Last week in our sermon series on the Christian in every stage of life, I told you that maybe it should be every state of life and we're looking at kind of using stage a little flexibly there. But we began to look at the church's married people. Marriage is so important to the church that we're going to go deeper into this subject and look at the church's married women specifically this week. And next week, Lord willing, at the church's married men. I decided to look at the wives first, because the principal passage that we're launching from is Ephesians 5, and that's what Paul does. He addresses them first, and then the men, so following that order. Last week, we saw how marriage is a beautiful picture from this passage of the relationship of Christ with his church. I'm really going to develop that in more detail, looking at the incredible beauty that Jesus appointed for the church's married women, which is to be a model of his church. It will do us so much good if we can see the beauty of this beauty. Our sinful passions and desires get in the way of that. And so we truly need God's help. And let's just pause and ask him to help us. Heavenly Father, we know that our culture has made us blind to certain things. And this is one area in particular where there is much blindness today. So Father, we pray that you would open our eyes, that your spirit would work to help us to see the wondrous things that you have given us in your word. We pray, Lord, that you'd bless the ministry of your word to us. In Jesus' name, amen. I want you to listen as I read our text to you. It's Ephesians 5, verse 15 through 33. It's the same as we had last week. It's the word of God, so give careful attention to this. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but filled with the Spirit. Let me just pause there for a second. You see how important this preliminary section is. It's not talking about the husband and wives yet. But it's foundational that we need to think not as the culture around us, but we need wisdom from God above. and talking about being filled with the Spirit, and not being drunk with the wine. We saw that the drunkenness there is to be intoxicated with something. We can be intoxicated with all sorts of things. Covetousness, or lust. There's all sorts of things that we can be intoxicated with. Entertainment. It's saying don't be intoxicated, but be filled with the Holy Spirit instead. What do you do? You look and see what the will of the Lord is. You understand what the will of the Lord is. So what does he say about a person that's filled with the Spirit? What are they like? But filled with the Spirit, verse 19, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God. Okay, and one other comment there, okay, from that point, then he develops what it looks like when we're submitting to one another. Wives to husbands, children to parents, and servants to masters. You can follow that outline. So verse 22 picks up with the family. He says, Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is head of the wife, is also Christ's head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ in the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. May the Lord bless the reading of his holy word. And let's begin looking at this passage by looking at what Christian wives are supposed to do. Christian wife is to submit to her husband as to the Lord. No one who believes the Bible to be the word of God can dispute with that. It's simply what the text says very directly. You may not like it, but there's nothing unclear about what it says. The Bible stands in judgment of cultures in every age. Different cultures have their different things that they're completely blind to and that they just don't see. We should not think ourselves to be any different and our pride and our hubris. So the Bible stands in judgment of many of the things that we think today. Let's unpack then what this is saying to us. Submit means to line up under. It's a word that denotes a person living in sync with those in authority, living in harmony with them. It's often used as a military term for keeping in step as you march along with your commander. It's the opposite of isolation and independence where you're marching your own way and everyone else is marching with the commander. It involves blending with others, conforming to them in the same way that a symphony would conform to the conductor so that the music is harmonious and together rather than disjointed. For a wife, it means finding out what is pleasing to her husband. It's more than simply obeying orders, to study of Him, to learn what pleases Him and how to please Him, and then conforming to that. It's to be done as to Christ. And that's exactly what we're told to do with Him, to learn what is pleasing to Him. As we read earlier in Ephesians, to understand what the will of the Lord is. and then to do it. We should be laboring to understand. You don't just say, oh, well, there's the commandments. I'll see what I can do to get by and kind of keep those in kind of an outward framework. But no, I'm wanting to have God's word to permeate me that I'm living in ways that please him. I want to understand his will. I want to have discernment of his will. It's a very beautiful thing to see a person truly devoted to another person so that they're endeavoring to actually live in harmony. with that other person. We live in such a selfish day where everyone lives as a separate atom that is not connected to anyone else. It's an isolationist society. It's a truly beautiful thing to see a courageous woman who is strong enough to break the ugly pattern of our society, the pattern of independence, and follow what the Lord says and live in harmony. To see families doing that with children and parents as well. Notice that verse 24 also says that the Christian wife, the spirit-filled wife, has to submit to her husband in everything. Submission is not really going on until you're asked to do something that you don't want to do. Now, of course, I'm not talking about something that's wrong, but when you're asked to do something you don't want to do. I mean, anyone will do the things that they want to do anyway. There's one place in Halifax where they used to have a speed limit that I was actually comfortable at maintaining. Most of the time, I have to restrain myself because I want to go a lot faster than whatever the speed limit says. But that one place, I didn't have to submit because they had a high speed limit. They changed it recently, but anyway, so there's not a place anymore. But you're not submitting. A woman, for example, if her husband, maybe she's the one that does the books for the house. And she knows that he would like her to pay the bills sooner. Maybe he hasn't even said anything. But she understands that that would please him. But she ignores that because she wants to do other things instead. See, that's the kind of thing that we're talking about of doing in everything. to blend in harmony. Some people will try to pick and choose when it comes to obeying the Lord. You know, they'll be very diligent to go. Maybe they'll be involved in a ministry, say, helping the poor or something like that. But then when it comes to keeping the Lord's day, well, you know, they really wanted to watch the ball game. So not going to do that. You know, I've got something else. Oh, I was going to do this. And ignore the fourth commandment. the beauty of submission begins to emerge when you cheerfully do what the one you're submitting to wants because of your devotion to them, even though it's something that maybe you do want to do something else. Notice how our text also says that a wife is to submit to her own husband. The language of ownership is stressed in this passage. I don't know if you've noticed it when we read through, but it refers to the husband as her own husband, both in verse 22 and in verse 24. Could have just said it in one of the two, but it says it in both. And then you can see in verse 28 and 33, how it speaks the other way around of the husband's wife as his own wife. So it goes both ways. They possess each other. This emphasis, the fact that husbands and wives truly do own each other, we looked at not too long ago in 1 Thessalonians 4 where it says that to the men that each of you should know how, and it doesn't really say how in the original, it says you should know to possess his own vessel in sanctification an honor. And I spoke to you about how in our isolation society, the idea of owning another person is horrifying to people. It's taboo. It's something you don't want to be owned by another person. You want to be independent. You want to be free. You don't want to be tied up as someone's possession. But you see, in truth, it's a beautiful thing to be able to say, as in the Song of Solomon, I am His and He is mine. We own each other. There's a permanence. There's a security in that. There's an end, a termination to loneliness in that. Because there's a covenant commitment in marriage to belong to one another, to no longer be only for yourself, but now to be another's. Vows are made and it is treachery for a spouse to pull themselves away from the covenant commitment that they made. Even with our Lord Jesus, He has bought us with a price. And therefore, we belong to Him. And that's a good thing that we belong to Him. We lose nothing by belonging to Him. We gain everything. It's our identity. And He also belongs to us. He is our Lord. And our God, and we can say that to Him, my Savior, my Lord, my God. There's an ownership there, He's given Himself for us. And that we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Because this is so, He is committed to us, and He looks after us. Even as it says in the passages that we read, a man looks after his own body. The Lord looks after His own body. It's a privilege to belong to Him, even though it puts many obligations on us. The obligations are not weighty. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. They're not a bad thing. They're a part of living in true relationship. It involves beautiful sacrifice. to do what is pleasing, or in the case of Christ for us, what is needed for us. So when it comes to submission, then it means that the wife is to submit to her own husband. Okay, the idea of possession. It means that she's to submit to her own husband and not to someone else. She need not worry about pleasing someone else, only her husband. Now, of course, I don't mean that in an absolute way. We have other authorities over us, but in all the ways, in a comprehensive way, that she is to please her husband. It's no longer her friends or her parents that she is to worry about pleasing. It is her husband. Some women will, call up their parents or their friends and then come back and challenge their husband. No, my mom said, or my dad said, and start to challenge their husband. No, you're no longer under the authority of your parents. You're now with your husband. That's the new unity that has been established. It's contrary to God's instruction to obey their own husbands. Parents need to let their children go as well. They need to be careful not to interfere. with the new relationship that is formed when a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife. This relates to time as well. You need to make time for your husband. Time for your wife. You've made a covenant of companionship with them. The Bible twice calls marriage a covenant of companionship. It means you need to be a companion. If you're hanging out with other friends and confiding in them instead of your spouse, then you're tearing apart what God has joined together. Now, knowing that you are to obey your husband also makes decisions a lot easier. Just this past week, a woman asked me if I thought she ought to take a certain job in her church. She didn't go to our church, but she'd been asked to do something. And I asked her what her husband thought about it. And he was there, and he had a very definite opinion that it was not something that would be good for her to do for a number of reasons, that she wasn't really suited to that kind of thing, that her time and her other commitments, that it would not be a good idea. I told her then and said, well, then that makes it very easy. You don't have to worry about it, because she was all worried about, what am I going to say to the people that ask me to do this? And maybe I'll look selfish, maybe I'll look all these things. I said, you don't need to worry about that anymore. I said, you know what the will of the Lord is? You can just tell them that you spoke to your husband. and that he didn't think it was a good idea. And she found that quite relieving. It had been bothering her for several days. And she was struggling between the guilt and what she really actually knew was best. I hope you know this in your relationship with God too. A lot of situations in our life are really simplified when we consider what God says about the matter. You're trying to decide between certain things. And sometimes when you know what God actually says in his word, I'm not talking about mystical, trying to discern the will of God in something. I'm talking about actually what his word says. Like maybe there's an unbeliever that is interested in you and well, you don't have to even question whether you should enter into a relationship with an unbeliever. The Bible is very clear. It's not something you should do. So it doesn't make it complicated. It makes it simple. Submit to your Lord. Our text also instructs wives to see that they respect their own husbands. That's down in verse 33. Speaking first to the husband, it says, nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself. Then it adds, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Now, there's something you need to know about the respect that God calls her to have for her husband. We can think of respect in different ways. There's what we might call natural respect, the kind that a person earns when they live in such a way that you admire them. You know, sometimes a group of people will be getting together and they're getting ready to, they're making plans to do something. And somebody is just the leader. They didn't appoint them, but there's somebody that they know what's going on. They know what to do. They've got plans. Everybody's like, oh yeah, what do you think we should do? Where should we go next? And everybody's following this one person around. There's like a natural kind of, there's a certain charisma about them, a certain confidence, stability, whatever. So you admire someone that you admire, you have natural respect for. The other kind of respect you have for someone who holds a position of authority over you, like a police officer. If he pulls you over because you weren't obeying the restraint of the speed limit I was talking about before, you don't say, well, I hardly even know you. Why should I respect you? When you tell me to slow down, are you an honest person? Do you have integrity? Do you treat other people well? You see, that's irrelevant, isn't it? He's an officer. He's appointed. His position of authority is over you. God-given authority, and you're to respect him, not only for fear of punishment, the Bible says, but also for conscience sake. Well, which kind of respect do you think God expects a wife to have for her husband? It's a second kind, the kind you have for the police officer. God has put your husband over you in authority, not because he's a better person, but because God has appointed men to be the head of their wives as Christ is the head of the church. He doesn't ask you to drum up respect for a man who is ungodly and who does not live an honorable life. He asked you to show respect for that husband because he is your husband. because God appointed him over you. That means you should not speak to him in a demeaning and disrespectful manner. You should not run him down to your friends or roll your eyes when he makes a request of you of something that he asked you to do, something you don't like. But let me say as well that although the kind of respect you're to give him is the kind that has nothing to do with his merit, you should certainly desire to have the other kind of respect too. You should pray for him that he would be the kind of man that you could have also the natural respect for, that you would also be one who sees the virtues that are in him that are to be found. You should not, in other words, focus on his weaknesses and ignore his virtues the way people do when they resent authority. You know, you've got someone that's over your authority, and you say, oh, well, you know, that guy, he doesn't really know what's going on, and blah, blah, blah. And you're just looking for them to make a mistake. Yeah, there it is. You know, I knew. And you know, you're just, it's a bad attitude in that case, where you really ought to have more natural respect sometimes in what you do. And husband's on your part. I'm gonna talk to you especially next week, but you should strive by God's grace to live in such a way that you earn the respect of your wife and children. They're supposed to give it to you whether you earn it or not, but it's your duty on your part to live in such a way that you are a respectable, honorable person. And it will make it much easier for your wife to respect your place in the home. But women, I hardly need to tell you that even when your husband is respectable, respecting your husband is not an easy thing to do. It doesn't come naturally since the fall. God said at the time of the fall that it would be difficult to do that, and it will be, and it is difficult, and you know that. It's something you have to work at. You need the grace of God. Whether or not your husband is a respectable, honorable sort of person or not, you all need God's grace in order to live this way. That's the thing though, you can never put blame on him if you don't respect him, because you respect the fact that he's your husband. Respect the place. Okay, so there you have the duty Christian wife summed up. She is to submit to her own husband and everything, and she is to show him respect. Being devoted to another person like that is such a beautiful thing. As a Christian, you've been filled with God's spirit so you can do beautiful things for his glory. Beautiful, live beautifully in the calling that you have. So ask God to help you with these things. And you know what the result will be when you do these things, when by God's grace you do? Something magical happens when a woman truly submits to her husband. It's similar to what happens when you sow a field with seed. You've got this brown field. It's dirt. That's all it is. And you join seed to it, and all of a sudden, it becomes a fruitful place. That whole field is full of life, where there was no life before. That's the way what happens as women Honor God, honor their husbands, do what they're called to do here. God transforms the home of a godly woman who submits to her husband into a beautiful, life-giving place. God joins a woman to a man to make them fruitful. That's what he did right at the beginning, isn't it? When he created the first man and the first woman, he commanded them to be fruitful and multiply. It's a marvelous thing that through their union, they can actually bring forth souls that will live forever. And of course, the fruitfulness that God called for was not merely a multiplication of people. But it was a multiplication of godly people. And God made Adam and Eve. Everything was very good. They were too. It was before the fall. And he called for the multiplication of godly people. He does not want an earth filled with wicked people. He destroyed the earth when it became filled with wicked people in the day of Noah. And he's going to destroy it again at the end of the age when he cast the wicked out. It's going to cast all the wicked into the lake of fire at the last day. So bringing forth offspring that are dead in trespasses and sins is not fruitfulness. Even if you have 50 demon children, it's not fruitfulness that God intended. As it says in Malachi 2 15 of those divorcing their wives and destroying the union that God made, it says, but he did not. But did he not make them one? And why one? It answers the question. He seeks godly offspring, therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. God wants godly offspring and divorce and children born out of wedlock hinder that. Now, the grace of God meets us where we are. So if we have made mistakes in this way, if we've sinned in the past, there is forgiveness of sins and God will pick us up and he can help and he will minister to us his grace. But when we're going into these things, the warning is there. This is not the way to be fruitful, to break up what God has joined together. Let me tell you, before God made the woman and brought her to man, even Adam in his unfallen state could not be fruitful and multiply. When you just had Adam there, God says, be fruitful and multiply. It's not going to work. Remember how Adam had to look for, he looked at the animals and everything, and there was none suitable to him, and then God made the woman. Adam could not produce more image bearers, obviously, not until God brought the woman to him. God made her to be a helper, easer, it's like the word ebenezer, the rock of help. She's the easer, just like God is our easer, He's our helper. She's His helper for Him. And as soon as they're joined together, their home, in the way that God calls, their home becomes a fruitful, life-giving place. Consider that in Scripture, it is not the man, but the woman who is described as a fruitful vine. That's how she's described in Psalm 128, where it says, your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house. After the fall, God told Eve that she would bring forth, still bring forth children, but now in sorrow. And the whole process, I mean the physical part, but the whole process of bringing forth children, there would be many struggles. the whole process of bringing up children. But by God's grace, as shown in Psalm 128, a godly woman can still in this fallen world. be a fruitful vine in her husband's house. Not only fruitful in bringing forth children, but in making her home a beautiful, life-giving source that enriches the community around her, the church, and the world. It becomes a fruitful, life-giving place. A godly woman who is unable to have children can be a fruitful vine in other ways, as we will see in just a moment. But to be fruitful, the married woman is called to be a manager of her home, a domestic, one taking care of the house. In Titus 2, 4 and 5, the older women are instructed that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blaspheme. You see that they are to love their husbands and children, but notice that it says expressly that they are to be homemakers. Word homemaker means a domestic, someone who looks after the things of the home. This is something that is rarely looked at as important in our day. Now, I'm not suggesting that we should make some rigid rule. that every woman can only work a certain number of hours outside the home or some kind of thing like that. It's not what I'm talking about. There's different situations, different circumstances, but it's just that we need to see that the general plan of God and a good thing is for the Christian woman to look after the things in the home. She can do that. Some can do that capably with lots of other responsibilities. And we don't judge individuals. We look at the principle that's from God, and then we apply it to individuals with wisdom. Okay, so she is, the whole idea here is that she's to be oriented toward her home. Okay, and whatever her gifts and abilities That's to be her primary orientation and her focus. One of the great advantages of marriage is that the home can become a place of fruitfulness where life is imparted to other people rather than just a sleeping place. A husband can go out to work, but his wife can labor to do this very important work of making their home a place where people are blessed and taken care of. Because we have neglected this, we have all sorts of institutions for older people and infirm people, and we carry a heavy tax burden to pay people to do in institutions what could often be done in the home. Childcare, caring for the elderly, looking after the sick, ministering to the poor, ministering to strangers and the weary and the broken. So much money spent on counseling and all sorts of things that could so easily be taken care of in the context and structure that God has given us. A home can be such a life-giving place. Let me give you a wonderful illustration of this from Rosaria Butterfield's book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key. It's this little book here. She was a radical, lesbian, Ph.D. tenured professor who came to know Christ. She was doing research about this very sort of thing about Christians and the things that they believe. She was very hostile toward all of this. She went and met with, made the mistake of meeting with a Christian man and his wife to talk to them about what they believe about these things. And she ended up becoming a believer herself. She has since married and she is living out what I've been talking about as a fruitful vine in her husband's home. She had taken in a young woman in their house and the illustration I want to share with you into their home because The young woman needed a place to go to recover from surgery. It was a neighbor. This woman didn't have any connections. She was a career woman. She was busy. And she thought she would go and have her surgery and come home and everything would be done. But she couldn't take care of herself. She needed help. And she saw that of her neighbor and said, come and you can stay with us for a while until you recover. And the young woman, she was not a believer or anything, but she does this kind of thing in her home. and she tells what happened on the third day that the woman was in their home. So on the third day at breakfast, Susanna was feeling better, but she still wasn't seeing well, and that was starting to be scary. I knew she was really discouraged by the length of the recovery, especially given her expectations. After a bite of eggs, she put down her fork and asked me a question, where does all the magic cure come from? Her question came as she looked at the table, her hand sweeping its expanse, taking in the scrambled eggs and toast and the fruit and the unfolded laundry on the table in the home school room, the kids giggling over something in the other room, Kent, that's her husband, reading his Bible in his chair. It was a question that came from a thankful and inquiring heart. And it is a very important question. Where does the day-to-day momentum that feeds, nurtures, and heals, that holds a household together, that invites others to come in and rest and recover, that says yes more than no, where does this momentum come from? The answer that casts the widest net is God. God makes the magic, and God can make magic in all kinds of faithful households, those run by single Christians and those run by married Christians. But there are particulars about our house, particulars that most of my feminist friends find offensive. The particulars that make up the magic in my house have something to do with the sacrifices we have made so that I can be a stay-at-home mom, something about the particular dynamics of a husband and wife who love Jesus most of all and who value hospitality in a daily way. The ingredients of this magic are commonplace found in the book of Genesis. The family, by God's design, fulfills the creation mandate, and God blesses the nurturing that comes from it. In the family, God starts with a dad who is head of his household, who rules by God's love and law. He takes care of his family. He provides. He shepherds well according to the Bible. He is not an ogre or a bully or an angry boss. He leads in teaching his family to apply the means of God's grace to all tasks. He understands that grace always brings people into God's protection, not away from it. So he models the hard things about biblical living as well as the comfortable. Next in the biblical family is a mom who is home and available to serve. While I am employable in a full-time way outside of the home, Our family has always needed me at home, and so home I am. As a stay-at-home mom, I can do 100 helpful things for the people I love most in the world in the first 30 minutes of waking. Things that matter cannot be farmed out to others for pay. I love my role as Kent's helper and the mother of our children and the general cook for this house that serves, feeds, nourishes our family of God and our neighbors. The comfort comes from our covenantal God who knows what we need and who places a dad who knows how to be a leader and a mom who submits to a godly husband in the covenant of marriage. And in the balance of this one flesh union as husband and wife cleave and nurture each other and their children, they simultaneously reverberate this nurturing capacity to others. But make no mistake, this magic comes from a mom and a dad who put Christ at the center of the home and make the sacrifices necessary to value keeping a home over keeping afloat a two-family career. As I write these words, I know I tread on thin ice. I came to this idea with nothing short of wild grief. How could the sacrifice that blesses our family and community most be the social norm that I battled fiercely against for the most formative years of my young adult life? Does anyone else believe this? If I had a dollar for everyone who has told me both inside and outside the church that I am wasting my education by staying at home and caring for my children, I would be a rich woman. When I told Susanna that the magic comes from a stay-at-home mom and dad who takes his leadership seriously, she almost choked on her scrambled eggs. I understand. God knows I am traveling on what feels like enemy territory, too. But eat her eggs she did, and alas, became complicit with me in the very same patriarchy that we were both trained to despise. I think that's a very, very helpful account. So now let's look at how a godly woman's fruitfulness and beauty is described in the Bible. Let's take a little survey of the scripture and see what it says. Paul describes her ministry in his first epistle to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 2, 9 through 11, he says that good works are to adorn her. Here he instructs women, and you can look at it if you want, 1 Timothy 2, that they are not called to lead the prayers of the church, or to teach the Bible lessons in the church, or to rule in the church. It's not their task, that rather their focus is to be on good works. There are so many good works that need to be done. And after exhorting men to lead in prayer, this is what Paul says to the women. In like manner also, this is 1 Timothy 2.9. In like manner also that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but which is proper for women professing godliness with good works. Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. I hate it when people read a passage like that And they say, so women aren't allowed to do anything in the church. They can't lead in prayer, and they can't lead Bible studies. But are you reading the same passages that I'm reading here? The one I read says that they are to adorn themselves with good works. That is a huge, neglected, never-ending task. True, it's not as glamorous. You don't get as much acclaim. as you do for teaching or leading in prayer, but it certainly is a beautiful and wonderful and pleasing thing to the Lord our God. Those with showy gifts are in danger of pride and having their reward in this life, but those who are adorned with good works will have a great reward. And notice good works are to be a godly woman's beauty. Her adorning, pretty clothes and pretty faces are everywhere. But good works are a precious, rare gem. But Paul does not describe what good works look like in this place. He just says you're supposed to do them, that they're to be adorned with good works. He's just setting them up over against a woman teaching, leading in prayer, or fixing herself up and focusing on that. But if you would like to hear more about good works, then go on over the same epistle to chapter five. And here, you get an idea. What does Paul mean when he talks about being adorned with good works? Well, he paints a picture of the good works of godly women with which they are to be adorned. Look at 1 Timothy 5. He's talking here about the church supporting widows. He basically says that only if they don't have family to support them, and interestingly, only if they have a reputation for good works. He's not talking about feeding them when they're hungry. Okay, that's one thing, you feed the hungry. But he's talking about actually providing regular support from the church. Very, very difficult thing, sacrifice for their church to make. That you don't just do that for anyone, giving them a regular living. And he gives these stringent qualifications. Look at how he describes the good works that any godly woman was expected to do in 1 Timothy 5, 9, and 10. He says, do not let a widow under 60 years old be taken into the number, those that would be supported, and not unless she has been the wife of one man. Well reported for good works. If she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, if she has washed the saint's feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work, These are things that a woman can do around the home when she's a keeper at home. Now she's just staying at home watching TV or goofing around on the internet. She's missing the opportunity that God has given her to minister to the saints and to the people around her that are in need. There are so many needy people. And remember the older women also have the task of teaching the younger women. to do these things in their home. And so there's all kinds of things to be done. And by the way, when it says that older women are to do that, people always translate that into they're gonna go and lead a Bible study, a women's Bible study. No, it's talking about going and talking to them about how to love their husband and their children. practical things and showing them how a woman that has a baby and comes from a dysfunctional home, doesn't know how to care for the baby and change its diapers. And she's showing them how to love and care for the needs of her family. The ministry of the word comes from the preaching of the word that God has appointed. Proverbs 31 gives us even fuller picture of the fruitful woman in her home. I read the Proverbs 31 to you earlier, but let me highlight a few things that it says. But first, let me mention something that's important. I always like to say this before you come to this passage, that this woman didn't do all these things in the same period of her life. Okay, this is an overview of what she did over the course of her life. It's not what a typical week looked like. She didn't do all this stuff. I mean, there's so many tender-hearted women that feel, oh, you know, they just feel guilty. And this is a discouragement. This passage is a discouragement to them. It's meant to be an encouragement, that this is things that you can do. You can look at this and say, oh, yeah, I could do that, and plug in where you can. It's not saying you need to do 10 million more things than would be possible for a human being to do in a day. That's not the point. Here's things that God has given you, beautiful things that you can do. So look at the portrait here as an inspiration for things that you can do over the course of your life as you have opportunity. First off, look at the opening verse about her, Proverbs 31.10. This isn't what she does so much, but just we need to say that about her value. Who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies? Don't listen to the world when they say things like I read Rosaria, you know, oh, you're wasting your education. What are you doing at home? What are you wasting your life for? You know, oh, she doesn't do anything. because she doesn't have an office job or something. But let me advise you women, too, don't be too sensitive when someone says, oh, you don't work. They don't necessarily mean that you're not working at home. It's just a way of saying you're not working outside the home. You don't have an office job. So don't be overly sensitive about that either. But of course, we know a lot of times that that actually is what they mean when they say that. But many think that it's a lower calling to be a virtuous wife than it is to be a brain surgeon or something. Oh, she's just a wife. And, oh, he's a brain surgeon, or she's a brain surgeon. Oh, wow. And that's really impressive. But don't listen to the world about that. The truth is, there are a lot of brain surgeons, but there are not very many virtuous wives. They're rare. You know, if there were more people that were like this Proverbs 31 woman, our society would be entirely different. There would be so many things that would be taken care of. It wouldn't even be funny. I mean, it would be totally different. We evaluate things by paychecks. Jesus didn't get a paycheck. And he did the most valuable thing that's ever been done. This woman's husband is said to have no lack of gain because of her. We're told how she labors hard to provide for the needs of her household, food, clothing. She's looking after them in an intelligent, understanding way, knowing them, knowing their needs, ministering to them. I can remember a man telling me how the quality of his life went up when his wife left her office job to come home and they started having children and stuff. He'd come home, he said, instead of scrambling around and trying to get supper and get off to bed and all that kind of stuff, he'd come home to a peaceful home, with a nice meal, with a situation where they could have friends over easily or could go to a meeting or whatever, and where the family could enjoy each other's company. You know, she's there making the home a lovely place, a nice place, a pleasant place, a place where people want to be. God wants us to live in this way rather than in the rat race. And notice that ministry just flows out from a house like this. Verse 20. It says she extends her hand to the poor. It's an extension. It goes out. Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy. She's a life giver. It's who she is. She's doing it all the time. And so it goes out over here. It goes out over here. Somebody else can just come in and just, like that account that I read, a woman that had surgery and she had no one to take care of, come stay with us. It wasn't even hard. They're already feeding all the people, and it's just another person at the table, set another place. It's not a big deal. That's the kind of thing that we're talking about. She's available to care for people in need, because that's what she does all the time. And she's industrious. A diligent woman in the home can find ways to produce some income. And even if she doesn't actually do that specifically, she saves the family lots of money by taking on tasks that other people pay for. You know, like bookkeeping or home improvement projects, even laundry. You know, all sorts of things. And of course, paying for child care and all those things. And you see that she also brings up children so that her children rise up and call her blessed. There's a relationship there. That's verse 28. She's watched over the ways of her household. She's been there for them. She's been available to them instead of always being unavailable. She has been mindful of their struggles. And she's helped them to work out their issues all through their lives far more effectively, far, far more effectively than some professionally trained counselor at school that you go and see twice a week. And there's so many problems and needs out in our society today. They're just legion. They're multiplying and multiplying and multiplying around us. We desperately need life-giving homes that are feeding and nurturing and caring. And it speaks of how her husband prospers as a leader in the community. He's so enriched by the fruit of his wife that he's able to get do great things in the community, like leading and making laws or administering justice. I spoke to a CEO who told me that he had come to realize that a stable home and a strong marriage had more to do with how well an employee would do than anything else. There are many prosperous men with godly wives who owe most of their prosperity to their wife. She provides a place of rest and tranquility, a place of fruitfulness and blessing, and he receives of her life-giving fruit along with everyone else that she ministers it to. But let me add that for a home to be truly a life-giving place, she must, as verse 26 says, open her mouth with wisdom and have the law of kindness on her tongue. A nice home and a nice meal and beautiful decorations and clothing and all these things with strife doesn't bring forth fruit. It brings forth sorrow and death. Sometimes the people that have the most immaculate places are the ones that lack the law of kindness on their tongue and the mouth of wisdom. It's not a beautiful or life-giving place. It's a destructive place. But what is this woman's secret? How is it that she is fruitful? Well, her secret is given in verse 30. She fears the Lord. The only way a woman can be fruitful. is that she feared the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. She knows that everything is about God. She knows that God alone in Christ is the source of life and strength. She is filled with the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of life and fruitfulness, where there would otherwise be death and barrenness. Listen to verse 30 and 31. You can see that she has fruit because she fears the Lord. It says, charm is deceitful and beauty is passing. But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her and the gates. She does what she does because she fears the Lord. She's not trying to make a show. She's simply responding to him in love who first loved her. If that is not so, she's not doing that. Her works will fail. They won't produce fruit. She'll bring forth death instead of life. So you see how the Bible speaks of the beauty that God wants for a Christian wife. She is someone who is truly devoted to her husband, who lives to please him. And being that kind of person, she is a life giving force to her children, to people in church, to her neighbors. It is so rare. to see a woman who truly does submit to her husband, but what good comes out of it when she does. Her example is an example for us all. We are the bride of Christ, His church, and we're to submit to the Lord the way that a godly woman submits to her husband. She's supposed to submit to her husband the way we submit to the Lord. It goes both ways. Yes, we are to live to please our Lord, Same way we saw that she's to live, to study and understand what is pleasing to Him. We're not to pick and choose how we obey, but to obey in all things. To study, to learn what pleases Him, and then to give ourselves wholeheartedly and unreservedly to do what pleases Him. Now it's unnatural for fallen sinners to do this, but when we, and this is the key, When we are joined to our husband, Jesus Christ, we are made alive and fruitful. When we submit to Him as our Lord and Savior, we are made alive and fruitful and then we can be a blessing to the people around us. God blesses our union with Christ and He transforms us when we come to Christ. We would be dead in sin and not able to do good works that God had prepared beforehand for us to do. But now we can. We who are dead in sin are alive through union with Christ. And Christ himself provides for us so that we can focus on bearing fruit. What if you had to atone for your sin? What if you had to bear the burden of your sin? You couldn't do anything. He gives the Holy Spirit and he gives us atonement for forgiveness of our sins so that we can serve. Our life blossoms with beauty and fruitfulness because we have come to him and have submitted to him. No longer do we have to carry around the guilt of our sins. No longer do we have to rely on our stony old heart because he gives us a new one when we come to him. Just as a married woman has a unique opportunity to bear fruit, so do we when we make our home with Jesus Christ. He pays the bills and we're able to serve. Craziest thing is we find our life not by hanging on to it, but by losing it. Our identity is now found by losing our independence to become one with him. Just as a wife's identity is found in submitting to her husband. It's counterintuitive. You're dying in order that you might live. That's how biblical mathematics works. You die. in order that you might live. You die and then God raises you up. Unbelief keeps you from doing it. You feel that you must hold on to your life and you end up losing your life because you have no faith. You don't believe the promise of God that in Jesus Christ you will live. The truth is, the more you lose your life for Christ your husband, the more you find it. And the more a godly wife loses her life for her husband, the more she finds it. Please stand and let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, your word has such treasures for us, treasures that the world does not know. things that are alien to our culture. Father, they have their own construct of what submission looks like. And of course, it's right when there's ungodliness, submission is a very ugly thing. But Father, when there is godliness, it's an entirely different picture. And we thank you, Lord, for the fruitfulness that comes. And we pray, Lord, that every single one of us would come to Christ, that we would come to Him as our Lord and our Savior, that we would put ourselves entirely in His hands to live for Him. For He is the one who has atoned for our sins. He is the one who provides for us, who shepherds us, who leads us. And when we are in Him, we become alive and able to bear fruit. And I pray that both men and women and children, all, would do this. For Lord, without Christ, we can do nothing. He's the vine and we're the branches. And without him, we don't have any fruit at all. We thank you that there's another sense in which we're the vine as we are attached to him, the vine in his house that is described in Psalm 128, that all of us is the bride of Christ or that vine. And we pray, Lord, that that we would have the fruitfulness that is spoken of. Oh, Father, transform us, renew our minds, renew our lives. Father, even when we know what to do, being willing to do it is another thing. And so we do pray that you would help us, Father, that as we see the beauty here, that it would be something that draws us to it, that it would be something desirable to us. We know that beauty is hard. It takes work. But Father, what a wonderful thing it is. Oh, Lord, Help us, minister to us, give us the grace that we need. We ask you also, Lord, to bless us as we prepare to come to the Lord's table. Lord, minister to us there, give us what we stand in need of. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated as we do prepare to come to the Lord's supper. Nothing quite so beautiful as one person losing their life for the sake of another person. We saw today that wives do that by submitting to their husbands. We're gonna see next week that husbands do that in the way that they've been called as well. But when they do that, their home becomes a lovely, life-giving place. Jesus became a lovely, life-giving vine in the same way. He submitted to the Father. all the way to the point of death on the cross. That's how far his submission went. By doing that, he became a source of life to the entire world. How beautiful his submission to the Father was. The Father exalted him to be Lord in Christ. And at the Lord's Supper, Jesus appointed bread and wine to draw our attention to what he did when he died so that we could live when he submitted to the father. The bread and wine represent him as sacrificed. And by eating of it, we show that we're looking to him who is sacrificed, that we might have life. Please listen carefully to what he said about this table. Luke 22, what it says of him and then what he said. When the hour had come, he sat down and the 12 apostles with him. Then he said to them, with fervent desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. Then he took the cup and gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise, he also took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. fervent desire I have desired." Jesus is saying, this is about what I did, or in the case here, what I'm getting ready to do. What he was talking about was language of sacrifice. Blood shed, my blood shed for the remission of sins. My body given for you. This is what Jesus said. It must have bewildered his disciples to think, What is He talking about? How is He going to do that? What does He mean? How can He be the sacrifice that we are partaking of for life? Jesus is eager to do this because He says, I want you to know that what I did is for life for you. It's for fruit for you. It makes you alive. Take, eat, he says. This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. He wants them to know that that life comes from his death. Life comes from him losing his life. And he actually was then raised from the dead and made Lord in Christ of his whole church. And we're able to be joined with him and to have the blessing that he procured. through what he did. And then we're able to live. We come to him and we die our own death. And then he raises up to live in newness of life. And on we go, then bringing life to other people. What great love our Savior had for his father that he would do this in submission to him. And what great love he had for us to do it for us. We see him looking through the corridors of time. at this table when he says literally, keep on doing this in remembrance of me to his disciples. He's looking at his whole church in future years coming and seeing what his submission did in order that we submitting to him might live. This is our faithful Savior. We have no place to go. He has the words of eternal life. We are his bride if we come to him as our husband, our Lord, putting our souls and our lives entirely in his hands for salvation. When he calls us to be his bride, we hear his voice and we come believing. And then he makes us a fruitful vine in his house, a life giving blessing to others. If you've come to Christ, trusting him for salvation through his blood that was shed and you've joined the church, profess your faith before the elders, and are in good standing, then you're welcome to come this evening. Let's ask God to bless us as we prepare to come. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that our Lord Jesus Christ was a fruitful vine, that he is a fruitful vine, that he died in submission to you, and then he was made alive for all of us. We thank you that now, when we come to you, Lord Jesus, that you make us a fruitful vine. When we die and come to you, that we might live. You have provided for us. We don't have to worry about making atonement anymore. We don't have to worry about producing good works that are acceptable enough in your sight. You have done all that for us. You have provided, and now we can live the life that you have given us to live. I pray, Lord, for the women in the church, for the men in the church, and for the children in the church. I pray, Lord, for all of us that we would know this life that comes from dying in our Savior, dying with Him, as He says. Not only did He die for us, but we also are called to die with Him and to be raised with Him in newness of life. Father, we want to be those vibrant, life-giving people that only He can make us. We ask You, O Lord, to work powerfully in us Provide for us all that we need for life and godliness as you have promised. Father, bless the sacrament of the bread and wine. We thank you that you have given us this to point to what Christ did, to point to his death, to his submission, to his giving that makes us alive. He's told us to eat it and to drink it. We pray, Father, that we would know that we have connection, we have nourishment, we have benefit, we have the full blessing of what you did for us. Oh Lord, feed us, comfort us, encourage us, associate us, help us to know, Lord, that we are connected with you and to rest in that connection and that union that you have established with us. To live it out with joy and with hope. We pray in Jesus' name. the blessing of the Lord. May the Lord rescue you and deliver you from the hand of foreigners whose mouth speaks lying words and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood, that your sons may be plants grown up in their youth, that your daughters may be as pillars sculptured in palace style. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.