God’s Design for Manhood and Womanhood – Part 3

GOD’S DESIGN FOR MANHOOD AND WOMANHOOD, PART 3

God’s Design for Women

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: April 3, 2022

Series: The Book of Genesis

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

Good morning again. I encourage you to have your Bible handy. Just like last week, we will be in different parts of Scripture. If you're just tuning in, Proverbs 11:16 says, “A gracious woman gets honor” (Proverbs 11:16). So, welcome to part 3 of God's design for manhood and womanhood. The particular focus of this sermon is God's design for women.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray that you would have mercy on us, that you would enable us to have a focus upon your life- giving instruction without distraction. Father, I pray that you would take the truth of your word and cause it to go into the depths of our heart, that there would be conviction and transformation at the heart level, encouragement in the ways of the Lord, and that the result would be greater fruitfulness to the glory of Christ. In His name we pray, amen.

FAITHFUL IN THE PLACE GOD HAS PUT YOU

To be pleasing to the Lord means to be faithful in the place God has put you. This is true for both men and women. The nature of sin is to either be unfaithful in the place where God has put you or to abandon that place altogether. Everyone, man and woman, faces this temptation. God told Jonah, “Arise, go to Nineveh” (Jonah 1:2). And Jonah rose and went in the opposite direction. He didn't go where God had told him to go and that didn't work out too well for Jonah. God authorized the priests to burn incense on the altar of incense. King Uzziah was not a priest, but he grew proud and in an act of unfaithfulness, he entered the temple and burned incense on the altar. He did not remain within his proper sphere. And in consequence, he was afflicted with leprosy until the day of his death.

By contrast, the Apostle Paul sets a positive example for us. He said in Acts 20:24, “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” (Acts 20:24) It is one of the most freeing and liberating discoveries in the universe to realize my life is not about me. All that matters is finishing the course that the Lord has set before me. The only thing that matters is being faithful in the place where God has put me. I don't need to impress anyone. The one thing that counts is being pleasing to the Lord.

So, what we've been seeking to understand from the Bible is that men have an assigned place and role, and women have an assigned place and role, and we ought to strive to be faithful in that sphere and role, for it is part of the very good world that God created.

Now when it comes to unpacking the role of women, sometimes Christians want to rush into a list of do's and don'ts, musts and must nots, permissions and restrictions – and this can easily turn into a focus on the restrictions. Remember, that's one of the old ploys of the serpent. That's what he did in Genesis chapter 3: he wanted Eve to focus on the restriction, not on the great freedom and opportunity that God had set before her, to surely and freely eat from every tree in the garden. But the serpent wanted to focus on the one restriction, the singular no, and that mindset can continue to plague us today. A healthy human being honors God-given restrictions, but is not preoccupied with them. A healthy human being is preoccupied with the good way that the Lord has set before you. That is what you ought to put your hand to and focus your life upon.

So in this particular message, I don't want to focus on what you can't do or on what's merely permissible. I want to try to get more to the heart of God's vision and purpose for womanhood. So we're going to jump right in here. I've got five God-given design features for a woman's life. Once again, I am focusing primarily on the idea that most women are married or will be married or have been married, fully recognizing that God calls some to a life of fruitful singleness, which can take a lot of different shapes, 1 Corinthians 7 Paul highlights the beautiful productivity that a single woman can have in a life devoted to Christ. But nevertheless, I’m focusing on this idea that most women are or will be married.

Now these five exhortations that I am about to share, just like I said last week to the men, these things are not complicated. I haven't made any great discoveries in the last week, okay. One of my primary preparations for this sermon is the last 12 years of my life, as a husband and then in due course as a father. These things are not complicated, but they're not easily implemented because there are cultural pressures from the outside, and there's the inclination to sin coming up on the inside. And so, we have to continually turn away from our sin and seek to follow the Lord's design. So, five God-given design features for women.

FIVE EXHORTATIONS TO WOMEN AND FUTURE WOMEN

Exhortation #1: God designed you to be a worshiper first

Ladies and future ladies, God designed you to be a worshipper first. I said basically the same thing for the men last week. This is really important. As a female image bearer of God, the first order of business is to be rightly related to the God whose image you bear. The woman had a relationship with the God who made her. As simple as it was, she had a relationship with Him before she had a relationship with the man. God “brought her to the man” (Genesis 2:22) and thus, she could have confidence that this was God's will for her life. Proverbs 31:10-31 tells us that “a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30). The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3 tells us that the holy women of old, in times past, are those who “hoped in God” (1 Peter 3:5). And so, listen: your man or the man you may one day find or soon be married to, will never meet the deepest longings of your heart. Your children or the children that you may one day have will never satisfy your deepest hungers. Your diligent labors, if done in order to make yourself feel accepted and validated, will never be enough to silence the inward doubts. You are made for the Lord first and foremost.

Remember Mary the mother of Jesus, who when receiving the word from the angel said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) Remember Mary of Bethany, who chose the better portion, the one necessary thing, as she “sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.” (Luke 10:39) Remember Mary Magdalene who stood “weeping outside the tomb” (John 20:11) because she thought that someone had taken her Lord away (John 20:11-13). But then she became the first human being to see the risen Lord.

Women, the Lord calls you first and foremost to earnest, attentive, studious, thoughtful and faithful discipleship.

And a word to husbands, although you are called to imitate Christ in the way that you relate to your wife, you are not Christ, and you must always encourage and never hinder her from putting the Lord first. You want the Lord to hold first place in your wife's heart. If the Lord doesn't hold first place in her heart, then everything else I'm going to say in the sermon will just be moralizing. What gives it power and beauty and grace is that you're actually in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit and he's transforming your heart and life.

Exhortation #2: God designed you to be a helper in marriage

Ladies and future ladies, God designed you to be a helper particularly in the context of marriage. It's very interesting to note how Genesis chapter 2 unfolds. The man has an orientation to the ground: “there was no man to work the ground” and so the Lord made a man and “put him in the garden of Eden to work” the ground (Genesis 2:5, 15). The man has an orientation to the ground, to the task. But then we see that the woman is oriented to the man. God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” and so he made the woman “and brought her to the man” (Genesis 2:18, 22). Her primary orientation is to be toward her husband.

The cultural pressure for a woman to be independent of man, or to not need a man, or to prioritize having her own career over being a faithful wife, are out of sync with God's design. God's will is marriage for the vast majority of human beings. And God's design in marriage is for the wife to have her life oriented toward her husband. And so, you can think about this in a few different ways. In Genesis chapter 2:18-20, the Lord calls the wife-to-be her husband's helper. In Titus. 2:4 at the head of the list for young women, young wives, Paul says that a wife is to love her husband. And then in Ephesians 5:24, the Lord directs wives to submit to their own husbands in everything. So God wants wives to be joyfully in-step with their husbands at all times, helping him to fulfill the mission that God has placed on him as the head of the family. A godly wife does not seek to establish her own independent agenda apart from her husband, but rather pursues an agenda that is in keeping with her husband's leadership.

Now I would say that a godly wife who knows and loves the Lord in her innermost being will delight to do this. But like all that God calls us still-recovering-sinners to do, it requires dying to self. We have to die to the rule of sin and the desire to get our own way and selfish ambition, in order to do things God's way.

Now another little word here to the men: if a husband doesn't exercise leadership, doesn't cast vision, doesn't convey a sense of mission to his wife and family, then don't be surprised if you find your wife doing her own thing. She can't be in sync with your leadership, if you're not leading, so learn to lead. But if he is leading, then the wife's responsibility is to follow. The humor of My Big Fat Greek Wedding notwithstanding, the wife is not the neck that turns the head wherever she wants. We laugh, and but that's not God's design.

Women, if your husband is leading, fight against the temptation to quarrel. At least five Proverbs address this. One of them is Proverbs 19:13, which says, “A foolish son is ruin to his father, and a wife's quarreling is a continual dripping of rain.” (Proverbs 19:13) Quarreling is annoying and not helpful. Also fight against the temptation to do the Genesis 3 inversion all over again by putting the children first. How many families are upended and distorted because the children try to take the lead and mom lets the children take the lead, and then manipulates dad to go along – until you have the kids out in front, and then mom following, and dad at the back, which is the complete opposite of God's design for your household.

Those of you who remember Little House on the Prairie – my family has been watching that, we really enjoy it, it's wholesome, it's remarkable how much our society has just devolved morally over the last 45 years – but if you remember anything from Little House on the Prairie, then a great example of doing it the wrong way is the Oleson family. Harriet was always usurping Nels and often doing so because she's trying to please Nelly. That's upside down.

If you so love your husband that you consider it a high honor to be known as his wife and helper, it’s satisfying to be known that way, then you're on the right track. But if that makes you cringe and you would rather be known as an independent professional accomplished woman, then you're on the wrong track. And the problem isn't the profession, the problem is the priority of being oriented toward your husband.

A question

Now, very briefly, this deserves more attention than I'm going to give it, but somebody asked a question, I invited questions. Somebody asked a question. The question was, how does an unmarried woman live out the principle of male headship? How does an unmarried woman walk in submission? And that's a good question because the issue of male headship and the man-woman relationship is obviously most pointed and focused in marriage, where the husband is the head of his wife. What does that look like for an unmarried woman? Well, all I'll say is this, it is good and right for an unmarried woman to have men in her life who are looking out for her. Now talking about an unmarried adult woman, a good father will feel a sense of responsibility to look out for his daughter, as will her brothers and perhaps others within the body of Christ, the elders and other godly men. And I would just say look for that, and welcome that and receive that. It's fitting in terms of how God designed the world for there to be some godly responsible men who are looking out for your welfare.

Exhortation #3: God designed you to be a life-giver

Ladies and future Ladies, God designed you to be a life-giver, particularly a mother bearing and bringing up children. This comes out really clearly in Genesis chapter 3 where after God gave some judgments to the serpent, the woman and the man, it says in Genesis 3:20, “The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” (Genesis 3:20) And even in Genesis 3:16 it's obvious that one of the women's primary roles is the childbearing role. It says in Psalm 113:9 that the Lord “gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children.” (Psalm 113:9) Remember Sarah and Rebecca and Hannah and Elizabeth.

We can also learn something from female physiology. God does everything with intentionality in keeping with his overall design. It's not like he made male and female just the same and then he's like ‘and we'll have her carry the babies’. God has a complete design package for the man and for the woman. And you just think about the reproductive capacity of a woman and that she carries the unborn baby in her womb for often 40 weeks, and then nurses that little one for months, if not years. I mean just think about what that teaches us about the Lord's design, that the Lord designed these little ones to be in you for a long time and then to be on you and in your arms and with you for a long time. This is good. This is at the heart of God's plan in Genesis 1:28, when God told the man and the woman to “[be] fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Women, you’re at the very heart of God's great dominion mandate. 1 Timothy 5:14 says, “I would have younger widows marry, bear children” (1 Timothy 5:14). And then in the same chapter, 1 Timothy 5:9-10, it is evident in verse 10 that one of the marks of a godly wife and mother is that “she has brought up children” (1 Timothy 5:10).

And so, I want to celebrate this role that God has given to women, the dignity and the sacrifice and perseverance and the God-ordained value of mothering.

I was thinking about abortion. I just was reading the other day that the World Health Organization estimates that there are 40 to 50 million abortions every year in the world. That's staggering. Do you realize that that means that in a 20-year period, there are 800 million to a billion abortions. Men have seen to it that this happens by judicial decisions, by totalitarian decrees, and by ordinary men being irresponsible and telling the girl to take care of it. But what I want you to understand is this: abortion at every level is an assault on God's design for the woman to be life-giver, mother, nurturer, caretaker of her children.

Exhortation #4: God designed you to be a household manager

By the way, number four is really coextensive with number two and three. This is where the rubber meets the road. It's easy to give lip service to number two and three about loving your husband and children. This is where the rubber meets the road. Number four: Ladies and future ladies, God designed you to be a household manager.

Proverbs 14:1 says that “[the] wisest of women builds her house” (Proverbs 14:1). It follows logically that if a married woman's first priority under the Lord is her husband, and then her second priority is her children, then in order to flesh out those priorities, she will have to give much attention to the needs of the household. And yet, God's vision for the household goes way beyond your own immediate family, and calls you to a wider ministry of blessing. And once again, if your understanding of the household is a glorified hotel, a safe and clean landing pad, then you're going to have a hard time really immersing yourself in this call. But if you understand that the home is supposed to be a center of productivity, the epicenter of loving relationships, a base of strategic ministry operations, then you'll have the right biblical vision in order to carry this out with your very best energies and competencies.

The excellent wife of Proverbs 31 is oriented towards her household. Proverbs 31:15 says that she “provides food for her household” (Proverbs 31:15). Verse 21 says that “all her household are clothed in scarlet” (Proverbs 31:21). Verse 27 says that “[she] looks well to the ways of her household” (Proverbs 31:27). Titus 2:3-5 calls upon women to love the husband, love the children, pursue godly character and work at home. And then in 1 Timothy 5:14, Paul encourages young widows to marry, to bear children, and to manage their households – to govern, to rule their households, not only for the benefit of their own immediate family, but also for the benefit of the wider community. Go back to 1 Timothy 5. I love 1 Timothy 5:9-10, where Paul is describing what a woman's faithful life looks like. He says in verses 9 and 10, “Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she is brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.” (1 Timothy 5:9-10) She's not giving herself to trivial pursuits. Her home has become a place of ministry – a base of loving the wider community and her church family and missionaries and other people in her neighborhood. Proverbs 31:20 says that the excellent woman “opens her hands to the poor” (Proverbs 31:20).

I have this poem written by Edgar Guest. I'm just going to read the first stanza. You know, there's so much brokenness in our world and one of the greatest gifts we can give to our broken, alienated, depressed and confused world is a godly, happy, productive home that is overflowing in blessing to the wider community. And I would say among other things, we need more cookie ladies. You got to understand something: the value system of the world is an abomination in the sight of God. This doesn't sound sophisticated, but I'll tell you what you know the problem is with our world: nobody feels truly and genuinely loved. You want to do something about that? Try doing life God's way. Edgar Guest begins his poem “The Cookie-Lady” this way:

“She is gentle, kind and fair,

And there's silver in her hair;

She has known the touch of sorrow,

But the smile of her is sweet;

And sometimes it seems to me

That her mission is to be

The gracious cookie lady

To the youngsters of the street.”

How many youngsters – lost, angry, unloved – would benefit from that kind of ministry?

Let's be clear: the Bible does not prohibit women from engaging in productive economic and commercial activity. But the Bible calls you to prioritize productive labor inside and through the home as an act of love to your relational network. You ladies are to be at the hub of households, blessing the world through productivity, creativity, generosity. The moral and cultural chaos of our nation with all of these fractured relationships, all of the alienation, all of the bitterness, all of the psychological issues, all of the self-identity hang-ups, is closely tied to the breakdown of the family. The secular world does not value the family. They're actively working to undermine it: abortion, redefinition of marriage, encouraging women to believe the lie to get outside of their proper role and calling and to believe that you gotta get ahead in the eyes of the world, you got to climb the ladder, you got to prove yourself, you have to make your own way, you can do anything a man can do, you can have it all. You want it all? You go out in the world and try to get it all, guess what? Moral and cultural train wreck in the younger generation. This has nothing to do with competence or skill. Women are remarkably competent, skillful, intelligent, and God would have you use your very best energy, efforts, skill, competency, and creativity to build a home that blesses the world. The conclusion of Proverbs 31 says, beginning in verse 27:

“She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.” (Proverbs 31:27-31)

Prioritize home life, and do it God's way. The alternative is for homes to fracture.

Exhortation #5: God designed you to mentor the next generation

Ladies and future ladies, God designed you to be mentors to the next generation of women. God calls all of us to be involved in many different aspects of disciple-making, to make new disciples, to make better disciples, to help one another grow in the ways of the Lord. But there is a specific call for the older women to mentor young women. And I would challenge some of you older women – I mean this generation has been brought up and encouraged to embrace lies when it comes to womanhood and marriage and family – you have a wonderful opportunity to come alongside and encourage, share stories, tools, lessons, share encouragement with the young women. It says in Titus 2,

"Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled." (Titus 2:3-5)

This is very practical discipleship. Discipleship is supposed to be practical. Practical. Hands-on. A woman who has gained some traction in loving her husband and loving her children, and being a manager for her household, is in a wonderful position to encourage a younger woman, even a teenage girl, to grow into God's design for her life.

A FINAL PICTURE TO LEAVE YOU WITH

Now I want to work towards the final picture that I want to leave with you, and you can turn to Ephesians 5 so it's in your mind. Ephesians 5:23-25 says,

“For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:23-25).

You see what's going on there? Husbands are called to imitate the Lord in the way that they relate to their wives, and you got to be all in, because you are called to love her with a sacrificial love that is up to and including death, if necessary. You got to be all in. And the Lord calls the wife to imitate the church in its relationship to the Lord. The Lord calls you to be all in, right? Wives should submit in everything, in everything, in everything to their husbands. So, both the husband and wife are all in. The husband imitating the Lord, and the wife imitating the church. And I want you to think about this, husbands: you are called to imitate the ultimate husband. Wives; you are called to imitate the ultimate bride. And so, the husband takes the lead, provides, directs, guards, sacrifices. And she receives her husband's leadership and submits to it, is grateful for it, keeps in step with it.

I want to ask you a few questions. I want you to take Ephesians 5:22-33 with great earnestness and seriousness. The world doesn't love what I'm about to tell you. But God loves it and he wants you to put his gospel on display. So hear these questions.

Does a faithful church’s life revolve around Christ? Does a faithful church’s work revolve around Christ's mission? Does a faithful church put Christ's words into practice? Does a faithful church delight to visibly and publicly honor Christ? Yes.

Does a faithful church pride herself in her own independence? Does a faithful church act independently of Christ? Does a faithful church boast in what she can accomplish without Christ? Does a faithful church try to carve out areas in her life that are outside of Christ's direction? No.

Let the one who has ears to hear, hear and understand. Living this out is not like having 100 pages of complex, detailed and rigid rules, okay? It's like a dance, a 24/7 dance in which the man delights to take the lead, and the wife delights to keep in step, and in which the wife delights to be seen as a woman who was in step with the man she loves. When an excellent and gracious woman does this, Proverbs 12:4 says that she “is the crown of her husband” (Proverbs 12:4). She brings great honor to her husband. But it's not ultimately about her husband's honor. The husband is to cherish and care for his wife, the wife is to honor and esteem her husband, and all of this is supposed to be telling the truth about the gospel to the world – that Jesus is a great Savior who laid down his life for his bride, and the bride is grateful and beautified by it and loves to honor and esteem Christ. And so your marriage becomes a little picture, a little parable, a little preview of God's great, wonderful, saving message to the universe. It's worth giving your life to.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray that men would know the heart of manhood. I pray that women would know the heart of womanhood. I pray that we would offer up our stewardship of these things to you for the glory of your Son. Father, I pray that you would build and sustain and strengthen godly and happy marriages and families that overflow with great blessing for our broken world. I pray that you would put the gospel on display through the marriages in this church family, that together we would honor and esteem our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name I pray, amen.