The Church of Eleven22 - [BONUS] Relate: a conversation about your love life - Episode 03: The Woman

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

722 family, we're back on Relate, where we're having a conversation about our love lives. Whether you're here for the first time checking it out or we're now a part of your Monday night routine, we are excited to have you dig deeper with us into what the Bible says about our love lives. Last week, we had some very special guests on, including Pastor Ryan Kwan all the way from California. Check out some of our conversation on singleness. The first question we have, is there such a thing as finding the one, one, one, you know. There's only one right person. And his name is Jesus.

Amen. All the rest of us are the wrong persons that are completely dependent on His grace in all of our relationships, specifically the covenant relationship of marriage. We were content in being single. And we both were like, we washed our hands of dating and all that stuff. And we did not know each other. And then we met doing ministry. And that's how we met.

And we were both like, no, we're not dating anybody right now. Because we were more content and focused on our relationship with the Lord and what his calling was in our life. And then that ultimately brought us. Yeah. So good. That is minimizing the work of Jesus for us when we say we are being punished by God. Because then we're robbing Christ the glory of actually taking all the punishment for us.

And so when you stop thinking of singleness as this period of waiting and you just live in the moment and you live in the now, you're able to look around and say, okay, Lord, how can you use me now? And it's just really amazing to be able to walk that out. All right, so are you guys ready to get started? Sure. Yeah. Okay, we're going to do a couple icebreaker questions, newlywed style. So to Pastor Joby, if Gretchen could go on vacation anywhere, where would it be?

I think Hawaii, although we've never been. Would that be correct, if you had to pick somewhere? That's a good place. That sounds like you're wrong, but she wants to affirm that. I don't know that I would have put it on my card. We probably would have lost that one. Oh, yeah. Well, okay, we'll try again.

Here we go. This is for you, Gretchen. Okay. If Joby was stranded on an island. and could only listen to one song, what would it be? Like, one song for the rest of his life? Anything by Shane and Shane. Okay.

So I can't really pick one. I'm so spiritual. I thought it was going to be for sure, like Johnny Cash or something. He's good? Yeah. Chicken Fried or Toto, Africa? I heard you're often heard singing Bohemian Rhapsody into that. It's very long, so at least you would be kind of entertained over the course of the story.

And it's like four different songs in one, so that's good. There you go. Okay, and then both of you are going to answer this one. We'll start with Gretchen. You're going to answer what. how he would answer. You have a Friday night open. What does Pastor Jobi choose to do? Stay home. We all stay home. And what would Gretchen choose to do? Go sit at the bar at Market 32 and order appetizers. Okay. So pretty different. So sometimes you do...

With me, I hope. That would be your second choice. Very cool. All right. So let's get into it. So this weekend, you preached on what it looks like to be a godly woman. Yeah, no pressure there. As you mentioned, you are not a woman and never have been one, but you've been studying one for a bit. And so our conversation today, we've gotten some questions from our women in our congregation really hungry for some handles on how they walk in that. So you talked about the four H's of a godly woman as described in Song of Solomon, holy, humble, hardworking, and hot. Where do you see these show up in Gretchen's life?

Well, and I covered a lot more, so it's not just those, but those are kind of the you know, kind of the cornerstones there. And I just did the H's because the first time I taught it, I was teaching the dudes and they're not that smart and had to boil it all down to make it start with the same letters they could remember stuff. But really, Gretchen's all those things. She loves Jesus.

That's what it means to be holy, to be set apart. She's been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. She walks out her faith in a very real and practical way. She's super hardworking in what she does for our kids, the way, like, she truly is a homemaker, and though she stays at home, and, you know, we just share our income, she just has a job outside of that, you know, a stay-at-home mom with kids are some of the most hardworking humans on the planet. I don't know how they do that, but she does. She's truly humble, like, she's so talented, she's so gifted, she's so pretty, all of those things,

and I honestly don't know how much she even sees that in herself, you know? And humility, I said this, Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's just thinking of yourself less. And then she's smoking hot. And, uh, but what I was saying about that is, like, I'm utterly obsessed with my wife. I really am.

I mean, utterly obsessed. I know. I really, like, I truly am. Um, and she's super pretty. But she, she also, like, really does take care of herself, not just in the gym and stuff, but she really does take care of herself and has often said that she does that for me. So,

that's cool. Yeah, that's very cool. Win-win. That's what we call that. Win-win. Okay, so Gretchen, when you hear the 4-Hs or any of the characteristics that Joby laid out for us in Song of Solomon, where do you find that maybe you have to work really hard at, or maybe you see women have to work really hard at? I think the holy part is probably the hardest because of busyness. You get busy, and then your, you know, a week goes by, two weeks go by, and you haven't actually spent time with a little. Lord personally or whatever. You've got kids, you've got sports, you've got laundry, an outside

job if you have an outside job, and then you have to come home to do all that stuff after a full-time job. A lot of women struggle with that. And so I think time with the Lord and really, I think holy, it's probably the one that is way, way hard. You probably just encouraged every woman watching this to hear you say that busyness is a real thing. and that's something you struggle with. And I think that is true for many of our women. Yeah. So we got this question sent in, and I read it, and just my heart totally went out to this person

because I'm like, yes, and this is so true in so many women. And it said, some days my insecurity feels overwhelming. Can I get an amen? I hear the lies, I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy enough, I'm not pretty enough, I'm too much, fill in the blank. How do I combat insecurity and walk in the freedom of Christ? How much time we got? I could spend an hour on this one question.

Every woman has insecurities. Don't let them tell you they don't. If they do say that, they're lying. Every woman on this planet has an insecurity. And it's a really tough thing in society right now. The three number one insecurities in women are beauty relationships. and intellectual ability. Honestly, the world we live in,

social media drives so many of those thoughts in women. And it's really hard. It's really hard to believe what Christ wants you to believe when you've got all these things you're scrolling all the time and you're wanting to be more like them or you're coveting what they have or their relationship looks better than yours, or she's skinnier than me. You know, there's a constant thing in this world, and it is a huge, huge struggle.

I, about three years ago, I think it's been three or four years. On Easter, when we do Lent, I gave up social media. I gave it up, disabled my accounts, and I gave up HDTV, because that was. was a struggle in my life. Like, it made me insecure about who I was because I was constantly looking at other people and the life that they had, but they didn't really. You know, they had a fake, fudged page that I perceived as better than me or what I, what life had to offer me or what Christ had to offer me. And so I cut it out and realized how much happier I was. I was just always like grumpy or angry because I was spending time looking at all this stuff, you know.

And I think that's a huge thing. And I think women have to realize that first they have to realize it's a struggle and admit that it's a struggle and then they have to seek the Lord versus seeking other things because that is a huge, huge issue. I would, I would for sure recommend And I mean, if it's a deeper issue, then there's something going on talking to someone. And then just figuring out, where are you spending your time? Are you spending your time looking at everyone else's life? Or are you spending time with your creator that made you perfectly? And also ask yourself, are you playing the comparison game?

Because that's a huge issue. the comparing, goes along with everything I've already said, but are you playing the comparison game? Because really, if you're comparing yourself, if I compare myself to you, am I, I'm basically saying God didn't get it right

with me. He just didn't get it right. And so I don't know that anyone would actually come out and say that they believe that God didn't get it right because God gets everything right. But it's kind of the same thing. You know?

Yeah, so it's really identity. And I love what you said. Look at where you're spending your time. Is it scrolling or is it in the presence of your creator? Yeah. So good. Do you have anything you can comment on just how do you combat that? You know, godly women are humble, but it's like insecurity is like the evil step-cousin of humility, you know?

Like the shoot-in-mite woman says, do not look at me because I am dark. But she's got this confidence because she says, yet I am lovely and later, she says, I'm a rose of sharing. So somehow she has this confidence. And a whole lot, like as men, as married men, one of the roles that we can play is to help pay attention to the things that your wife allows to go into her ears, including her own self-talk.

I mean, think about this. There's Adam standing next to his wife, Eve, and the devil is talking to his girl, and he never speaks up. One of the things I think we have to do is not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of our mind. And so the world says, man, I think it is a tough time to be a girl. I don't even know who, like, your models are. Right.

Like, what does success look like for you? Right. It's hard. It's either if you're not beautiful, you're not lovable, and beauty isn't impossible. Like, even the girls, they take the pictures of, can't live up to their own pictures because of everything they do to. enhance the pictures. So that's one version where they basically say, women, treat yourself as a commodity and use your body to get what you can. That's one version that the world offers. And then the other version is this weird like, just be a man with a skirt. And that's weird. So, right?

And so I think you've got to identify those lies. The comparison thing is huge. And I would highly encourage you to memorize Psalm 139, particularly verse 14. that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your work's wonderful. I know that full well. I have an 11-year-old. I pray it over her every single night of her life because when those world lies to her,

I want to plant the anchor of God's word so deep in her soul that she recognizes the lie. And then I want to do the same thing with my wife and just encourage her in all the ways that I can. Yeah. So in the same vein, but a little bit different, we got some questions sent in. how can women build up other women?

I know you touched on comparison, which I think is a good thing not to do, but what are some things, how can we build each other up as women? Because we are some of the first to tear each other down, right? And so what does it look like for us to change that narrative?

Well, I think you have to really, really surround yourself by other godly women, older women is a big thing. Like, just to have an older woman in your life it's been through the things that you're going through currently or, and then I'm an older woman now. So I feel like I can do that for people who, like you, you know, that you haven't quite gone through all the things. Yes, please help me.

You know, and that's huge. Like the building up is, I think it just comes from Christ. It comes from your relationship with the Lord first. And then getting rid of all of those comparisons If you don't do that first, you can't build another woman up. You have to love the way God made you so that you can help other women love who they are and how God made them. For sure. So good.

Okay, Pastor Jobi, I want to hear your answer on this. We got this from actually quite a few women. It says, as a strong-willed, independent woman, it is hard at times to let my husband. husband lead. I don't know if you know any strong women in your life, but any advice here. So, lay down the reins, man. Lay down the rains. There's all kind of things Christ ask us to do that don't align with our will. And if everything God asks you to do aligns with your will, you're not really serving the one true God because we have a sinful will. The key is, is that the Bible says that wives should submit to their own husbands. It does not say

women submit to men anywhere in the Bible, but wives should submit to their own husbands as unto the Lord. So really, that kind of submission issue is really not with your husband. It's first and foremost with the Lord. And you can either be right or you can be a good wife. And there's a bunch of people that were right. Because listen, I get it. If you let him lead, because that's what submission is. It's an invitation to lead. It's like, no, I think you can do this. Even if they can't do it as good as you can, and obviously they're not as smart as you are, they're not as organized as you are. That's not the point at all. The point is, do you trust Christ enough that he has anointed and appointed your husband to be the husband? And then you should act like it. And then when you're getting it

right, so that wife submit verse, it comes after a verse that says that we should be mutually submitted to one another out of reverence for Christ. So when we're getting it right, it's that we are both just considering each other is more important than ourselves, that her deal is bigger than mine, and vice versa. What often happens, though, is women think they're helping. It comes across as nagging, and I've never once seen a wife nag her husband into stepping into the servant leader that God has called him to be. It just doesn't work.

The best thing you could do, as a strong-willed, independent woman, is submit your will to Christ and you don't want to be independent. You want to be completely dependent on Christ and you you want to be interdependent with your spouse. Good. So what if maybe the wife is a believer and the husband is a non-believer? Are they still to submit to the leadership of their husband? As long it's not outside of the ultimate leadership that is Christ. But yes. And in fact, what I I tell if you're a Christian woman, you come to 1122, and your husband plays golf every Sunday and won't come with you or whatever, the worst thing you could do is go home and quote me about the things he ought to do. What First Great The Ends seven would say that you should do

is that the more you come to church and the more you are disciples, the more you should love and respect and serve him to the point where he is thinking, I may not believe this whole Jesus thing, but please, darling, keep going to church. Because the more you go to church, you go to church, the more you are, this like dream wife that I hope for. Instead of nagging him about playing golf, what if every Sunday you got his golf clubs ready? And then when he got home said, how'd you play? Was it good? Because then what's going to happen, he's going to be like, hey, where'd you learn that? At this church I go to? And I promise that will, like, the Bible says in Rome is that it's the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance. God doesn't nag us to repentance.

And so, yes and amen. I would say that you should submit and love and serve your husband like crazy for the sake of the gospel. And Gretchen, we talked about this little bit on the Godly Man Week, but how do you balance between nagging and, I don't know, holy reminding? I don't know how else to say it, but, you know, there's things you want your spouse to do for your house or family, but what does that balance? You know, I think it all, I don't know. I really don't know. I think everything at times will come across as nagging. I think it just depends on the mood in the house.

If the mood in the house is bad all the time, then everything is going to come across as nagging. When we're doing great and I wholly remind him, then it doesn't come across as nagging, if that makes sense. If the house is all out of whack and if it merits, is all out of whack anyway, everything's going to come across negative, no matter what. But, I mean, there's a lot of women who are strong-willed and have that personality type, that dominant leader personality, challenger, eight on the anagram, D on the disc profile.

And in society, for women, it's considered a negative thing. And for men, it's like a great thing. It's what you want in the man. and I think you just have to really balance that, and you have to submit to the Lord and know that you have different roles in the house. But don't apologize for who you are and how God made you. Use it somewhere.

Use that strong will somewhere in your life. And don't apologize for how God made you. I mean, I know a lot of strong-willed women, and they've learned how to do it. like, you know, at home, and they lead powerfully outside of the home. So we've now spent a week on the godly man and the godly woman. And as we look at impacting the next generation, can you talk to us a little bit about what do you do with J.P. and Reagan to help foster

an environment so that hopefully they'll, you know, be raised as godly men and women? One of the things is we raise our kids in the church, man, we are so grateful to the volunteers in kids ministry and the volunteers in student ministry. I mean, there's no way we can do this without our church family, and that matters so much. And the friends, all of our kids' best friends were all the kids they met here at church, you know. And so their peer group matters like crazy. And then especially as our kids move into those teenage years, and they're less likely to talk to us about everything, which is a shocker for parents. But did you? You know, Did you tell your mom and daddy everything?

Right. So. They're watching this right now, but I told you. She was in our student ministry. She did not. So, but you want to have some godly adults in their life that they do feel like they can talk to, you know. That's a big part of it. Hopefully we model it. Man, we're not perfect.

We don't have a bunch of weird rules about we never fight in front of the kids. I think one of the greatest way you can lead your children as a husband is be the lead repinter in your house. And then there's some very practical things in our house we do. when J.P. sees his mama in the morning, and when she picks him up from school, he has to greet her with a hug and a kiss. Because that's just how we do it at my house. And then from the time Reagan was born,

we told J.P., your number one job is to protect Reagan. And then when he hit about eighth grade, we just shifted gears and said, they're all Reagan. So every girl you know is somebody's daughter, potentially somebody's sister. And so we want to create this kind of environment where godly men honor and respect any, any woman.

So we try to do some of those things. And then we pray over our kids. We pray Bible verses over our kids. Honestly, for Reagan, she knows she's fearfully and wonderfully made. She's very confident in that. And I think a lot of that has to do with, we tell her that every day. And so she's one of the most confident little girls, 11-year-old girls that I've ever seen. She doesn't let much get to her.

Yesterday after school, she was like, this boy called me ugly. And I'm like, I'm ready to like go out the door. I'm like, who's this boy? What's his name? What's his daddy's name? Totally, man. It made me so mad. And then I was like, well, did it bum you out?

She's not really. She's a straight up. She's like, I'm not ugly. And she's like, is he ugly? She's like, yeah, he's pretty ugly. So. That's amazing. I hope and pray that it's just like rooted in the reality that she is fearfully.

and wonderfully made. His works are wonderful. You are one of his works, and that you would know it full well so that the comment of some ugly little heathen fifth grade boy. Ten-year-old. Eleven. That's accountable. That his comments would not impact my little girl, but the Word of God would. For sure. So good. Well, this is the end of our conversation on being a godly woman. I truly feel like there's so much more we could chat about. we'll chat more about next generation in a few weeks towards the end of Song of Solomon where we may even see Reagan on the show. Don't say too loud. You may hear us and come on now.

Hey, I do want to say one thing. Yeah, please do. I am so impressed with the godly women of the Church of 1122. This place is full of some women that love the Lord and serve like crazy and our great wives and great moms. And for sure Jesus is the head of the church. and for sure the husband is the head of the home, but the women are the backbone of both. And so thank you.

Thanks for saying that. And thank you guys for being here. And for all of you tuning in at home, thank you for joining us tonight. I hope these conversations are giving you some practical handles to walk in all that the Lord has created you to be. I know I'm taking some amazing nuggets home.

Next week we'll be back with Pastor Jobi and Gretchen, plus some special guests, and we're going to be talking about dating, which is going to be awesome. Don't forget you can send in your questions for us to answer for the remainder of the series. You can go to co.e22.com slash Song of Solomon for more info. Thank you again for joining us for Relate. We'll see you soon, Church.