Philip Anthony Mitchell - Who Can Find Her (01/25/2026)
In this unplanned, deeply personal message, Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell shares a raw testimony of his young son's severe asthma attack that landed him in the hospital, highlighting how breath—God's gift—is the foundation for all plans, praise, and purpose. Drawing from Psalm 139:16 and Romans 8:28, he reminds believers that God ordains every day—good and painful—and works all things for good for those who love Him, even in trials that test faith and expose human weakness. He transitions briefly into Proverbs 31, emphasizing noble character over cultural image as true beauty and value.
The Importance of Breath
I was reminded this week how it was almost a tragedy. Without breath, all the other plans you have mean nothing. Plans mean nothing without breath. A lot of us are worried about what we’re going to do this week, but without breath, that means nothing. A lot of us have career goals, but without breath, they mean nothing. A lot of us have milestones—things we still believe God will do in this life—but without breath, that means nothing.
You may not feel what my wife and I feel this morning, but for us, I think that one stanza has deep meaning for us this morning: that it’s His breath in our lungs. That if I’m breathing, according to the Scriptures, I owe Him praise. The Scripture says, «Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.» And that’s not just for Christians, but even if you’re still exploring the claims of Christ, even if you don’t believe in God, it is His grace that is allowing you to breathe. That with that breath, you’re doing everything that you want to do.
So the prerequisite for praising God is not even salvation. The prerequisite for praising God is just being alive. And so let everything that has breath right now in this room praise God right now. My son is praising the Lord this morning with breath in his lungs.
Prayer
Father, we acknowledge You. We exalt You in this place. Lord, You are amazing. You are mighty. Lord, You are worthy. God, You are sovereign. We acknowledge You in this place. Jesus, we lift up Your name in this place. Lamb of God, when we are weak, You cover our hearts where we need encouragement. Draw near to Yourself right now, God. We want nothing right now except You.
More than every valley in this room, in every difficult place in this room, in every tough circumstance in this room, everything that is going on inside of us, everything that is going on around us—even if You feel distant from us, even if we have not prayed and sought Your face, even if we have not opened up Your Word, even if we feel unworthy, guilty, ashamed, even if we feel weary, tired, or hopeless—would You remind us that You are ever-present help in time of trouble, that You are with us, God, in all circumstances, even if we cannot see or understand.
For those of us, God, in need, would You just pour out Your strength upon us right now? Would You revive us, restore us, and refresh us right now in Your presence? To the prideful, would You humble us right now in Your presence? We lift up our hearts to You. We lift up our souls to You. And we thank You and acknowledge You. Far from anything right now, we just acknowledge You and magnify Your holy name.
We are thankful. Those of us who have been brought close to You by the power of the Holy Spirit, God, as for nothing else, we thank You for salvation. We thank You that we are in Your kingdom. Jesus, I love You. Jesus, I love You. We love You. We trust You even when we can’t trace You. We give Your name glory. We give You honor and praise, the matchless name. We pray now, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Come on, let’s praise Him right now in this house.
More than every valley in this room, in every difficult place in this room, in every tough circumstance in this room, everything that is going on inside of us, everything that is going on around us—even if You feel distant from us, even if we have not prayed and sought Your face, even if we have not opened up Your Word, even if we feel unworthy, guilty, ashamed, even if we feel weary, tired, or hopeless—would You remind us that You are ever-present help in time of trouble, that You are with us, God, in all circumstances, even if we cannot see or understand.
For those of us, God, in need, would You just pour out Your strength upon us right now? Would You revive us, restore us, and refresh us right now in Your presence? To the prideful, would You humble us right now in Your presence? We lift up our hearts to You. We lift up our souls to You. And we thank You and acknowledge You. Far from anything right now, we just acknowledge You and magnify Your holy name.
We are thankful. Those of us who have been brought close to You by the power of the Holy Spirit, God, as for nothing else, we thank You for salvation. We thank You that we are in Your kingdom. Jesus, I love You. Jesus, I love You. We love You. We trust You even when we can’t trace You. We give Your name glory. We give You honor and praise, the matchless name. We pray now, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Come on, let’s praise Him right now in this house.
If you are here for the first time or you’re watching online or on podcast, welcome to all of you to Victory Church. I’m thankful that you’re joining us this morning. I am not as put-together as you think I am. I drove here debating what I was going to do this morning because I don’t have a sermon, and I am mentally drained, physically drained.
And on the way this morning, I sent the production team some pictures and scriptures. And so I was just trying to decide during worship what I was going to do. I’m not above you—I’m a human being, and I’m not afraid of confessing to you that I don’t have a sermon this morning. And I know that we are in week two of the series, and I was trying to decide whether or not to push this series out till next week and try to rebound.
I know some of you may have invited someone who expected to hear week 2 of this series, and so I was really struggling with what I was going to do this morning. Maybe I might just try to preach two sermons this morning. Maybe what I want to do right now in this moment is share with you why I don’t have a sermon, and then if time permits, I just have my Bible and I have the Holy Spirit, and I know the scriptures I’m supposed to teach this morning. I’ll do my best to preach it with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Psalm 139:16 and God’s Sovereign Plan
This morning, as I was driving to church, a passage came to my spirit in the car, and I texted the passage to the production team. I want to read to you the passage from Psalm 139 verse 16. «Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.»
The Holy Spirit reminded me of this passage this morning because, if I understand this passage correctly, before I was born and before you were born, God already knew everything that would happen in your life. And so although you and I may make plans and circumstances may alter those plans, there is nothing that happens in your life that catches God by surprise.
He knows every mountaintop that you will experience, every victory that you will have, but He also knows every valley that you will pass through. And oftentimes when we quote scriptures like this, we’re generally quoting them in a context of things that feel good. But does this passage apply when hell is breaking loose in your life?
So when hell breaks loose in our life, or when a child is born and the doctors say something about the child—did God know about that when that happened? Or when we experience something that is painful out of nowhere, or we get a bad report from a doctor, or someone we love walks out of our life, or some tragedy happens in our life, some accident, some loved one dies—why do we think God is not present even in those circumstances?
We acknowledge Him and we worship Him and we love on Him when things are going good, but what about when life begins to unravel around you? Is He still present in those moments? And what about when you get blindsided by something you didn’t see coming? Is He still present in those moments? And what about when you make a plan and life alters that plan in a way that brings pain and sorrow? Is He still present in that moment?
And what about when we go through things when we question His love? «God, if You love me, I wouldn’t be going through this. If You love me, I wouldn’t have this diagnosis. If You love me, this accident wouldn’t have happened.» What about when things happen when we question, «Where were You when this happened, God?» Or maybe some of us right now question, «Where are You right now, God?» When the doctor said that, where are You in that, God?
I’m not the only one who has ever questioned where He was in the middle of a circumstance. It’s human nature to do that. But if I understand Psalm 139:16 correctly, then it says the key word here is «all.» All includes the good days and all includes the bad days. And that if God in His wisdom would write in the story of your life with high points and low points, with mountains and valleys, with good days and bad days, with joy and with sorrow, and He penned all of those—that means He has a purpose for the days that are good and, even when we can’t understand, He has a purpose for the days that are painful because He ordained them.
And so I want to encourage someone in this room who’s maybe in the middle of a difficult circumstance that it has not caught God by surprise. And even in your mistakes, they don’t catch God by surprise. That you cannot out-sin His grace, and there’s no mistake that He cannot redeem, and there’s no circumstance He cannot work in, and there’s no situation He cannot work through. There is nothing beyond His ability to transform for your good.
Romans 8:28 — All Things for Good
That reminded me of the other passage God spoke to me this morning: Romans 8:28. Is that still true when I’m hurting? That we know—not that we’re trying to figure out, not that we try to question, but we know—that in all things, not just in good things but also in painful things, things that bring sorrow and tears and confusion and doubt—I’m not the only one that’s ever dealt with doubt, and I’m not the only one that’s ever dealt with pain, and I’m not the only one that’s ever dealt with confusion. I’m not the only one who’s ever dealt with real life.
I know we like to preach fairy tales and pixie dust over Christians and we make people false promises that if you’re in Jesus you’ll never have a problem, but that’s not biblical. I was reminded this week that even the believers are not immune to problems. When He says that we know that in all things—even when they fire you from the job, or when the person abandons you, or when my father or my mother abandons me, or when this person persecutes me, or in the middle of loss—this is what we know: that in all things God is working. He’s working even when I can’t see it, I can’t feel it, I can’t understand it. He’s working all these things for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.
And so I want to encourage if it’s just one person in this room who’s in the middle of a tough circumstance or feeling some pain this morning: if you love Him, if you’ve been called, even if you can’t see, even if you can’t understand, He’s working. He’s working right now for your good. Even with your failures He knows how to tie those in for your good. With your mistakes He knows how to wrap that in for your good. Your marital problems He knows how to turn that around for your good. Your relationship problems He knows how to turn that around for your good. What happened with your child He knows how to turn that around for your good.
Somebody just say right now, «God, I thank You that even now You’re working all things for my good.» You believe that? Because the next problem you face, remind yourself of that: «You know what, God, You’re working this right now for my good.» I want you to get your problem on your mind and just start thinking, «You know what, let me chill out—God is working this right now for my good.»
When you start prophesying God’s Word over your circumstance, strength comes to you. And sometimes you don’t need the circumstance to change—you just need your perspective in the circumstance to change.
The Family Crisis This Week
Last week, after I thought I loved this pulpit and what I thought was a good Sunday, my wife and I went home and celebrated with our family and we just did our Sunday thing. And Monday came, and between Monday at 9:00 a.m. when we dropped Malachi off until 2:30 p.m. when we picked him up—that’s my only free time during the week. During that time I try to just decompress and spend some time with my wife. And we had a good Monday, went to sleep on Monday night.
On Monday night, in the middle of the night, we had coughing coming from my son’s room—Josiah. And the coughing is getting louder, it’s getting stronger. He starts hollering in that room. My wife and I spent the entire night trying to soothe him while he’s coughing, he’s wheezing, he’s hollering. His heart is pumping so hard—like you could see it beating out of his chest. He’s struggling to breathe, can’t breathe. He’s holding on to us, and it just begins to worsen.
And we are at this point—we are afraid. You could be a man or woman of faith all you want, but we’re human beings. I’ve never met a fearless person. Every human being has doubt and fear at some point, but we’ve known people who have overcome fear. We were afraid. And we did everything we could to stabilize his breathing. We even took his sister’s medication and gave him asthma medication—and it’s not working. I know that’s unethical, but when it’s your child, you do whatever you got to do.
It just worsened. He’s four. We rushed him to the emergency room. And I sent the production team pictures of when we got to the emergency room. Little Josiah—they strapped him down and they hooked him up to a breathing machine and all of these wires. And he had suffered a severe massive asthma attack. And they’re fighting to stabilize his breathing. And the doctors are coming in and saying, «We may have to move him to ICU.» And there’s just a team of people in there fighting to do all they can to stabilize him.
And hearing them singing the song this morning—“It’s Your breath in our lungs”—it just means so much more to me now, watching my son in this condition. And in these moments you really don’t know what to pray. They said we have to keep him overnight. And we’re sitting there with tears, trying to decide what we’re going to do with the three other kids, work, all the stuff. And they said we have to keep him.
My wife went home—she’s better on the home front than I am. I stayed there. I took a picture of him in the middle of the night with tears in his eyes—he’s fighting for his little life. My wife at home trying to hold down the home front, doing her best to keep our kids encouraged. And I’m at his bedside encouraging him. This was his condition—24 hours around the clock treatments every two hours, steroids for his lungs. I’m just by his bedside, and I never left his bedside. And I just watched him suffer.
I have a picture of my wife and me—no one’s in it—like a nurse took this picture right before my wife left, and we were bewildered. We were confused. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—we were really bewildered. We don’t know what to do. I’m going to make a confession: I’m a pastor of the church, and I was not praying. I didn’t know how to pray. I would mumble some stuff to God. Sometimes in the night when I could get a break—normally this was somebody else’s kid, and I’ve been to hospital visits where I’ll be praying in the Holy Spirit, anointing with oil—I couldn’t do any of that. I was weak. I was dumbfounded. I was bewildered. «God, why? We just had a great Sunday, why are we in here fighting for my kid’s life?»
And I know that makes somebody feel insecure to hear that your pastor could not pray. I could not pray. I’m a human being, and I’m subject to weakness like everybody else. My wife and I—our souls hurt. She couldn’t come back up to the hospital to see him in this condition.
And I remember Wednesday night—his birthday. He turned five. And all day I’m trying to keep him encouraged. The nurses and the doctors are bringing him gifts and balloons. And all day he was getting toys, but he just kept asking for one thing: «Daddy, where is my family? Where is my family?»
And all day on his birthday he’s just asking, «Where is my family?» Like, «Josiah, Mommy’s taking care of the kids, and she’s doing the best she can.» And it was late that evening—I went out into the hallway to get some water, and I saw my wife and kids and some other loved ones across the hall in the playroom setting up a surprise birthday party for him.
I went in there and stalled him, and then I came back: «Come on, buddy, let’s finish your dinner.» I was by his side around the clock—24 hours a day, never left his side, talking to him, encouraging him, answering his questions, wiping tears from his eyes. It’s painful to see your own child crying in hospital, asking how he’s going to go home, why he’s here, what’s happening—and you can’t give him all the big theological answers.
And I said, «Hey, Joey, the doctor said you have to walk—you gotta get out of this bed.» So we hooked him up to a temporary machine and a tank, and I took him out into the hallway. And he wants his family. He went in there—he just burst into tears when he saw his family. And we had a little birthday party for him. And he was playing with some balloons, and he might have overdid it a little bit lifting his hands and playing with balloons—and his lungs relapsed, back into intensive care.
And that night when he had to watch his family walk out the hospital—my wife is quiet, my daughters are crying, my son Malachi’s the first time I ever saw him crying over his brother, and Malachi’s crying—he just has to look away at the wall and cry because he couldn’t watch his brother in that condition. They are fighting to stabilize him again.
To know what kept us going in that time: the prayers of the saints, words of encouragement, phone flooded with text messages, people writing on my social media pages. And it’s in difficult times when you really learn who your friends are and who your friends are not. It’s in difficult times when you learn who’s with you and who is not.
And there were people I haven’t spoken to in years, people I would even consider enemies—they broke that silence to reach out and say, «Hey, man, praying for your son. Hey, praying for little Josiah, man.» That meant so much to me that people who I would even consider enemies, people I haven’t spoken to in a long time, would break that silence because when tragedy strikes, we got to learn to put differences aside. And people put differences aside to reach out for my son.
And some voices I didn’t hear from—it’s okay. Everyone in this world prayed for my son, prayed for me, prayed for my wife, prayed for our family. And this week we were tested—our resolve was tested, our strength was tested. My wife was questioning God—not like she doesn’t believe in Him, but why is this happening right now.
This was our entire week. And they’re telling me stories of kids who came in his age with similar types who did not make it out of the hospital—they died from those asthmatic attacks. Kids who had his exact diagnosis, the exact situation, did not make it out of the hospital.
God is gracious and He is merciful and He is kind. And although our son will be on treatment for some indefinite period of time until he is completely healed, God spared his life. He worked through doctors and the prayers of the church—people far and wide in other cities—to stabilize my son during this week of suffering.
Every tear that I wiped out of his eye and for every question I tried to answer, I did my absolute best to keep him encouraged. God, through all of you and those of you watching—thank you so much for your prayers and your love and your support. This is my first ministry—this is why I don’t have a sermon this morning.
And they released him late Friday evening, and he’s on treatment at home, and he may be on treatment for a while. But he has breath in his lungs. And this morning on the way to church he was singing songs and giving God praise with the breath that was in his lungs. So we thank God for His faithfulness.
Now I just want to, on behalf of my wife and I, just let’s thank all of you for your prayers and your support and your faithfulness. Thank you. Love y’all. Thank you so much.
Transition to Proverbs 31 Series
What I want to do right now with what time we have left—I don’t want to deny you what I know you came here for. And so we’re in a series called P31, and I’m going to preach to you the verses that I have. And obviously this is not going to be a long sermon, but I know this is what you came here for. So I don’t have notes and I don’t have points, but I do have my Bible, I have the Holy Spirit, and I’m going to say something—and it may not be what I wanted it to be, but by the grace of God it will be something.
Who Can Find Her? – Proverbs 31:10-12
Let’s call this sermon «Who Can Find Her?» We are in week two of a series called Proverbs 31 or P31, and we are teaching through Proverbs 31. If you’re unfamiliar with the book of Proverbs, the book of Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings—29 of them written by a king named King Solomon, and two others written by two men.
Last week I began this series just talking about cultural narratives. But there are a lot of narratives that we see all over culture, across social media, and oftentimes there is pressure for us to conform to those narratives. I said last week that for those of us who are men, there are cultural narratives about what is a man, what makes a man. And last week I talked about the cultural narratives that we have for women and what makes a woman, and how there’s a lot of pressure to conform to those cultural narratives.
Proverbs 31—last week we opened up just teaching from verses 1 through 9. And in verses 1 through 9 we discovered that Proverbs 31 was dictated by a young king by the name of Lemuel, and he wrote down words that were given to him by his mother, who was really the ghostwriter of Proverbs 31.
She takes the first nine verses to talk to him about his own character—that she tried to encourage him not to go downstream with the prevailing narratives of culture for kings. Verses 1 through 9—she tried to encourage him not to build for himself a harem or not to be given over to women, that having a large amount of women does not make him a man. She also encouraged him not to be given over to drunkenness or debauchery. She encouraged him not to be dependent upon vices but to be free from whoredom and to be free from being dependent upon vices, and to use his power, his authority as king for purposes and causes that were much bigger than himself.
In essence, she was trying to encourage him to be a man of standards, to be a man of character, to be a man that did not flow downstream with the prevailing narratives of culture. That while culture during that time said this is the life kings live, she was trying to encourage him to separate himself from what other people did, to be distinguished amongst kings, to not feel the external pressure of ancient culture to be conformed to everything other kings were doing, but to find his worth and value in a standard or in character that was above the cultural norms of what other kings were doing.
And I said to you last week that she was drilling him or doubling down on his character before she would spend time or the next 22 verses talking to him about the type of woman he should pursue. I know that you and I not only live in a culture in which there is pressure upon men for their bravado and how many women they have, the houses they live in, and what car they drive.
There’s also pressure from culture for women—that when you look at magazines in the aisles of Kroger or when you hit the Explorer tab on your Instagram or when you go through your feed on Facebook, there is cultural pressure on women that I need to be a certain size to be considered a good woman, I need to be a certain shape to be considered a good woman, or my face needs to be beat right just every day to be considered so.
There’s all this pressure that my face needs to look a certain way, my hair needs to be a certain way, my body needs to be a certain way. And truth be told, there is a lot of silent pressure on women to conform to all of these images that we see that says if you look this way then you are a real woman, if your hair is this texture then you are a real woman, if you’re a certain tone of skin, if you’re a certain size, if you have a certain walk.
And for most of us men, we think that is beautiful. There’s even pressure on men for your wife or your girl to look a certain way—the trophy girl or the trophy woman when you walk into the room. And so in our culture, in our society, we say image defines woman.
So we got women bleaching themselves, Botox, changing their structure with surgery, putting on booties with shots, hooking up breasts with extra stuff. And we have women feeling the pressure to conform to the images of Instagram and at the same time driving themselves deeper into insecurity because they can’t fit the mold of what society says this is what a woman is supposed to look like.
And because of that pressure, sisters are working hard to keep up with Beyonce, Kim, whoever has 97 million followers because we define that as beautiful. But what is a beautiful woman? What color is she? What height is she? What shape is she? What hair texture is she? Is she thick and petite and brown skin? Is she light-skinned? Does she have kinky hair? Does she have a natural?
But because every time we keep coming back to God’s Word, the Word of God keeps pushing back against those cultural narratives that free us from the unnecessary pressure of trying to conform to what the world says this is what a man is supposed to be and this is what a woman is supposed to be.
So the ghostwriter of Proverbs 31—the mother—you notice in our graphic there’s two women in that graphic: the young beautiful woman and the old woman, the woman of wisdom, the woman who has experienced, the woman who has lived a little bit longer than the younger woman. The ghostwriter of Proverbs 31, the mother of King Lemuel—she doubles down on his character and then she begins to tell him, son, I know you want to go out to all of these women, but she doubles down on his character first to prepare him for the type of woman he should pursue so that if by chance he will find her, this character would not ruin a good relationship.
And so in verses 10 she begins to describe for him—the next 22 verses she will describe for him the kind of woman he should pursue. But before we today—I’m just going to teach verses 10 through 12—before we look at these three verses, something I want to point out because this thing is interesting.
So last week I dropped a bombshell on our church and I said that although culture thinks Proverbs 31 was written for women, that is historically inaccurate. Historically in the Jewish context, Proverbs 31 was not written for women—Proverbs 31 was written for men.
And we have more evidence of that in the 22 verses from verses 10 to 31. In English you will not see this, but in Hebrew if you read this passage in Hebrew, what you would see is that verses 10 through 31 each stanza begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So it is written in a poem form—so it was like we would teach kids A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z. We just use letters and we sing a song so we never forget.
So the Jewish people—they took Proverbs 31 when it was dictated by his mother—it was dictated in a form with successive Hebrew alphabet letters why? For memorization. So that in ancient Israel and wherever this would travel, young Jewish men would be able to recite it like the ABCs for memorization in their mind.
So as they kept reciting Proverbs 31 in their mind, every time they bumped into a woman they would already have in their mind what type of woman they should pursue. So when they started dating a woman and she did not fit the memorization, if she did not fit the A B C D E F G, they know that this is not the type of woman I should pursue.
So they made it easy for every man in ancient culture to know what type of woman to pursue by writing verses 10 through 31 in an acrostic that made it very easy for every man to remember. Because Proverbs 31 was not written for women—it was written for men—that as they kept reciting it over and over and over, they would be dating somebody: «Oh, she don’t fit this.»
It was written for ancient men to know what type of woman they are supposed to pursue—10 through 31 in Hebrew for memorization, written for men to remember: this is the wife I should pursue, this is the daughter I should be training, this is how I should be praying for the women in my church, this is how I should be praying for my mom, this is what I should be praying to see in my wife, this is how I should be training my daughter.
So she says to him, beginning with the Hebrew alphabet and successive letter, she says to him in verse 10: «A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.»
Now she says to Lemuel: «Lemuel, a wife of noble character—who can find?» And so any time we see a question in the Scriptures, that question is there to provoke in the mind of the reader a revelation. So for example, when God says to Adam, «Adam, where are you?» because he was hiding—the revelation for Adam was when you sin or when you fall, don’t run away from Me but run to Me.
When we see in Amos 3:3, «Can two walk together except they be agreed?»—the question is unless we all agree we cannot do life together. So when we see a question in the Scriptures, the question is there to provoke the reader to a revelation.
And so with Proverbs 31 when we see the question „A wife of noble character who can find?“—that is to awaken a man and to awaken a woman to separate revelations. For the woman, it is meant to awaken her so that what she reads for the rest of the proverb—this is the type of woman you should be trying to emulate, principles and characteristics we should be pursuing. That Proverbs 31 is not prescriptive in that every woman needs to look exactly like Proverbs 31 woman, but rather it is a character of a virtuous woman in which everyone can emulate—men and women.
So for a woman reading this is to awaken her that what she reads next—man, this is worthy, I’m trying to pursue this. For the man it is meant to awaken him that brother, if you find one, you better hold on to her and not abuse her and not lose her. Also for the man is meant to awaken in him a sense of value—that if you find a Proverbs 31 woman, that she is valuable, she is not a dime a dozen.
Man, I want to say to the sisters in this room: don’t be a dime-a-dozen woman, don’t be an average woman. Make yourself a woman who is indispensable, make yourself a woman that’s hard to get rid of—that if a man walks away from you, let it be his loss. Make yourself the type of woman that is hard to walk away from.
And then it says make yourself a good catch—and if he catches you, he caught something good, and if he loses you, that dude is going to suffer. So when the Scripture says „A wife of noble character who can find?“ it is to imply or send a revelation that she is highly valuable, she is worth searching after, she is worth becoming like, she is worth holding on to, she is not a dime a dozen.
The passage is meant to increase value for this woman. So she is worth far more than rubies. Now in Hebrew this word „noble“—in one English translation it says excellent, in another it says virtuous. In Hebrew it’s a word that also translates valor, another word translated strength.
So the Proverbs 31 woman is not all of this superficial stuff and says a Proverbs 31 woman—listen, because for verses no sermon notes—from verses 13 through 31 is going to be descriptive about particular things we see in her, but verses 10 through 12 it’s more of an introduction into what we’re going to see.
And for women, before we start talking about she does this, she does that— in Hebrew it says a Proverbs 31 woman first of all is a woman of valor, a woman of strength. She is a woman who is strong.
A Proverbs 31 woman begins with strength—a woman who is strong in any context she finds herself in. Whether she is a single mom, if she’s holding down the house—she’s strong, she’s a Proverbs 31 woman. If she’s working a job that is tough, dealing with a difficult husband, battling her singleness—whatever it is, if you are a woman and you are strong, that is the beginning of becoming a Proverbs 31 woman.
The beginning of a Proverbs 31 woman is a woman of strength, a woman of valor—a woman who is strong, a woman who is brave, a woman who is courageous. She is not a punk who can boohoo and cry and sob and be soft and be wimpy all your life—or you can find strength in the Lord. That is the first feature of a Proverbs 31 woman: strength.
I had a mother who was strong—and she was almost like the rock of the house. Everybody ran to mama. The first feature of the Proverbs 31 woman is strength—it’s not that she does not go through, but she is a woman of valor.
It says she is worth far more than rubies—that she’s more valuable than tangible things. She’s a woman of strength, she’s a woman of valor, she’s strong.
Verse 11: „Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.“
This is crazy to me—it says her husband has full confidence in her. This word confidence can also be translated as trust. So the second feature of a Proverbs 31 woman—she’s a woman who’s trustworthy, she’s reliable, someone we can lean on.
That when I’m going through hell as a pastor, I can lay my head in her lap and find calm, or have confidence and trust in her—that she is reliable, she is there for me, she is dependable. She is not abandoning me in the thick of trouble. She’s a source of strength for me when I’m hurting, when I’m weak.
If I give her tasks, I have confidence it’s going to get done. And when she walks out of my presence, I’m not worried about what she’s doing. That her husband has full confidence in her.
And if you’re not married, you’re a single woman—man, you want to become a woman who is trustworthy, a woman who is reliable, a woman who is dependable, a woman that somebody can put some weight on and she can stand up under that pressure. A woman who, when she speaks, her words have value because if your actions are different from your words, you cannot be trusted. If you are duplicitous, you cannot be trusted. If you say one thing and live another, you cannot be trusted.
And so a Proverbs 31 woman—a woman who can be trusted. Her husband has full confidence—that is why he can trust her.
And lacks nothing of value—that when he sees in her, he is not void, she is not void of being trustworthy. In fact, this word confidence—when I was studying this in Hebrew—this word confidence is a crazy word because in a sense this word confidence is almost the type of word that we see when people put trust in God.
Now I want to say something that I think is very profound about this verse. The Bible condemns us trusting in men—in fact the Bible says trust no man. And so the Bible condemns us from trusting men—it tells us to put our trust in God. But this is one of the only passages in the Scripture that breaks that exception—it makes an exception right here.
This is one of the only passages in the entire Bible in which we are encouraged to trust another human being—the other human being being this woman. What does that say to us? That if we find a woman of virtue, that if we find a woman of character and if we find a woman of valor—man, her worth is so elevated and apart from God, this is the only other place we are encouraged to trust such a woman—which automatically increases her worth for the man who finds one or for the woman who becomes one—that she becomes almost as trustworthy as Yahweh Himself.
That the purpose of this text in its original languages is to elevate the value of the Proverbs 31 woman so powerfully. Because even in our culture as men we like to think with our loins and not with our head—and so if you don’t look a certain way, it’s so easy for us to step over Proverbs 31 women. And on the outside she may not look like what the world says she’s supposed to look like—it’s so easy for us to step over her because we’re focused on image and not character.
You see, because you can be—there are plenty of women—she’s bad, her face, her body is dope, but full of trouble, will abandon you in a second, let the next dude come along with more money—gone. Will she hold you down if you lost the crib? We put so much pressure on image that even men, because we think with our loins, will pursue image and not think about character.
And you can get the dime piece and she’ll bring hell to your life. Or sometimes we have to look for the Proverbs 31 woman even if she comes in seed form. She might be right under your nose in seed form, and maybe she has to be cultivated into becoming the Proverbs 31 woman.
So it can’t be just about image. Notice Lemuel’s mother said nothing yet about image—she’s talking about character.
Verse 12: „She brings him good and not harm all the days of her life.“
I could just drop the microphone. She brings him good and not harm all the days of her life. Now this does not mean that they never have disagreements, never means they may not have a fight every now and then. It doesn’t mean that they will not have some tough times.
But this word good—it’s talking about spiritual good, moral good, physical good. She brings him spiritual good—so she’s the source of spiritual strength. She brings him moral good—so he’s not worried about what she’s doing out there, she is morally sound. And when a woman is morally sound, it creates more security for a relationship.
It’s hard to have a good relationship when someone’s not morally sound—when you have to be checking their phone all the time or worried about where they are. She brings physical good—in essence she is not catastrophic to his life.
When it says she brings him no harm—it doesn’t mean they don’t have problems or disagreements in the context of a relationship. It doesn’t mean if she has to be a doormat. It just means that she is not a woman who comes to ruin a man’s life—because there are women who ruin men’s lives. And if you don’t want to be the type of woman that ruins men’s lives, it is better for you to stay single than ruin someone’s life.
So she’s the type of woman who does not come to ruin men’s life. This connects back to what Lemuel’s mother said to him about the harem of women that ruins kings. A Proverbs 31 woman is a woman that does not come to ruin men’s lives. A Proverbs 31 person does not ruin the lives of other people.
They may cause pain every now and then, we may have problems every now and then, but a P31 woman or person does not come in to ruin people’s lives. A P31 woman or person is also selfless and not selfish—that they are concerned about the welfare of other people, particularly their significant other.
So if I was making points: a P31 woman or person is a woman of great value and great valor; a P31 woman or person is a person of great trust; a P31 woman is a woman who brings good and not harm.
Closing Thoughts and Prayer
When I look through the Scriptures, I see echoes of P31. When I consider this older woman, this wise mother who dictated these words to her son—when I keep reading the words that she said to him, I see in her a type of wisdom that echoes the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when I read the Sermon on the Mount, I see Jesus calling believers to a life that sets us apart from everyone else—that sets us apart from the world so that our life becomes so attractive that people are drawn to Him through us.
And every time I keep coming back to this text, I see the wisdom of a mother telling a son: be a man of character, be a man of standards, separate yourself from the world, separate yourself from other people. And the type of woman you should pursue—that when we get a glimpse of this woman, she is separated from other women. She is a type of woman not only worthy to be pursued, worthy to emulate—when we see her, she becomes a gem, a standard, and is different from the world, different from what other people are saying and doing, countercultural to what society is saying.
This is not P31 prescriptive to say you have to be like everything that we’re going to read in the coming weeks, but it is to say it is an encouragement to be men and women of character, men and women of virtue, men and women who are noble. And when we have nobility, when we have good character and when we have virtue, we bring blessing to the lives of others, we distinguish ourselves from the lives of others, we bring glory to God.
You can either be a dime-a-dozen woman or you can be a P31 woman. You can either be a dime-a-dozen man or you can be a P31 man. You can float downstream with cultural narratives or you can go upstream with what the Word of God says. And when it’s all said and done, we’ll see which road was the better road.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And I’ve chosen to go the road less narrow and distinguish myself from other men—so for the mature woman, distinguish herself from all other women. For beauty is deceptive and charm is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Final Prayer
Eternal God, wise Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for this time in Your presence. Your Word is not bound by an outline or by anything, God—we just have Your Word. Father, speak to us from the pages of Your Word. Holy Spirit, Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
We thank You, Lord, for the wisdom of Your Word, the truth of Your Word. We thank You, God, for this time in Your presence. And Father, we pray that this talk would not fall on deaf ears. Even right now, may this woman feel the weight of the Word just resting on us right now, inspiring our hearts right now, calling to us to come higher in our standards right now.
I pray for every man and woman under the sound of my voice that we will grow tired and weary and sick of being average and we would run from lives of debauchery and lives of sin, but that You will begin to shape and form in us character, to form in us nobility, that You would form in us virtue.
And we will be men and women that add value to the lives of other people and men and women that don’t bring ruin to the lives of other people. We will be separated, God, from the masses, and we will be worth searching for and worth keeping and worth fighting for. And through our nobility people will see You and You will be glorified.
Pray for the women under the sound of my voice that You would free them from the cultural pressures of trying to conform to an image as a standard—how pathetic that is, God, according to Your Word. But we will come a little higher, get a little deeper, God, and see that the standard is not image but the standard is character. And may they see beauty in the contents of character and not just an image.
And while we’re not against image, God, we pray that it would not be the defining of who You are calling them to be, God—that it is much deeper, God, than hair and nails and face and bodies and hips. Pray for my sisters that they would see character as beauty, that they would flee wretchedness and glorifying ratchetness and thinking that that’s sexy—when they see character as being sexy and virtue as being sexy and valor as being sexy.
And when we have not known better, would we not feel condemned, but would You help us to be open now—we would pursue something maybe we never thought about before. Holy Spirit, help us maybe be transformed during this series—P31 men and P31 women. Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
We thank You, Lord, for the wisdom of Your Word, the truth of Your Word. We thank You, God, for this time in Your presence. And Father, we pray that this talk would not fall on deaf ears. Even right now, may this woman feel the weight of the Word just resting on us right now, inspiring our hearts right now, calling to us to come higher in our standards right now.
I pray for every man and woman under the sound of my voice that we will grow tired and weary and sick of being average and we would run from lives of debauchery and lives of sin, but that You will begin to shape and form in us character, to form in us nobility, that You would form in us virtue.
And we will be men and women that add value to the lives of other people and men and women that don’t bring ruin to the lives of other people. We will be separated, God, from the masses, and we will be worth searching for and worth keeping and worth fighting for. And through our nobility people will see You and You will be glorified.
Pray for the women under the sound of my voice that You would free them from the cultural pressures of trying to conform to an image as a standard—how pathetic that is, God, according to Your Word. But we will come a little higher, get a little deeper, God, and see that the standard is not image but the standard is character. And may they see beauty in the contents of character and not just an image.
And while we’re not against image, God, we pray that it would not be the defining of who You are calling them to be, God—that it is much deeper, God, than hair and nails and face and bodies and hips. Pray for my sisters that they would see character as beauty, that they would flee wretchedness and glorifying ratchetness and thinking that that’s sexy—when they see character as being sexy and virtue as being sexy and valor as being sexy.
And when we have not known better, would we not feel condemned, but would You help us to be open now—we would pursue something maybe we never thought about before. Holy Spirit, help us maybe be transformed during this series—P31 men and P31 women. Jesus' name, we pray, amen.