No Walls to Climb

“But yeah! I decide the big things—whether they’s life on Mars, who oughta be president, how we gonna fix this economy. The deep questions, you know.”

Thibodeaux scratched his head. “Well then… what’s Marie decide?”

Boudreaux waved his hand like he was shooing a mosquito. “Oh, Marie—she just handle the little stuff. Where we gonna live. What we gonna eat. How we raise the kids. Where the money go. The little things.”

Now we laugh—but Boudreaux just put his thumb right on a question the Church has been wrestling with for two thousand years. What does it actually mean to be the “head”? Who gets to decide? Who gets to lead? And here’s the one I want us to sit with this morning: who gets to do the work of God? Hold onto that. We’re coming back to Boudreaux before we’re done.

The Wall

pic of the wailing wall

There’s a place in Jerusalem called the Western Wall. It’s one of the most sacred gathering spots on earth—people come from all over the world to pray there, and families hold their ceremonies there, like a bar mitzvah for a young man coming of age.

But there’s a partition. Men on one side, women on the other. And so when a family celebrates that big day, sometimes the mothers and the grandmothers and the sisters can’t even see it. So they do something that has always broken my heart a little when I picture it: they drag over a chair, and they climb up on it, and they stand on their tiptoes, straining to peer over that wall—just to catch a glimpse of the work of God happening on the other side.

I bring that up because I think we’ve done the same thing in the Church. Not with a wall—with conviction. We’ve built walls that hold half of God’s people at arm’s length from the work of God, and we’ve handed a lot of gifted women a chair and told them, “Climb up. You can watch.”

And I want to ask, as gently and as honestly as I know how:

Did God build that Wall or did we?

The Promise that Started Pouring.

Let’s look at the loudest, windiest, most Pentecostal morning in the entire Bible. Acts chapter 2. The Believers were gathered in one place, and heaven rips open. A sound like a mighty rushing wind. There were tongues of fires. The Holy Spirit falls and the whole room starts speaking about the wonders of God in languages they had never heard… much less spoken.

A crowd begins to gather, confused about what is happening, and Peter stands up to explain what’s happening. And to explain it, he refers all the way back to Joel… a promise God made centuries before.

Acts 2:17–18 NLT

17 ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. 18 In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants—men and women alike— and they will prophesy.

I want you to notice what He said. When the Holy Spirit of God came, He didn’t stop at the door and check ID’s. He didn’t separate the room by gender first. Sons and daughters. Young and old. Servants—men and women alike. The Spirit was poured out on all flesh, and the first thing those Spirit-filled women did was prophesy or preach.

Think about that. On the birth of the Church, women were in the room. Women were filled with the Holy Spirit. And women were preaching the wonders of God out loud to a mixed crowd in the power of the Holy Spirit. If you want to know how God feels about a woman preaching his word to men and women together, just look at this event. God lit these women up and let them run with the message.

Now, to really understand what happened that morning, we have to read the whole story God is telling—because Pentecost didn’t come out of nowhere. So I want to look through four windows: Creation, Old Testament, Jesus, and the Spirit. And then we’ll deal honestly with Paul, because I know somebody’s already got their hand half-raised.

Creation: The wall was never the blueprint.

Go all the way back to the beginning. In Genesis 1, God makes the world, and over and over He looks at it and says the same word: good. Good. Good. It’s a drumbeat. Light—good. Land and sea—good. Living things—good.

Genesis 1:27 NLT

27 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Both of them were made in the image of God. They carry that image together.

And then, in Genesis 2, for the very first time, something is “not good.” So God makes what he calls a helper. Don’t let that word make you crazy. It doesn’t mean assistant.

Genesis 2:18 NLT

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”

Now don’t let that English word “helper” shrink down on you, like she’s the assistant who fetches the coffee.

The Hebrew is Ezer kenegdo. Ezer means strong help—rescuing help. And here’s the thing that ought to stop you: it’s the same word the Bible uses over and over for God himself.

Ezer means strong help

Psalm 121:2 NLT

2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!

That is not the language of a subordinate. That is the language of a rescuer. And the second word,

kenegdo means “corresponding to”

—face to face, one who stands eye-to-eye with the other. Put them together and God is describing an equal partner. That was the design. Partnership. No wall.

So where did the wall come from? Genesis 3. The curse. When sin entered the world, it didn’t just break us with God—it broke us with each other, and it cracked that equal partnership right down the middle. Gen 3:16

Genesis 3:16 NLT

16 Then he said to the woman, “I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.”

A man lording over a woman was NOT God’s design, it was a result of the curse. That’s the damage sin brings.

Hear me carefully:

The wall is not a feature of God’s good creation. The wall is a symptom of the fall.

That means that when we stand up and defend that wall, we have to be real careful we’re not defending the curse. Because the whole rest of the Bible is the story of God rolling back the curse. Are you defending Eden or the curse?

God’s been using women since the Old Testament.

Some people act like a woman leading God’s people is something new… or going soft or modern. Women leading men is older than the USA…. older than the church.

In Exodus, when God brings Israel out of Egypt, He doesn’t just send one leader. He sends three according to Micah 6:4

Micah 6:4 NLT

4 For I brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from slavery. I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to help you.

He sends Miriam along with Aaron and Moses. Miriam was a prophet named by God himself.

In Judges There is a season when the who nation is being crushed by it’s enemies, and God raises up a leader, a prophet and judge, to the highest office in the land, and Her name was Deborah.

Judges 4:4–5 NLT

4 Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, was a prophet who was judging Israel at that time. 5 She would sit under the Palm of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites would go to her for judgment.

The men of Israel came to her for the word of the Lord. Barak, the general of the army, won’t even march into battle unless Deborah goes with him. God ran an entire nation through a woman — and the Bible never once stops to apologize for it.

In 2 Kings, Josiah’s men found a lost scroll in the temple, and they don’t knowo if it’s really God’s word. So who do they carry it to, to authenticate the very Word of God? A prophet named Huldah. There were famous male prophets alive at that very time — Jeremiah was preaching in those years. But God’s word came through Huldah, the king listened, and it sparked one of the great revivals in Israel’s history.

These are not loopholes. They are not exceptions God is embarrassed about. They are a pattern.God has always been willing to put his word in a woman’s mouth. Then came Jesus

Jesus: The Wall - Breaker

The one who rolls it back is Jesus. As you watch him through the Gospels you will notice that Jesus has a habit of stepping right over walls people thought were holy.

He healed on the Sabbath.

He touched lepers.

He laid hands on the dead.

He ate supper with tax collectors.

Every wall people built to keep people away from God, Jesus walked straight through. Some of His most drastic and breath taking moments were with women.

The Woman at the well in Samaria -

He sat down with a woman the whole town had written off… 5 marriages; living with someone out of marriage. He had a theological discussion with her. And it was her, this outcast woman that Jesus first said the words… I AM. John 4:26

John 4:26 NLT

26 Then Jesus told her, “I Am the Messiah!”

He revealed himself as God first to her… not Peter, james of John… to the outcast woman at the well.

Martha

With Martha grieving over the loss of her brother Lazarus, Jesus had a theological discussion with her about the afterlife tha tthe culture of the day said only belonged between men.

But there is an encounter even more dramatic that those. The single most important moment in history was the resurrection. The whole gospel hinges on the resurrection. Who did Jesus tell first?

Mary Magdalene

Jesus told Mary first.

John 20:17 NLT

17 “Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

Jesus told Mary Magdalene to Go tell the disciples that He was risen from the dead. He made a woman the first preacher of the resurrection. Listen to me.

If the risen Christ trusted a woman to carry the news about the empty tomb to the apostles, who are we to say she can’t carry it to us on a Sunday morning.

The Spirit: Gifts don’t come in a men’s size only.

Which brings us back to that windy morning in Acts 2. Everything Creation set up and everything Jesus did comes pouring out at Pentecost. Joel’s old promise finally rains down—and it rains on sons and daughters alike… men and women alike.

Now we’re a Spirit-filled people. We believe the Holy Spirit hands out gifts to His Church—gifts of teaching, gifts of leadership, gifts of prophecy. So let me ask you the most honest question in this whole sermon.

If the Holy Spirit is the one handing out the gifts, who are we to tell him He handed one to the wrong person?

Nowhere does the Bible tell us that the gift of teaching only comes in a man’s size, or that leadership is for one gender only. The Bible never says a gifted woman may only teach the children and the other women. If the Spirit gave her the gift, the Spirit expects it to be used. A woman gifted to teach should teach. A woman gifted to lead should lead. To bury that gift in the ground out of fear is the one thing Jesus actually warned us against.

What about Paul?

I know someone is probably looking up some of Paul’s writing right new because you believe that Paul was the one who slammed the door shut on women in ministry. The fact that you are thinking that shows me that you take the Bible seriously. So let’s look at the hard verses. But here is the truth about Paul. The man who everyone thinks shut the door on women is actually the one holding the door wide open.

Paul wrote one of the most dynamic verses in the Bible in Gal 3:28

Galatians 3:28 NLT

28 There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

That’s Gen 3 in reverse.

The curse split us; the cross makes us one.

And Paul didn’t just write it, he lived it. Look at some of the people he worked beside.

Phoebe

Romans 16:1–2 NLT

1 I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a deacon in the church in Cenchrea. 2 Welcome her in the Lord as one who is worthy of honor among God’s people. Help her in whatever she needs, for she has been helpful to many, and especially to me.

Paul calls her a deacon and trusts her to carry the letter to the Romans to the church in Rome. In those days, the person who carried the letter would be the one to read the letter and explain it to the people… men and women together. that makes Phoebe the first person to preach the book of Romans.

Priscilla

Romans 16:3–4 NLT

3 Give my greetings to Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in the ministry of Christ Jesus. 4 In fact, they once risked their lives for me. I am thankful to them, and so are all the Gentile churches.

Acts 18:24–25 NLT

24 Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, an eloquent speaker who knew the Scriptures well, had arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt. 25 He had been taught the way of the Lord, and he taught others about Jesus with an enthusiastic spirit and with accuracy. However, he knew only about John’s baptism.

She and her husband tool a gifted young preacher named Apollos under their wing and taught him the way of God more accurately. And when they are named together as teachers, her name is first indicating that she was most likely the lead teacher according to their culture of the day.

Junia

Romans 16:7 NLT

7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews, who were in prison with me. They are highly respected among the apostles and became followers of Christ before I did.

Paul greets her and says she is outstanding among the apostles. A woman apostle … according to Paul.

So, what about the verses where Paul tells women to be silent? That’s in 1 CO 14: 34-35

1 Corinthians 14:34–35 NLT

34 Women should be silent during the church meetings. It is not proper for them to speak. They should be submissive, just as the law says. 35 If they have any questions, they should ask their husbands at home, for it is improper for women to speak in church meetings.

You may think that settles it, but it doesn’t. Not even close. Just a couple of chapters before he is telling women how to dress when they are praying or preaching in church. 1 CO 11:5

1 Corinthians 11:5 NLT

5 But a woman dishonors her head if she prays or prophesies without a covering on her head, for this is the same as shaving her head.

So Paul is giving instructions on how a woman should pray and teach and he never withdrew that, so the passage in 14:34-35 must mean something different… it can’t mean women never speak. In 1 CO 14:34-35 Paul is dealing with a particular problem that the church was having… interrupting and calling out in an orderly service. He was not muzzling half the church for all time.

What about 1 Tim 2 where Paul says I don’t permit a woman to teach? Let’s look at that.

Paul wrote that to Timothy, who was pastoring in Ephesus, where false teaching was spreading and where some untrained women were getting swept up in it and passing the heresy along. The word Paul uses there for “authority” is a rare one he never uses anywhere else when he’s talking about normal church authority—it carries the flavor of seizing or grabbing control.

Paul’s instruction is: before you teach, first sit down and learn. Stop spreading what you haven’t been trained in. That’s a fix for a specific crisis—not a permanent ban that would contradict everything Paul just did with Phoebe and Priscilla and Junia.

And now—finally—back to Boudreaux and that word “head.”

Kephale means source.

Paul says “the head of the woman is man.” The Greek word is kephale, and we hear “head” and think “boss.” But kephale usually meant source—like the head of a river, where the water comes from.

And watch why that matters: Paul says in the same breath that “the head of Christ is God.” Now if “head” means “boss,” then God is the boss over Jesus and they’re not equal—and friend, that breaks the Trinity.

But if “head” means “source,” the whole verse holds together and the Trinity stays intact. Source, not boss. S o Boudreaux can keep deciding about life on Mars—but the Bible never made him Marie’s boss. It made them one.

This is not a test for salvation.

Now let me stop and say something important, because I know not everybody in this room lands where I land—and I don’t want anybody hearing contempt in my voice this morning, because there isn’t any.

There are sincere, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians who read these same passages and conclude that the office of pastor is meant for men. They’re not liberals throwing out the Book. They believe every word of it, same as you and me. This is a family disagreement about interpretation, between people who are all kneeling at the same cross.

A few weeks ago, down in Orlando, the largest Protestant body in America — the Southern Baptist Convention — held its annual meeting. And they took a vote. By about three out of every four messengers in the room, they moved to write into their constitution that no church partnered with them may have a woman serve as pastor. And this time they reached further than ever before — the new language stretches all the way down to a woman “preaching to the assembled congregation.” It still has to pass a second vote in 2027 before it becomes final. But the direction is unmistakable.

Rick Warren—who pastored Saddleback, wrote The Purpose Driven Life, and could never in a hundred years be called liberal—came to believe women could pastor, and he pointed to the same things we’ve seen: the Great Commission tells women to go and teach; the Spirit fell on women at Pentecost; and Jesus chose Mary to be the first to preach the resurrection. They then kicked his church out of the denomination. But listen to how put it. He said plainly, even while he was convinced, “I could be wrong.” And he refused to make it a test of whether somebody’s a real Christian.

I want us to carry that same spirit out of here. We can hold a conviction with our whole heart and still hold our brother and sister with an open hand. If you walk out today landing somewhere different than I do—you are not my opponent. You’re my family.

We will live by Grace

Now hear the heart of the whole thing, because if you miss this you’ll miss everything.

We do not tear down this wall by trying harder. We don’t tear it down to be modern, or because the culture wagged its finger at us, or because women pushed hard enough. If that’s why we did it, we’d just be trading one set of human pressure for another.

We tear it down because Jesus already tore it down.

Galatians 3:28 isn’t a policy memo. It’s the gospel. The curse that built the wall back in Genesis 3 was nailed to the cross and left there. So we are not out here sweating and straining to manufacture some brand-new reality. The reality is already finished. The Spirit is already poured out—that happened in Acts 2, not in a committee meeting last week. We are simply catching up to a victory Jesus already won.

That’s grace. You don’t climb the wall by willpower. Christ leveled it at Calvary, and now He just says: walk on through. We’re not building a door. We’re opening one He already unlocked.

What if there is no wall to climb?

So let me bring you back to Jerusalem, to that woman on the chair, up on her toes, straining to see over the wall.

Now picture a little girl in this church. Maybe she’s in the children’s area right now coloring a picture of Noah’s ark. And the Spirit of God has already dropped a gift down inside her—maybe she’s going to be a teacher who makes the Scriptures catch fire, or a leader people will follow toward Jesus.

What if she grows up in a church where there is no wall to climb? No chair to drag over. No partition to peer around. What if every gift the Spirit poured out on her gets to run at full strength, aimed straight at the mission of God? Think of all the energy she won’t have to spend climbing—where else in the Kingdom could she pour it instead? What eternal difference might that make?

Church, the Spirit was poured out on all of us. Sons and daughters. He gives the Spirit without limit:

John 3:34 NLT

34 For he is sent by God. He speaks God’s words, for God gives him the Spirit without limit.

He gives without limit. So let’s stop handing people chairs. Let’s take a brick out of that wall this week—every one of us—until there’s nothing left to climb.

God gives the Spirit without limit. So River Church—let’s live without walls.

Related Media

Related Sermons

Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.