A Helper Perfect for Him
Well, so far in our times together we have been looking at some of what it means to be women in Christ. Yesterday morning, we saw that a woman in Christ rejoices in the Cross. In the afternoon, we saw that she isn’t satisfied with a superficial knowledge of her Savior, but fights to love Him with all her mind. This morning, we saw that when life is hard, she remembers the cross and follows Jesus.
But, those things are just as true for men in Christ. That’s because, as far as our relationship to God goes, “In Christ there is no male or female!” No difference! That means that all the blessings of salvation—forgiveness, adoption into God’s family, power over sin—all these gifts belong to both husbands and wives alike.
However—when we start talking about our relationships with each other as men and women, things change drastically. Because the Bible teaches that there are big differences between a man and a woman. And we need to understand what those differences are, so that we will honor God’s purpose in making us and not waste our lives.
That’s because, to paraphrase Elisabeth Elliot, you have to know what a thing was made for, in order to use it right.
Take this for example? What is it? This is a potato peeler. It works great for that. But if I try to use it to shave my legs, I am not only dishonoring the intentions of the inventor, but I’m going to hurt myself. Not to mention that I’m still going to have hairy legs. And what if you thought this baster was to clear your baby’s nostrils when he had a cold? What if you thought this egg whip was a carpet beater? Your carpet wouldn’t get very clean! So again, to use a thing rightly you need to know what it’s for!
We can be thankful that we women actually did come with instructions. But they’re not on a little sticker on our bellies. Where are they? Right! God has filled this whole Book with them! So, we don’t have to look to our neighbors or mother-in-law to tell us who we are. We don’t have to look to our feelings, either. Instead, we can ask God, “What are your purposes for my life?” Then we can open our Bibles ready to hear His answer, ready to fully commit ourselves to His plan, whatever that might be.
One of my heroines in the faith is Betty Stem. She was a missionary in China during the 1930’s. She actually had her head chopped of by Communist soldiers. But before Betty ever went on the mission field, she had said this:
“It’s as clear as daylight to me, that the only worthwhile life is one of unconditional surrender to God’s will, and living in His way, trusting in His love and guidance.”[1]
And she had written the following prayer:
“Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my live. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt, send me where Thou wilt, work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever.”[2]
Is that your prayer today as we study what it means to be a woman in Christ? Do you want only His will? Then let’s get into our study. I’ll give you the title. It’s “A Helper Perfect for Him!” and the study will be organized by three questions.
1. What does it mean to be a woman?
2. What does it mean to be a wife? And then finally,
3. What does it mean to be married to a leader in the church? So…
1. What does it mean to be a woman?
To answer this question we have to go back in time to the day God made us. Open your Bibles to Genesis 1. And we’ll start by reading verses 26-27 where we’ll see the first thing God had in mind.
A. Made for His glory
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
So we see that God wanted to make man in His image. But what exactly does that mean? It means there was something in men and women, more than in the stars or waterfalls, more than in the monkeys or the atom, more than in any other part of God’s creation, that could appreciate God’s glory and respond to it in a way that showed the rest of creation a fuller picture of what God was like.
For example, although all the animals show God’s power and wisdom in the way they are created, none of them can really respond to God the way people can. They’re just not enough like Him to do that. Do animals pray? Do they worship? Do they love holiness? Of course not. Only man and woman were made in a way that they could appreciate God, have fellowship with God, enjoy Him and express in words how awesome God is.
And in fact, by himself, man couldn’t do that completely. It took both the woman and the man to adequately reflect all the things God wanted to reveal about who He was and the way He acts.
So, if you’re taking notes the first thing you should write down is “a woman in Christ is made for God’s glory!”
B. Made to Work
But let’s go on. In v. 26 we also see that God gave man and woman a special task. Work! God says, “And let them have dominion…” Realize, this was before they fell into sin. Work itself isn’t a curse. God made us for work. We were to rule over all the rest of his creation on the earth. We were to organize it and care for it in a way that would glorify Him. Eve shared that responsibility with Adam. But, as we’re going to see, God had a different way for her to do that than He did for Adam.
C. Made to Help
We find that in Genesis 2: 18 where God says,
“it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him.”
However, God didn’t make this helper immediately. Instead, God marches the animals in front of the man and has Adam name them. Why? Well, God wanted Adam to really appreciate and value Eve when He brought her to him. So, God gave Adam the job of naming the animals to get him to think. It’s only as Adam starts doing that task that his need is really exposed.
Maybe you think Adam was just saying, “Okay, you can be “Spot”, You can be “Rover.” But naming the animals was more than just naming a pet. Adam had to study each animal, to choose a name that would be appropriate to that animal’s nature. Like a scientist would do. And as Adam analyzed the various animals, it gradually began to sink into his head that there was no creature in the whole garden that shared his nature. He discovered that he was really, really alone. I think at that moment an ache started in his heart, a longing for there to be one other creature like him.
It was then that God knew Adam was ready for Eve. vs. 21-22
“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”
Can you imagine how Adam felt when he saw her? This was what he’d been waiting for. She was beautiful, she was just what he needed, and she was his! Adam’s first words to Eve show how thoroughly he was convinced of this.
“Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
In other words, “Wow!” Adam saw that Eve was enough like him be an intimate companion, but different enough for them to fit together like puzzle pieces .
What was the main difference? Well, the Bible teaches that Adam was made to lead. I don’t have time to list all the verses that teach this right now…but I’ll give them to you after if you wish. Anyways, Adam was made to lead. But what was Eve made for? To compete with Adam or dominate him? No! God said it himself back in Genesis 2:18. Woman was made to help. Helping means joining the man in his work, not demanding he come help you or trying to take control. And helping means you like to make his work more joyful, by appreciating what he does well. It means you follow him enthusiastically, as far as your conscience allows you, not fighting him every step of the way. It means offering your talents and abilities, your ideas and your insights to help him in his mission to glorify God. That’s what it means to be a helper and what it means to be feminine. In fact, if you don’t have this attitude, all the dresses, hairstyles or headscarves in the world won’t make you feminine. And neither will long eyelashes, or a beautiful body.
And by the way, this role is not just for married women. It is for widows and single women as well. They don’t need to be married to be feminine any more than Jesus had to be married to be masculine. Single women express their femininity when they gladly help the men of the church, and stand alongside of them offering all their many gifts, in order to help these men glorify God. And by the way, even if you’re married your helping is not limited to your husband. It’s just that he has first priority and you help him far more intimately than you do the brothers in the church.
But to sum up, God made the man to lead, while he made the woman to help. Agreed? Both were awesome roles, gifts of God’s love for the man and the woman. And in spite of Adam and Eve’s fall into sin in the garden, thanks to the grace of Christ, they still can be wonderful gifts. But now…
II. What does it mean to be a wife?
Honestly, we could stay up here for six months and not cover everything the Bible teaches about this subject. And I don’t think your husbands would like that. So I have chosen just two things the Lord impressed me with to focus on today: submission and tender love.
First, being a wife means submitting to your husband. Turn to Ephesians 5 vs. 22-24 Listen carefully!
“Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. 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.”
Did you notice who Paul compared the wife to? To the church. God wants us to submit to our husbands exactly the way the church should submit to Christ.
Now in case you think God gave wives the hardest job, look at what the husband is called to do. v. 25.
“Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so 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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.”
So, the husband’s job is to love his wife with the exact same love that Jesus showed for the church when He died on the cross. He is to do everything possible so that she can grow in holiness.
So husbands are to love their wives and wives are to submit to their husbands. But why is this so important? The breath-taking reason is in v. 32:
“This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
Do you see what this is saying? Paul is saying, THIS is what marriage is for! It’s about revealing a mystery, a mystery about Christ and His church. Paul is saying that from before the creation of the world, God planned marriage to make Christ’s love for his people more visible in the world. Wow. That means that marriage is actually a kind of evangelism.
I know this is kind of deep. In fact, it was only as I was studying for this message that it really hit me: Tim’s and my marriage exists, not just for our pleasure, but as a picture of Christ and His church, which I obliterate when I resist his leadership.
It’s like my 3-year-old granddaughter Katie. Katie is just learning how fun it is to paint. Especially with her Grandpa. But what she loves most is to be in control of the painting. So after Grandpa finishes painting something really nice on the paper, Katie’ll take her brush, dip it in black and then completely paint over what Grandpa did so that her black blobs cover everything. And then she smiles really big.
Well, in my marriage, when I don’t submit to Tim gladly, when I don’t admire him and respect him, when I don’t receive his leadership, I am taking my brush, dipping it in black and obliterating the beautiful picture of the love relationship between Christ and his church God wants to show the world. And that is nothing to smile about.
Ideally, the world should be able to look at my happy submission to Tim (who is very sweet, but is still a sinner) and see something beautiful, something supernatural. They should see the power of God at work. It should make them curious, what is going on here? It should make them ask, “Where does she get that from?” It should make an open door for the gospel.
But you might be thinking, maybe so, but I’m a sinner and my husband is too! He doesn’t act like Christ all the time. He makes me mad! I don’t have this power! That’s right. Not apart from seeing the grace of God shown to you at the cross, and believing in the fresh supplies of love Christ purchased for you there. That’s why you need to dwell at the cross. What does Romans 8:32 say?
“He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?”
And Romans 5:5 promises:
“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
So we do have the power to love as we rely completely on Christ.
But we’ll see that more clearly after the break.
………………………………….
Okay, before the break we were in the middle of seeing our call to submit to our husbands, even when they don’t act the way they should. That’s not easy, but 1 Peter 3: 1-5 should be a big encouragement to us. Let’s read vs. 1-2.
“Likewise wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives—when they see your respectful and pure conduct.”
Notice what these husbands are like. They’re not even Christians. They don’t obey the Word, but Peter says submit to them! How? Keep reading!
“Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their husbands…”
In verse 5, we see the way the holy women of old were able to submit to their husbands. Peter says they hoped in God! That’s our power too. If we are hoping, for example in a God we know rules the universe, then we know that the husband we are living with is the exact tool God wants to use in our lives to expose our sin and make us more like Jesus. Their very sins can be the sandpaper in God’s hand that will make us more forgiving, patient, and humble as we trust in His grace. And if by faith we see the face of Christ behind the face of our husbands with all their deficiencies, we will be enabled to submit to them for Christ’s sake.
But now maybe you would say, “Okay, I’m convinced! But what does submission really look like in real life? Does that mean I have no voice, no input in my marriage? Does it mean my husband does all the thinking and I follow him blindly, even into sin?”
These are good questions. So, look again at verses 4-5. What submission is, is that gentle and quiet spirit that enables us to respect our husbands and follow their leadership, as we trust in our God.
But now let’s see what biblical submission isn’t! First, vs. 1 shows that it doesn’t require that you agree with everything your husband says or to leave your brain behind. The example given in v. 1 is of a woman who heard the gospel and thought about the claims of Jesus and seeing the beauty of Christ, chose him. Her husband on the other hand also heard the gospel but did not obey. Obviously they think differently about the most important thing in the world. She keeps on following Jesus while her husband remains on the path to hell.
Peter tells her to submit to him, but it is clear he does not expect her to follow her husband away from Christ. Her first priority is to submit to Christ first and then to her husband. We don’t put what pleases our husband ahead of what pleases Christ. We don’t follow him into sin. If he tells us to, then we need to firmly tell him that although we love following his leadership and are ready to follow it as soon as he asks us something legitimate, we cannot do the thing he is asking us. We must fear God before men.
So we have seen that a woman is to submit to her husband. But the second thing is that she is also to love him! To see that, let’s turn to Titus 2. While you’re turning I’ll explain that this letter was written by the apostle Paul to a man named Titus, who was a pastor Paul had left behind on the island of Crete to bring order in the churches. Unfortunately, the churches there were a mess so Titus’ job wouldn’t be easy. The people of Crete in general had a really bad reputation. Even one of their own philosophers had described them as “liars, brutes and lazy stomachs.” But for this to characterize the church as well, would have been shocking and a great shame to the gospel of grace.
So Paul explains to Titus the kind of character and behavior that is worthy of Christ for each category of people in the church. He talks about elders, older men, younger men and even slaves. But in verses 3-5 he focuses on the women. Listen to what he says in v.3:
“Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good…”
Paul starts with the older women. By reverent, Paul means that her whole life should be lived as worship to God, including what comes out of her mouth. Evidently, the mouth was a big source of trouble in Crete. God forbid that the same thing would be true in the church.
By the way, this list of four things is pretty much the same as the list in 1 Timothy 3:11 where Paul says what the wives of deacons must be like. Then Paul says as older or more spiritually mature women, their special calling is to teach the younger women the 7 important things listed in verse 4-5. Let’s read that now.
“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.”
By the way, this didn’t mean that the older women or leaders’ wives were excused from the 7 things in the list. Not at all. They were to be shining examples of those things so that the younger women would want to listen to them.
But back to our list, what was the very first thing that Paul listed? Loving your husband!
So let’s see what he meant by that. Well, you know how in Romanian there are two words for love? Well Paul wrote this letter in the Greek language and they had five words of love, all with slightly different shades of meaning. And the word he chose here means a love that is warm, tender, affectionate and passionate. Paul could have chosen the word that means sacrificial love but he didn’t. Why not? I think God had showed Paul that for Christian families to stay strong and pure, wives needed to love their husbands not just as a duty, but as a delight.
When Tim and I were first married we saw a movie that we really liked. In this movie the main character watches his oldest daughter fall in love. And it gets him thinking about his own relationship with his wife. He goes to his wife and asks her, “Golde, do you love me?” And the wife is like, “What?” She’s thinking, “For 25 years I’ve washed his clothes, cooked his meals, cleaned his house, given him children, milked his cow.” So why is he asking me this stupid question.
But he persists, he really wants to know, “Do you love me?” Finally she says, “For 25 years I’ve lived with him, fought with him, starved with him, for 25 years my bed is his, if that’s not love what is?” Do I love him? I suppose I do.” And he gets a kind of funny smile on his face and says, “After 25 years, it’s nice to know!”
The point is, the man in this story was looking for more than sacrificial love. He was longing for his wife to delight in him. And that’s what our husbands want from us too. They want us to take pleasure in them, to admire them, to appreciate what they do right and to continually express affection for them in our words and with our touch. Does that describe the way you treat your husband?
But you may be thinking, “I just don’t have those feelings for him anymore.” Or maybe you’ve never had those feelings for your husband. But remember, Paul said the older women were to teach the younger women to love this way. That means this love can be learned. How?
The grace of God at the cross will teach us how. Look at Titus 2, v. 11-12.
“For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age…”
It’s grace that teaches us to love. We love, because Christ first loved us. And although Christ loved us sacrificially, he also loved us tenderly. Christ died for the joy of being able to have a beautiful sinless bride on his wedding day. And when we see that grace clearly, it humbles us and helps us not to be shocked when we discover that our husbands are sinners just like us, needing the same grace that we need. Seeing God’s love to us, love pours into our own hearts too, by the Holy Spirit and enables us to look for things to delight in our husbands. (Which brings us to the second way love can be learned…?)
Continually think about the things that are lovable and worthy of praise in your husband. (I have a friend who just got engaged and she is driving her sister crazy, because all she talks about all day long is how wonderful her fiancé is.) Purposefully bring to mind the things you can admire in your husband.
Philippians 4:8 says:
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Do that every time you are tempted to think about his faults.
The third way to learn to love is to guard your heart against sins that tend to kill love.
Paying attention to your feelings will help you do that. Carolyn Mahaney said something interesting. She said:
“Our emotions are a warning system God gave us to attract attention to the sin in our hearts. When we are not experiencing loving feelings towards our husbands, that’s an alarm going off: ding, ding, ding! There may be sin that needs attention.”
Is there an alarm going off in your heart right now? Then ask God to search your heart for sins like anger, bitterness, selfishness, fear, a critical attitude.
I’ll just pick one of these sins that is my weak spot. A critical attitude. That’s being more aware of what your husband is doing wrong than what he is doing right. Being more aware of his deficiencies than you are of God’s grace. Is that something that any of you can relate to? That can frustrate him and make him think he can never satisfy you. It’s sin. And it’s foolish. Proverbs 14:1 says,
“The wisest of women builds her own house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.”
So build your house. Don’t tear it down. Ask God to show you ways to encourage your husbands. I’m not talking about flattering him. I’m talking about noticing real things that you appreciate in him. Look for ways you see God working in his life and then tell him you noticed!
But in balance, there are times when your husband will really need you to go to him and correct him, according to the teaching for all believers in Matthew 18:15-20 and Galatians 6:1.That is also tender love.
Okay, there is much more we could say about different ways we could express love to our husbands, but I still want to address our final question:
III. What does it mean to be the wife of a leader in the church?
Now you may be expecting something really profound here, but I like what Carolyn Mahaney said,
“Wives, we all have the same job description: we are our husbands’ helpers. If you are wondering whether or not to pursue some activity, ask yourself this important question: does this help my husband? Usually that one simple question will make your decision clear.”
Bu, of course, the specific way a leader’s wife will help her husband will be shaped by the demands of the work God has called him to do. So, do you care about his work? Have you tried to understand it? Ask God to open your eyes to see the demands of ministry. Read the book of Acts. Read Paul’s and Peter’s letters. Your own eyes should be able to reveal to you the battle your husband is fighting. Church leaders bear a heavy responsibility. They come under heavy attack from Satan. They are persecuted, criticized and weighed down by concern for the church. Do all you can to make this work more joyful for them.
Let me ask you, how many times do you wake up in the morning and think – what is it I could do today that would most help my husband in his ministry? Or – What does he most need from me that will help him grow as a leader? What would give him or more freedom to serve? I encourage you to begin thinking and praying this way. Ask God to make you into the helper your husband needs.
Also, since my husband has been a pastor for ten years, and we’ve been through a lot in that time, I thought about our life and then I jotted down some notes on what isn’t helpful to our leader husbands.
This is what I wrote: We are not helping our husbands:
· When we are fearful.
· When we remain biblically ignorant.
· When we demand from them what only God can give.
· When we undermine their hope in God
· When we refuse to see God’s grace at work either in his life or in the church.
· When we whine or grumble about our circumstances.
· When we adopt a grudge against people in the church who hurt them.
· Or when we cover over persistent patterns of sin in their lives.
This is just a partial list. But you get the idea. The best way for us to help our leader husbands is to put all our trust in God, grow in knowing Him, be satisfied in Him alone and depend on the power of God’s Spirit to love both him and the people God has called him to serve.
So, in closing—what kind of wife will you choose to be? Proverbs 12:4 says,
“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.”
By the way, Proverbs 31 from verse 10 to the end is a beautiful portrait of a leader’s wife. Read that when you have time. The man who has that kind of a lady for a wife is freed to sit in the gates of the city with the other elders, counseling the people from God’s Word, because he can trust that his wife has things at home under control. The source of her fruitfulness? V. 30 makes it very clear:
“Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”
She fears the Lord! Well, we’re out of time, but in conclusion, I want to point out that all of us have failed and will continue to fail to be the women and wives God is calling us to be. But there is one who never failed: the Lord Jesus Christ. The punishment for our peace has fallen upon him and there is forgiveness and grace to go on, at the cross. If God has convicted your heart of sin today, I urge you to remember the cross and rejoice in the wonderful Savior that died for you there . The same grace poured out for you there for forgiveness of sin, is also available for power over sin, as you attempt, by faith, to be the helper God created you to be.
[1] Kathleen White, John and Betty Stam, Bethany House Publishers, 1989, p.45
[2] Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be a Woman), Tyndale House Publishers 1976, p. 10
Leave a comment