Well, Low Church, if you would open to Proverbs 31. As you're turning there, I'll remind you we're in a series on Christian virtues, and I don't typically do Mother's Day sermons, but because we're in It really fit well. So we are going to do a sermon in this series on the virtue of excellence through Proverbs 31. So if you'd turn there. I think me, like many of you, I thought of A passage to preach for mothers. And this one immediately came to mind. And I've preached it many times before, but every time, there's so much more I have not seen. And I'm not going to read it all right now. I'm going to actually read it as I go through. But I would like to pray for us right now. Let's pray. Lord, we've prayed many prayers already tonight, but we just call upon You right now. A very simple prayer. Give me strength to preach and give everyone here strength to hear. Lord, this is bigger than us. This is about Your glory. Motherhood is about more than personal happiness or fulfillment. It's about more than our children. And so, Lord, help us to hear what this is really about. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. Let me just preface this with a few things. You know, I'm very aware speaking on Mother's Day, a sermon about motherhood, this is a hard day for some. A very hard day. Some of you have lost mothers, and this really just is a time that you miss them. Others of you are reminded of maybe mothers that you do have, but you don't have a good relationship or the relationship that you would want, and this reminds you of that. Many of you want to be mothers, and there's just a deep longing in your hearts as you see these babies up here you want, a child. And maybe the Lord's timing, he has not given you one yet. And so there are things to lament today on Mother's Day. And there are things to hope for, because the Bible is full of stories of women who did not have children and wanted them. And then God gave them children and and even through adoption. And many of you have received children through adoption and the Lord is good. And then I know there's some of you mothers here that you do have children and you are exhausted. You're exhausted. It is hard work and I really want to encourage you today. I hope this passage does that. I hope we can all see the value of motherhood since none of us would be here without a mother. Surely we think this is an important role and responsibility. Ladies, if something I say tonight is of particular, I don't know, maybe it convicts you and you say I want to grow as a mother, I want to grow as a wife, I would ask you please don't come ask to have a meeting with me and talk about that. I'll just say no. And I'll point you to some of the ladies in the church who are godly wives and mothers to help you. And I say that because in Titus chapter 2, we have our vision for women's ministry given in Scripture, and it says older women are to teach younger women to love their husbands and their children. And so it is my job to proclaim the word of God. It is older women teaching younger women who will teach all of the practicalities and give much of the wisdom that you need to fulfill your roles and callings. And some of that comes in organized teachings that the ladies get together and study certain things. And a lot of that comes just organically as younger women seek older women. and as older women seek younger women, and those relationships form. So please, please seek those relationships out after you hear this passage. Proverbs 31 shows us the virtue of excellence. Excellence. And it does it through the role of a mother and a wife. Look at verse 10. It says, an excellent wife Who can find? And then it lays out her work ethic, and after that we see the husband say this, in verse 29. Many women have done excellently, but you, that is his wife, the mother of his children, you surpassed them all. So this is a God-fearing woman displaying the virtue of excellency in her role as a wife and in her role as a mother. Now, anytime I talk on womanhood, I feel like I got to say this right from the beginning, because this is kind of the big thing that's in this room, and we don't really necessarily know it's in this room, and that is the influence of feminism. It's just here. It's here. It's gotten into our thinking in ways, it's worked its way in, and even many Christians, serious Christians, who love the Lord, struggle to take passages like Proverbs 31 seriously because of feminism. it has done much damage. And what I mean by that is they would say the excellent things for a woman to do are things outside the home that don't have anything to do with their husbands or their children. Those are excellent things. And the things like being a wife or being a mother, those are lesser roles. And They did not get that, and we do not get that from Proverbs 31, but it is in our culture that women who take seriously passages like Proverbs 31, that these are weak women suppressed under traditional Western chauvinistic hierarchies and patriarchy of previous generations. That's what they're going to say. You're being suppressed. You are a victim. And it'll even go so far as Vivian Gornick, a professor at University of Illinois back in the early 80s, was already saying things like this. Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession. Replacing prostitution. It's in the early 80s. We've had 40 years of people beating that drum into the Proverbs 31 woman, pushing her down and saying, you're not worth anything. Your role doesn't matter. This is not a valuable thing to pursue. And so, in greater or lesser amounts, some of that has gotten into our minds, even into the best churches and even into godly Christians. And, you know, the greatest things women can do aren't just doing all the exact same things men can do, but better or equal. There are things that women can do that men cannot do, and those are glorious things. Those are glorious things. And God thinks highly of these roles, and our church thinks highly of these roles. And I want to encourage you ladies in them Verse 30 I think is really the heart of this passage. It says about a biblical woman that first and foremost, she's a woman who fears the Lord. She fears the Lord more than what others think. She cares about what the Lord says, not culture. God fearing means she's not trying to impress her girlfriends with careers or her parents' ungodly expectations. She's trying to do what God has called her to as a mother, and to do it with excellency because she fears the Lord. And let me I want to unpack this and kind of this passage is laid out in two sections. It's verses one through nine is the first section and then 10 through 31. And so we'll look at it in two parts. Excellency taught that first section and excellency lived the second. And so let's look at verse one. Excellency taught. Listen to the listen to how this starts. The words of King Lemuel. An Oracle that his mother taught him. So that's what Proverbs 31 is. It's an oracle. It's something that this king, we don't even know who this king is actually, but it's something that his mother taught him, and now he's passed this on. Solomon's got a hold of this, and Solomon, inspired by the Spirit, puts it at the very end of the book of Proverbs. So nobody knows who this king is, but now we all know who this king is because his mother said some very important, wise things to him, and it's been preserved for us. Many of you all know that Mother's Day was actually officially started by President Woodrow Wilson back in 1914. And then President Ronald Reagan kind of more popularized it. He said something very significant about Mother's Day. He said, the Wild West couldn't be tamed without mothers. God and learning couldn't have been brought to the corners of this continent without The strength, bravery, and influence of our grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and the women who came before them." Mothers are massive. They're huge. At every level of culture and society. At every level of the family. You know, the book of Proverbs, we're obviously right there at the very last portion of Proverbs that goes into another book after this. But all the way to the first chapter. Chapters 1 all the way through 30, is a father teaching his son, right? That's the whole front end of Proverbs 1 through 30, a father teaching his son. Now we have chapter 31 is a mother teaching her son. Interesting how it's the crescendo of all the wisdom teaching is this mother gets the last word, an incredibly wise word. And I don't want to play the game of whose teaching is more important, the mothers or the fathers. I don't think we need to go there. But I do think many times men, I've heard it from men maybe more than women, they're frustrated that their fathers didn't teach them more about how to be a man. My dad didn't teach me how, they would say, how to fight off certain temptations. How to just live and be a man. life and hold a job and handle money and all these things. And I would just remind you, brothers, that your heavenly Father has preserved the book of Proverbs for that reason. This is a father's instruction to his son. It's the whole first 30 chapters. And then we have a mother's teaching to her son. And these are on topics of sexual immorality and temptation, adultery, about the sanctity of the marriage bed, about the dangers of love for money and love for power and coveting and greed, warnings about the destruction of laziness, and then the value of hard work, the power of words. Man, I've seen the danger of words this week. Listen to what this mother says to her son. Look at v. 2. What are you doing, my son? What are you doing, son of my womb? What are you doing, son of my vows? Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings. What is she saying to him? She's not saying women are bad. Because we know in verse 10, she says, an excellent wife, who can find? She wants her son to find a wife, but she says, plural, multiple women that you're pursuing, son, what are you doing? Don't do that. Ideally, men should talk to their sons about sexual immorality. That is ideal. We see that in the beginning of Proverbs. The father is talking a lot to his sons about that. But this mother does not feel it isn't also her responsibility to give a warning. She does it discreetly, but she does it. And then she goes on in verse 3. What are you doing, son of my vows? Give your strength to women. And she goes on, verse 4, it is not for kings, O Lamel. It is not for kings to drink strong wine or rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of the afflicted. Give strong drink to the one who is perishing and wine to those in bitter distress. Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. What is she doing? Here's what I think she's doing. She's giving the why. She's telling her son why he shouldn't do something. You know, two and three-year-olds don't need a why. They need a no and a punishment if they do it, right? But a six-year-old, a 10-year-old, a 15-year-old needs a why. She's saying, do not drink strong drinks, son. Do not get drunk because you're going to neglect your kingdom. People will suffer if you do this. And then she gives the purpose for alcohol or strong drink. Medicinal purposes. It's medicine. Give it to someone who's suffering. To cope with the troubles of life. She's explaining. She's teaching. She doesn't just say, don't drink alcohol bad. And then his friends come up to him and go, hey, you want to get drunk with us? And he goes, no, my mommy told me I can't. You need to help your child better than that. They need to know why they shouldn't do these things. She said, it's not for kings. You'll neglect people. You'll pervert their rights. You'll forget God's word. I love the phase of parenting that I'm in right now because all of my kids are at the why phase. I can sit down and reason with them. I can give them logic as to why they shouldn't do this or why a punishment comes if they do this, and they can understand. And this is a good mother. She is helping him understand why he should avoid certain behaviors and why others are praiseworthy. And look at what she says in verse 8. She's pointing him toward a selfless life. Open your mouth. God gave you a mouth, my son. Open it for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth and judge righteously. Defend the rights of the poor and needy. She doesn't just say, hey, get a job and make money. Get financial security. She says, finish school, son, so you can bless somebody and help somebody. She gives him an other oriented aim at why he should do something or not do something. Son, you're a king. Your life isn't about you. Your life exists to honor God and bless others. And our kids aren't going to be kings or presidents probably, but they still have the same reason they're on this earth. You know, I don't have a problem with parents or anybody telling their children they could change the world. I think that you just need to be realistic and make sure they can change their sheets on their bed first. and clean their room. Because the reality is you're not going to conquer the world's problems if you can't conquer the little problems in your own bedroom. And that's what this mom understands. It's like this with an elder. You don't want in a church to appoint an elder who can't care for his own household. Right? That's why one of the qualifications for a pastor is he must manage his own household well, it says. Because if he can't take care of his little kingdom, his little home with a few people, why would you put him in charge of God's home or God's kingdom, God's people? Right? Same is true with our kids. If we want them to be helpful in larger culture, they must first learn to be helpful in the home. Doing some laundry. Washing dishes, mowing grass. That's not child labor. It's not. It's training your children. I mean, I guess it could go that extreme. We're not talking about that. We don't need to train them to be missionaries and politicians first. We need to train them to be hard workers, to have integrity, to be disciplined and self-controlled, to be other-oriented and kind, to have humility and patience, right? And if they can cultivate this type of character, the Lord might use them to change the world. You say, well, where do we start? Is there a book to read? Is there some helpful verses? Where do we start? And I would say, here's where we start, parents. Me and you. This is where we start. We live consistently with what we're teaching. We make sure we're not a hypocrite. You can say all day, you can read your kids the Proverbs all day and tell them all the wisdom of this father or all the wisdom of this mother, but if they look at you and it doesn't match and there's a big disconnect, the teaching isn't effective and they're confused. So the biggest service we can do to our kids is yes, teach them the paths of wisdom, but then we also must demonstrate something of that. That means we got to read the Word. Alone. With them. We need to pray alone and with them. We discipline ourselves and gather with the people of God. We know when to turn off entertainment. And then when we say, God is glorious, they might actually believe us. I was at that conference earlier this week. And they had a Q&A, a question and answer after one of the sessions. And someone said, how can we help our children live for the Lord? I said, you live for the Lord. That's how you help your kids. If you're living for the Lord, you will teach them. The teaching will come after. The teaching will be listened to if you will live for the Lord yourself. They will learn much about Living for the Lord. Which gets into the second part of this passage. Look at v. 10-31. Excellency lived. It starts with a question. It says, an excellent wife, who can find? They're not easy to find. That's why he's asking this. I had to go to Brazil to find one. She came to me. I have been blown away this week by my wife. I have. By words she's said. By things she's done. I sat there and thought, wow. I have a treasure. I have a treasure. That's what verse 10 says. Her worth is far above jewels. It's translated rubies or pearls. Sometimes the Septuagint calls it precious stones. It's saying this type woman is her husband's greatest treasure. Apart from the Lord, this is his greatest treasure. And men, those of you brothers who are single, it's worth waiting for this wife. An excellent wife. You don't want to just pick a woman based off of looks, or because she makes good money, or has a good education, or all the things that men often look for. You want godly character. You want virtue. You want spiritual maturity. If you don't want to regret many things later on, you want this excellent wife. God, at the end of the day, God is the judge of what is excellent. And it begins to show that here. Let me begin to read through some of these verses. It says, the heart of her husband trusts in her. How do you get your husband's heart to trust you? Well, it says it. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. Sounds too simple. She rises while it's yet night and provides food for her household, portions for her maidservant. She considers a field and buys it the fruit of her hand. She plants a vineyard. It goes on and just lists all the work this woman's doing. Let me ask a question that I know is lingering maybe in some of your minds. This is all work inside the home that the woman's doing. Is a woman allowed to work outside the home? It's not even a question if a woman can. That's not even a biblical question. Of course they can. Can a mother work outside the home? A mother. And this is actually the passage you go to to say, yes, this mother is working outside the home, and she's a mother. Here's the question. Can a mother work outside the home? And then here's the qualifier. If it if it doesn't hinder her primary ministry to her husband and her children. If she's not able to do with excellence the primary thing God's called her to, then could it be unwise to work outside the home? She has freedom in that it seems quite clearly here, but it becomes certainly something to be thinking through. Now this woman is able to maintain both. This is kind of where the excellence comes in here. Verse 16, we see this enterprise woman. She considers a field and buys it from her earnings. She plants a vineyard. So there's this field, maybe adjacent to their property. She sees it. She thinks it's the right price. She thinks it'd be beneficial to the family. She buys it. There's an independence in that. It doesn't say the husband bought it, it says she bought it. And she made the decision that was wise. You say, where did she get the money? Did she have a job? Yeah, verse 24 says she makes linen garments and sells them. She's a small business owner. I don't think that money was in the necessarily, the family was necessarily dependent on that. It seemed like it was extra discretionary money to use to advance the, to put the family in a better financial place or make wise investments. Many argue that this husband completely has entrusted all the financial care of the home to this wife. But she's clearly wise. She's very, very wise. And because she's so excellent in her managing of the home, her husband is able to thrive in the work that the Lord has given him. It says in verse 23 that in the gates of the city, among the elders of the land, he's known. So he knows he can head off to work and he's not worried the whole house is falling apart when he leaves. There's an excellency in which he manages the home. Now, let me pause for a second here, because I'm already getting into deeper waters and I don't want to lose anybody. There is a poison, in my estimation, in biblical womanhood teachings right now. It's a poison. There are many women's ministries out there saying, and I don't know what to call this other than to say the things they say, but it's okay to not be okay. And what is meant by that is it's okay to basically fail at every single thing that the Bible tells a woman to thrive and be excellent at. And that there's no problem with that. Now, there is certainly grace in Christ to forgive us of any failures. That is not what I'm talking about. Let me maybe make a distinction here. Perfection and excellency aren't the same thing. Perfection is unattainable, right? You failed at that a long time ago. I failed at that a long time ago. Perfection is not a category for a Christian. Excellency is something different altogether and should be desirable for every mother and every wife and every husband and every father. Excellency is something else. Let me illustrate so we were listening to Christian radio, which is usually a bad idea for our family Somebody came on the radio and it was a kind of a woman talk talk show She she said take a deep breath ladies, it's okay. You don't have to be perfect in everything And I'm like Priscilla just please turn it off turn it off I can't Because we're not perfect in anything. I'm like, what is this? Under the banner of Christianity, making people think that they're supposed to... It's okay ladies, you can't be perfect in everything. Is that encouraging? It implies you're supposed to be perfect in a lot of other things. You're not perfect in anything. The only thing that women are perfect, or men, is to qualify as a sinner that needs to be saved by grace. And so, perfection is not what we're talking about. That's a non-category. Jesus alone is there, right? Excellency is what you ladies are made for in Christ. Excellency as a mother, as a wife, is who you are in Christ. That is very, very different. That is, I hope, desirable to you Priscilla reads at times, obviously, more women authors than I do. And so she knows what ladies are saying to other ladies. And one of the things that she passed on to me recently that's kind of permeating these waters is just how much self-centeredness is in a lot of the teaching. And as I said, women are not being told to strive for excellence, but saying things like, it's okay to be broken, it's okay to have a messy house, a messy life, a chaotic mind, to be all over the place, to lay in bed all day, to just, you're perfect the way you are. That's the type thing that's being said. And then Priscilla told me that there's another group of ladies kind of pushing back against this narrative. And they're saying, no, actually, it's not OK to lay in bed all day. Or neglect the house or ignore your husband or be bitter and angry at everyone or focus on yourself all the time. There's God's grace can forgive all of that, but but God's grace is too good to leave you in all of that. The grace of God, yes, it forgives our sin, but it also empowers us for excellence. And it is a great disservice to women to tell them in their failures, you're perfect. Because here's what that does. It makes you happy for a moment. But then, you get apathetic and indifferent to everything you should care about, and then the guilt perpetuates, and the shame perpetuates. It's not a helpful thing. Especially when God is offering a grace to live in excellence. I just want to encourage you ladies, I know your job is way harder than ours. Okay? I'm aware of that. But look at these passages. Look at v. 11. Aim, ladies, that the heart of your husband may trust in you. Aim that you do him good and not harm all the days of your life like v. 12 says. Look at v. 15. She rises early. While it's still night. No, I know we're not in this culture, OK? Some of these things are not going to be perfectly the same. Get the essence of what's going on here. She provides food for a household, portions for her maidservant, considers the field and buys it. It goes on. It shows her. She makes her arms strong. What? Not for Instagram pictures. For serving her family. She opens her hand to the poor. And reaches out her hand to the needy. Guys, I don't know the future of this church, when we'll get a building and when we're able to do certain things, but man, I want the ladies of this church to be able to do some significant ministry in this city. I'm having a meeting next week with a foster care agency. Pastor Kent met this week with Safe Harbor Pregnancy Resource Center. We have women in this church pursuing counseling to be able to do more counseling in the community. There is so, so many opportunities to open your hand to those in need. And then verse 25, look at this. Her emotions. Strength and dignity are her clothing. She laughs at the time to come. This woman is not characterized by fear and anxiety and worry. She's sober-minded, self-controlled about the future. Now, you say, how can a woman do all that? Well, she can't. But, and this is where I turn to husbands and children, she can't do all that perfectly. But when she does any of that, anything excellent, our job, praise her. Commend her. Affirm her. Look at verse 28. It says, her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her. And then listen to what he says. Many women have done excellently, but you surpassed them all. He didn't just write that on a Mother's Day card one time once a year. He keeps saying this week after week, month after month. What you did right there, that was excellent. Say it to your wife however you want to say it to your wife or your mom. but affirm her, encourage her, praise her, anything you see. If she fails 50 times, but she does two times, she did something excellent, praise the two times. That is what we do. That is our virtue that we are to do men and children. And by the way, we don't deserve a wife or a mother who would pursue this type of excellency. We don't. We don't. And so anytime we see it, we should be deeply grateful that the Lord would put a woman like this in our life who's even striving for this. Ladies, I want to close and just say this to you. It is my job to just try to say what the text says. I'm just trying to say what Proverbs 31 says. I hope that lands on you as a light and easy yoke and not a heavy burden. Because I hope you know who you are in Christ enough that it is not your strength that you can do this. It really isn't. It really isn't. And if you seek to be this woman in your own strength, you will fail Continually. But if you do it in the new man, in Christ, not in Adam, in Christ, you will succeed. You will do excellent.