Mulher Verdadeira Semana 1

[Music] let's pray together preserve me O God for in you I take refuge I say to the Lord you are my lord I have no good apart from you as for the Saints in the land they are the noble in whom is all my delight those who choose another God multiply their sorrows their libations of blood I will not pour out nor take their names upon my lips the Lord is my chosen portion and my cup you hold my lot the lines have fallen for me in Pleasant places yes I have a beautiful inheritance I

bless the Lord who keeps me and gives me counsel in the night also my heart instructs me I keep the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved you show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy in your presence is fullness of joy in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore I pray that your word would run and triumph in these days my mouth would be protected from error and folly and that only what is good for

upbuilding that ministers grace to those who here would come out I pray that you'd protect us from the devil how I thank you that you disarmed him that you put him to a public shame triumphing over him in Jesus Christ when you cancelled the record of debts that stood against us with their legal demands nailing it to the cross what a freedom so come grant us to know it to taste it deeply move in power in these days Lord do exceedingly and abundantly beyond what any woman has dreamed for her children her friends her husband

her parents her neighbourhood her church and I pray that the unreached peoples of the world the nations that will one day bow willingly or unwillingly before you would be touched in power by these women and by their children and their grandchildren Lord don't let us think small thoughts about what you might be pleased to do in your sovereign goodness to men marriages rescue children and heal churches and touch bodies lift dark clouds that have settled over some of these women for eight years past this will be the time when the oppression goes away so come

make yourself supreme through Christ we pray amen my aim in this message is to clarify as best I can from the Scriptures the ultimate meaning of true womanhood and before I launch into it I want to thank Nancy Lee Dumas for trusting me with this amazing privilege I do not take this for granted this is most remarkable that I would be given the privilege to address the most influential people in the world I distinguish between authority and influence a woman on her knees sways more in this nation than a thousand three-piece suited Wall Street jerks

there is massive power in this room so I do not take lightly this moment and I asked that you would be silently praying that I wouldn't blow it what I will say is intended to be a foundation for the true woman manifesto which will be unveiled to you I believe on Saturday I have read it more than once and regard it as a faithful clear true wise indeed magnificent document and what an amazing thing it would be if hundreds of thousands of women in America signed on with their heart to the true woman manifesto I'd

like to begin with a huge assumption just tell you what it is explain it a little bit and why it matters that you hear what this assumption is I give it to you partly because it will help you feel emotionally some of what I would like you to become as a result of the conference not just think about it but feel what I'm up to and what I think all of us are up to here and partly because if you understand this assumption you'll understand why I Minister the way I Minister and why this message

will sound the way it sounds and the assumption is this wimpy theology makes wimpy women I don't like wimpy women I didn't marry one and with Noel I am trying to raise talath oh who turns 13 on Saturday not to be one the opposite of a wimpy woman is not a brash pushy loud controlling sassy uppity arrogant Amazon the opposite of a wimpy woman is 14 year-old Marie Durrant when the 17th century in France was arrested for being a Protestant put in prison and told you may get out for one phrase i abjure and she

wrote on the wall of her cell I resist and stayed there 38 years until she was dead doing just that that's the opposite of a wimpy woman another opposite of a wimpy woman is Gladys Staines 1999 remember the story after serving for three decades with her husband Graham in India to the lepers heard one day that her husband Graham and little Philip tan and Timothy six had been set on fire burned alive in the back of their car and said to the newspapers I have only one message for the people of India I am NOT

bitter neither am i angry let us burn hatred and spread the flame of Christ's love the opposite of a wimpy woman is her daughter well named Esther who when asked by the reporters how do you feel about your father's murder said she was 13 I praise the Lord that he found my father worthy to die for him the opposite of a wimpy woman is Christa and Vicki put together and my church have had 65 surgeries for so-called birth defects Appert syndrome hyper terrorism and right I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made your

works are wonderful and I know them right well and Krista says even though my life has been difficult I know that God loves me and created me just the way I am he has taught me to persevere and trust him more than anything the opposite of a wimpy woman is Johnny Erickson tada who would give her right arm to be with you 41 years in the wheelchair and praise oh thank you thank you for this wheelchair by tasting hell in this life I have been driven to think seriously about what faces me in the next

this paralysis is my greatest mercy the opposite of a wimpy woman is Susie four years ago her husband 59 was taken then a month later she found she had breast cancer and then her mom died and then a miracle happened she wrote to me now I see that I have been crying for the wrong kind of help I now see that my worst suffering is my sin my sin of self-centeredness and self-pity I know that with His grace his loving-kindness and his merciful help my thoughts can be reformed and my life conformed to be more

like his son wimpy theology makes wimpy women that's my assumption as I begin this message wimpy theology does not give a woman a God big enough strong enough wise enough good enough to handle the realities of life in a way that enables her to magnify him and his son all the time it's not big enough wimpy theology is plagued by woman centeredness or as we usually call it man centeredness wimpy theology doesn't have a granite foundation of God's sovereignty underneath it doesn't have the steel structure of a great God centered purpose for all of human

existence including the worst of it so I turned to my main point the ultimate meaning of true womanhood and I start by stating that solid steel structure of God's ultimate purpose in all things God's ultimate purpose for the universe and all of history and your life is to display the glory of Christ in its highest expression in his dying to make a rebellious people his bride that's the reason the universe exists to display the glory of God's grace in its highest expression as the Son of God dies to make a rebellious people his variety everything

exists so that that can happen and everything exists to highlight that and make much of that especially you God's ultimate purpose in creating the world and choosing to let it become this sin wrecked world that it is is so that the greatness of the glory of Christ could be put on display where he bought the rebellious bride at the cost of his life now that's based on texts and we give you a couple of them Revelation chapter 13 verse a goes like this Revelation chapter 13 verse 8 God is talking about writing names down in

a book and those that are in the book don't worship the Beast and he says before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain so names are being written before the foundation of the world in a book and the name of the book is the book of life of the Lamb who was slain that is amazing before anything existed but God Christ was crucified in God's mind for sin that didn't exist anywhere in the universe that's amazing that's not wimpy and it doesn't produce wimpy women it is

staggering to think that God was planning the death and slaughter that's the word slain a goods of my the slaughter of his son before the universe was made why here's the other text this is Ephesians 1 5 and 6 in love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto the praise of the glory of His grace and there isn't anything on the other side of that design like that's a means to anything it isn't when you arrive at the praise of the glory of the grace of God your home that's it there

isn't anything beyond that that is what the universe was made to do to be and God was planning it such that the apex the climax the supreme expression of that grace would be the sons purchase at the cost of his life of his wife you and me listen to Ephesians 5:25 husband's love your wife your wives as Christ loved the church there's the parallel husbands loves wives Christ love church his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her that he might present the church to himself in

splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish so putting those three texts together revelation 13:8 Ephesians 1:5 and 6 Ephesians 5:25 to 27 I draw the conclusion the ultimate purpose of all things is the praise of the glory of the grace of God supremely manifest on Calvary when the Son of God laid his life down to purchase and purify his wife out of an absolutely hell bit rebellious people that was the apex and that's why God created the world and that's why he created you now the

question is what does all that mean for true womanhood it's not wimpy to say that God created the universe and governs all things to magnify his own grace in the slaughter of his son for an undeserving people that that people might become his everlastingly happy bride that's no wimpy that's deal that's granite there's a place to stand when everything around your soul gives way how I love the women in my church who stand when everything around their soul gives way oh how the grace and glory of God shine off of their lives I've been there

28 years I've walked through a lot of dark valleys with them and I've buried a lot of children he doesn't lead to wimpy womanhood but it does lead to womanhood that theology that ultimate purpose of the world it does lead to true womanhood in fact it leads to a mind-boggling understanding of true womanhood what we have seen so far in those 3 texts and there are many others that could be used to supplement that what we've what we have seen so far is this masculinity and femininity manhood and womanhood belong at the center of God's

ultimate purpose manhood and womanhood are not an afterthought of creation they're not an afterthought of the cross they're not peripheral to the design of what is being said when Jesus dies to magnify the grace of God they're right there at the center at Calvary it's staggering oh how I pray that you women would be done with small thoughts about God's design for womanhood we have a curse on human nature called triviality the big problems with television and movies are not sex and violence it's banality living every day as though TV mattered it doesn't matter at

all here today gone tomorrow and then eternity and the things that are unseen matter now we just like to see 6,000 Souls rise into the significance of what matters in the world you can transform every simple diaper low or any other moment into massive significance if you realize that your womanhood is here being brought to the very center of the purposes of God in this universe which come to a climax when Christ the husband bought his bride Genesis 1:27 God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and

female he created them now sometimes I think we make a mistake by thinking like this well God created us that way then later he sends his son to die for sinners and create a people for himself by his own blood and he thought now I want to make this intelligible I will look for some analogy that might be illuminating and work oh look there's marriage that might work I will apply marriage to the meaning of what my son has achieved that's not the way it happened and there's a reason why we know that's not the

way it happened when God designed in his own eternal mind how he would make a creature called a human in two varieties male and female when he when he thought about that he had in his mind already the cross that's why he made us the way he made us he didn't make us this way and then later think oh that would work I'll apply that to the cross that's not the way it happened now here's why we know that because in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 31 Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 like this therefore a man shall

leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two should become one flesh she's reaching back before the fall all the way to the beginning the first marriage and he is quoting and then he adds this spectacularly important interpretation he says in verse 32 this mystery is profound namely Genesis 2:24 man leaving cleaving new flesh this mystery is profound and I am saying it refers to Christ and the church thousands of years before there was any cross god said about manhood and womanhood this is about the most important event in

history that's why I made them this way I mean for this manhood and womanhood choreography in marriage mainly and in singleness we will see to be a display of the most important thing in the universe my son displaying my grace in sacrificing his life as a husband for his wife so here's my main point what is the ultimate meaning of true womanhood it's this true womanhood is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of his son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood say it again it's a distinctive

calling womanhood true one hood is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of God the glory of God the glory of his son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood when God described the glorious work of his son as the sacrifice of a husband for his bride he was telling us why he made us male and female he made us this way so that our maleness and femaleness would display more fully the glory of his son in relation relationship to his blood-bought bride this means this is huge now

in our Galit Aryan world this means that if you try to reduce your womanhood to physical features or biological functions and then determine your role in life purely on the basis of competencies you not only miss the point of womanhood you diminish the glory of Christ in your own life your distinctive female personhood is indispensable in God's purpose to display the fullness of his glory it's not incidental to your personhood it exists because it's God's designed relationship to the central event of history the death of his son so here's my application question what does that

look like for marriage and what does it look like for singles and I assume you're in one category over the other though there are some painful places in between first a word to you married women Paul says in Ephesians 5:22 wives submit to your own husband's as to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ as 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 now the point here is that marriage

headship and Submission and the dynamic that exists between them marriage is meant to display the covenant-keeping love between Christ and His Church if a reporter came up to me and said hurry what's the main point of marriage I wouldn't have the slightest hesitation marriage exists to display the covenant-keeping love and grace that exists between Christ and His Church that's the meaning of marriage ultimately which means that husband and wife headship and Submission are no more interchangeable than Christ and the church are interchangeable and they're not interchangeable men take their cues from Christ as the head

and women take their cues from the church called to admire and stand in allegiance to Christ and men have the greater burden and the greater responsibility I I do not like to talk about headship in terms of Rights I like to talk about it in terms of weight and responsibility which thousands of men are too wimpy to pick up and that's one of my biggest prayers for you some of you God is going to touch so profoundly in these days you won't want to go home because he's letting you down so badly so let's pray

for each other I would like to be speaking to 6,000 men I would and I'd get in their face big time a lot more hard than I'm getting in your face and I would tell them you're that you're the main problem in most of these situations your women would rise to this if you did it like Jesus let me define headship and Submission just briefly headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for christ-like servant leadership protection and provision in the home I can unpack that for an hour but I won't

at all frustrated as I am I'll read it again though headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for christ-like servant leadership protection and provision in the home here's my definition of submission and I believe I could show all of these from Ephesians 5 submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts say it again submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help carry it through according to her

gifts now the point here is not to go into detail about how this gets worked out in every marriage and every marriage looks a little different the point is that these two had ship in submission correspond to true manhood and true womanhood in marriage and they're not the same and these differences are absolutely essential by God's design so that marriage will display more fully the glory of the sacrificial love of Christ for his bride and the beauty of the lavish reverence and admiration of the bride for her husband I know that leaves two or three

hundred questions unanswered what about unbelieving husbands what about believing husbands who don't do this leadership protection provision what about wives who resist leadership don't like the idea of being led think it's all 50/50 always wives who do receive it but never express any appreciation for it there are hundreds of questions that we could take up now and I apologize that I won't but here's my comfort if you could embrace this truth that has married women and I'm turning two singles in one minute if you as married women could embrace this magnificent truth that your true

womanhood ultimately means that your distinctive role in marriage is meant to magnify the glory of God's grace supremely expressed in the covenant keeping love between Christ and His Church you would have a a compass with which to navigate hundreds of questions and you have a lifetime to ferret them out it's not a small thing to believe that true womanhood is meant to display the glory of God's grace in the sacrifice of the Son of God in the purchase and purification of his bride who then lives her everlasting life in exquisite joy in his presence standing

in awe of him and reverencing him and honoring him but what if you're not married the Apostle Paul loved his singleness really loved his singleness he loved it because it gave him such radical freedom to get arrested month after month without having a wife at home crying her eyes out and be beaten with rods over and over and be lashed so that his back became jelly five times multiplied by 39 and so that he could be shipwrecked at sea and singleness is a high calling if you take it like that he celebrated it and called

many of you to follow him in it even though marriage is meant to display the glory of Christ so how can that be why would he lure some of you out of marriage that is out of pursuing marriage why would he do that if he made marriage as this magnificent portrait of his sons coming to keeping love with his bride so that husbands and wives living out their unique manhood and womanhood become a magnificent drama of that glory why would he lure anybody away from that which he does and there's a very clear reason why

in this season of history since the fall the natural order that God established at the beginning is not absolute it's not good that man should be alone the good that woman should be alone that's true it's just not absolutely true because now sin has entered into the world and there are other things to take into consideration besides the sheer natural order that God set up before there was sin and collapse and thousands and millions of people to be rescued from pair the reason that it is not an assault on God's glory for the Apostle Paul

to say I would that you were single like I am if you had the gift the reason that's not an assault on God's glory is that in this world there are truths about Christ and his kingdom which can be more clearly displayed by womanhood in singleness and manhood in singleness than by womanhood in marriage and manhood in marriage I'll give you three of them these are three things that your womanly singleness can say better to the world than any married woman can say by virtue of her marriage number one a life of Christ exalting singleness

bears witness that the family of God grows by regeneration through faith not propagation through sexual intercourse the family of God grows by regeneration not propagation by faith not sexual intercourse and the main thing we're about is growing that family so if you never marry and if you embrace a lifetime of chastity and biological childlessness and if you receive this from the Lord's hand as a mercy and a gift with contentment and you gather to yourself the poor and lonely and you spend yourself for the gospel without self-pity you will in your unique single womanhood magnify

Christ in ways know Mary married woman can number to a life of Christ exalting singleness bears witness that relationships in Christ are more permanent and more precious than relationships in families if a single woman turns without bitterness and regret from the absence of her own family and gives herself to creating God's family in the church she will find a flowering for her womanhood in ways never dreamed of and Christ will be uniquely honored and third the Christ exalting singleness of a woman bears witness to the truth that marriage is temporary and finally gives way in

the end to the relationship to which it was pointing all along Christ and the church the way a picture is no longer needed when you are face to face marriage is a beautiful thing and I want to bear public witness and gratitude for Noel who will have been my wife come December 21st 40 years I want to bear public witness that that's fine that she has been a gift to me that I didn't deserve and we together have labored to raise five children and ten grandchildren and are still with tears laboring as parents you never

ever stop being a parent we have now learned never stop with tears never stop with joy nevertheless she and I would both say we say it with deep conviction marriage is not the main thing it's momentary otherwise Jesus would not have said in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven because they do not die anymore my relationship with Noel has a few more years and then she and I will experience what that was all about ultimately with him therefore a single woman who lives with that final

day in view and finds Christ to be her all-in-all here says something very powerfully and very clearly about her Savior I close I come in to you this truth the ultimate purpose of God in history is the display of the glory of the son in dying for his bride God created man male and female because there are aspects of Christ's glory which could not be known and displayed any other way then through the dynamic relationship between femininity and masculinity or manhood and womanhood those complementary differences are essential to the revelation of the most important event

in history therefore true manhood true womanhood true womanhood is a distinctive calling to display the glory of the son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood married womanhood has ways to magnify Christ that single womanhood cannot single womanhood has ways to magnify Christ that married womanhood cannot so whether you are married or single do not settle for wimpy theology it's beneath you God is too great Christ is too glorious womanhood is too strategic don't waste it your womanhood your true womanhood was made for the glory of Christ father I pray

that you would work a great deep deep sense of why these women are women they wouldn't trivialize it it wouldn't be small that it would be great and that supreme in their hearts as they seek to live out their marriages and their singleness would be the glory of the grace of God expressed in the sacrifice of his son for the purchase of his bride and her everlasting admiration and joy pray this in Jesus name [Music]