Made in His Image - Biblical Womanhood (Genesis 2:18-25; Proverbs 31)

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org Here's this week's message if.

You think that I am going to sing or even say the chorus of

that song? You have lost your mind.

No, I don't feel like a woman. That's good for you.

Otherwise this would be a very confusing talk.

Wow. Well, recovering from That's

fun. Well, if you're not sure about

what today is because maybe you haven't joined us before, first

of all, welcome. But second of all, know that you

have walked into a talk on biblical womanhood.

Now I got to tell you, if I'm being perfectly honest, I have

had some nerves about this for some time when Pastor Matt and I

were talking about a sermon series made in his image and

he's like, I'll take the guys. Well, I guess that leaves me to

talk about biblical womanhood. To be honest, it feels like

they're and I'm just a little confession, little inside peek.

It honestly feels like there are 100,000 ways I could fall off

the Cliff here and fail. And there are maybe one or two

along the way where if I track just right, I'll be OK.

And that's that's all kind of built and baked into my head.

However, something changed, something changed and I moved

out of nervousness into confidence.

Now that has nothing to do with me and, and here's here's how

this process kind of works. The thing is, I believe that we

we can take a step back and we can objectively look at our

background beliefs and where we get those things, all of a

sudden there become there, there comes some clarity.

So in other words, what I mean by that is we cannot escape the,

the family and the culture that we are raised by.

That is inescapable. We cannot escape the culture we

live in now, especially with social media and everything

happening and all that kind of stuff.

Those are those are things in parts of our background, in our,

in our background beliefs that we obviously cannot escape.

It is a part it, it builds itself into our heads.

And so we end up with a lot of different background beliefs on

a lot of different topics. And The thing is, like we

certainly by our culture and by how we were raised or whatever

that looks like, we have created background beliefs that are

subtle, that are in our heads about what a man or a woman is

supposed to be and how they're supposed to act and what they're

supposed to do, etcetera, etcetera.

Now all of that I think is it's helpful, a, to recognize those

things, but B, it's more helpful to recognize something else.

And here's the thing that's helpful to recognize is that

God's word is capital T truth. It is capital T truth.

So regardless of what culture says, regardless of what kind of

background beliefs we might come with about men or with women,

God has an anchor. God is the cornerstone of

capital T truth. And as long as we lean into and

participate in his Word, believing what he says, because

he's the one who designed us, He's the one who built us.

If we do that, man, I suspect we can't fail and that builds a

great amount of confidence. So therefore, I will tell you

that if you did come today, because you were aware of what

today's talk and you were just kind of hoping to watch me fall

on my face. Welcome.

I am I am glad you're here. I suspect to the degree that I

can stick close to God's Word, that won't happen.

So I'm sorry if that's disappointing to you.

But anyway, on this, on this talk about biblical womanhood,

Kristen mentioned it during announcements.

I would love to. Here's the thing.

I, I don't make any like I don't make any promises that I can

cover all the topics or the questions that you might have

about this subject, biblical womanhood.

I, there's no way I can't do it even throughout the podcast

tomorrow, Matt and I probably won't be able to do it right.

And so if I missed something that you wanted me to cover,

please stop by the connections desk and write a little note.

If I said something that was unclear to you, please stop by

the connection center and write us a note.

Keep the conversation going because this is an important

topic and it's crucial to our understanding about and, and how

we interact with with women in general.

So please keep that conversation going.

We covet your input and your questions and your comments and

all that kind of stuff. So please take advantage of

that. And lastly, before I move into

the particulars of what we're going to talk about today,

please know that if there was ever a topic where I am

exercising an incredible amount of humility, it's this one.

It really is. And I have been blessed,

absolutely blessed out of my mind to have been raised by an

incredibly strong woman who had to do pretty much everything on

her own to raise her boys. So just know that I am grateful

and regardless of age, singleness, not single,

whatever. I am humbled and I am incredibly

thankful to all the women in my life, in particular my mom, who,

like I said, she had to fight hard to do what she did to

create good for her boys. So just so you know, that's the

background I come with, that's what I come with.

That's, that's who, that's how I was raised.

So anyway, let's get into the particulars.

Let's see what this looks like. Again, I can't cover all the

topics, but these are the ones I'm going to cover today.

First of all, why women? That sounds like a mean

question, but it's true. Why women?

Good start. We need to define the word

helper in Genesis because I think that word gets a bad Rep,

husband and kids. Is that necessary?

That's an important question to figure out.

A biblical woman looks like we're going to look very briefly

through Proverbs 31 to kind of see some of that stuff, and then

we're going to see God's trusted witness.

So that's where we're going today.

I don't have one particular text that I'm working with, of

course. So normally if you know me, I

would read at this point, but I would prefer to stop and

momentarily pray and have you pray with me if you don't mind.

Our Father in Heaven, may it be the truth of Your word that is

taught. May it be Your wisdom that is

gained. Teach us, rebuke us, correct us,

but ultimately set us free in the truth of Your word and in

the knowledge of the death and resurrection of Your Son.

That we may be free, that we may be joyful, that we may be who

you designed us to be, our Father, just by your power, by

your Holy Spirit, we pray that you will do this and we know you

will sanctify my words. Lord, we pray all these things

in Jesus name, Amen. So why don't we start in the

beginning because that's a good place to start as Pastor Matt

did with the men. We're going to read from Genesis

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2. I'm going to read a few verses

here and then we'll get into some stuff.

Genesis 218 we read this name in the name of the Lord.

Then the Lord God said it is not good that a man should be alone.

I will make him a helper fit for him.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and

while he slept one of his ribs, he took one of his ribs and

closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God

had made, taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought

her to the man. Then the man said, This at last

is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of

man. Therefore a man shall leave his

father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife, and they shall

become one flesh. And the man and his wife were

both naked, and they were not ashamed.

So if Adam had God, why Eve? Seriously, why?

I mean, we, we would probably in some way or another, we would

preach or teach that all you need is the Lord.

All you need is the Lord and Adam clearly had that.

So why Eve? Well, let's start with this

understanding because it's an important theological truth.

When God created Adam, here's what he said and I quote, let us

make man in our image after our likeness.

Are you catching on right? We are talking plurals here.

So God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have

always been in a deep love intimate relationship.

They have always had that. God has never been alone.

He because he is deeply and irreducibly relational.

That's who he is at his core. He is deeply and irreducibly

relational. Therefore, when God makes man

and he says man, this, this isn't good.

Why? Because God as the triune God

has always had companionship, has always had this love

relationship. And for Adam to not have that

means that Adam cannot fully reflect the glory of God on his

own. He can't do it without Eve.

He is not complete to reflect the glory of God.

And so we recognize then that Eve women absolutely necessary

for the goodness and the completion of creation.

She is the integral finishing piece of everything that then

God looks at the world and he looks at his people and he says

this is very good. It was good when there was Adam

and then there was Eve and it was very good.

I actually I love what Adam says when like he wakes up and he's

like, I love that part like I really do because he probably

woke up and went, Oh my gosh, are you kidding me?

This is awesome. I named all these weird animals

with horns and wings and feathers and stuff.

But this is pretty great. Like well done, Lord, this is

your best work yet, right? I believe that's how he felt.

I'm in fact, I'm positive that's how he felt.

Now, understanding these relationships, men and women and

understanding the the need for relationships that that is key.

It's important. It's a completion effect right

now, what those relationships look like, man and woman,

etcetera. That's that is a different topic

that we'll get to in just a few moments.

But for now, let's just check the box of the question.

Why women? We know why women, because

without Eve, Adam cannot reflect the glory and the goodness and

the relational nature of God. He can't do it.

She is essential to that. He can't do it alone.

So let's move in then to this word helper.

I think this word gets a really bad Rep.

It gets a bad kind of connotation put to it when we

bring it into English. Not that the translation of the

word helper is bad, but again, background beliefs, right?

We've got loaded background beliefs.

When we come to the Bible, we don't come as purely objective

blank slates. That's not how that works at

all. And So what happens is when we

sometimes, I suspect we hear the word helper and we think about

somebody who's inferior. So like, OK, young child, I will

let you help me do the dishes. You're going to do a terrible

job and I'm going to do everything because you're

inferior at this, but I'll let you help.

Lucky you, right? That's not this at all.

The Hebrew word ezer shows up. It shows up 21 times in the Old

Testament. I did a little digging, shows up

21 times. And fun fact, sixteen of those

times it is God as the helper to his people.

It is God as the helper to his people.

And God uses the same word to describe eve.

He uses the same word to describe woman.

Now what does that tell us? That tells us, especially as God

helps his people, is He inferior as He helps them?

No, is is what is His role? His role is, is the completion.

His role shows strength and it shows protection and it shows

dignity and it shows partnership.

It does not show inferiority in any way, shape or form.

And the fact that God uses that same word to describe woman,

that He himself calls himself man, that ought to ring true in

our heads and be powerful. That's that's that word helper,

right? Otherwise, you know, when we go

back and we think about that question, why women?

You see, here's the thing. There's a saving grace to women.

There's a saving grace to them. God has created them that way.

Men, we literally cannot do this thing called life without them

impossible. And if I have to explain that to

you, well, I'm not doing that from the stage, but we can talk

later, I guess, or I don't know, maybe your parents missed

something. They can tell you about it, but

we can't do it. Women, gosh, you are absolutely

necessary. And here's the thing, anything

that is necessary is automatically imbued with

importance and dignity and is not inferior.

That's how that works in the Bible.

Let me give you another word here.

A fit, a helper fit for him. Now this Hebrew word means

corresponding and opposite of, corresponding and opposite of.

I want to make sure I get this right.

See, I have to tell you, men or women alike, if you feel like

the opposite sex is strange and weird and doesn't make sense,

though, OK, you're right on track.

Because God has built equal opposites, right?

And so think about it this way. In nature there are always equal

opposites and they don't negate each other, They don't harm each

other. They actually create completion.

So I don't know, sun and moon, right, Sea and shore, salty and

sweet, right, Ying Yang, all that kind of stuff.

These things are not negating each other, they're completing

each other. And that's how God has made man

and woman, particularly woman in the sense that Adam, you're not

there yet. This is good, but it's not very

good yet until Eve shows up. That's how that works.

It's a completionist mentality. It is not.

And it's built to be different, and that's OK Different but

equal is how the Bible describes us.

So anyway, I hope that gives you some sense of that word helper

and that word fit. And because as Genesis in the

entire Bible would tell us, there is not inferiority here.

Instead, it's completion language.

And that means that God did his best and he did the right thing

in his design. Because without those equal

opposites, we don't exist, right?

All right, cool, let's move on. Talking about relationships and

all that kind of stuff. I, I was asked and I think this

is important. We see women throughout

Scripture and I wouldn't call this prescriptive if it's more

narrative, but we see women throughout the Scripture

begging, just praying to God, on their knees, weeping for

children, spouse, whatever. We see that happen.

OK. Is that necessary?

Is it necessary that in order to be a biblical woman, in order to

be a God honoring woman, is it necessary to have a spouse?

Is it necessary to have kids? In a word, no.

No. Can I read you a list of names?

The first one is the slam dunk, and I could probably stop after

that, but I'm going to keep going anyway just to prove the

point. Jesus, Paul, Moses's sister

Miriam, the five unmarried daughters in the book of Numbers

who petition for their inheritance rights in the New

Testament, Mary of Bethany, Martha of Bethany, Anna, the

prophetess Phoebe and most likely scholars agree Mary

Magdalene herself single single biblical singleness is God

honoring it is now. So do women have to get married,

have kids, etcetera to to be godly women?

No, no they don't. They really don't.

Now I say all that and now that's true, but as we talked

about earlier, we cannot negate the fact that we are irreducibly

relational beings that in need of community.

Therefore, I want you to consider something.

Have you ever considered how Jesus addresses singleness and

family and relationship? Have you thought about that?

Because I'm going to give you something that hopefully will

spark your imagination. In Matthew 1248 through 50,

Jesus is inside of a house and he's teaching.

And of course there's lots and lots of people around.

Nobody else can get in. And somebody kind of cues him up

and says, hey, Jesus, your mother and your brother are

outside. And this is how he responds.

But he replied to the man, and he told him, who is my mother

and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hands

toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my

brothers. For whoever does the will of my

father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

Do you see what's happening there?

Do you get it? If you don't, I'm going to

explain it. You see, Jesus teaches us that

our first in our true family is that of the believing household

of God. Let me say that again, because

you may not have caught it. Our first in our true family is

the believing household of God. Now that is going to sound

radical and you may not even like the fact that I said that

or that God's Word says that because in the Midwest in

particular in America, we are extremely family centric.

We are extremely family centric and there's nothing wrong about

that. There's nothing terrible about

that. But if you don't have a spouse

and you don't have children, what then do you do You may feel

incomplete in some way, but Jesus teaches us quite

differently. That's not an incompleteness.

So what we learned then is that to the degree that singles move

into and are intentional about creating late relationships with

their family of God, family, which Jesus said is the most

important one, then when you move into those and you lean

into those, man, you don't lack anything.

You don't lack anything. You have mothers, you have

fathers, you have brothers, you have sisters, you have children.

And if you don't think you have children, then you better get

here on Wednesday nights because he got a lot of them.

I know because they're hanging on me all the time.

I got a lot of them. I got a lot of them.

And that's great. That's awesome.

I love that. It is.

It is. It is a village mentality.

It is a family mentality that God creates.

And Jesus shows us that in that passage.

So single. Yeah.

Yeah. And to the degree that you see

your church as your family and you lean into that.

You won't lack anything now. Some of you, some of you are

opposing me in your heads right now.

I know you are. I know you are because I did.

When I was reading this. I was arguing with myself.

I do that frequently. And here's how you're going to

oppose me. And you're going to be too

embarrassed to ever say it out loud.

And you probably won't even write it for a note for the

podcast because what if they know my handwriting?

That'd be too embarrassing to bring up.

But here's what it is. Here's how you'll oppose me.

What about my physical intimacy needs?

What about that? What am I supposed to do with

that if I'm single? Well, in the case of those

particular needs and desires, God's Word would tell you to

find a spouse so that you would not fall into temptation and

sin. That's how God would coach you

to do that. And that's OK.

It's OK if you have that. In fact, that's most people.

But I would tell you, don't put the cart before the horse.

Do you smell what I'm cooking? When I say that?

Seriously, don't put the cart before the horse.

What I mean is that find someone who is equally yoked to you.

Find someone who shares your faith and have a relationship

with that kind of person because otherwise you are in fact

putting your sexual desires in front of a God honoring

relationship. And I can tell you, because I've

seen it a million times, that will never ever work out.

Well, it doesn't. It just doesn't work.

It's the one thing because, yeah, that's the thing.

It is one thing to be able to go out with somebody that you have

some things in common with and and you can have a pretty good

time and you can have a few laughs, but that's average.

That's normal. That's common.

That's it. There's nothing deeper than all

right, we got these few things in common and we don't hate each

other. We're OK spending time together.

That's not good enough. That is not good enough.

It is completely different thing to seek out someone in your

faith who you can pray with, who you can share God's word with,

who you can worship with, that God can make holy together.

And that means, quite frankly, when you have sex, it's a real

union. It's a real union.

It's just, it's not just scratching some physical itch.

It's a real union. And here's the thing, you know

that level of intimacy when you, when you can bind all of those

things together, My goodness, we are talking about something

worthwhile. We are talking about something

that can really last, right? We can do that.

And I'll, I'll be honest with you, I would rather have no

relationship than an average one.

Really, truly, just call me single then, because if the

person who I've committed my life to, I can't pray with them,

I can't share my heart with them.

I can't confess to them. I can't worship with them.

I can't talk about God's word with them.

I can't do anything of these things with them, man, I'll,

I'll just be single. Forget it.

It's not worth it. It's not worth it.

So women, here's what I'll kind of like.

Put an exclamation point on this little idea for you.

Do not settle. Do not settle.

I have watched with great pain and agony.

I have watched women settle for inferior men who don't lead them

into the gospel, who don't lead them to Christ.

And that is not OK. That is never OK.

Men, I know you think I just threw a spear at you, and I'm

sorry, but I'm not. I'm not.

If you are going to be who you are going to be, then you need

to be that with and for her. Women, do not settle.

I have to move on. Otherwise I'm going to get on a

soapbox talking about what a biblical woman looks like.

All right, so let's change gears here a little bit.

OK? Again, I Proverbs 31 starting in

verse 10 through 31. It is fantastic.

It is amazing. If you have not spent time in

that either a man or a woman, go read it.

The whole thing is wonderful. It's this beautiful description

of what biblical womanhood looks like.

It's fantastic. Now I will say, if you go read

that thing, I was warned on Thursday and this is true, if

you go read that as a woman, please don't see that as a

checklist that you have to do all the time in every season of

your life. That's not possible.

OK? There are different things in

different seasons of your life that God causes you or calls you

to strive towards. So I just want to hit a few

highlights here and then and then we'll kind of keep going.

Verse 10, an excellent wife who can find she is far more

precious than jewels. Oh, do you hear that?

Do you hear that? Do you hear women, that as you

lean into your relationship with the Lord, as you honor God, as

you fear Him, do you realize that there is nothing on this

earth more precious than you besides Jesus Christ himself?

That's it, that's it. If a man can find a woman who is

fearing the Lord, who is with the Lord, My goodness, you have

won the lottery, guys, you have won the lottery.

And man, what, what a gift, what a gift.

So women, I, I, I spur you on, be precious, be amazing, not

just for a man in particular, but because God has formed you

to be that amazing person that loves and fears him above all

things. And then when you decide that

you want to be in a relationship with somebody, you have set the

bar because your first husband, your father, is God and man,

that guy better be ready for that.

You've set the bar. You won't settle.

Let's look at verse 15 in Proverbs 31.

She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her

household and portions for her maiden.

You know what a biblical woman is not lazy.

She's not lazy. She's not apathetic.

She is somebody who cares deeply about the people in her life,

and so she is going to get after it to provide for them.

Now, that's going to look different in each circumstance.

Whether you're at home or whether you're out in the

workforce, that is going to look different.

But there is no apathy in the woman who honors God.

There's no listlessness or laziness.

She cares deeply, and that's her motivation.

She cares deeply about the people that are entrusted to her

in one way or another. And maybe that's just herself if

she's single, but she cares deeply enough about God's

creation to want to honor that and work hard for that.

Right. That's what the biblical woman

does. Let's keep going.

Verse 16 in Proverbs 31. She rises while it is yet night.

Oh, I've read that one, didn't I?

Yeah. Oh, I did it twice, huh?

You don't say. Well, color me surprised.

OK, well, that's fine. That's fine.

Well, the one that my mistake here it is verse 16, I believe.

If I'm not mistaken, it talks about her buying a field.

Should I read it? You circled it.

Oh, my gosh. How do you read this?

Oh, God bless you. I can't get far enough away from

it. I'm so old.

She can. She considers a field and buys

it with the fruit of her hand. She plants a vineyard.

She considers a field and buys it.

That's remarkable. You know I I was curious about

saying this but I'm going to anyway because why not?

I have heard this stupid thing over and over again and it's

always said whimsically, but I think some men are just stupid

enough to want it to be truth. Keep her barefoot and in the

kitchen. Good gravy, friends, that is

awful. In Proverbs 31, she considers a

field and she buys it. Do you see the entrepreneurial

spirit that God gives to women? Do you see the wisdom that He

gives to women? Do you see how He gives them

freedom to make big decisions, financially and otherwise?

This is really important. This is incredibly important,

and this is powerful. Women are called into making

these big time decisions and they're trusted with it by God.

And if they have a godly husband by their husbands, they are

trusted with that. Now I have to move on to this

last one because I yeah, there we are.

I move on to this last one. You know what?

And that's wrong too. That is not verse 30.

It's 30. Good gravy.

You know, had a woman made this PowerPoint, it probably would

have been right. Just going to be honest.

To be honest, her attention to detail would have caught these

things that I clearly did not. Lord help me.

Well, that's humiliating. Anyway, it's verse 30, not 31.

It says this charm is deceitful and beauty is in vain, but a

woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Do you see it? I hope you see it.

I believe that women have been sold a terrible lie their entire

lives, and it is heartbreaking to me.

I believe, either subtly or not so subtly, women have been told

throughout their lives that your value is based on your physical

attraction or beauty. I absolutely believe that's

true. Everything in my culture tells

me that that's true. I think what beauty means by our

culture standard is obnoxious because it is an ever moving

goal post that women cannot attain to.

And the worst part about all of this is the glory of the Lord

which He bestows on women. It cannot possibly be held in a

physical body alone. That is not enough.

That is not enough. There is no way, you see, it is

the woman who fears the Lord, whose beauty and value transcend

all notions and transcend all cultures.

The body is not fit to carry that kind of weight of glory.

So therefore, my dear sisters in Christ, don't you dare to ride

or make small the thing that God so passionately and personally

knit you together to be. Don't do that.

God has made you the way you are for a purpose.

And guess what? That purpose is far greater than

just being attractive to some man.

Good Lord, help me, I have to move on again.

Let's get to this last idea. God's trusted witnesses.

If you didn't know this, it is Mary Magdalene, a single woman

who was the first witness to the resurrection.

Do you think that's by coincidence?

Do you think that was an accident?

God had that programmed and planned the entire time.

Why? Why would he do that?

Because if you know anything about New Testament history, in

that age, women could not be witnesses in legal cases.

They did not have the voice to do that.

And yet here God is and He is planning and he is pursuing a

single woman with a spotted past to be the first witness to the

good news of the resurrection. My God, that is powerful because

what God does is radical. He takes those who don't have a

voice. He takes those who are too often

unseen. He takes those who are looked

with low esteem and He builds them up and He makes them

witnesses, friends, women, you, as you look at your magnificent

ancestor in the Spirit, you will know that it is your right, nay,

your responsibility to be witnesses to the resurrected

Christ. Therefore, women, you are called

to teach, you are called to disciple, you are called to make

people into the image of God through the faith that He has

given you. That's a responsibility, that's

a call, That's an important job, and He's called you to it.

Is there a responsibility greater than that?

No, there is not. Not being married, not being a

mom. There is no greater gift and

responsibility than being a witness to the risen Christ.

He has shed His blood for us. He has been resurrected, that we

might be resurrected and be brought to life again.

This is the call for you to be a witness.

Lean into that. Watch how your life changes.

Watch how you feel fulfilled. I'll give you one more thing and

then we have to wrap this up because I'm way over.

In Galatians 323 it says this. There is neither Jew nor Greek,

there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor

female, for you are all one in Christ.

Christ. Jesus, through his sacrifice for

our sins and resurrection for our bodies, has called all of us

to proclaim the captives free. Therefore, I entrust you, and

with what other authority God has given me, I command you go

and proclaim the good news of the gospel.

This is what God has designed you for.

Let's pray. Thanks for listening to ERC

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and Amazed Rd. Church, visit

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