In Praise of Femininity

Today, okay, maybe just a little bit, just a little bit, but I'm actually going to talk about something that's a little more inclusive for all the ladies, all the ladies today, and the title of this talk—we don't call them sermons anymore, we call them talks—the title of this talk is In Praise of Femininity. In Praise of Femininity. I thought about calling it In Defense of Femininity, but you know what? I don't have to defend. I don't have to defend femininity.

God doesn't need me to defend what He says about me and who I am and who we are in His design. And praise—praise is something that we as women, we really crave. It's in us to receive praise and to crave praise in that way. And I said, let's praise femininity today—biblical femininity. So that's what we're going to talk about today, but you know what?

We've got to get some vocabulary out of the way first. We've got to talk about what femininity is and what it is not before we can really jump into our points. Femininity is not about wearing high heels, or makeup, or having nice lashes, or doing in your hair, or liking to bake, or I don't know what other girls like to do, or, you know, homemaking, or being emotional. I mean, if you know me, you know I'm famously unemotional and rational to my husband's, you know, probably displeasure. He wishes I could be a little more comforting and sweet and soft and gentle.

All of that, though, guys, that's not femininity. That has nothing to do with it. That's personality. That's personality. So, I don't want culture to dictate who you are as females, or who you are as males.

Masculinity. You can be super masculine and love to cook, and you can be super feminine and love to fish, and hunt, and shoot guns, and box. You can do all of that. That's all just personality, and we're not going to let culture dictate to us. This is an age of gender confusion, guys.

There's so much gender confusion, but you know what? God makes it very, very clear. Femininity and masculinity, they just come down to two things, guys. Two things. Biological composition and spirit.

That's it. Everything else is who you are, who you are as a person, what you like, and what you like to wear, and what you like to do, and I don't want you to let the world, or culture, or news, or pop stars, or TV stars tell you that you're not feminine, or you're not masculine, because you like this or that. God made you who you are. God made you feminine. God made you masculine, and nothing can take that away, and you don't have to be ashamed of it.

You don't have to be ashamed of it. I mean, look at me. Don't look. Don't look, but I'm not wearing any toenail polish. You looked.

You looked. Somebody looked. Don't look. Don't look. I'm not wearing any toenail polish, but I'm still feminine.

Just because I don't paint my toenails, I can still be feminine. Oh, you know what? But I did forget something. I forgot something. Before I want to jump into my message, I forgot to say, my mother is here.

My mother is here with us today. Happy Mother's Day to my mother. I was thinking of her, because she actually usually does paint her nails, and she looks very put together. But I actually have a picture of my mother, and me, and my brothers. Do we have that photo?

So, in honor of my mom, she's going to be so excited. Yes. She's going to be so thrilled that I put this up here. Look at this. I would like you to take note of her glorious hair.

It's nice and feathered. It's coming back. That's coming back. I would also like you to take note of my lace gloves and my Precious Moments Bible. This is, this is like so, so great.

I hope all this comes back. I hope all this. Also, look at my face. As you, most of you might know, my greatest accomplishment as a mother is basically asexually reproducing my son, Max. If you've seen him, we're like twins.

We look the same. Also gave birth, both of my children, on their due dates. Yeah. Yeah. Winning.

So, that's why I'm so excited that she came here from Tennessee to be with us today. Very excited about that. Okay. Back to the femininity. So, I want to talk about that today.

Just a few aspects of what biblical femininity looks like, and we're just going to celebrate it, guys. We're going to celebrate it, and we're not going to be offended. Right? Right? Okay.

I'm about one quarter through page one. All right. Yes. All right. First aspect of femininity I would love to talk about.

Women are built for relationship. Lots of them. We're built for lots and lots of relationships. We are very relational. We like to connect, and we like complex relationships, and we're most fulfilled when we are deeply connected with people.

This is why women can get together and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk about nothing. We accomplish nothing. We don't have to have an activity. We don't have to have an end goal in mind. We don't have to fix something or shellac something or, you know, use a jack or use like an air compressor.

We don't have to do anything. We like to just sit and talk. It's how we relate. It's not for problem solving. It's not for solution finding, which is how males do it.

So when the males come in, and they're like, let me tell you how to fix this, we don't care. We don't care. We're not trying to fix it. We don't think it's broken. But that's why we get together and talk a lot.

We're very, very relational. In fact, in Genesis 2.18, we see that we were literally created for the express purpose of providing relationship for another. And the Lord God said, it isn't good for man to be alone. I will make a companion for him, a helper suited to his needs.

That's in Genesis 2.18. So it's in our nature. And in fact, it's even, the curse even relates to that. Do you notice that?

In Genesis, after the fall of Adam and Eve, Eve's specific curse was literally in her relationships with her husband and her children, right? Satan came in and said, I'm going to try to disorder these. I'm going to try to get in and put anything between you, you know, and your husband. You're going to want to usurp his role. You're going to want to be the head.

You're going to want to take that over. And you're going to have pain in childbirth. And that pain does not stop at childbirth. If you have kids, you know it just goes on. You're going to be the head.

Yes, I love my children, but it's a lot of pain. So, Satan knew that women were built for relationships and that's how he tried to attack us, but what does Proverbs 31 say? That Proverbs 31 woman, I want to know what her name was, what book she read as a child, so I can just figure it out, because she was neat. Her children respect and bless her. Her husband joins in with words of praise.

Many women have done wonderful things, but you've outclassed them all. I just love that, you've outclassed them all. See how God praises women? Isn't it just beautiful? I love that.

So, the model, the first model of a godly woman is one who's deeply relational, and she blesses all of those in her life so much that they have to rise up and bless her back. And that comes out of our need to be relational. Page two. We're trucking now. Oh, you know what?

This is my very, very favorite one. I'm so excited. Okay, so the next, the next aspect of femininity I would love us to discuss. Help. Help.

It's not a four-letter word. It's not dirty. It's not naughty. This comes from who knows what the King James says, right? That God created Eve to be a suitable help-meet.

Help-meet. What is that? You're thinking, I am not the help, right? The ladies are like, I am not the help. Well, it's not this idea.

It's not about servitude, right? It's not about walking around and cleaning. That's not the kind of help we're talking about. This is our foundational role, though, so we can't get away from it, and I don't want to get away from it. Going back to Genesis, let's just rehash that.

The Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. We're going to come back to that. I will make a helper suitable for him. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found, so the Lord God caused man to fall into a deep sleep. And then he took a nap.

And while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. And the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. So as you can see in this verse, we actually have two words, alone and helper. And they're in opposition, but they are complementary. This is really, really important.

The man was created first, so in a sense he had preeminence. But it was not enough. It was not good that he was alone. It was not good. Think about it.

Do you remember in the desert, when the Israelites were in the desert wandering for all those years, what did God send to them for nourishment? Do you remember? Manna. Did he send anything else? No.

He sent them just manna. That is what they had to live on for 40 years. He sent nothing else. There was no accompaniment. He did it for a reason, right?

What does Deuteronomy say? It says, God did so that you might know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. The manna was sufficient to keep them alive, but it was not good. And it was not enough. God was making a point.

I would not have liked to have eaten just that. I always think, what is the stuff from Lord of the Rings? What's it called? Yes, that. I always think, I bet that's manna.

I think that's what it was. I think that's what it was. But they got so sick of it, right? They were like, oh no, it's not enough. So, this critical aspect of our femininity being a help meat, we have more.

We have something else. We have something better. Think about it. If you have a pipe burst in your house, and you want help to fix it, are you going to go to someone who knows less than you do about plumbing? No, you're going to go to someone who has more.

You're going to go to someone who can bring you something that you don't have. You're going to go to somebody who can give you something, equip you, who is better equipped than you are. That is what help meat means. That is who we are. We have something more.

We have something different. We help equip the man to be the men of God that they are supposed to be. That is part of our job, and it is a huge, huge, hugely important role. Now, of course, this idea of responsiveness and being a helper, it's reflective of our submission to the Lord, right? And it's in a certain context.

We don't want to just extend this to everywhere. For instance, the company I work for, my boss, the CEO of my company, is a woman. She's an incredible leader. She's the best boss I've ever had in my life. She is absolutely magnificent, and you can ask my husband.

He has praised her leadership qualities for years. Women are incredible leaders. So absolutely no one is saying that women should not be leaders. That's not part of who they are. We are talking about something, a very specific aspect of spirituality here, right, in context of Scripture.

So that's what we're talking about. And we want to make sure that you know that we're submitting to and being a help meat for men of God. I'm not saying we should just run around willy-nilly and do what every man says all the time. This is something bigger that's going on. This is something about our responsiveness and who we are as feminine women.

As the Scriptures say, a man leaves his father and his mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. This is a great mystery, but it's an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again, I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. I love how God says it's a mystery, and I don't know how it works, but it works. This complementarity does work because in these relationships as feminine women, we can be under male protection and leadership.

We can be pursued and wooed and loved and still be powerful equippers and leaders and women of God. In fact, 1 Corinthians 11, 7 says that the woman is the glory of man. Who loves that verse? I love that verse, the glory of man. So we don't have differing values for women, right?

We're not worthless. We're not worthless. We just have different roles. In fact, there's kind of this idea that a helper or a help meat is somehow weak or, I don't know, pathetic. And I don't know why, because do you know in the Old Testament, the key word that's used for help there is used 20.

Twenty-one times. Sixteen of those twenty-one, it's used to refer to God. God being the helper. In fact, the Holy Spirit, how is the Holy Spirit referred to often in the Bible? As a helper, as a comforter.

So, are we beneath that as women? Is that beneath us? That attribute of God Himself as a helper? It's so powerful, and it's in Scripture all the time, and we should take that up. We should take that up, and we should be very, very proud of it.

Because that's how strong we are in Christ. Now, a related idea of femininity. This is one of my favorite ones. A related idea. Nurturing.

Nurturing. So, this, guys, is in our nature. It is in our nature to nurture. It's a little bit related to the idea of the help me, but it is different. So, I'm going to start by saying something that is shocking.

It's going to shock everybody. So, like, you know, don't be shocked. But women have breasts. We have. I know.

I know. It's shocking. We literally have things that are designed to nurture. To nurture babies at our breasts. We have a uterus to hold a baby.

Even if you don't have children. Even if you don't want children. Even if you can't have children. You are still designed with that capacity. And that is still in you.

And even if you haven't physically had them, you still have that nurturing spirit. In fact, as a woman, we can reflect God's heart in a way that men often can't because of our capacity to have children. Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has born? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you.

See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands. That's what God says in Isaiah 49. It's so important. And a part of this nurturing is a sense of being. Right?

It's a sense of being. You don't actually have to have done anything or had any children to have a nurturing spirit. Think about Jesus. I love Jesus' interactions with Mary and Martha. Right?

When he interacts with Mary, what does he praise her for? He praises her for simply being. He doesn't praise her for keeping a house or being a homemaker or baking the bread and making the dinner and making sure everything's clean. He praises her for simply being and sitting at his feet, not for doing anything for him. So honestly, sometimes we as women can flourish the most in our nurturing role simply by being.

And then you can, and in that way, that actually helps equip the men in their own masculinity. My husband's going, you better listen to this and go home and enact it next week. And I was like, what did I say? Let me try to do it. Let me do it.

Let me do it. So we fill a different role, but it's a wonderful one. In fact, I love this. Paul points to this nurturing aspect of a mother in an evangelistic context in 1 Thessalonians. This is incredible.

Even though we had some standing as Christ's apostles, we never threw our weight around or tried to come across as important with you or anyone else. We weren't standoffish with you. We took you just as you were. We were never patronizing, never condescending, but we cared for you the way a mother cares for her children. We loved you dearly, not content to just pass on the message we wanted to give you our hearts.

And so we did. I love that. Paul actually spoke about mothers a lot. He spoke about Rufus, a friend of his, and he said that his mother was like his own. So specifically called her out and praised her.

But I love that he said here, when you're passing on the message of Jesus Christ, when you were evangelizing, when you were sharing the gospel, you actually need to have the nurturing heart of a mother. You need to show people not just the truth. You need to show them your heart. And that is what he said. I just love that he praises that nurturing spirit in the context of spreading the salvation message.

Nothing could be more important. Okay, sometimes the most misunderstood aspect of femininity. Can we talk today about beauty? Your beauty. Every woman in here.

You are a beauty. Women, we are designed to desire beautiful things. And it's okay. It's okay to love beauty. It is.

It's okay. And everyone in here is beautiful. God himself is referred to as beautiful all throughout scripture. How many songs do we sing talking about how beautiful God is, how beautiful Jesus is, and how beautiful they are. We love beauty.

And there are so many aspects of beauty. Now, one of the most important passages on beauty. I love the new American standard version. So that's what we're going to talk about today. You're adornment must not be merely the external, braiding the hair, wearing the gold jewelry, or putting on apparel, but should be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

So the NASB is very careful to say that your adornment must not be merely the external. At no point does it say that your adornment can't be external at all. At no point does he say you shouldn't take care of yourself. In fact, in Proverbs alone, it talks about her arms being very shapely. It says she dresses well.

God, a lot of the women in the Bible are adorned with jewelry and beautiful head coverings and all these things. Many women are called out specifically as beautiful. Bathsheba, Rebecca, Esther, Rachel, I'm sure there's more, Sarah. There's a lot of them. Beauty is wonderful.

However, sometimes in our brokenness, right, in our brokenness, we go one of two directions with our beauty. And I say this because I have so many beautiful friends, so I've seen it. I do. I have a lot of beautiful friends. We either focus too much and we put too much emphasis, right, on the external beauty, or we shy away from it and shun it as unholy, maybe because we fear it.

You know, one of those two things. So, page four, we're doing well. So, women pursue beauty, all kinds. But if we pursue it to the, you know, to the extreme and we spend hours and it's all we do and it's all we focus on, we have no time left over, right, for prayer, for service, for helping others, for studying God's word. If all we're doing is looking in the mirror, we can't be looking at people's hearts.

God says, I don't look at people's hearts. That outward stuff, I look at the heart and we need to have the heart of God, and if we are pursuing the heart of God, we are spending more time looking at other people's hearts and looking at people's needs and meeting their needs than we are looking at ourselves. We got to. It's hard because I need a lot of time in front of the mirror to get looking nice. Men, listen, all y'all who are like, I like my wife to look natural and no makeup.

Listen, do you know how hard it is to look natural and to look good? And if you're past 30, I'm sorry. Like, you can't. You need some help. Like, you need some makeup.

This takes work, and that's okay because we like to look nice, right? We like to look nice, but we don't have to go to the extreme because what's inside, it's just, what's outside is really just a reflection of what's inside anyway. And if you're pursuing God, that's going to come out of you and it's going to flow out of you and you're going to be so beautiful. It's going to come out of your eyes and your ears and your nose and everything. That's kind of gross.

But it's going to come all out of you, and you're going to be so beautiful to people, and you're not going to have to work that hard, which is wonderful, which is wonderful. Yes, a lot of beautiful women in here. Now, on the other end of the spectrum, on the other end of the spectrum, we got to be careful not to denigrate beauty, right? And it's very easy to. You know why?

Because us ladies, we're jealous. Oh, we're so jealous. We're so jealous of those beautiful women. I'm not. Thank God I have ugly friends.

I'm just kidding. They're so pretty. I have so many beautiful friends. And we're jealous sometimes. So we want to kind of pull that beauty down like it's not something special and important.

And it is because God gave that to you. God gave that to you just like he gave you your brain, just like he gave you your ability, you know, your ability to be an engineer or to be a marathon runner. He gave you your body and your face. And that's from him. And we should love it.

And we should praise it. And we should praise those who are beautiful and not make them feel shamed for it. You know? I think there's a lot of women too who maybe their beauty was used against them when they were children in an abusive way. And that's just sick and perverse.

And it twists around something that God gave our girls into something that they will fear. But that's the fear of man. It's not the fear of God. That did not come from God. Maybe you're afraid of being mocked for trying to be beautiful.

Maybe you think they're just going to make fun of me because I don't look like those other girls. I don't care. There's shame on those other girls for making you feel that way. It's sometimes it, I think it might be easier to say, well, I'm just going to eat and eat and eat. It's more, you know, and just feel comfortable and cover up my shape.

So no one will know I'm a girl and just gain so much that it doesn't matter anymore. And then that's just a shield because you're so scared of being hurt or being mocked or being jeered at. But that's not pursuing godliness. That's not showing a fear of God. That's a fear of man.

And I do not want us to have a fear of man anymore. And by man, I mean men and women, humanity. There is no fear. That's not how God created us. He did not create us that way.

It's okay to desire beauty. One of my very favorite verses, Song of Solomon is just an ode to beauty. It's nice. It's nice. But I feel like the men, when they pick verses, they pick kind of weird ones, like about the palms or, you know, deer or the teeth or whatever, you know.

But look, I found one that is so good. Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners? That's the lover to his beloved. He literally spends an entire book extolling her beauty, right? And God put that in canon for us for a reason.

And if we keep it in the right context, if we don't view outward beauty as unholy, but we also don't view outward beauty at the exclusion of everything else, we don't want to dismiss it. We don't want to detach from it. But we also don't have to be supermodels to be feminine and to feel beautiful. We just want to manifest what's going on inside. You love God.

You pursue God. You will look so beautiful. It will be just all over you. I mean, I've seen it. I see all these women in here, and it's just, it makes you so beautiful.

And my last point, I'm already there, guys. Can you believe it? I'm already there. A woman's vulnerability is her greatest strength. I'm not very vulnerable, so this one's hard at all.

We have an amazing ability and capacity as women to be sensitive and vulnerable and open, yet still able to withstand the onslaught of assault against that very vulnerability. We're very strong. In 1 Peter 3, 7, we see this. You husbands must be careful of your wives, being thoughtful of their needs and honoring them as the weaker sex. Remember that you and your wife are partners in receiving God's blessings, and if you don't treat her as you should, your prayers will not get ready answers.

Oh, it's hard to snap. I don't think this is saying she's weak or pathetic or low. God is saying this is a vulnerable, open, sensitive vessel. And because of that, she has incredible capacity for empathy, for transformative and supernatural prayer, to equip the saints, to build the kingdom. But it's something very special, and it's something very precious.

And I think God is saying, we've got to protect this. We've got to protect this in our women. And he talks about this a lot. This delicacy, it's worthy. It's worthy of protection.

We show strength in our weakness. I'm glad I numbered my pages. Now, Scripture does tell us to guard our hearts. That's true, as women. He says, guard our hearts.

But we have to entrust those hearts to the Father. We actually have to give them to Him and say, I trust you, God. I trust that you are going to care for my heart, and that you are going to heal every wound that's in it. Because we come across as just bulletproof, completely bulletproof all the time, and we think that makes us strong by looking so fierce and not showing anything. It's actually a weakness, masking our feelings, never showing our emotions.

Because we're terrified of being hurt. We're terrified of being hurt. We're terrified of being hurt, but the truly feminine woman can receive emotion and can show emotion and have strength even in her weakness, and once again, Paul talks about this. He said, after, do you remember the story of him being taken up into heaven? We don't know exactly what that means because he even said, I can't really tell you about it, but it was amazing, but it's the secret.

You know, the first rule of heaven club is you don't talk about heaven club. But he did say, after that experience, it was so powerful, whatever it was, that God basically had to give him a thorn in the flesh so that he couldn't brag about it, so that he could only boast in the Lord. That's how incredible it was, and he said, now I am glad to boast about how weak I am. I am glad to be a living demonstration of Christ's power instead of showing off my own power and abilities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

The less I have, the more I depend on him. There is power. There is power in vulnerability. There is power in that. But as women, we often operate out of our curse.

This is very personal to me because I know I do, and I have to pray against this a lot. And when you're operating out of your curse in terms of vulnerability, that beautiful openness and vulnerability to open to emotion turns into crippling anxiety and fear. That's why we don't show emotion, because we're terrified. We're so terrified, and we're so crippled by anxiety that we're just nauseated all the time. Our bodies fall apart.

We're so scared to let our children out of our sight. That's from the curse, guys. That's from the garden, and it's not how we were built. We build these walls around our hearts, and we miss all those blessings of being vulnerable in relationship. When we lock that pain inside, what comes out?

Sexual promiscuity. We do that to manipulating control, right? That's the way it comes out. Maybe we're just very defensive and offended all the time, or maybe we detach entirely and have no friends and say, I hate everybody. Everybody's terrible.

I don't want any friends. I don't trust them, and we detach. But Proverbs says, a wise woman builds her house, but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands. Nobody else, nobody else is going to tear down your house, guys. It's you.

As women, that is awesome power that God is talking about there. You have an incredible, incredible power, but you can tear it down with your own hands. So I was studying, and I actually came across this really amazing women's conference that a pastor's wife out of Idaho, her name's Nancy Wilson. Her husband has a church in Idaho, and she and her daughters and daughters-in-law and some other women in her family did a great women's conference called Dangerous Women. And it was very, very fascinating, but she said something that I thought was just incredibly powerful.

Nancy Wilson said, all women are dangerous. We are either building our houses or tearing them down. But you want to be dangerous to the enemy, not to your children and your spouse. You want to be a dangerous woman. We are a dangerous woman.

She says, we're all dangerous. You are either building a house or you are tearing it down. And we have got to be dangerous to the enemy, because if you're not dangerous to the enemy, you are being dangerous to your home, to whatever it is in your home. I don't care if you're single or you're married and you have 20 kids, your home is your home. Your home is wherever you are.

Because women, we carry that vulnerability and that relational aspect with us wherever we go. We build up homes. We make people feel welcome wherever we are. It's part of our nature. And you're going to tear stuff down everywhere you go, not just your own home, if you're not dangerous to the enemy, instead of being dangerous to your home.

So we're in a war right now, right? We're in a war. We're in a war on the family. We're in a war. We're in a society where the family unit is increasingly unstable.

And we need women. We need all women like you to embrace your identity as feminine women, to embrace what God has made you to be, that God honors you. Being relational and nurturing and beautiful and vulnerable is not, it's a God-given right. We have every right to act out of that. And we can submit to God and his design for us.

And we can define ourselves as God does, not as the media does, not as movie stars, not as the news, not as news anchors. They all too skinny. But how God does. And we can be biblical women and honor God in our being and our doing. So let's be dangerous women.

Let's be feminine women. Father in heaven, thank you so much for making each and every woman in here. Thank you for knitting her together in her father's womb, in her mother's womb. Thank you for counting every hair on her head. Thank you for making her exactly who she is.

Thank you for the measure of outward beauty that you've given her. And thank you for the measure of faith that you have given her that is reflected like the sun so that she shines bright like the sun, shimmers like the moon, rises like the dawn, and is so powerful she is like the banner of an army coming over the horizon. Thank you for every woman in here. Thank you for her heart. God, I ask that you would touch every woman's heart in this room, make her vulnerable, make her open, show her the power of vulnerability, of responsiveness, of being a help meet, of being relational, of connecting people together, of opening up her home wherever she is and creating a presence that's welcoming wherever she goes.

Thank you, God, that you said it is not good for man to be alone and that you created woman to compliment him and to equip our men so that they can be masculine men of God and go out and help us increase your kingdom and get souls saved. Thank you, God. God, for all the women in here who may be hurting, whether they've lost their mother, or they don't have good relationships with their mother, or they wanted to be a mother and couldn't, or maybe they didn't want to be one and are, you know all of the stories, you know all of the hurts, you know all of the pain, and we ask you, God, we entrust our hearts to you today. We open our hearts to you today. We guard our hearts, but we open them freely to you, because you can heal every pain, heal every hurt, wipe away every tear, and I ask that you would do that today, that you would be both mother and father to every person in this room, that you would show them all the mighty aspects of your spirit, because you are complete in who you are, and you would fill all those crevices and all those holes, and where they hurt, and where they lack, and where they don't feel like they have that mother figure.

You would be that for them today. Oh, Holy Spirit, that you would come in, and you would be the helper, and the comforter, and that you would just wash them from head to toe in your awesome power. Thank you, God, for giving us everything that we need. You are an awesome and holy God, and we love you. In the name of Jesus, we pray.

Amen. Amen. And we don't, I know, I know the service has gone a little long today, you know, just with other things going on with Mother's Day and stuff, but I don't ever want to end the service without the opportunity for someone to receive Jesus. Amen. So with all heads bowled and all eyes closed, if there is one person in here, maybe you heard something in this message, maybe it struck you, maybe there was something in the worship moment, and you felt God pull you, or you felt something pull you, that's God.

That's God calling to you. And if that's you today, I want you to make that confession of faith. It says in the Bible, it says, he who believes in the name of the Lord will be saved. And perhaps that's you today. If you'll just reach to God, I'm not going to ask you to come up.

I'm not even going to ask you to raise your hand today, because I believe the power of God works regardless of how we do it, when we do it, where we do it. So if you just believe this with me today, just pray this, Father, in the name of Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God, and you died on the cross for my sin. Come into my heart, come into my life. Make me new, God. I've decided that I'm going to walk with you.

From this day forward, my life will never be the same. Let me ask this in your name. Amen. Amen. Can y'all give God a hand clap of praise?

If you'll stand with me, real quick, I just want to give you just a few things. I know it's a little later, but let me just roll through this real quick. Okay, so next week is Lunch with Leon. If you are new with us, you can stand with me. It's okay to stand.

Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. We're getting ready. You're getting ready to head out this door here, because we have pitchers today, professional pitchers. If you want to get a picture taken, you can roll right out this door right after we leave right here in a second.

So grab your kids and all that stuff. Afterwards, you know, over to the kids' area, you can come right back over here, and they're going to open this door in just a few minutes. But next week is Lunch with Leon. I would love to have you have lunch with me. I'm Leon Dunning, Pastor Leon Dunning, if you're new with us, and I would love for you to have lunch with me to find more about the church.

It's on us. Also next week, we're going to kind of introduce a lot of our new leadership here in the church and what they do. And so it's going to kind of be a special week next week as well. We're also starting a new series next week called My Big Fat Mouth, okay? We're going to talk about the little things that we do that create big deals, you know?

So, and that's our word. So you don't want to miss My Big Fat Mouth next week, okay? Because I got some stuff to share about that because I'm the world's worst for My Big Fat Mouth. Okay, and so we're just excited that you're here today. The giving, you can give at the kiosk outside.

We don't pass around a bucket, but you can give outside on your way out. You'll see it near the coffee station. We have a table set up. Or you can give, if we can give the giving slide up here real quick, there are several ways you can give. You can give online at saltchurch.

org slash give. Or you can text to give at 84321. Or you can, you know, give at the kiosk today. So we just thank you so much for being here. Let's just bless everybody.

Let me just say one more prayer. Bless everybody out. And you go, and you mothers have an excellent day. God, we just thank you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Be with us.

Bless us. Keep us. May your face shine upon us. Also, in Jesus' name, amen. You know what?

I forgot something else, didn't I? Christina. That's right. I forgot about this moment. I'm sorry.

I was looking at time, and I totally forgot. The moms will remain standing. All moms. Whether your children are here or not. Right.

Look at there. Look at there. Roses for moms. Also, there is one more thing that I almost forgot as the kids are giving out gifts to the moms. We do have a little bag here as you get your, make sure you get this.

There's a nice little, when you get your picture, there's a picture frame in here. And, you know, some fun stuff. So make sure you get this as you leave today as well. I totally almost forgot about the best part of the service. I'm so sorry about that, Christina.

But thank you so much for being with us today. Miranda and I will be out there to meet and greet. We love you. So y'all have a blessed day. We will see you back next week for the next Sunday.

Okay. Bye-bye. Love you. A sermon at Salt Church in Virginia Beach, preached by Miranda Dunning, and preached by Miranda Dunning.