Women, Be This Woman

We love you, we appreciate you, we owe you. Can we also welcome in our online campus, anyone joining us online? We're so glad you're here. So glad you're joining us today. Well, as the staff team has been saying, you guys get to hear from the mama of the house today. My name is Jenae, if we've not got to meet. I get the privilege of first being married to Pastor Josh and we lead, I follow his lead and I lead alongside him and we just are having a blast at this amazing place called Evangel and what God is doing, it's amazing. And I know Josh shared something funny a couple weeks ago when he was preaching about how our kids took a little bluey term of big fella for him. And I said, oh, I'm so glad that you didn't share that. Then they also started calling me big mama as well. So big mama's here, I'm gonna preach the word today and I'm excited. And we had an amazing first service and God is not done. So happy Mother's Day and we are a church that celebrates and strengthens and empowers men and women. And we had Pastor Philip Dees with us last week and he preached a message called men, let's be this man. And so my message today is women, let's be this woman. But if you're a human, you're gonna get something out of this because it's the word of God. It is not gender specific, it is the inspired word of God. And so yes, I'm gonna be speaking to women and in that context, but attune your ears

and your mind and your heart because God has something for you today, I firmly believe it. And we have a culture that is shouting, the future is female but the kingdom of God is male and female, us working together and being the image bearers we were created to be. We are stronger together, we are better together. And so we are, yeah, we love the men of this house, the women of this house and I'm excited to speak to the women of this house in a little bit more of a specific way today. But every woman in here as you leave sixth grade and up, you guys will get a gift as you leave today. And I try to be an intentional gift giver. Not one of us needs one more thing that's gonna end up on our car floor in a week. So we hope that it's something that is useful to you and intentional and ultimately that it reminds you of what God is calling you to, where he wants you to set your eyes every single day. So you guys can grab that as you leave, you ladies can grab that as you leave service today. So we are gonna be in Luke 1 today. As per usual, I always say I got a lot to say and a lot of the word to read in just a little time. So we'll be in Luke 1, but I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna read the word of God. Jesus, we love you. Lord, we are here for you. You are the reason we gather.

You are the reason we are here. And Holy Spirit, we invite you as we open the word today. We invite you to be our guide. We invite you to illuminate the word to us as you are so good at doing. Cut away parts of our hearts or things in our minds that are hindering us from becoming who you desire and have created us to be. And speak individually to your sons and daughters today. In Jesus' name, I pray, amen. Amen, we are in Luke 1, starting in verse 26. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think of what the angel could mean. Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David and he will reign over Israel forever. His kingdom will never end. Mary asked the angel, but how can this happen?

I'm a virgin. The angel replied, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy and he will be called the son of God. What's more, your relative, Elizabeth, has become pregnant in her old age. People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month, for the word of God will never fail. Mary responded, I'm the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true. And then the angel left her. And so we are actually gonna go bit by bit, verse by verse, through that passage of scripture today and we're gonna pull out principles that we're gonna point to and say, I'm gonna say women, let's be this woman who carries these characteristics and these principles that we see played out in this scripture. But no matter. woman or not, you can apply these principles to your life. And so number one, we see in this scripture and we want to be a woman who recognizes the Lord is with her. And maybe you're thinking, Janaye, that's a bit of an oxymoron. Let's read it again, verse 28, 29, and 30. The angel Gabriel appears to her,

says, greetings, favors, woman. The Lord is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think of what the angel could mean. Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God. And so maybe you think that's an oxymoron, Janaye, she's confused and disturbed. She didn't really recognize the Lord was with her, but I would say she very much knew this was a divine encounter. You see, the angel has to almost comfort her, don't be afraid, because it was such this majestic, divine encounter. But I can resonate with Mary where confusion and feeling disturbed would come from. Me? You're talking to me? You're singling me out? The Lord is with me? And to be, we wanna be a person or a woman who recognizes the Lord is with you, even if you have to wrestle with it a little bit. And I know that's so common for so many that we use so many good excuses to justify or unqualify ourselves from the love of God or the presence of God. But we serve a God who has had his eye intimately on you from the day you were fashioned in your mother's womb. And Mary, she was young, poor, and female.

In that culture, pretty much they would say God is gonna choose you for nothing. You're not worth anything. Your voice doesn't matter. And they would even say you're unusable by God for any major task, yet God chose Mary for one of the most important acts of obedience. And that's what I would say outside of Jesus humbling himself in obedience to the point of death on a cross. And then the angel adds favored, not just chosen or singled out, but favored. And that is true for every one of us and can be true for you if you're not in Christ yet, if you have not given your life to Christ yet as your Lord and Savior. But everyone who is in Christ, you are favored. And the angel says, there's no favorites, but you are all equally favored. He looks at every single one of you and says, grabs you by your cute little cheeks, and says, you're my favorite, to every single one of us. But you may feel that your ability, your choices, experience, education, socioeconomic status, your family line, season of life, or fill in the blank of whatever human reason we can come up with, would disqualify you from being a God to be with, for the Lord to be with. But news flash, this Bible is filled

with encouraging stories of incredibly unlikely people, not chosen by the world, yet chosen by God. And it's an entire love story. It's not a holy manual. It's not just this heavy book that you can thump people over the head with or use to back up whatever point you have. This is a love story. This is a giant love story of a God who is with his people, who has persevered with his people. Think of Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. The Israelites in the wilderness, God wanting to be with them and lead them, whether it's by a pillar of cloud or fire, he wants to be with his people. And we see maybe why Mary was favored in that moment, even just the word, you're favored because she was chosen for Christ to be in her physically. But we know as we read farther in scripture, Jesus grows and he's the chosen Messiah. He lives a sinless life, but he dies a sinner's death on a cross. And because of his death and resurrection, he is the living savior. Every one of us who have accepted Christ, Christ is in us. The Holy Spirit comes to live, reside in you. And so you are, the Lord is with you and you are favored. He is with you.

And when a woman truly recognizes that the Lord is with her, she begins to hear what he's calling her to. So number two, be a woman who hears what God is calling her to. Verse 31, you will conceive and give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the son of the most high. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David and he will reign over Israel forever and his kingdom will have no end. I remember when I first became a believer, I had grown up around church, I knew like churchy language, but I would say when I, I surrendered my life to Jesus. I gave him everything, every bit of who I was, who I am. And actually valued scripture and started reading it and my best friend, which I met her in physical therapy school and we became fast friends and we're still best friends today, she came from such a family of faith, a family who taught the word of God. She knew the word so well, it was just in her from a young age and we were on a road trip. And I grilled her with questions that really revolved around what the angel is saying here. He's saying, because when I was a new believer, someone would have read this in church and I'd have been like, okay, son of the most high,

okay, what is this, who's this David guy? What, he matters? Okay, the ancestry of David, that matters, okay. Reign over Israel forever, okay, why does that matter? Right, but this would be utterly important for Mary to hear because the promise of the one who is coming had echoed throughout the scriptures, throughout the law and the prophets, what we would say the Old Testament today. They kept saying the anointed one is coming, the chosen one is coming, there was prophecies of him coming and so the angel, anyone that was familiar with the law and the prophets, any Jew that would have been familiar would have started connecting the dots. And I wonder if Mary connected all the dots that yes, this was the promise of God, the fulfillment of the promise of God. With a promise, sometimes comes pain, comes sacrifice. I wept over the concept of this week as preparing of did Mary comprehend, yes, the promise, but did she comprehend the pain of watching her son be beaten, be nailed to a cross, die before her very eyes? Did she perceive it in the moment? But if that's what the angel was getting across, he's getting across this is the Messiah, the one that your people have been waiting for. And though none of us, not one of us will be called to physically carry the Savior of the world, every one of us is called to something.

And God specifically has called every one of us to something maybe he's called you to create something, maybe he's called you to carry something. That could be carrying something that was birthed out of the vision of someone else. Maybe he's called you to pioneer, maybe he has called you to faithfulness. Like Josh says, there's certain people that, there's someone even specifically on our staff team that is like, I am called specifically in this capacity to serve evangel. And that person, I don't even know how many years it's been, but they have executed this beautiful faithfulness where an illustration Josh uses is you get up and you go to the same tree and you hit it with the ax five times. And then the next day you get up and you go to the same tree and you hit it with the ax five times. And day after day and the faithfulness of what God has asked you to do and what he's called you to do, but the universal factors that we're all called to be good stewards of, whatever God has called us to or placed in front of us. And why you're called to something is because you weren't intricately fashioned together in your mother's womb to just come onto this earth and work a job and make money and eat and sleep and have excrement and then die

and like fertilize the earth. That was not why you were placed on this earth. You have a calling, you have a purpose, a God destiny in you that maybe has yet to be realized or I even believe as we continue to live in him, he continues to show us facets and aspects and speak to us in greater ways as we walk along the path that he's guiding us on. And what Mary was individually called to impact all of us, impact the world. And so I just wanna encourage you, don't underestimate what God has called you to because there is not big yeses and little yeses in God's kingdom. If it is a yes to God, it is a big deal. It matters. So don't underestimate the impact on an individual or even a generation of you living out what God has called you to do. And so God called her to something but there was also a weight associated. Yes, like a physical weight, a spiritual weight, an emotional weight. And even though there is a weight associated with what Mary was called to and what each one of us is called to, we don't have to bear it alone. So number three, be a woman who understands who carries the weight. Continuing in verse 34, Mary asked the angel,

How can this happen? I am a virgin. The angel replied, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy and he'll be called the Son of God. What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age. People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For the word of God will never fail. I feel so seen by Mary's response here. Okay, but what's the plan? Anyone else, yes, you need a good plan? I'm the only one? That's fine. I do say to my husband, oftentimes on a weekend, or we're like, we're gonna have a relaxed, chill day, and we get about two hours in, and I'm like, I'm gonna be a more enjoyable human if we have a plan. Can we just have like a plan? Even if the plan is how we're gonna rest, you know? Let's plan that, right? So Mary's really just saying, what's the plan? How is this gonna happen? If I were Mary, I'd be saying, but what about my fiance? And sometimes serving Jesus, we have those buts, right? But I'm really comfortable doing what I'm already doing. But how am I gonna have the capacity to do that? But I thought it was gonna look this way.

But I thought I was gonna reach that by now, or I was gonna achieve that by now, or I thought it would feel this way when I did achieve the thing, right? And I'd be saying, yeah, what about my fiance? What about how others are gonna talk about me, view me? Like, you see how this looks, God? What if I'm wrongfully accused? What if I'm misunderstood? And I think it's so interesting, because when you say all that, I think, welcome to the life of Jesus. Mocked, ridiculed. A sinless man, dying a sinner's death on the cross, yet he went without a word. And I wonder how much Mary truly embodied this as well, because she got to experience what I would say in a fraction, or fractionally, something that Jesus later in life experienced fully, being completely misunderstood. Even the ones who would say, yes, you are the Messiah, completely misunderstood in that. It's like, wait, why aren't we at war? Why aren't you leading us in on a horse? It's interesting, in culture at that time, fun fact, in culture at that time, a king would ride in on a horse if it meant war, and he would ride in on a donkey if it meant peace. And what did Jesus ride in to Jerusalem? Right before he was crucified, a donkey.

He came, even in a way where people misunderstood why he had come. Misunderstood God's mission at hand. And so she experienced, fractionally, what Jesus would experience fully, despised, rejected, ridiculed, mocked. But yet still obedient to what God has asked her to do. And there's a weightiness to all that. I mean, there's the actual physical weightiness. I mean, anyone, I love a good, funny video. I mean, Josh has woken up on numerous occasions to the bed shaking, but it's me laughing, like on my side of the bed, anyone else? And it's like, oh, you gotta see it, babe, it's so funny. If you've ever seen maybe someone that is in their like, eighth, ninth month of pregnancy, and then they really give their husband the great privilege of, you know, saran wrapping the watermelon to the belly and a couple cantaloupes to his pecs. Anyone see this one? It's hilarious. And it's crazy how quick empathy kicks in. It's crazy how a little bit of a perspective shift, there is such empathy for the weight that that man's spouse has been carrying. And there is, we don't get to walk through life without weight, because with responsibility comes weight. We have kids to raise, challenges to navigate, bills to pay, disappointments to grieve, jobs to work,

but we have a Savior who teaches us a different way to carry that weight. And so we see how Jesus teaches this. In Matthew 11, verse 28, some of just my favorite pieces of Scripture. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So what Jesus is doing here, he's calling his disciples, he's calling us to a rest for our souls with the weight of what we've been asked to carry. So somehow in God's kingdom, which I always say it's the upside down kingdom, because the way that we think things should work, it works the opposite way in God's kingdom. So calling us to rest for our souls, but he's using a work instrument to illustrate it. So at the time, a yoke would have been put on two. Two, what, cattle, something, yeah, animals, we'll say. I'm not a farm person, I'm a city person. You'd hook it up to two animals, let's say, strong animals, to do what? The work, to carry the weight, to complete the work. And so then Jesus is saying, we're saying, yes, yes, rest, first souls, I come to you and rest. But then he says, put my yoke upon you.

Put what I, it's his yoke and it's his burden. Where we like to just put the burden of the world and all the weight on us, and we're like, we're tough North Dakotans, we just know how to grit and bear it and get through it. But Jesus is saying, no, no, no, there is a way to carry the weight, there's a holy way to carry the weight. And it's taking on his yoke and his burden. I mean, I reached that point this week. Oh, I always, I mean, it's great to preach. Thank you, Josh, I love it. I mean, it is, it's like the, it is the most sacred thing to do is proclaim the gospel. But there's a testing before you get to be used by God. And I was tested to the max this week. And I said to Josh, ooh, I'm wondering if something's gonna break me. Something might break me this week. I don't know what it's gonna be, it's like a surprise. But what broke me, and I'm gonna cry about it again, wasn't the sinus infection I got, wasn't needing to go to the doctor, wasn't the order that we had scheduled to come that showed up at 10 p.m., don't even get me started on that, wasn't, oh, what else went wrong, I don't know, some other things, wasn't any of that. It was waiting in line to get my antibiotics after going to see the doctor,

and a picture pops up on my phone. And it's one of our kids at their event at school that I forgot. And every mom in the house, you know, oh, the weight, the weight that came on me. And I texted Josh and I said, I figured out what broke me. And it would be letting my kid down, or I could see her sweet little face looking up into the stands for me, and I'm not there. But I was so grateful. God ministered to me in that moment. It's interesting, because it's easy to stand, to be like, let him carry the weight. But sometimes the weight, it crushes you. And you, in that moment, I just kept saying, Lord, you don't just save me, you sustain me. So sustain me now, Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, Scripture says you are my helper, you need to help me. I need help, I need strength, I can't do this. And it's the most worldly statement ever, it's not biblical, people say, God will never give you more than you can carry. Oh, gosh, no. He 1,000% gives us way more than we can carry, because the absolute best posture that we can take is dependent on him, and not on ourselves. I would say we're not walking in obedience. I'm not saying fill your life until, it was all these unexplainable things is what I'm saying

that kind of just added up, and you know. But God gave me a real life application to be like, Janae, who's carrying the weight? Like, are you taking this on? Or are you taking up on my yoke and my burden? Doesn't mean we're gonna be perfect, but he gives us a way to carry the weight, and he knows the weight is rightly distributed on him, and on his shoulders. And maybe today you need a heavenly exchange. You've been carrying the weight on your own, and you need a heavenly exchange, and you need to take upon his yoke and his burden, which is easy and light. The only weight that is on you and on me is obedience. The only measuring stick for success in God's kingdom is if you have obeyed what he has asked you to do. And I can't compare my obedience to your obedience or that person's obedience to that person's obedience, because the only person that will stand before the Lord one day and give account for that is you and is me. And so don't put the weight of what God is calling other people to on you. Live out what he is calling you to. Our best yes is the one of obedience to the Lord. My favorite phrase in all of this scripture that we're reading is the angel's response. And he says, the Holy Spirit will. Oh, I love that statement. I hope it's like commonly said in your heart,

in your mind, in your life. And so when we recognize the Lord is with us, when we hear what God is calling us to, then I have a question. Do we then internalize the pressure on us? Do we say, okay, God's calling me to do this, I better do this, I better make this happen. Or do we say, okay, Holy Spirit, this is what I'm sensing that I'm to do. What are you gonna do? Holy Spirit, what are you gonna do? I love that that's the angel's response. The Holy Spirit. will, the symptom of us understanding who carries the weight is who do we place the expectation on? Is it upon the power of God or is it upon our human will and strength? And yes, we, Josh and I fully believe that excellence brings influence. I believe Christians should be of the most excellent people in whatever craft God has called you to because every bit of it, even eating, is supposed to be unto the glory of God. And so we should be of excellence, not performance, because we have nothing to prove, but excellence because we are the ambassadors here on earth, the ones representing Christ to a world. And so Mary, really, I think, demonstrated beautifully how to do, really, what I would say is the next point

of who we wanna be. And her response was truly being a woman who believes that God's purpose will prevail. Number four, be a woman who believes God's purpose will prevail. Verse 38, Mary responded, "'I am the Lord's servant. "'May everything you have said about me come true.' And then the angel left her. I call this her posture, is her heart posture, maybe even her physical posture. I call this the amen posture. And if you've been at Evangel for any length of time, you've probably heard Josh or myself or maybe someone else on platform, we often say, you know, if we pray or preaching something, we say an amen means so be it. So if you agree and you wanna say so be it, you can say amen. That's right, yes. The 8 a.m. didn't do that. It's all right, I won't hold it against them. You guys are with it. You guys, every service has a personality. Did you know this? It's like, it's kind of fun as someone who sits in all the services. And I love it, I love all of you. I love every service for your personality. You guys are the chatty ones and I like it.

I mean, you respond, it's fun. I'm a chatty person, so. Gosh dang it, I shouldn't do that. I lose my train of thought. Amen means so be it. And yeah, if you've ever sat in a service with me, I'm a very vocal encourager in service. Not because I want to be loud, but if someone is preaching about injustice in God's heart for those who are maybe the least of these, I'm gonna say amen. Not because it is a, oh, this is a little soapbox. I'm gonna go on it though. In Christian culture, we think amen is this passive statement like a period on the end of our prayer. And amen is a declarative statement that means so be it. And so we're not just saying amen. We're saying amen. And I just, that posture, you see it in Mary. I'm the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true. So be it, Lord. And I think there is kind of two applications of that. I think it's the posture of okay, so be it, Lord. Your will be done. And then I think, like someone taught me early on, God can't steer an idle ship, Jenae. So go be it. And so be it.

So if God is calling you to be a teacher, amen. So be it. If he's calling you to be a CEO, maybe he's calling you to be an entrepreneur. Maybe he's calling you to be a stay-at-home mom. So be it. And maybe you're saying, well, yeah, that's real easy. Say amen when there's an angel at your doorstep. And yeah, maybe, more than likely, maybe, God won't send you an angel. But we serve a generous God who has given us all of his word completely in its entirety. And sometimes people are like, oh, I'm just trying to discern the will of God, and we just need direction, and we just need clarity, and I'm just not hearing God. And I'll say, how much time are you spending in the word? And it's like, well, I just, I'm not much of a reader. It doesn't really make sense. Whoops. I don't really have time. If I never spoke to my husband, been married almost, how many, 12, 13 years, somewhere around there. I don't know how long we've been married, guys. I just, it's been at least that many. But if I didn't talk to him that whole time, or very rarely, and you put five guys behind a wall and I had to identify his voice, I would fail. I would not know his voice

because I would not have been talking to him for all the time that I said I'd been married to him. And so people will say, well, I don't know what God's calling me to, I don't know his voice. You'll understand God's accent if you read his word. You'll understand the tone that he takes if you read his word. It's like how we're like, oh yeah, sure. God has an accent. It is love and kindness and faithfulness. It is gracious, it is compassionate, it is slow to anger, and abounding in love. Amen, yes. Everyone's gonna say amen more, I love it. But I want you to just also take home that amen. It's not just an affirmation, it's an implication. Because it is not this thing of calling me, so get focused, oh my word, it's so American. God, where are you calling me to? And we think of it like our vision board, and we just want the name of Jesus slapped on it. But no, it actually is his story happening, like this is his story of his love for us. You're not David in the book. He's the one that slays the giant, he is. We're the ones that are helpless. It's a story of him, it is his story. And so even no matter what you're called to, no matter what he is asking you to do,

we have to have faith, we have to know it is God's purpose that will prevail here on earth. It is heaven, come. It is his purpose, and so it is his story, but there is individual implication for each one of us. And so maybe even you're struggling with this. I don't know, you're saying all these things, I don't know, maybe I am already doing what God's called me to do. There are just blanket amen statements in scripture. And so let's stand as we close today. And I just want to encourage you to take whatever amen posture that is for you, because God's word says, across the board, live a holy and pure life, amen. Be a disciple that makes disciples, amen. To be chosen in a royal priesthood that proclaims God's praises, amen. To be a friend of Jesus and transformed by his spirit, amen. Do good works and to know his purpose for you, amen. And 2 Corinthians 5, 17, go be a new creation in Christ. So be it. So if you're called to be a CEO, if you're called to be a stay-at-home mom, if you're called to marriage, to be a spouse, then amen, in a godly way, amen. And so whether it's acknowledging that God's with you, hearing what he's called you to do, believing that his purpose will prevail, or handing him the weight today.

As we close in worship, would you just take your amen posture with me, because I'm giving him my amen today. Amen from an empty cup, or amen from a full cup. Amen where the brook has dried up, or amen, from in the wilderness or from the mountaintop. Lord, I'm gonna give you my amen. I'm gonna give you everything I have. So be it in my life. So be it in my workplace. So be it in my home. And let's worship him with our posture of amen, Lord. Amen.