The sermon 'Home Builder, Not Housekeeper' emphasizes the expansive and fulfilling role of a home builder, distinct from a traditional housekeeper. It argues that being a home builder requires every gift and skill a woman possesses, and is not a part-time job or hobby. The speaker highlights the biblical basis for this role, referencing Titus and Proverbs 31, and outlines six key categories of home building: nurturing souls, developing people, ordering the home, managing finances, hospitality, and family mission. The sermon underscores the irreplaceable nature of a godly woman in these roles, emphasizing that her relational position and God-given gifts make her uniquely suited for building a healthy and blessed family life. The sermon also encourages fathers to support their daughters by acknowledging and valuing their contributions to home building.

Well, my topic tonight is titled Home Builder, Not Housekeeper, because they're very different things. I want to just start by telling the daughters, I've been to probably two dozen father-daughter retreats with my daughters and we do these because we love you very dearly and there's really no nowhere else we'd rather be than with our daughters considering things that matter and also having fun. So I hope that was fun. I'd like to pray. God, we do pray that you would help us.

We desire so much that your presence would be here that we would have a sense that you are drawing near to us and Just giving us grace now giving us undeserved unearned favor because you love us. May we have a great sense of this now in Jesus name. Amen. In the apostle Paul's letter to Titus, so he wrote Titus a letter in chapter 2, Paul instructs Titus to tell the older, mature, godly Christian women to teach good things to the young women. And then he gives these older women a list of these good things that they should be teaching.

There are things like loving their husbands, loving their children. And then in the list we encounter this phrase, I'm giving it to you from the King James because it's the best known. We encounter this phrase, keepers at home. And the translation's good. It is rendering the Greek words appropriately, but I'm sort of afraid of the translation, Keepers at Home.

The reason I am is that it's too easy in your mind to flip it around and make keepers at home housekeeper. You just change the words around keepers at home becomes housekeeper. And we have very distinct views of what it means to be a housekeeper. Housekeeper is someone who cooks and cleans, who does the laundry, does the dishes, tidies up. And that is not at all what scripture is teaching.

So does it include that? Yeah, it includes that, but that's only a small fraction. What God is actually teaching by telling women, the young women, the older mature Christian women to teach the young women to love their husbands, love their children, and to keep the home is to put a full and challenging and wonderful fulfilling life before you. That requires every gift that God has given you. So if you've ever had this thought, well, because I'm going to be a keeper at home, or God is calling me to be a keeper at home, I've got these gifts and I'll never really have a chance to use them, that is so not true.

You're going to find that this mission requires every gift that God has given you, and the literal investment of your life, meaning you won't be able to pull off what God is putting in view as just a hobby. This makes a lousy hobby. It makes a lousy part-time job. It's actually going to tax all of your gifts, meaning it's going to strain even all the gifts that God has given you and it's going to require full effort. This is going to be a full-time job, but more than a full-time job as most people work them because it will actually start earlier and end later.

I know this because I married a woman who's very very gifted and I've watched her need every gift that I've seen that she has and that this call to build our home has even strained those gifts. She's needed it and and it's pushed even the boundaries of those gifts And I know it's really taken all of her to do these things that she's undertaken. And I know because Proverbs 31, right, this chapter about the godly wife and mother, Proverbs 31 puts a very expansive and not confining vision again. So I'm gonna say what I've already said before, which is God is not stuffing you into a little box and calling you to these things. He's giving you an expansive life that encompasses so many different things that are are wonderful.

So this is the first point. A home builder is not just a housekeeper. Okay. Start using the home builder terminology so that you don't just think of a housekeeper. Maybe housekeeping is a tenth.

I don't think it is actually. I don't even think it's a tenth of what you're called to. But the point is it's a small proportion. Proverbs 14 1 says, the wise woman builds her house. That's what we're talking about, not a housekeeper who just cooks and cleans and does laundry and does dishes and tidies up.

It's called to build a home, and that actually means to build a life for everybody under the roof. You're building a life of health and blessing for the people under this roof. Here's my second point. No one else can actually do this like a woman whose heart is turned towards the Lord. It takes a woman whose heart is turned towards the Lord.

So if you are that, if you're becoming that, you are irreplaceable. What do I mean by that? I mean exactly what the word says. There is no replacement for you. Why is that?

Because God has uniquely designed a godly woman for that, and God has given that woman a relational position that cannot be duplicated. So I said two things there, and now I'm going to unpack them. God has uniquely designed a godly woman for that, meaning God made you with the characteristics and tendencies and affections that knit together with this calling to make you good for it, to make you suited for it, and with the potential to be great at it. Secondly, I said that God has given that woman a relational position that cannot be duplicated. You cannot duplicate with an outside relationship a wife's relationship to her husband.

You cannot duplicate with an outside relationship a mother's relationship with her children. Just consider these questions. Can a hired assistant do what a wife can do? I need someone to build a healthy life under this roof. Now I'm going to take applicants and we'll do interviews and check resumes and we'll hire someone they'll do it for a paycheck.

Can can that person that you hire, let's say you hire the best one, can that person do what a wife can do? When she's building a life with a husband? No way, of course not. I hope your sensibilities recoil at the thought of that. And you immediately say, no, of course a hired person couldn't do that.

How about this? Can a childcare worker do all that a mother can do? Have you ever seen child care workers? They can't wait till the day's over until the clock strikes whatever it is till their time there is done ever so that they can go. Why is that?

Because they can never love those children like a mother loves children. Also the math doesn't work. You have a lot of kids and one child care worker and the one child care worker doesn't even doesn't even love the children like a mother can and can't be expected to and can't be paid enough to. So this is very true. God has uniquely designed a godly woman in a way that makes them perfectly suited to this with the capability to become great at it.

I'm saying the capability because these things do have to be developed. I'm getting ready to talk about that. But with the capability of being great at building a healthy, wonderful life under a roof. And also given that woman a relational position that you just can't duplicate with an outside relationship. Now let's talk about what home building can involve.

I'm not saying a woman who is a home builder does all these things on day one. You get married, you go on the honeymoon, and the day you get back from the honeymoon, all these things are fully developed. Of course not. But I'm saying all of these things are likely to be a part of her home building at various points. And especially as the years go by, more and more at a greater and greater depth.

So think about it in those terms. And I'm saying these things need to be developed. Why is that? Because they're not easy. They need your gifts and you need to develop those gifts.

So young ladies, daughters, I want to say to you, consider that there is a lot of work ahead of you to get ready, because though God has made you suited to these things, and though God has given you gifts, if you're going to do the things that I'm going to set before you, you're going to have to develop those gifts. So a lot of work is ahead of you. I think you should consider I'm behind. That mentality will help you. In other words, I need to get in gear.

I need to get focused on these things that are probably in my future. You might have the gift of singleness but you know what? Probably not. Most people don't. Most people get married and most married couples have children.

That is most likely your future. Okay what are the what are the categories? I'm going to give you six, six categories for home builders. Is it a perfect list? I, I doubt it.

But I'm collecting up a lot of things in these six categories. Write these down, you're going to need them after I talk. Number one, nurturing souls. God in a home gives you very very close relationships, marriage relationship, and then a relationship between a mother and her children, very, very close, she gives it gives you those relationships to be nurtured. What does it mean to nurture?

Here's the dictionary definition. To care for, feed, and encourage the growth or development of. To care for, to feed, and to encourage the growth or development of. You know souls need that? My soul needs cared for and fed and To be encouraged to grow and develop my soul needs that so do the souls of children so do the souls of mothers by the way a home builder does that God puts a home builder a godly woman in a home to nurture souls In your home there will be a husband and then probably in time there will be children and every soul in that home will need love.

We just made this right. I have a wife I desperately need her to love me. We have children in our home. They desperately need the love of their mother, which is different than my love for them as their father. They actually need both, but they acutely need the love of their mother.

It's different, it's precious, it's so needed. Actually, nurturing soul takes time, A lot of time. You don't do that as a hobby and you don't do that as a part-time job. It needs patience. It needs internal resources.

What do I mean by that? I mean, you have to have a well in your own soul to draw from to nurture other souls. Okay so this is why it matters that you're born again and growing personally, spiritually, walking with the Lord closely because you need a reservoir from which you draw from to nurture these other souls. It requires skill. Caring for soul requires skill.

It requires availability. You have to be there to nurture souls. That's number one, nurturing souls. Number two, developing people. Home builders are developing people.

Yes, you will actually have an important role in developing your husband, but you'll need to be careful about that because he'll be the head of your home, and he's not your project to fix. So on one hand, you play a key role in his development, and on the other hand, be careful, because he's the head of your home, and he's not just your project to fix. And so much of his development, you'll leave in the hands of God, who is his master. So you'll help him develop, but a lot of his development you'll leave to God. But even more so, wives who are given children play an irreplaceable role in developing those children.

No child care worker ever devised can do it. You will play an irreplaceable role in developing those children. And homeschooling, assuming you choose to do that, homeschooling will be a key part of that. That means you'll need to know stuff. You'll need to have acquired the knowledge that then you'll be passing along to the children that God gives you.

Emparting knowledge is part of homeschooling, but every homeschooling mom will tell you there's a lot going on in homeschool more than just imparting knowledge. There's a lot more going on in homeschool than English and science and history and grammar. There's character development. There is work ethic development. There is Learning how to relate to each other, learning how to resolve conflict.

There's a whole lot more going in our homeschooling than English and social studies. So homeschooling is only part of developing a person. Ultimately, what are you trying to do? You love Jesus more than anything, and you want your children to love Jesus, and so you're trying to help them know Him, help them run to Him for mercy. And then, when they've done that, help them to grow.

There's so much on the day you're born again. There's so much growing that needs to be done. And moms are put there actually to help you grow in these things. So that's number one was nurturing souls. Number two was developing people.

Number three is ordering the home. A home is a little world that needs order. If you've ever been in a home and no one's bringing order to it, it is chaos. These are miserable places. Homes need a tremendous effort to bring order to the home.

What I mean by ordering a home, I mean it needs to be organized and run. So there's a plan for what needs to be done. This is part of organized, a plan for what needs to be done and how it needs to be done, but then someone has to see that it gets carried out. The proverb is, it's never the plan, it's always the execution, right? Everybody's got a great plan.

Actually seeing it come to fruition is the challenging part. Mothers need to do both in a home and the longer a home has been in existence the more complicated it gets. You start adding things to your home. You start adding children to that home. Then you have children of different ages and different age groups and it starts to get more complicated to plan the what needs to be done and how it needs to be done and then to see those things through and all these different categories, it definitely gets more complicated as you go.

First Timothy 514, we encounter this Greek word, oikodespiteo. It's all one Greek word, but it's a compound word. You homeschool students, you know what a compound word is. It's actually the joining together of two words into one. The two words being joined together are home and ruler or home and master.

So, and this is actually, it said that young widows should marry and become this Greek word, oikodespitei, meaning home rulers, masters of homes. Now does that mean that dad's not the head of the home? No, it doesn't mean that at all. It means that dad is often not in the home and normally it is actually her sphere that she is governing. Oiko Despoteo, home master or home ruler.

When women, home builders are actually called to be that. Now about housekeeping. In the early days, she'll probably do a lot of housekeeping. She'll probably do a lot of housekeeping. She'll probably do a lot of cooking and cleaning, and laundry, and dishes, and tidying up, and then diapers will be added to it.

But if she has children, as those children grow, one of her responsibilities as a home builder is to teach those children how to work, how to do things. So they need skills. So you're teaching them how to do things that you used to do and they need to learn how to work, which is the hardest thing for kids to do. The skills, comparably the skills are easy and the work ethic is hard. And a mother finds that if she's homebuilding correctly she's actually working herself out of a lot of the housekeeping jobs because not because homes need free labor but because children need skills and need to learn how to work.

This is such a key part of home building. Proverbs 31, 27 says, she watches over the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. So she's there, she's present, and she's watching over the ways of her household. She ends up actually being kind of a household manager and her children are doing a lot of these things that in the early days she did herself. So in some ways the early days are the hardest.

If you're doing it right you're working your way out of a lot of that kind of work. That was number three, ordering the home. Number four, managing finances. By the way, if you go to Proverbs 31 and read about the godly wife and mother, you find so much economic activity that this godly wife and mother is engaged in. So you find this all over Proverbs 31, managing finances.

Every home has limited financial resources. Some the limits are here, some the limits here, some the limits here, but every home has a limit to financial resources and a home builder is entrusted with most of those financial resources. What do I mean by that? I mean, go look at the financial records and see where the money is spent. Oh, the home builder spent it at the grocery store.

The home builder spent it at the gas station. Oftentimes the home builder is the one who's paying most of the bills. Now different families structure it different ways and that's fine but often the home builder is playing a key financial management role and it's their job and mission to make these limited financial resources go as far as possible. You know how you use those resources, either go far or not far, depending on how you watch it and how you approach it and how you manage it. It's the homebuilders job to make those limited financial resources go far.

My uncle has a famous joke, at least it's famous, in our family. He says of my aunt, your aunt made me a millionaire. Of course, I used to be a multimillionaire, meaning he started as a multimillionaire and she spent him down to just a millionaire. It's a funny joke, but the truth in my home in the dome home is that I came into marriage with almost nothing. Janet says it was a bunk bed and a tennis racket and that's pretty close actually to the truth.

And I did earn, I did work and earn money, but she was making it go far and she's actually managed our household finances in a way that now, decades, 35 years in a couple of weeks, decades later we now have so many more financial resources because she was really good in this category I thank God for her sometimes not always and families should be careful about this but Sometimes this includes generating income from home. You actually find the Proverbs 31, generating income from home. So that's not inappropriate. Sometimes families are doing that. The reason I say families should be careful about this is that can steal from other of these other really important categories like nurturing souls and developing people you don't want it stealing from those other categories so that's number four managing finances number five hospitality homebuilder needs to be engaged in hospitality, meaning opening up the home.

To others, Christian homes are not designed to exist just for their own sake. Dads, if God has given you a wife and given you children, there's more in the mind of God than just that. We don't exist just for our own sake. God wants our homes to be involved in in reach and outreach. And I'm saying that relative to the people of God, relative to the people of God, in reach is having brethren into your home for the refreshment of their souls and to encourage them and to have fellowship with them.

I'm calling that in reach because that's within the family of God. And then outreach. There are people who desperately need the Savior that we have and our homes are a key weapon in reaching the world with the good news that Jesus has died for sinners and he's transformed our lives. And that's so much more natural of a way than the ways in which we often engage in evangelism. It's not to cast a shadow on those other ways.

It's just to say God has given us an incredibly powerful way by having a functional home where we honor the precepts of the Bible. And we need to expose neighbors and coworkers to that. It's such a blessing to to that. This is part of home building. And a godly woman is perfectly suited for that.

That's number five hospitality number six. Family mission. Family mission. Families ought to have missions. Ways that together corporately, meaning altogether, everybody under the roof rallied around ways in which we advance the kingdom of heaven.

Local church should be a significant part of the family mission. The home builder plays a key role in that. Janet plays a key role in the domes participation in the local church. What about missions? The home builder can play a key role in your family rallying around a foreign missions opportunity.

What about abortion ministry and activism? A home builder can have a key role in the family being rallied around abortion ministry and activism. You can think of a hundred different things. What about helping the poor? A home builder can play a key role in helping the poor.

In fact, Proverbs 31 verse 20 says, she extends her hands to the poor. Do you think she's acting as a free agent there? I don't. I think she is an extension of that family to be a blessing to the poor. She extends her hand to the poor.

Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy. Homes should do that. The resources of our homes should be pointed towards that at various points and a home builder plays a key role in that. Now think of how broad those six things are. That's a lot lot more than someone who just cooks and cleans, now isn't it?

It's not even worthy to be compared. A housekeeper is not worthy to be compared by from someone who's really engaged in those six categories. Though cooking and cleaning is very necessary to homes, so I don't want to make it sound like that's unimportant. Of course homes need those things, but I just want you to see how small of a portion of what the calling to a home builder actually is. So if you've got music gifts, you'll have great opportunities to develop and use your music gifts.

Look down that list of six and see where you can insert music gifts into that. You'll find a number of them. If you're gifted at organizing things and then making them happen, you'll have great opportunities to develop and use those gifts. If you are gifted at math, I married a math major, 3.9 in mathematics. That's Janet Duhme.

She's had great opportunities to develop and use her math skills. What if you're especially tender-hearted with people? You'll have great opportunities to develop and use that gift from God. What if you're gifted at teaching others? Of course, you'll have tremendous opportunities to develop and use that gift from God.

What if you're gifted at teaching others? Of course, you'll have tremendous opportunities to develop and use that gift that God has given you to teach others, and on and on and on. We could make a really long list here. I have 30 seconds. All that to say that building a home needs all of those gifts that I just mentioned and more.

This is an expansive life and not a restrictive life. In no way are you being stuffed into a box where you can't use your gifts. You'll be straining all your gifts to do this in the way that God has set forth to make a healthy, wonderful home where you have a life that is working out the Bible under your roof. Daughters, I hope you're saying to yourself, goodness, there are so many very, very important irreplaceable things that God has given me to do in life. I hope you're leaving here praising God that he would give you the privilege of doing these things.

It's such a privilege. So daughters, this is a big wonderful life to aspire to. You should aspire to this. If you, I just wanna say that if you dread the thought of this, you just don't understand it yet. Okay, this is so worthy of a lifetime.

This is something to be tremendously happy about. God's design is the best design and he's mapped out a glorious life for you. He's mapped out a very glorious life for you. Where you walk with him and you build a home, which really just means you build a life. You build a life for this family that God has given to you.

Dads, help your daughters have an expanded view of all that home building is. So they won't miss the glory of it. And so they won't be robbed of it by naysayers who won't build their lives on the Bible. You know the world's filled with naysayers who have no intention of building their lives on the Bibles. And they will rob our daughters of the glory of God's design if we don't open this up before them.

This is a compelling life. This is a compelling life. Janet actually is going to come and talk about this some tomorrow. Dads, let me suggest one way you can do that. Acknowledge their mom in front of them for the good and great ways she's doing this.

Not all wives and mothers are perfect in every category. No wives and mothers are perfect in any category. But she's doing great at some of them. Acknowledge them before your daughters. For me, it would sound something like this.

Janet, I've been watching you and what should happen in our home and how. I've been watching you plan what should happen in our home and how it should happen and then making those plans happen. And I'm blown away that you can manage all those moving parts and complexity. And I just wanna thank you for the great life you're making for us. That will help our daughters to see, things like that will help our daughters to see how beautiful the life that God is calling them is.

Okay, two questions for our father daughter discussion time. So after each of the messages, we're just gonna huddle up as a family or as two families, like Jake and Grace huddle up with somebody else. One or two families, huddle up and talk about a question that you'll be given. So here are the two questions. These are the questions for the daughters.

Dads, if you have really young daughters, you can figure out how to manage around this. Question number one, which one of the six categories will come most naturally to you? So you got these six and you say, this one won't be any trouble for me at all and then say why and number two daughter which one will be the hardest adjustment for you and why in other words you look at the six and say, Oh, this is going to be a tough one for me. It's going to help you identify areas to go develop. Father, thank you.

Thank you for your daughters in this world, women who walk with Jesus, who have seen the beauty of what they're called to in scripture and they're engaging in it in all their hearts and all the good that comes from that. Thank you for Janet, how she's done that in our home. I pray that you would bless her. In Jesus name, amen.