Sermon For Women

Seen, Sent, and Sustained: What Jesus Does with Women Who Follow Him

There is a moment in Luke 8 that is easy to read past. Jesus is moving through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve are with him. And then Luke adds something that would have stopped a careful first-century reader cold. He names women. Not as bystanders. Not as background scenery. He names them as disciples who traveled with Jesus, who supported his ministry, and who had been healed and freed by his power. Joanna, the wife of a royal official. Susanna. Mary Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out. And then Luke adds, almost casually, "and many others."

Many others.

This morning we are going to sit with these two texts, Luke 8:1-3 and Acts 16:11-15, and let them speak. Not to score a cultural point. Not to avoid a hard conversation. But because the Scripture itself keeps insisting that women are not peripheral to the story of Jesus and the early church. They are woven into its center. And if you are carrying something heavy this morning, whether you are a woman or you love one, the posture Jesus takes toward these women has something important to say to you.

The Text In Its World

Luke 8:1-3 reads this way in the CSB: "Afterward he was traveling from one town and village to another, preaching and telling the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out, Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others who were supporting them from their possessions."

To understand what is happening here, you need to understand what was not happening in the wider culture. Women in first-century Jewish and Roman society were largely excluded from the formal role of disciple. A rabbi did not typically invite women to travel with him, to learn from him on the road, to be part of his inner circle of followers. What Luke records is therefore not ordinary. It is a deliberate and visible departure from the social norms of the day.

Jesus does not merely tolerate the presence of these women. He heals them. He frees them. He includes them. And then he allows them to participate in the work of the kingdom through their own resources and their own service. They are not passive recipients of charity. They are active contributors to mission. They are, by every measure Luke applies to the Twelve, disciples.

Mary Magdalene is named first among the women, just as Peter is named first among the Twelve. This is not accidental. Luke is a careful writer. Mary had been freed from something severe, seven demons, and she became one of the most faithful followers in the entire Gospel. She will be present at the cross when many of the men have fled. She will be among the first at the empty tomb. She will be among the first to carry the resurrection announcement.

Joanna occupies a fascinating position. Her husband manages the household of Herod Antipas, the same ruler who had John the Baptist executed. She is a woman of means, of access, of social standing. And she has left the comfort and safety of that world to follow a wandering teacher from Galilee. That is not a small thing. That is the kind of decision that costs something.

These women are not defined only by their past suffering. They are defined by their present faithfulness and their active participation in the mission of Jesus.

The Central Claim

Here is what the text is pressing toward: Jesus sees women fully, heals them genuinely, includes them deliberately, and entrusts them with the work of his kingdom. This is not a secondary feature of the gospel. It is part of the texture of what the kingdom of God looks like when it arrives.

Now turn with me to Acts 16:11-15.

Paul and his companions have crossed into Macedonia. They arrive in Philippi, a Roman colony, a city with no synagogue large enough to be counted. On the Sabbath they go outside the city gate to the river, where they expect to find a place of prayer. And they do. They find women gathered there.

The CSB reads: "On the Sabbath day we went outside the city gate by the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and spoke to the women gathered there. A woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God, was listening. The Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying. After she and her household were baptized, she urged us, 'If you consider me a faithful believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house.' And she persuaded us."

Lydia is the first recorded convert on European soil. The first person to receive the gospel in what will become the heart of the Western world is a businesswoman, a worshiper of God, a woman of initiative and hospitality. She does not wait for someone to tell her what to do. She hears the gospel, her heart is opened by the Lord, she is baptized, and she immediately opens her home as a base of operations for the mission.

Notice what Luke says about how her conversion happened. "The Lord opened her heart to respond." This is the language of sovereign grace. Lydia was already a worshiper of God, a woman of sincere spiritual seeking. But the transformation that happened at the river was the work of God himself, not the result of her own effort or Paul's rhetorical skill. The gospel is the power of God. And God chose to plant the church in Europe through the opened heart of a woman who sold purple cloth.

The church at Philippi, which Paul will later describe as his joy and crown, the church to which he writes one of his most tender letters, begins in Lydia's house.

What This Means For Us

These texts are not simply historical records. They are pastoral ones. They tell us something about the character of Jesus and the shape of his kingdom that has direct bearing on how we see ourselves and one another.

First, Jesus meets people at the site of their suffering before he sends them into service. Mary Magdalene was not recruited because she had it together. She was freed first. Joanna was healed. The women in Luke 8 had been through something real and hard. Jesus did not ignore that. He addressed it. He did not say, "Your past is irrelevant, now go be useful." He saw the whole person and responded to the whole person.

If you are carrying something today, something visible or something hidden, something that has worn you down or left you wondering whether you are too broken to be useful to God, the pattern in these texts is not that Jesus waits for you to be whole before he draws near. He draws near, and the drawing near is part of what makes you whole.

That said, wholeness is often a long road. It sometimes involves counselors, doctors, trusted friends, honest conversations, and time. There is no shame in that. The women who followed Jesus did not all arrive healed in a single moment. They traveled with him. Healing and discipleship happened together, on the road.

Second, these texts push back against any reading of the gospel that makes women invisible or passive. The women in Luke 8 are named. They are active. They contribute materially and personally to the mission of Jesus. Lydia takes initiative. She persuades Paul. She opens her home. She leads her household to baptism. She becomes the anchor of a church.

This does not resolve every question about every role in every congregation. Faithful Christians have disagreed about some of those questions for a long time, and this sermon is not the place to adjudicate all of them. But what cannot be honestly disputed is this: in the Gospel of Luke and in the book of Acts, women are disciples, witnesses, financial supporters, and hosts of the church. They are not afterthoughts. They are not decoration. They are not there merely to serve the men in the story. They are there because Jesus called them and the Spirit moved in them.

Third, the gospel dignifies people the world has overlooked or underestimated. Lydia was a successful businesswoman, but she was also a woman in a Roman colony, gathering for prayer by a river because there was no synagogue. She was on the margins of the official religious world. And God chose that place, and that person, to plant a church.

If you have ever felt that you are on the margins, that your contribution is too small, that your history is too complicated, that your voice does not carry enough weight, the story of Lydia and the women of Luke 8 is a word of grace to you. God has a history of beginning significant things in overlooked places with underestimated people.

A Closing Charge

The women in these texts did not wait for the world to give them permission to follow Jesus. They followed. They gave. They listened. They opened their homes. They carried news of resurrection when others were still hiding behind locked doors.

The church has always needed that kind of faithfulness. It still does.

If you are here today and you have never responded to the gospel, the same Lord who opened Lydia's heart is present in this room. He does not wait for you to be impressive. He meets you where you are, as you are, and he opens hearts.

And if you are already walking with Jesus, carrying the weight of a life that is sometimes harder than you expected, take courage from the women who traveled dusty roads with him, who funded his mission out of their own pockets, who stood at the cross when the darkness was deepest. They were seen. They were sustained. They were sent.

And so are you.

Sources Consulted

Bock, Darrell L. Luke, Volume 1: 1:1-9:50. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker Academic, 1994.

Green, Joel B. The Gospel of Luke. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 1997.

Keener, Craig S. Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Volume 3. Baker Academic, 2014.

Longenecker, Richard N. "Acts." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Volume 9. Zondervan, 1981.

Strauss, Mark L. Four Portraits, One Jesus: A Survey of Jesus and the Gospels. Zondervan, 2007.

Christian Standard Bible. Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.