GYC SE 2008: ReGeneration

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GYC Southeast

Janice Watson: Proverbs 31, Can It Be You?

Janice Watson

Becoming a Godly Woman Part 1

I want to welcome you back to our sessions this afternoon.

My name is Janice Watson, as most of you know.

Let me tell you just a little bit about myself so you have some sense of who you're spending the next couple of hours with.

I currently, as in for the last 5 weeks, teach at Oakwood University.

I'm brand new, my first time in the South, so I'm adjusting to the weather and the mountains and all kinds of other interesting things.

I may tell you my mountain story a little later in the presentation.

Prior to that I spent 20 something years at Andrews University teaching there and doing educational administration and God has allowed me the privilege and I counted both a privilege and a responsibility to travel and speak so I've had the privilege to speak with women on several continents in small groups, added large groups, and so some of the things that we're going to be talking about today will reflect what I've been hearing from women around the world on some of the issues that we deal with and we're gonna be addressing today.

In some ways this has been 1 of the more difficult presentations that I have prepared and done and my interpretation of that is that's probably because what we have to say is important.

And so pray with me as we share and we talk and as we work together.

Father God we thank you for your presence.

We thank you for these Sabbath hours and for the ways in which you have already ministered to us.

We thank you for the gifts that you've given so lavishly throughout these several days and we ask that your spirit would hover here in a special way.

You know our needs, you know each woman here and their individual needs.

Cleanse my tongue, Cleanse my heart, empty me of anything that would block your message, getting to your people.

And when all has been said and done, we promise to give you all the honor and all the glory.

Speak to us, we promise to listen, and we promise to obey, Amen.

When they, actually before I begin, I need to make a personal service announcement.

You know how sometimes in church or before the service somebody will get up and say, you know, there's a car in the parking lot with its lights on, car license number XXXX, and if that's not your car, you don't pay it any attention.

But if it is your car, you respond to it.

Well, I have 1 of those kinds of announcements.

If it's not yours, that's okay, yours will come again.

Typically when I'm preparing for a presentation, somewhere in that process I'll get a song and I don't sing.

So when something comes to me through music, it's unusual for me because I'm more a word person than a music person.

And I believe it was Monday morning, it's 6 something in the morning, and I was driving into work.

And I'm still trying to find stations in Huntsville, because I'm new and I don't know what they are, so I'm turning to religious stations just at random.

And a song came on, and it spoke to my heart that day.

And then on Thursday and Friday, it came back.

And I heard it on a different radio station in a different version.

And I'm like, okay, Lord, I'm getting the message.

And at that point, it was yes and somebody else needs it.

So if this is your message, this is your public service announcement.

I felt like I just couldn't take life anymore.

My problems had me bound, depression weighed me down.

God's mercy kept me, so I wouldn't let go.

I was right at the edge of the breakthrough, but I couldn't see.

God's mercy kept me so I wouldn't let go.

And it concludes, I'm here today because God kept me.

I'm alive today only because of his grace.

If you're holding on by your fingernails to something, and we're off topic and that's okay.

If you're holding on and you're not quite sure how you're going to make it, the message for you is God's holding on to you.

And he's holding on to you so you don't let go.

I Don't know who you are, but I've been praying for you since Thursday And if that's your message receive it When they called me and asked me to come to this conference, I'd never been to Southern, sounded like a good idea, and I was in Ohio, and it was going to be warm down here, and I said, sure, I'd love to come.

And then she said, and we would like you to talk about being a godly woman.

You know, I had just said, yeah, I'd love to come.

And I thought about it and immediately all kinds of things started coming to my mind.

And the first thing I thought is, why are they asking me?

Because you know, when they ask about the godly woman, don't they want you to come and talk about Proverbs 31?

When I was growing up, when they had Women's Day, they had this and this, and they talked about the godly woman, it was always Proverbs 31.

And it was a very clear image that I had in mind based on that of what the godly woman, and you know, you're growing up, you do these kinds of images.

What's the stereotype that you hear, that you see, of what a godly woman is like?

So I will ask questions, and my students will tell you, and then I wait.

And I'll wait till it gets painful in here.

I felt like it's like a superwoman, like everything was done and everything went well, and writing is just, whoa.

When you read Proverbs 31, there truly is the superwoman.

She gets up early in the morning, she stays up late at night, her husband thinks she's awesome and boasts about her all the time, her children say good things about her.

Now honestly, those of you who have husbands and children, sometimes they say good things about you.

But I don't know Anybody whose husband and children praise her all the time.

And she's spinning things and she's cooking things and she's managing other people and she sews and she spins.

I mean, And in a little bit I'll tell you why that was so to me at the time.

So 1 concept that we have is that the godly woman is superwoman.

What does the voice of a godly woman sound like?

She's sweet and she's quiet and she's soft-spoken and her voice is sometimes very high.

You know when you listen to the godly woman on the Christian radio stations don't they mostly have really high voices and they speak very softly.

I can almost, when I turn a station, even if I don't know who it is, I can often say with a few exceptions, oh, this must be a Christian woman.

She's submissive, which means that people get to walk over her.

Becoming a Godly Woman Part 2

Lord, you who created us for your glory, and who looked at that creation and found it good.

You who redeemed us in your mercy by your blood, so that through your grace, you could look at us and find us good.

We thank you and we ask that your spirit would guide us, speak through us, speak to us.

May all that we say give you glory and may we be changed by your word.

We started our first session today talking about our identity, who we are in Christ.

And we start there because as women, perhaps 1 of the most severe attacks on our possibilities as godly women is mistaken identity, not understanding who we are.

And I will not go back through that session, but we concluded, at least part of our conclusion was, that as God's children, as his daughters, we can operate with confidence.

The attitude that our worth is determined not only by who God is, but who God says we are.

By the fact that he made us, he redeemed us, we are born and adopted into his family and our inheritance is in him.

And we argued that there were 5 different issues that women struggle with on the way to being or in the process of being godly women.

Relationship and role is another or another 2.

And then we also talked about appearance and success.

In this session we want to talk about relationships and roles, and in the last session we're going to talk about appearance and success.

So those of you who came to hear about clothing, that's the next session.

Somehow they tend to get higher on our agendas anyway.

What does it mean to say that God created us in his image and he created us for relationship?

What does Genesis tell us about the relationship between men and women from the beginning.

Because God wanted somebody that he was going to be in relationship with.

Man was created to be in relationship with God, yes?

And then God decided man needed to be in relationship with another human.

And I have this picture of the 3 of them in the garden.

And the pastor did such an excellent, excellent job on Friday night, I hope you didn't miss it, of talking about the ways in which Eden reflected part of heaven.

The ways in which Eden was heaven literally on earth.

And in the heaven on earth that was Eden, how did the humans relate to each other?

Is there anything that you know about Genesis, about how Adam and Eve related to each other before the fall?

They enjoyed being in each other's company.

She was made a helpmate for him, and he had the job of?

Watching over everything, taking care of the garden.

That Adam was put in the garden in charge.

In the beginning, Adam was put in the garden in charge.

Do we notice that that was a problem before sin?

We have no indication that there was a problem with that before sin.

But what is the first thing that happens after sin?

When God comes to the garden, who does he call?

Eve messed up and then Adam messed up right behind her.

Eve was the 1 who went to the tree, but when God comes to the garden, God calls.

God comes to the garden and he says to Adam, you know what, Adam, I left you in charge.

And already people are pointing fingers and the system stops working.

That it was after sin that the system stopped working.

In God's original system, Adam and Eve were doing just fine.

The fact that Adam named her, the fact that Adam was in charge, that God called Adam first, was not a problem.

I'm going to talk about that a little later and why that was not a problem and why it's been a problem ever since.

But in the beginning, it was not a problem.

What does God say after sin about the man and the woman?

You're looking at me like you didn't read it.

Is that looking at me like, I mean, beautiful faces, wonderful faces, as blank as all get out.

Eve sins, God talks to Adam, they try to hide, they, You know, put on the clothes and you know all of that and then what happens?

He had to work And she had to be submissive.

Well, the interesting thing about it is That same word desire is used elsewhere in scripture, talking about Cain.

And it is not simply that your heart is to your husband, but also there's a struggle.

Becoming a Godly Woman Part 3

Father, you've promised that you would speak to us, and you've been faithful to your promise.

Even, Lord, when I wondered what you were doing and how you were going to do it, you've been faithful, and I thank you for that.

And Lord, when we have heard your word, give us hearts to respond.

Give us the ability to say yes, and then to obey and act on what we've heard.

And we promise, Lord, to give you all of the honor and all of the glory forever.

We've been using the analogy of princesses.

Princesses with attitude, princesses who marry princes and stay away from frogs.

Okay, We've been talking about princesses who know how to live in the order of authority that God has given for their own good and the good of the others that God has placed in relationship with them.

Everywhere I go, every time I go, somebody will come up to me and say, and often it's phrased as, well shouldn't people wear da da da da da da.

I went to the Caribbean, did a week of prayer, and someone came up to me and said, is it okay for women to wear bathing suits?

And I said, yeah, as far as I know, is it, you know, is the bathing suit modest, so forth and so on.

And the next night, someone showed up and said, see, you're telling the young people that they can wear bathing suits.

And we tell them that they can't wear bathing suits.

Long conversation about whether or not you can wear bathing suits.

And then someone wanted me to tell what length dresses ought to be, how many inches below the knee, Da da da da da da.

The real question is not how long ought the dress to be.

What is the real question that we struggle with as godly women about appearance?

Okay, 1 of the questions is, is it okay to look sexy?

But there's a bigger question, which is, what does a godly woman look like?

Because I think if you can answer that question, It helps answer some of these other questions.

What does the Bible tell us that a godly woman looks like?

Anybody have a Bible passage that you can refer us to that tells us what a godly woman would look like.

Now see, I know I'm sitting here with Bible scholars who brought their Bibles with them.

And so you may want to turn to somebody close to you and reference with them.

You know, I find something interesting when I come to sessions like this.

Why do you make the assumption that I will have things to tell you about the Bible and you will have nothing to say about scripture, princesses, children of God, who should know their father's word.

Y'all, take a moment, find somebody next to you, share with each other.

See if you can find a Bible passage that says something to us about appearance.

And now there are all kinds of people saying, I know there's a text in there somewhere.

Okay, we've got something to start with here.

Of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold or of putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of the meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

Peter talks about outward adornment versus inward adornment.

Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Huh, because you need the second verse for the verse before.

Because what we've got pretty consistently is outward-inward, outward-inward.

You look at the passages and the passages say, not with this outward stuff, but with the inward stuff.

I want to start with the inward adornment.

Because we tend to spend a lot of time arguing about the outward adornment.

Esther to the daughter of the proud and failed, the uncle of 1 of Cair, who had taken care Okay.

And so we're looking at Esther where Esther, rather than adding what many people added to be beautiful, took only what God recommended for her.

We're still getting to this business of inward adornment versus outward adornment.

And what I want to know is What do godly women look like inwardly that adorns them outwardly?

And I'll tell you what really pushed me to that question.

I went to the hairdressers And we were doing my hair and I said to her, please be careful with what you do with my hair because I don't wear earrings.

And she said, you don't wear makeup either, do you?

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Janice Watson: Proverbs 31, Can It Be You?

Becoming a Godly Woman Part 3

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