

Just create a little bit of space.

I want to ask you to reflect on the areas of your life where you might be unintentionally playing a character.

You're not living out of the desire to please the Lord.

You're not living out of who He uniquely created you to be.

You're living for the likes and the comments, for the approval of others.

I wonder what lies you have believed that are limiting your capacity.

That you're not enough, you're not good enough, you don't have enough, you don't make enough, you're not educated enough, you're not in shape enough, you're not working enough, you're working too much.

I wonder what things have stolen your confidence today.

You can speak truth to those.

If you are a child of God, then you have all you need.

Walk forward in freedom.

And before we go, I wonder if there's anyone here or watching online who has never had a moment in time where they've put their faith in Jesus.

You see, God offers you the freedom of not having to be held by the standards of the world around you.

But to access that, you must be in relationship with God, and that comes by putting your faith in Jesus, in who he said he is, and what he has said that he's done.

So if that's you, you are not in relationship with Jesus, you've never had a moment in time where you've believed in him, and you want to make today that day, I want to ask you for a moment of courage.

Right now, with everyone's eyes closed, if you would just lift your hand up in the air where I can see it.

By lifting your hand, you're saying, today I choose.

Amen.

Today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

For those who raised a hand, you need to know that Jesus sees your faith right now and he accepts it.

That you are clothed in his righteousness forever, that you are brought to spiritual life and you are a child of God.

And now you can walk in the freedom that that brings.

I want to just simply help you acknowledge the decision you've made today through a prayer.

And so if you raised your hand, I want to ask you to pray this with me, and I want to ask all the believers in the room to pray it with you as well.

Let's pray this.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God, that you died for my sins, and I believe you rose again.

I thank you for loving me and for giving my sins.

Now let me pray over you.

Jesus, I just continue to thank you for how you are bringing more and more people into your family.

I thank you for those who put their faith in you today.

God, I pray today would be the starting point of the adventure of a lifetime following after you, that all of us would throw off the pressure of trying to impress people who are not our judge, that we would live to please you.

A proper fear of the Lord, not a fear of the culture, because you are a good God.

You love us, you give us freedom, and I pray we would walk in that freedom in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.