Sermon For Women Service

Sent And Seen: Women In The Way Of Jesus

What does it mean to be truly seen? Not noticed for what you can produce, not recognized only when you are useful, not defined by your worst moment or your hardest season, but genuinely seen, known, and valued for who you are? That question is not abstract. It is the question underneath a great deal of quiet pain. Some people carry it into worship every single week. They serve faithfully, they give generously, they hold things together in ways nobody fully acknowledges, and somewhere underneath all of that faithful labor is a hunger to know whether any of it matters, whether they matter, to God and to the community gathered in his name.

The Scripture we are opening today speaks directly into that hunger. And it does not speak in vague, reassuring generalities. It speaks in names. It speaks in specifics. It speaks in the language of real women doing real things in the real company of Jesus, and it speaks in the language of a God who sees what the world overlooks.

Open your Bible to Luke chapter 8, beginning at verse 1. The Christian Standard Bible reads this way.

Soon 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; Susanna; and many others who were supporting them from their own resources.

Three verses. Luke could have passed over this entirely. He did not. He stopped the narrative, named names, described backgrounds, and recorded that these women were traveling with Jesus and funding his ministry out of their own means. In the first century, that detail is not small. It is remarkable. Women of various social stations, some of them carrying histories of profound suffering, were counted among the traveling company of the Son of God.

Hold that passage and now turn to Acts chapter 16, beginning at verse 11. Paul and his companions have crossed into Macedonia, following a vision. They arrive at Philippi, a Roman colony, and on the Sabbath they go outside the city gate to the river, where they expect to find a place of prayer.

We sailed from Troas and put out to sea, heading straight for Samothrace. The next day we went to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, a Roman colony and a leading city of the district of Macedonia. We stayed in that city for several days. 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, saying, "If you consider me a faithful believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house." And she persuaded us.

Here is what the governing conviction of this message is, and everything we examine together will circle back to it. Jesus Christ sees, calls, restores, and deploys women as full participants in his kingdom, not as afterthoughts, not as supporting characters in someone else's story, but as witnesses, servants, leaders, and beloved disciples in their own right.

That conviction is not a contemporary accommodation. It is what the text says.

Seen By Jesus

Look again at Luke 8:2. Luke tells us that among the women traveling with Jesus were those who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses. Mary Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out. Joanna, wife of a powerful household manager in Herod's court. Susanna, whose background we are not given. And many others.

These are not women who arrived at Jesus having already put themselves together. Mary Magdalene carried a history of profound spiritual torment. Joanna moved in the corridors of political power but apparently found no healing there. The others are unnamed, which means their stories are hidden from us, though they were not hidden from Jesus.

What Jesus did for each of them before they ever traveled a single mile with him was see them, encounter them, and heal them. He did not wait for them to be respectable. He did not require them to explain or minimize their suffering. He met them in the reality of their condition and restored them.

This matters for anyone in this room who has spent years feeling that your history disqualifies you from full belonging in the family of God. The women who traveled closest to Jesus in his earthly ministry were women who had been through things. Their past was not a barrier to his presence. It became the very ground from which their witness grew.

If you are carrying something today that you believe makes you less worthy of grace, hear this clearly. Jesus does not grade his disciples by the cleanness of their record. He calls them by name.

Serving From What They Had

Luke adds one more detail in verse 3 that is easy to read past. These women were supporting them from their own resources. The Greek word behind resources points to their own possessions, their own means. They were not passive recipients of ministry. They were active participants in funding it.

Joanna in particular had access to real wealth through her husband's position. She chose to direct it toward Jesus and his traveling company. That is a decision with social and personal cost. To align yourself publicly with a rabbi who was already drawing suspicion from religious authorities was not a safe or comfortable choice.

And yet she gave. Susanna gave. The many others gave.

There is something important here for how we understand service. These women were not serving because they had nothing else to offer and this was the only role available to them. They were serving as an act of devotion, as a response to what Jesus had done for them, as a deliberate investment in the mission they believed in. Their generosity was theology in action. They understood that the kingdom of God was worth their resources.

For anyone who has ever wondered whether your contribution matters, whether the quiet, behind-the-scenes work you do is seen by God, Luke 8 is your answer. He recorded it. He named them. He made sure it was in the story.

Called To Lead

Now move to Acts 16 and look at Lydia. She is a businesswoman. She deals in purple cloth, which in the ancient world was expensive and associated with wealth and status. She is from Thyatira but has established herself in Philippi. She is already a worshiper of God, which suggests she had been drawn to the Jewish faith before she ever heard the gospel.

When Paul sits down by the river and begins to speak, Lydia is there. And then Luke records something that should stop us. He says the Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying.

Salvation is described here not as Lydia's intellectual achievement but as God's sovereign act. The Lord opened her heart. This is grace. This is the same grace that has been extended to every person in this room who has come to faith. You did not talk yourself into believing. God opened your heart.

What Lydia does next is extraordinary. She and her household are baptized. She makes a public, visible declaration of her faith through the ordinance that Jesus commanded. And then she turns to Paul and his companions and she urges them, with some persistence the text implies, to come and stay at her house. She opens her home as a base of operations for the gospel mission in Philippi.

The church at Philippi, the church to which Paul would later write one of the most joyful letters in the New Testament, almost certainly began in Lydia's house. She was not waiting for someone to assign her a role. She saw a need, she had a resource, and she placed it at the service of the gospel.

This is what Spirit-led leadership looks like. It does not always come with a title. It comes with a willingness to use what God has given you for something larger than yourself.

What This Means For Us

Let me be direct about what these two passages together are asking of this congregation.

First, they are asking us to honor the full dignity of every person in this room. Jesus traveled with women, was supported by women, appeared first to a woman after his resurrection, and sent women as the first witnesses of the empty tomb. If the church is going to reflect the values of its Lord, it must take seriously the calling, the gifts, and the witness of women in its life and mission.

Second, these passages are asking every woman here to receive the dignity that Christ has already extended to you. You do not have to earn your place at the table. You were seen before you arrived. You were known before you spoke. And whatever your history, whatever you are carrying today, the same Jesus who met Mary Magdalene by name, who received Joanna's offering, who opened Lydia's heart, is present with you right now.

Some of you are in seasons of real difficulty. You may be carrying grief, or exhaustion, or a situation that has not resolved the way you prayed it would. The gospel does not promise that those circumstances will immediately change. What it promises is that you are not alone in them, and that the God who sees you is also working in ways that are not yet visible to you. If you need practical support, please reach for it. Counseling, community, pastoral care, trusted relationships. God works through those things too.

Third, these passages are asking all of us to serve from what we have. Lydia did not wait until she had more. The women in Luke 8 did not wait until their histories were tidier. They gave what they had, where they were, to the mission they loved.

That is still the call. Wherever you are, whatever you carry, whatever gifts and resources God has placed in your hands, the kingdom of God has a use for them.

The governing conviction bears repeating one final time. Jesus Christ sees, calls, restores, and deploys women as full participants in his kingdom. That is not a statement about culture or politics. It is a statement about the character of the Lord we worship and the kind of community we are called to be.

Let us pray. Father, we are grateful that you are a God who sees. You saw Mary and Joanna and Susanna and Lydia, and you see every person in this room today. We ask that your Spirit would do in us what he did in Lydia, open our hearts to respond to your word. Heal what needs healing. Call out what needs calling. Strengthen what is weary. And make us a community where every person is seen, valued, and sent in your name. In the name of Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.

Sources Consulted

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

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

Marshall, I. Howard. The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Eerdmans, 1978.

Polhill, John B. Acts. The New American Commentary. Broadman and Holman, 1992.

Witherington, Ben III. Women in the Earliest Churches. Cambridge University Press, 1988.