What is Woman For?

[0:00] The following message is given by Walt Alexander, lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in Athens, Tennessee.! For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at TrinityGraceAthens.com.

[0:12] Genesis 2, verse 18. Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone.

[0:26] I will make a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground that the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

[0:43] And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.

[0:57] But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. So, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.

[1:14] And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

[1:30] Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

[1:48] Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

[1:58] And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. May God bless the hearing and the preaching of his word.

[2:15] If you had to answer, what would you say is the most significant event of the 20th century? 1901 all the way to 1999.

[2:26] Perhaps the Spanish flu pandemic. Or the world wars. Or the rise of nuclear weapons. The moon landing. Globalization.

[2:37] Or the beginning of the internet. Well, in 1993, the world-renowned historian William Manchester was asked this very question in U.S. News and World Report.

[2:48] What event, what change, what advance was most significant in the last 100 years? Manchester concluded, and I quote, The erasure of the distinctions between the sexes is not only the most striking issue of our time, it may be the most profound issue the human race has ever confronted.

[3:16] Thirty years later, it is difficult to overstate how perceptive and prophetic Manchester's statement was.

[3:37] In 1993, Manchester was observing the erasure of functional differences between men and women. Women in the 1900s began to vote. Women began to be admitted to bars and membership to men's only clubs.

[3:50] Women began to be adored and ordained to serve as priests. Women began to pursue careers of all kinds. Even careers that were usually reserved for men.

[4:02] There was an erasure of those functional differences between men and women. Man began to do, or women began to do anything a man can do. But this erasure of functional differences between men and women has led to the erasure of all differences between them.

[4:20] Now, women should not merely be able to do anything a man can do. Women should be able to be anything a man can be.

[4:30] As one author put it, if a woman can be a pastor or a priest, a role traditionally reserved for qualified men, why not a husband or a father? Why can't a woman be a man?

[4:44] The culture's answer is clear. A woman can be a man. An individual with a gender that's different from what they believe to be their gender identity can change their lifestyle and their body to align with their gender identity.

[5:01] That's the widespread position of our culture, from Disney movies to the White House to the lap lanes and sidelines of the NCAA. But the question remains, what is a woman?

[5:16] What are they being changed to? What are they being changed to? It's a question one of our chief justices cannot answer. Perhaps the chief justice was just agreeing with Stephen Hawking when he said, women are a complete mystery.

[5:29] To which I might add my voice, yes, they are. But that is not what the chief justice was saying. The difference between the sexes has been so obliterated that the chief justice doesn't even know how to answer the question.

[5:45] Can anyone answer the question anymore? What is a woman? After reading an article discussing people who menstruate, J.K. Rowland famously and perhaps infamously responded, people who menstruate.

[6:06] I'm sure there used to be a name for those people. Someone help me out. Wum Ben. Wim Pun. Woo Mud. Surely there's a name out there for those people.

[6:20] But how would you respond if your daughter or son came to you and said, what does it mean to be a woman? What is a woman? Several weeks ago in studying Genesis 1, we defined a woman as someone creating the image of God with the capacity to be a wife, a mother, and sister.

[6:39] A structural difference that cannot be erased, no matter the amount of hormones you take or surgeries you undertake. This morning, unpacking Genesis 2, we're going to seek to define what it means to be a woman.

[6:52] Why did God create woman? What does it mean to be a woman? What is woman for? And where we're going, a woman gladly takes up sacrificial responsibility to help nurture life and adorn true beauty in appropriate ways for the glory of God.

[7:09] It's a mouthful. But a woman gladly takes up sacrificial responsibility to help nurture life and adorn true beauty in appropriate ways for the glory of God.

[7:21] So, three points. The first, the woman. The woman, after making man from the ground, placing him in the garden to work it and keep it, Genesis 2 tells us about the creation of woman.

[7:36] How did it happen? First thing we read in Genesis 18, Then the Lord God said, It's not good for man to be alone. Now we have to remember, man is in paradise where evil and sin have not intruded, but God puts his finger on something very wrong.

[7:58] Everything up to this point has been examined and found to be good. The birds of the heavens, the moon and the stars, all these things are good, even mankind, very good.

[8:10] But man being alone is not good. It's a highly emphatic, it's not just not good, it's very bad.

[8:20] It's important to see that immediately it's the divine perspective, the divine initiative that lies behind all that we see in this scene. It's not Adam that discovers that it's bad for him to be alone.

[8:33] Often we read into this chapter some psychological sense of his aloneness, as if Adam was lonely, longing for comfort, connection, a friend.

[8:46] All those things are wonderful, but that's not anywhere indicated in the text. But the text gives us no indication of his emotional need for a woman. Rather, what Genesis 18 is telling us, that God identifies something very wrong, and God himself sets out to change it.

[9:02] Look at it. The verse continues. The Lord God said, it's not good for men to be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. The scene shifts to what one commentator calls Adam's awareness program.

[9:17] The idea that Adam, if he didn't know he needed a woman yet, God was going to make him aware of it by parading all the animals before him, two by two before him, and Adam just names them all.

[9:33] It's such a fascinating scene. The first one to lay eyes on a giraffe, walking up. I mean, how do you name that thing? Bob Dylan wrote a song about it.

[9:44] Those three short years, he was a Christian. He said, man gave names to all the animals in the beginning, in the beginning. Have you ever listened to anyone sing about this verse? Not me.

[9:55] He saw an animal that liked to growl, big furry paws, and he liked to howl. Great big furry back and furry hair. Ah, think I'll call it a bear. He keeps going.

[10:07] Y'all didn't think that was as funny as I did, but he names them all. It's amazing. He names them carefully. And then God says, time for you to sleep. Verse 21, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man while he slept, took one of his ribs, closed up its place, the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into woman and brought her to the man.

[10:32] After he makes woman, God wakes up Adam and says, I got another creature for you to name. I'm so joyful.

[10:43] At last, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. God makes woman, gives her to the man and rescues him from his aloneness. The chapter carefully underlines how woman is man's equal.

[11:00] Carefully emphasize woman is man's equal. Look back in verse 18, I will make a helper fit for him. Literally, I will make a helper corresponding to him.

[11:12] I will make a helper who is like him, who is made in the image of God, like him, who is neither superior nor inferior, but equal. That's what's carried in that definition.

[11:25] Verse 21, then the Lord takes one of the rib and makes woman. Now, I like smoked ribs, but why did God, did he really make a woman out of Adam's rib?

[11:37] The literal word here is side, but I think it's best to interpret it rib because the text says, one of his ribs. If it said one of his sides, it would not make sense.

[11:52] And so the Lord takes one of Adam's long curved ribs, still moist with flesh, and makes a woman out of it. Does that mean Adam or men don't have all the ribs?

[12:04] No. But why the rib? That also is to underline that woman is man's equal. Man was made out of dust, but woman was made out of the same stuff he was.

[12:18] The same bone, the same flesh, that's what Adam's saying, the same DNA. Woman shares all that with him, but also woman was made from his side to indicate that she is his equal.

[12:30] I don't think Matthew Henry's commentary on these verses can be improved. He says, the Puritan commentator, the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam, not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.

[12:57] Yeah, beautiful. Carefully underlines how woman is man's equal, but also carefully underlines how woman is different than him.

[13:10] 18, I'll make a helper fit for him, corresponding to him. The idea is I'll make a helper who is his corresponding counterpart, his matching opposite.

[13:25] She is neither superior nor inferior. She is his equal, but she is his opposite. She is one half of the polarity. She is also made in the image of God, but in corresponding ways.

[13:39] Now, this is hugely important. God did not look at Adam in the garden and say, it's not good for man to be alone. Let me make something pretty for him to look at. God made woman to complement him, to harmonize with him, to complete him.

[13:54] Everything in creation needs something to complete it. The skies need stars and birds. Seas need fish. Earth needs animals and mankind. So, too, man needs woman. That's what's going on here.

[14:07] In the context, man is needy, not because of some psychological sense of his aloneness, his need for a companion or something like that. Man is needy because God commanded him to be fruitful and multiply, and he cannot do that without the help of a woman.

[14:20] Therefore, woman is given distinct, sacred responsibility by God.

[14:32] Similar to the man, God has a design, and with that design comes a sacred responsibility. But for the woman and for the man, it is different. Their distinct responsibility.

[14:42] She's called to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. She is man's equal, but also is opposite to complement him, to join with him, to provide what he lacks, to do what he alone cannot. Now, we live in a culture that's seeking to erase the differences between men and women.

[15:00] Many women today believe motherhood is something completely voluntary and something over which they should have complete control. The feminist movements that have swept through this country in the last 150 years have done many good things.

[15:14] They fought for women to receive proper education. They fought for women to receive the right to vote. They fought against the evils of slavery, drunkenness, and pornography.

[15:25] But in their quest to liberate women, they have led women to believe there's only two options for their life, the fulfilling career or the letdown of a wife and mom.

[15:38] But it's not true. They led women to believe that when it comes to a choice between your husband and children or you, the best choice is always you. Over 20 years ago, author Raina Rizzuto, a married woman of two, received a six-month grant to do research for a book in Japan.

[15:56] While doing research for this book, forget the name of the title, she came to the realization that she didn't want to be a mom anymore. She said, and I quote, I realized I had lost a bit of my, I had lost myself a bit.

[16:14] And I wanted to give myself more priority. When she arrived back home, she divorced her husband and left her children. Her book detailing the abandoning of her family in order to make her own life, the priority was named a finalist for a prestigious book award.

[16:35] In an interview, after the book's release, she was asked a question that got to the heart of the issue. Being a mother made her to do, and I quote, that thing she didn't want to do, which was give up my life for someone else.

[16:55] Now, our first response must not be, what a terrible woman. Our first response should be, we understand.

[17:10] We, of all people, understand the deep-seated selfishness that is something we're not only born with, but after we're born again, continue to struggle with. But we must also see this woman understands motherhood.

[17:28] To some degree. This woman gets it. The call to be a woman, to receive responsibility from God, is a call to deny yourself. The call to be a woman is a call, just like the call to be a man is a call to be a woman, is a call to lose yourself, to do the thing you don't want to do, to lay down your life.

[17:47] What you want and what you must do will often be different. For a woman, to take up this distinct, sacred responsibility from God, she must give up her life.

[18:00] It's a call of every Christian. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, when Christ, when the Lord bids, bids someone follow me, He bids them come and die.

[18:15] It's a call of every woman. Rebecca Merkel helpfully points out, no Christian should ever really be asking, how can I fulfill myself? The question should always be pointed outward.

[18:27] Who can I bless? How can I use my gifts to build up those around me? How can I embrace my femininity in such a way that I shine the light of the gospel into a lost and sinful world?

[18:39] How can I be truly excellent in the opportunities that God has placed in front of me? The answers will vary wildly, but the questions are always the same for every woman, married, single, old, young.

[18:54] A large part of being a woman in this culture will be rejecting the culture's subtle lie of self-fulfillment to embrace the responsibility that God has placed before you. Point two, the mission.

[19:09] If a woman is someone who gladly takes up sacrificial responsibility, what does she take up responsibility to do? These verses reveal woman's mission.

[19:22] Woman is called to help man. Point that several times. It's in verse 18. And in verse 20, the word helper affirms man's authority.

[19:38] It affirms that woman was created from man and created for man to be his helper in light of God's design. In Genesis 1, it's not surprising. Paul commands wives to submit to their husbands.

[19:51] But is being a helper a demeaning task? Is it a demeaning role? And we must answer with a full weight of Scripture? No. 16 of the 19 times this word occurs in Scripture.

[20:03] It is used of God. It's we that bring these differences and roles and responsibility between a man and woman and we bring in the first place, second place, and things like that. But that's not the way biblical hierarchy works.

[20:16] So it's very God-like. It's God is my helper, Psalm 54.4. It's very God-like when they help their husbands. The way man and woman are created suggests how a woman is called to help.

[20:31] Man is created from the ground and called to work the ground. You remember me telling you, it's his birthplace, his womb, his grave. It's where his work is coming from.

[20:42] Well, woman is created from the man out of his rib and called to help him, making him fruitful. Kevin Young says helpfully, the way in which each was created suggests the special work they will do in the wider world.

[20:59] The man in the establishment of the external world of industry and the woman in the nurture of the inner world of the family that will come from her as helpmate. The woman is created for the man to be oriented towards him, to help him in his work.

[21:17] She helps him primarily by devoting herself to her sphere, if we could say it that way, to the inner work of the family, the home, the heart of the household. This is the repeated refrain of Scripture.

[21:28] This is not an isolated random occurrence. Does this mean a wife and mom cannot work outside the home? Absolutely not. But it does mean that if there is a home, she should be the one running it.

[21:44] If there's a household, she should be the one taking care of it, managing it, making it run smoothly. And when she says, don't leave your socks and shoes there, her husband and her children should say, yes ma'am.

[22:03] All this is hard, right? Or because of where we hear it from, it feels hard.

[22:16] It's difficult, even scary. While visiting a church, lesbian feminist activist turned Christian, Rosaria Butterfield, tells the story of singing Psalm 113, another example of how this is not isolated, but this idea, this calling is throughout Scripture.

[22:33] She was singing the psalm. She was in a psalm-singing church. It began with a promising note, praise the Lord, hallelujah. Can't go wrong there. Praise the Lord, bless his name.

[22:44] But as it continued, it calls forth praise. It said, he the barren woman takes and joyful mother makes.

[22:55] In her home, she finds reward. Now this is the lesbian activist turned Christian. She said she immediately stopped singing.

[23:08] She battled patriarchy her whole life. She regarded submission of any kind as a recipe for abuse. She viewed the role of a woman helping her husband by working in the home and raising children as oppressive, not rewarding.

[23:20] Yet Psalm 13 was rejoicing in a barren woman getting pregnant, raising children in submission.

[23:34] She continued to search the Scriptures and saw this truth again and again. Gradually, God calls her to be born again, gave her desire to be a submitted wife and raise children. After years of railing against patriarchal and the biblical teaching, she says, today I believe with all my heart and mind that the safest place in the world for a woman is as a member of a Bible-believing church protected and covered by God through the means of faithful elders and pastors and if God wills, under the protective care of a godly husband.

[24:08] the safest place in the world. These things are not in the Scriptures to crush you but to cause you to live.

[24:30] Woman is called to nurture life. Woman's called to help. Woman's called to nurture life. The woman is called to give life. The verb helper cannot be separated from the context of the creation mandate.

[24:47] The word helper means to deliver or save. So how does woman deliver or save man? Rebecca Merkel says again, by himself, Adam was incapable of doing his job, incapable of either filling the earth or subduing it.

[25:04] So God created a helper suitable for the job. Woman was not an afterthought or just someone for Adam to talk to or someone who would make him sandwiches while he did all the filling and subduing of the earth.

[25:17] She was essential to the entire program. Adam alone is just Adam but Adam with Eve becomes the human race. Do you see?

[25:29] Now there can be a way of talking certain segments of the evangelical world talking about a woman that leaves the impression that woman finds her important in belonging to a man like she is his trophy, she is his prize, his belonging but that's not true biblically.

[25:46] Woman finds her importance in rescuing man from fruitlessness and futility and giving life. If woman is the first person to be created from the living being she goes on to become the mother of every person drawing breath now and always.

[26:11] Now prior to having a baby women go through this thing called pregnancy. It can be a very difficult, uncomfortable, extraordinarily trying time for husbands.

[26:29] I mean it's probably true for women too. I mean wives these days, you know if your wife gets pregnant hang in there brother, literally. Usually you go to sleep with your wife but during pregnancy along with her come 15 different pillows, hot flashes, cold flashes, sleeplessness and roly-poly-ness.

[26:49] You name it and then there's labor. I've heard some men even die watching their wife go through labor. It is tough but in all seriousness it's hard to exaggerate the stunning purpose and plan of God in giving life.

[27:08] Try as hard as a man may. Man cannot bring forth life into the world but with a little bit of man's help woman's body becomes a greenhouse for a little child to grow.

[27:19] She instantly forms an internal IV to supply this child with all the nutrients he or she needs and then when the child is ready to breathe on his own she gives birth. She gives birth.

[27:32] So when we're writing out our list of all the things woman can do can we add reproducing the human race to the list? Or do we want to move it to the optional voluntary category?

[27:48] This is the message our culture so badly needs. It's so clarifying, so helpful. Woman is called to give life, to nurture life and relationships.

[27:59] These verses conclude in a surprising way. After the affirmation of man's authority and headship, we'd fully expect the woman to leave her father and mother and go to the man but that's not what it says.

[28:14] Look in verse 24. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

[28:25] But wait, wasn't man created first? Isn't he the head of the household? The Bible is affirming right here what we've come to see.

[28:36] The inner world of the garden, the family and relationships are shaped more by the man, more by the woman than the man. The gentleness, comfort and nurture that keep a family close are more the work of a woman than a man.

[28:51] So verse 24 says, the man should leave his father and mother and join the woman where she has already been working. Woman is positioned and uniquely created to nurture life and relationship.

[29:04] The virtues repeatedly associated with women in Scripture are those that nurture life. Help! Right here, Genesis 2. Comfort, Isaiah 66. Nurture, Psalm 131.

[29:16] Love and affection, 1 Thessalonians 2. Gentleness, 1 Peter 3. These virtues and the resulting call to nurture life and relationship have been taken up by women in every culture since the beginning of time.

[29:35] Women are not able to nurture life because they have these virtues. Women have these virtues because they were created to nurture life. We know all this by experience.

[29:47] It's not moms who leave generally. It's moms who keep the family together. They're the glue that the ones around whom the whole family grows up.

[30:00] All this is not so a woman would be pregnant and barefoot. It's about a woman doing whatever is necessary for her people, for the people raising up around her table to thrive.

[30:11] It's about women who look more like Rosie the Riveter than real housewives of Atlanta. It's women who run back, women run back to the workforce because the house coops them up, but they have it all wrong.

[30:24] It's the corporate ladder that coops women up. It's a home that frees them from the rat race of worldly approval and creature comforts to prepare the next generation to take the hill for Christ.

[30:37] Women who do this bring great blessing to those in their lives. Several years ago, a video was released with interviews for the world's toughest job. Imagine, what is the world's toughest job?

[30:50] What could that be? Let me tell you. They did these video interviews and the guy that's doing the interviews said, let me, he's interviewing someone, let me tell you a little bit about the job to get started with.

[31:00] It's not just a job, he says. It's probably the most important job. The title we have going right now is Director of Operations, but it's really kind of so much more than that.

[31:14] Responsibilities and requirements are really quite extensive. First category is mobility. The job requires that you must be able to work standing up most or really all of the time, constantly on your feet, constantly bending over, constantly exerting yourself to high level of stamina.

[31:33] Guy's like, okay, that's a lot. For how many hours? Well, he continues for 130 hours to unlimited hours a week. It's basically a 24 hours a day, seven days a week kind of job.

[31:51] One fellow in the interview said, I'm sure you'd have a chance from time to time to maybe sit down here and there, yeah? You mean a break? No. There are no breaks available.

[32:01] What about lunch? So, no lunch? Well, you can only have lunch, you can have lunch, but only when the associate is done eating their lunch. And this position requires excellent negotiation and interpersonal skills.

[32:14] We're looking for someone who might have degrees in medicine, finance, and the culinary arts that must be able to wear several hats. Then the interviewer adds, and the job is completely pro bono.

[32:26] Pro bono. It pays nothing. The people are shocked and the interviewer says, what if I told you billions of people are already doing this job? Really?

[32:38] Yeah. Moms. Moms. Video ends with one man yelling, moms are the best. The plan of God is not about beating you down or locking you up.

[32:51] The plan of God is about you doing the most important work and nurturing the lives of the next generation. The culture is telling you, stop wasting your gifts and talents. Market yourself. Your own heart is telling you, what's the point of all this wiping nose and changing diapers?

[33:04] I'm doing the laundry. But one day, your boy will call home because he found the woman of his dreams. And you know who he'll call? He'll talk to you. He'll call. He will not call dad.

[33:15] He will call you. Better yet, one day, you'll see the ripple effects of all your sacrifices and generations, Lord willing, who fear the Lord.

[33:28] Now, don't get me wrong. The toll on the mom is hard. The toll to the mind, the toll to the body, the toll to the heart, but keep your eyes on the prize on what is going on here.

[33:43] Now, realize this subject may be quite tempting. It probably is quite tempting for everybody to some degree.

[33:54] you may work outside the home right now. You may be in a situation where your family cannot pay the bills without you working outside the home.

[34:07] If so, you should feel absolutely no guilt. Hear that from me. I, with all the gumption I got. But others of you may not need to work outside the home.

[34:23] And the scriptures would commend you to think very carefully. The guiding question is not, can a woman work outside the home? Of course. We run quickly to a job description and we talk about these things.

[34:37] What, can't, can't, can't, can't. That's not the point. A better question is, what do my people need from me? If I am uniquely positioned to create and culture, cultivate life and relationship uniquely positioned, there will be no other woman.

[34:55] Go eat with a bachelor and you'll understand, you know, there's a big difference between what, what a man and woman bring to the table and the home. And so the guiding question is not that, but who do my, who do, what do my people need from me?

[35:06] Do they need more of my time? More of my attention? Do they need me to volunteer? What does my husband need or desire from me? Others of you may be trying to get pregnant and cannot. There are few conditions in scripture more distressing than barrenness.

[35:24] I know it's the desire of God for you to have a family. I'm praying for you, a number of you by name. If you tell me your name, I'll pray for you. There's a whole category every week.

[35:36] I love it. I'd love to talk to you. Still others have no desire to get married and have children. I believe every woman should view Genesis 2 as spoken directly to them as something they should desire for their lives, except in a rare, special gift for gospel ministry.

[36:02] Finally, you may be single, divorced, or widowed. What does all this have to do with me, you think? The mission to nurture life and relationship is not just for the married.

[36:14] All women, married, single, old, young, are called to these things in the church. The church is not a weekend option for our time, but an intergenerational family badly in need of women to take up and lose their lives and take up the calling as sisters, aunts, mothers, and grandmothers among the household of God.

[36:35] It's a spiritual family. That's where we're all going. You know, sometimes we can view like a spiritual mother or father as just a condolence, you know, a condolence gift or something like that.

[36:47] That's not true. That's where it's all going. Heaven will not be about your little nuclear family. It'll be about the family of God that's intergenerational.

[36:57] That's what the church is supposed to be, a gymnasium for godliness where godliness is displayed in aunts and grandmothers and fathers who don't share blood.

[37:12] May God help us. Thirdly, or third sub-point, women are called, last sub-point, women are called to adorn true beauty.

[37:24] When Adam woke up, he didn't just notice there was another creature before him. There was a woman before him. He noticed this woman was beautiful.

[37:38] He said, at last! Oh my goodness! Etta James added that to song and helped us understand what might have been in Adam's heart. Finally, someone like me yet so unlike me.

[37:52] You know? There's no doubt. Woman is the fair sex. Sorry, fellas. This beauty seems to be underlined in the way she's created.

[38:02] Look in verse 22. The rib that the Lord God had taken, He made into woman. Working with the dust, God formed man like a potter.

[38:15] But working with the rib of man, God built carefully and beautifully crafted woman. woman. If the crowning characteristic of men in Scripture is true strength, which it is, the crowning characteristic of woman in Scripture is true beauty.

[38:33] These categories of manly strength and womanly beauty run throughout, but there is a beauty that's false. There's a woman who uses physical beauty to enthrall and entice.

[38:45] There's a woman who dresses down for attention to lure men away from the path of fearing God. Proverbs 11, 22 says, like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.

[38:57] Now that's a vivid image. There is a woman, though, who fears the Lord, whose beauty is not the stuff of pearls and golds or whatever, but whose beauty is internal, whose beauty is a gentle and quiet spirit.

[39:12] It is this type of beauty that the godly woman strives to adorn. True beauty is internal. It's hidden. It's a secret person.

[39:24] It's a gentle and quiet spirit. First Peter 3, it's the character of fearing God. But it's not as though clothing doesn't matter. Proverbs 7 says, the forbidden woman dresses like a prostitute.

[39:37] Well, how do you dress like a prostitute? How do you make that known? Well, the way a woman dresses matters. We do our children a great disservice when we permit them to wear outfits when they're young that would cause them to look easy when they're old.

[39:53] You don't have to wear a parka to the beach. but your clothing should adorn, display, and present true beauty. Earlier this year, I was in Ethiopia. Wonderful privilege to be one of the only white people I saw in that beautiful country.

[40:09] A couple things that blew me away about their dress. One is, America is so casual and they are not. Struck by how carefully everyone dressed.

[40:25] Also, America is so bland, you know, blues and grays and blacks is all we wear, but man, I was blown away by how radiant! African clothing was.

[40:38] How modest, how beautiful. They took great pride in adorning. I also would say I was amazed by how little flesh I saw in 73 degree weather.

[40:55] They upheld their dignity. It's beautiful and amazing to see and that's what I want. The church, that's what it's about.

[41:07] Wearing something for a few seconds of applause, what's that do? But the opportunity to cause people to say I wonder what makes that gal tick is an unspeakable privilege.

[41:24] Three, the mandate. The mandate, why should a man gladly take up, or a woman gladly take up responsibility to help nurture life and adorn true beauty and a word for the glory of God?

[41:40] We've said that a lot already in this series. The glory of God is displayed when men and women devote themselves to living in distinct ways according to God's design. The culture tells us that the enemy of our freedom is boundaries.

[41:54] But the Bible tells us that our freedom will only be truly realized in boundaries. The erasing of lines and boundaries that's going on in our culture is not liberation, it's slavery.

[42:10] What you're seeing is a massive slave trade. It's the crime of our time. It's a massive slave trade.

[42:20] Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. That's what it is, a massive slave trade. It only, there's a way that seems right to a man, Proverbs 14, 12, but in the end it leads to death.

[42:34] There's one way doing what's right in your own lives leads to death. And if that's the road you're on, I offer you the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you will repent of your sin and trust in Jesus Christ, no matter how warped and crooked all the ways of your thinking and living have become, you will be born again.

[42:56] Made new, fitted for eternity. That's what God is after. And a part of this mission to shout and proclaim to the world that there's a better way to live.

[43:09] If you've been sitting here listening this morning become offended the often misunderstood calling of a woman then I want to gently call you as your friend to repent.

[43:26] In this culture a woman's not going to be a godly woman without becoming a repenting woman. but I want, I don't want to call you just to repent.

[43:42] I want to call you to find true freedom, joy and life and the purpose and plan of God. God is not stamping on the garden.

[43:54] God's pouring down rain. He wants you to live. You don't bang down nails with your iPhone. God wants you to walk in light of his design. God has fitted you for something amazing and we need you, our culture badly and the room is filled with them.

[44:11] Filled with you. I respect you so much. Let's close with a quote from one of the greatest women of the 20th century, Elizabeth Elliott.

[44:26] She says, every creature of God is given something that could be called an inconvenience, I suppose, depending on one's perspective.

[44:40] The elephant and the mouse might each complain about his size, the turtle about his shell, the bird about the weight of his wings. But elephants are not called upon to run behind wainscots.

[44:54] Mice will not be found pacing along as though they have an appointment at the end of the world. Turtles have no need to fly nor birds to creep. The special gift and ability of each creature defines its special limitations.

[45:11] And as the bird easily comes to terms with the necessity of bearing wings when it finds that it is, in fact, the wings that bear up the bird up away from the world into the sky into freedom, so the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations her gifts or her special calling, wings, in fact, which bear her up into perfect freedom into the will of God.

[45:46] A woman gladly takes up sacrificial responsibility to help, to nurture life, adorn true beauty in appropriate ways for the glory of God.

[46:04] May God raise up a cadre of them right here. Father in heaven, we offer ourselves to you sincerely and completely.

[46:22] When we look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place, what is man that you're mindful of and the son of man that you care for him. thank you for your word which is a lamp unto our feet and light unto our path.

[46:45] Able to revive the soul, restore the weary. Lord, I pray against any false condemnation this morning. Pray for a deep sense of assurance and rootedness in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[47:07] Lord, if you should give the gift of conviction, I pray that you would quickly accompany it as you always do with the sense of your fatherly love and care.

[47:22] That you might lead us not into an external perfection and conformity, but an internal love to fear you, to love you, to walk in ways that honor you.

[47:39] Even when our culture is going a different way in so many of these things, we pray that our battle cry, our blueprint, our lines would come from your word.

[47:56] help us go as far as the word goes, but no further, God, for your glory, in Christ's name, amen. You've been listening to a message given by Walt Alexander, lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in Athens, Tennessee.

[48:11] For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at trinitygraceathens.com.