In Praise of Godly Women, Part 1

Hello and welcome to this Monday edition of Destin for victory with pastor Paul Shepherd, senior pastor, destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont California. Thanks so much for making this part of your day just a few moments. Pastor Paul will share his message in praise of godly women before he gets started. He joins me know from a studio in California to share a few words about this special message which will air for the next four days here on Destin for victory with pastor Palm Bay is the month when we get the opportunity to honor our mothers and we kick off the celebration here in Destin for victory with a special two-part series entitled in praise of godly women. Now tell me why are these messages more important in our culture today than ever before. But I wanted to share this series now because I think affirmation and honor for mom's and mother figures is somewhat difficult to find these days people seem to be so preoccupied with themselves and their plans and their future that they don't look backwards and see that if it weren't for mom's and mother figures. They would not be where they are.

So I'm hoping to help people rediscover the value of honoring and affirming moms and mother figures. You know the Proverbs says who can find a virtuous woman. Well these days. I kind of think the better question is who can find a kid or a dad who has sense enough to praise the mountain and no we really got to understand that she plays an invaluable role. Even people who had challenging relationships with their moms or mother figures need to realize God use them in a significant way to get you to the place even if you think your living so much better and you have so much higher set of values or whatever you'd never had the chance to show that if they hadn't gotten you to the place where you could be better so we need Donna moms.

I'm hoping that people will really get that here it as I unfold of this teaching and they take advantage of this month's resource. So glad that you included mother figures because I think that we don't often think about that. There are lots of women who have all kinds of influence in her life that need to be thanking God for absolutely. I'm so glad that I was raised not only by a godly mother but raised in a community of faith where I have so many moms in the church.

In fact, you know there were so many moms around you that if y'all were goofing off too much of my mother was always on the other side of the of the church. You look over there, but I knew she was going get up and come get me, but she knew she had backup somebody sitting behind me would put me in my head and say sit up and act right. That's how she had eyes in the back of her head, exactly, that is exactly true. So the church was full of mothers and II sold thank God for the privilege of having had many women who helped shape my life. And speaking of mothers and mother figures who have had a positive influence in our lives. Pastor Paul has a special gift for you this month. Yours for a generous donation to Destin for victory. It's a booklet called traits of a virtuous woman based on Proverbs 31 this book that was written to honor mothers in particular and godly women in general. It's a penetrating look into some of the most important traits. All women should embody in a great companion guide to the messages you will be hearing the next few days. That's traits of a virtuous woman our gift to you this month by request for your generous gift to Destin for victory call 855-339-5500.

That's 855-339-5500 or visit Pastor Paul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. You can also mail your gift to Destin for victory PO Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538. Now let's get to today's message is Pastor Paul of the sermon in praise of godly women. Some Bible reading plans call for the reading of one chapter of Proverbs each day. Such plans take advantage of the fact that there are 31 days in several months of our calendar and there are 31 chapters in Proverbs. So many people following Bible reading plan that encourages you to read each chapter.

Proverbs that corresponds with the particular day of the month and day. If you do that, then you will read about this woman.

Seven times at least in a given calendar year for their seven months that contain 31 days. So many of us are familiar with the Proverbs 31 woman just by virtue of the reading of the Proverbs, but today I want to go beyond just taking another look at the fictitious. Proverbs 31 woman and instead I want us to recognize the fact that there are many real live women in the body of Christ today who are striving every day of their lives to reflect more and more of the virtues and values of this woman for this is certainly as you read these verses. This is certainly a woman of great character of our wonderful virtues and values. She is ideal in so many ways and I want you to also note that this was not the concoction of some man's fantasy, but rather you are told in the first verse of Proverbs 31 these are the words of a mother who has spoken to her son in the first nine verses, she speaks to him about his own life and some of his choices and decisions. Ambition from verses 10 through 31. The sun is simply sharing with us the kind of man his mother suggested that he marry, so the Proverbs 31 woman is not the product of a male idea of the ideal woman is the product of a woman in a godly woman herself speaking to our son about getting involved with and committing his life to a godly woman and they are limited in the body of Christ today who are striving to reflect these virtues and values their prayer and their desire as they come to passages like Proverbs 31 is Lord, make me more and more like this kind of woman who brings you glory and honor as I want us to take some time and to examine these values and these virtues because we need to thank God for the fact that there are women in many of our lives today, and many women listening to this message who are striving to live just this way and you are to be praised and held in esteem just as we are told in Proverbs 31. I want to first of all say thank God for women of nobility strength and power. Look at verses 1025 and 30 with me.

Verse 10 says a wife of noble character who can find she is worth far more than rubies and let me mention here that these virtues can certainly be active in the lives of all women, regardless of your marital status, and so while wife is mentioned in verse 10 we can easily say a woman of noble character who can find she is worth far more than rubies.

Look at verse 25 she is clothed with strength and dignity she can laugh at the days to come and look at verse 30 charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Thank God for women of nobility strength and power. King James says virtuous women and this Hebrew concept of virtue or nobility. This particular word used here is really a term that very often when you see it in Scripture speaks of military strength in speaks of a person of valor in war.

A person who knows how with nobility and straight. When a battle and that's the exact same words very often you see in smoking of a man of valor in Scripture back over 200 times in the Bible when this word is used, you'll see it referring to a man of valor, or to an army of strong and well prepared army will that exact same word is used here to describe a woman of God. Thank God for women who have nobility strength and power. Now if you'll note this power is derived.

According to verse 30 from her relationship with God.

She is a woman who fears the Lord, and so were not talking about strength as a mere natural quality because everyone knows that your natural abilities are gonna run out in the face of real spiritual struggles, and that's why we as people of God must learn to rely on the power of God as he imparts it to us.

Ephesians 6 says be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. And that is the strength that such women draw on for their lives.

Thank God for women who draw on the strength of God and as a result there women of nobility strength and power. They fear the Lord thank God for women who have come to know the Lord for themselves and who now are reflecting their relationship with Christ as they live their lives from day-to-day. Many of us were privileged to be raised by such godly women and it's a wonderful thing when you have a godly woman bringing you up in the things of God.

Timothy in the Bible had a godly grandmother and a godly mother and that he was well prepared to walk with the Lord.

By the example that they set so that when God sent Paul into his life as a spiritual father that Jeff made complete the process that already began as he was brought up in the things of God. Thank God for women didn't send their kids to church but took their kids to church and thank God that that still continues in our world today. Women who fear the Lord and are teaching their children to fear the Lord. Now it's wonderful. If a man will do the same.

But of course we all know women who, even if the man wasn't walking with God. She's sold to that those children knew the things of God if he wanted to play with them. She prayed with and thank God for women who know the Lord.

These are women of nobility. We are told here nobility.

That is to say that women who live life as a matter of resolve.

Thank God for women who relive the right is a matter of resolve. I hope you figured out by now that any of us who are going to live right. We have to do it by resolve look up on live in right is that you left out on being sexually pure. For instance, just wake up one, there is no known to be sexually pure and a wicked and perverse generation such as we live in going to have to live your life by righteous resolve drawling on the strength of God say Lord help me to be the woman you have called me to be and thank God for women who have decided that they're going to memorize because it pleases God and to defy many of these cultural changes that have made it acceptable what God says is unacceptable.

Thank God for women were living by resolve. Thank God for single women who have decided to be virtuous before the Lord, for not doing their bodies to people who have not given their lives in full commitment to you because that is the will of God for you to be sure for you to be a woman of nobility. Thank God for women who have resolved that my kids are going to baseball single women who, even if their single parents.

Now that they're in Christ. They are living right and making godly decisions and then I go to have their children seeing you in the house month in and month out every few weeks is a different article in the different article meet and that is Uncle Sam. He's a man in the spring on the summit is exactly how good Johnny sat on the know know women who have decided to live by resolve that they won't have some man stopping by for a period of time to help out with the finances in the playhouse is becoming more normal in our world, but the word of God will change for anybody still ahead. The second half of Pastor Paul shepherds destined for victory message in praise of godly women. Remember you can always listen to our program on your schedule. It's on demand@pastorpaul.net that's Pastor Paul.net or listen and subscribe to the podcast Apple podcast it's bona fide or wherever you get your podcasts but we live in a world of compromise where truth is widely considered relative instead of absolute godly women are those who live by conviction, not compromise. Is Pastor Paul addressing today's message in praise of godly women and thank God for women who have decided to do it God's way for women who have decided that in order to be morally pure.

As a single woman. I am going to set the guidelines for my life in any man who can't measure up to these he can't be with me because of price or prices far above only reason you open your mind that if I more valuable than will we know you can't just come into my life without being the man you want to be valuable. I'm too valuable to depreciate review and delivered by resolve. Yet the makeup in your mind you don't realize you know the world have the live simple when they hit a low season of loneliness. You know that by the somebody lab.

Well, you know, having somebody is better than having nobody not necessarily an women of nobility women who have decided that I'd rather have Jesus alone man to step down just to bring somebody in the my life and thank God for women who are living on a high level who have made some high-level decisions. Sometimes a painful decision, sometimes you bring suffering into your own life.

When you make such decisions, but you have decided I am going to please God first and foremost because she is a woman, verse 30 tells us who fear the Lord is reverent when it comes to her relationship with the Lord. She cares more about what God thinks about her than what you think about her and so she is a woman of nobility.

Thank God for women who are living right. As a matter of resolve. They made up in their minds that they're going to do that which pleases and glorifies God. They made up in their minds that they are going to be people whose lives are pleasing to him. They have decided that the way for crisis to come before they figure out what they want to do, see if you want to live right you got idly by resolve, which means you makeup in your mind before the crisis come here is the way I live my life.

Here are the standards here are the values so that when you get into temptation when you get into crisis. You're not trying to figure things out because some of us know what a time to get in the crisis very often it's too late to make a good in quality decision so you want to make it in advance. Ideally, and you want to be like the Hebrew boys and Daniel. When the king created the golden image and wanted everyone to bow and they refused about he calls them in and said listen, I'm going to have the music play one more time give you all a chance to bow.

But if you don't please understand that you're going and they said all praying we are not slow to answer you in this matter will not slow to answer you in this matter. They said the God we serve is able to deliver us and he will deliver us, but we want you to understand that our resolve isn't even based on the assurance of deliverance, for they went on to say, but if everyone chooses to allow us to die. We will not bow we will burn before we will bow that's living by resolve, and thank God for women who have made the quality decision to live by resolve to decide.

I'm going to please God and I'm going to make decisions that are consistent with my goal of pleasing God and are living on a high level of mobility. Thank God for that.

Thank God that they also living out with strength and power. You know when the Bible in one place in first Peter chapter 3 verse seven, where Peter is talking to husbands about how to treat their wives and he says give them honor as the weaker vessel and some of us are familiar with the term referring to women as the weaker vessel, but it's only a very limited context was saying, give them honor because all things being equal, women tend to be weaker physically than men. That is to say that both the man and a woman train for a particular event that would involve physical strain, or that sort of thing that will just look at the records and track or whatever it is in the weightlifting man tend to hold the higher records the records that reflect more physical strip is the way God designed their bodies, all things being equal, a very strong man in a very strong woman if they want to raise the man is going to win in the records reflect that. That's the limited sense in which Peter makes the point of the weaker vessel worked at because let me tell you something that would tell you something it takes to be a woman of God takes strength to be a woman of God and many of these women are strong not only spiritually but physically as well. All things being equal, but you know as well as I do, is not always equal some of these abusive men will be an abusive man you need help from the Lord. And if you're seeking help in a godly contents. God bless you get the help you need data into a Christian, healthy, well-balanced church or Christian Fellowship places where people can teach you to go from being a male to being a man being male. As a matter of birth but being a man. As a matter of choice of learning to make choices that please God submit to his will line your life up with his purpose and so just because your 21 over as a male. That doesn't make you a man but I don't get some of these males who go around beating up on women because first of all, I don't know what you think you're accomplishing by that, but more importantly, don't you know that somebody's sisters now are in training now check you can cast one of the put your hands on the wrong existence, even somewhere in the gym taking these classes and learning how to hit you in a way to weaker vessel thinking to get you in trouble with the matter is, it takes strength and power to be a woman of God. This is a military term you find here in verse 10. This is a woman who spiritually and in terms of our intellectual prowess and emotional stability. She is a strong woman in Christ.

She's strong enough to go through disappointments and come out with my thank God for women who have lived through heartbreak and all kinds of trouble, but it hasn't made them better.

It's made them better because they true on the strength of God. That's where this strength comes from. When you see this term that speaks of strength and power were talking about drawing on the strength of God. These women who have learned to draw on his straight learn the lesson of Isaiah 40 where that verse and they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. When you look in the Hebrew that weight is actually a term that speaks of being walls in the concept of those who have died. So the Lord they are so tied to God until you don't know where they stop and where God stuck their walls and seek the concept even with the hairstyles.

If you get a hairstyle that involves Aleve these days. If you get a good one. One know where you stop and what you would tell you something. The exact steps you find in Isaiah 40 exact concept defined in Isaiah 41 stops in the other stock whose lives are woven to the Lord shall renew their strength and godly women have learned not to let trouble drive them from God would let it drive them to God and as a result, they have drawn on his strength to get through their difficult times they've drawn on his strength to deal with people who have not always respected them or treated them properly. It takes strength to be a woman after God's own heart. It takes strength to be a woman who's been disrespected, but you speak respectfully and return. Thanks so much for joining us for today's message in praise of godly women if you'd like more information about Destin for victory or this month special offer. A booklet from Pastor Paul called traits of a virtuous woman. Be sure to stop by our website Pastor Paul.net that's Pastor Paul.net.

Secondly, thank God for women with strong family values. I want you to know here in Proverbs 31 the strong family values of this godly woman look at several verses with three verses 11 and 12 says her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. That's tomorrow. Would Pastor Paul Sheppard shares his message in praise of godly women.

Until then, remember he who began a good work and you will bring it to completion.

In Christ, you are destined for victory