The scripture textsthis morning comes
from FirstCorinthians 11,
verses 2 to 16, and
you'll find it on the
back page of your. Bulletin.
I praise you forremembering me in
everything and forholding to the
teachings just as I
pass them on to you.
Now I want you to
realize that the head
of every man is
Christ and the head
of the woman. Is man
and the head of
Christ is God?
Every man who prays
or prophecies withhis head covered
dishonors his head,
and every woman who
prays and prophecieswith her head
uncovered dishonors
her head. It is at it
is just as though her
head were shaved. If
a woman does notcover her head, she
should have her hair
cut off. And if it is
a disgrace for awoman to have her
hair cut or shavedoff, she should cover
her head. And a man
ought not to cover
his head, since he is
the image and glory
of God. That the
woman is the glory of
man. For man did not
come from woman, butwoman from man.
Neither was mancreated for woman,
but woman for man.
For this reason, andbecause of the
angels, the woman
ought to have a sign
of authority on her
head. In the
Lord, however, woman
is not independent of
man, nor is man
independent of woman.
For as woman came
from man, so also man
is born of woman. But
everything comes from
God. Judge for
yourselves. Is it
proper for a woman to
pray to God with her
hair uncovered? Doesnot the very nature
of things teach you
that if a man has
long hair it is a
disgrace to him, but
that if a woman has
long hair it is her
glory, for long hair
is given to her?As a
covering, if anyonewants to be
contentious aboutthis, we have no
other practice, nor
do the churches of
God the word of theLord.
Welcome.
We have slowed down a
little bit as we aregoing through
Corinthians, thisletter of Paul to the
Corinthians sloweddown on this passage
side to take twoweeks to look at it
because of the issuesthat it raised. And
and if you're herelast week, you saw we
talked about thispassage and and the.
The main point ofwhat Paul was trying
to get across, we sawwas really our
relationship to ourculture. And we
wanted to really getto the answer to the
question, why we atthe village church
don't wear headcoverings, Why women
in the church don'twear head coverings?
Because we saw thatPaul was really
intent upon having usengage our culture.
And really, this wasabout our attitude
toward our culture,how we are to engage
it, how we are to
find truth in it and
even bring it intoour worship service.
So we've dealt withthat last time. And
in the process ofdoing that, we found
that this passage isreally about
affirming theimportance of women.
In the Church and theimportance,
therefore, ofmaintaining adistinction in
gender. Last week.
Keeping that linevisible. So we're
going to, since weexplained that last
week and delved intothat last week, this
week we're going to
take a look at thesecond really
secondary issue here,which is the
importance of this,this thing called
gender, the realityof this thing called
gender and genderdistinction. Now you
could say well. What's so important
about that?Why is
that so important toto even talk about if
it's a woman and aman are both in God's
image? And Paul'svery careful in this
passage to say that,to say to not to say
that a woman is inthe image of man
because she's not. She's in the image of
God. If both men andwomen are in the
image of God,creating the image of
God. In that sense,
equal why is it so
important a truth toproclaim by my
clothes, by the way I
order my worship
service?That there's
a distinction. And
that's a goodquestion and it's a
question that'scertainly come up in
our times. And
I would tell you that
I would skip over
this and I would not
preach it except forthe fact that I've
found in a certainrelationships, gender
really does matterand it's a matter of
identity.
Have many relate. There are many things
that we do where agender doesn't come
into play. But after15 years of marriage,
I can say certainlythere's a there's a
place there wheregender matters. And
after going throughwith you here at the
village church nowwe've gone through
three different booksof the Bible. Notice
that this this genderdiscussion comes up
and every one of
them. And So what
this passage istrying to tell us is
that in the Churchcontext, this
distinction matters
as well. And so
I didn't just skipthis passage because
the more I look intowhat the scriptures
are teaching, themore I and the more
experience I havewith people. And
where I see this isreally about
identity. It's animportant issue of
identity. So I
like women. I really
do like women.
And what bothers me?
Is when people that
are like. Have a
loss in their
identity. Were there
or not? When I seewomen who are not
able to becomfortable being
women, and the samewith men, that
bothers me.
And I've come to see.
That there's a truthhere, and that the
erasing or theattempt to erase
distinctions andgender is nothing
less than a stealing
away of part of our
identity. And that I
care about. I don'tcare about scoring
political points. Ido care about that
loss.
So I want to retry as
difficult as this. Try to reclaim
something of ouridentity here,
something of our
womanness. To edit
for you to be able to
enjoy who you are andnot be so
uncomfortable andunsure and ambiguous
about who you are. In
this passage, in thechurch context, it's
my goal. Umm, I don't
understand a lotabout it, but I want
to share what I what
I what I feel like Ican understand from
this passage. And
so we'll be sharingthree things which
are on an outline inyour bolts in there
by the scripture. Andthat is how there's a
symmetry todefinition of gender.
You have tounderstand the
symmetry before youunderstand the
asymmetry. There's asymmetry to the
gender, There's anorigin to gender as
we look into it as to
why. This is so and
then there's a gloryto gender asymmetry,
that gender isdefined inrelationship and
origin because theyboth come out of God,
our genders and then
a glory of that, what
that means for what
we know about God. So
let me start here.
I'm trying to get us
into this first thingthis this. Understand
of how gender isdefined according to
the scriptures. There's a, there's
kind of a Yangwhenever you read
some passage thatinvolves instruction
toward men andinstruction toward
women, you know, notin terms of, you
know, equating goodand evil or something
like that, but justthat visual symbol,
you see a, you seethat same kind of
symmetry. Wheneverthe Bible brings up
instruction towardsmen, toward women, we
saw it, for example,
back in Chapter 7,
and we were lookingat First Corinthians
7 on marriage, andevery instruction
that was delivered toone gender was
intern, anaccompanyinginstruction was
delivered to theother, and that's
that. That says verse2, every man should
have his own wife andeach woman should
have her own husband. Husband should
fulfill his male dutyto his wife and the
wife. Likewise thewife should not rule,
does not rule overher body, but the
husband does and thehusband doesn't rule
over his body forlifetimes life and
that's not separatedfrom her husband and
husband must notseparate from her
wife. And I'm sorryto say, you know,
Paul, you could save
some space here. You
could actually thischapter doesn't only
needs to be half aslong as it is. You
know if a brother hasa wife who's not a
believer and she'swilling to live it
that he must notdivorce and if a
woman has a husbandis not believing he's
only lived with her.
She was not divorced.
You know if you're onnow you're a man and
you sent. Married andyou get married,
you're not sinning. Or if you're a
virgin, you're notmarried, you get
married, you're notsinning. Goes both of
both back and forthand you say Paul just
say one or the other,but he can't.
He cannot, becauseany instruction to
men. Turns out to
be an instruction and
instruction to men as
men. Turns out to be
an instruction about
women. It's in terms
of women, and any
instruction to women
as women is in terms
of men. In other
words, my friends,gender according to
the scripture. Isdefined in
relationship and we
find our gender in
relationship. We get
defined inrelationship.
You know, look atverse 11 with me.
What does that say? Ithink an English
version puts it interms of dependence.
Woman is notindependent of man.
You know what it
literally says woman
is not apart from
man. The
woman is not apartfrom man, and man is
not apart from woman.
OK, which meansfriends. Just what
I'm saying. It'sdefined inrelationship
definition. Means to
the other to have.
These are I'm not aman and you're not a
woman. Because whenwe go to the movies,
we split up and yousee Sleepless in
Seattle and I see TheTerminator Returns.
That is not whatmakes me a man.
Gender is a matter of
missing ribs. It's
a matter of ribs that
are missing. Man isdefined in
relationship tosomething he's
missing, and woman,woman defined in
relation to the manin our relationship.
So which means that I
am most truly a man.
When I as a man,
understand mydependence upon women
in the church.
And women do
likewise. And
So what you seeoverall in this
passage, what Paul'strying to do is
shift. He's trying tomake a shift in their
thinking from one ofmaking this issue 1
of individualfreedom. Torelational
responsibility, isn'the saying? This is
not a matter ofindividual training,
this is a matter ofrelational
responsibility?And so
when we get to theend of the passage
and, you know, thisis the third time in
this letter that theapostle Paul is
trying to correct theCorinthians by
appealing to what'sdone in other
churches. That's the
third time he'ssaying, you know, but
look at what we do in
the other churches. Like you're not
independent. Corinthtrying to correct the
Corinthianindependence seems to
be an issue.
You know what else
this means? If this
is so, this means
that the usual terms
in which we try to
talk about genderdon't work. It means
that as soon as you
enter into anattitude of of
competition. You lose
the truth aboutgender, it's gone.
As soon as our hearts
dip into and thinkabout who's better,
who's role is better,what's more
important, we enter
into the realm of the
fall where gender
deteriorates. You
know, and you know,
this way of thinkingabout gender is
nothing new. It's as
old as the Fall,stated very
succinctly andGenesis 3 and then
afterwards in manyartists themes, you
know?And Lysistrata.
The Taming of the
Shrew. Pygmalion.
Princess Ida,Gilbert, assault, all
these, you know,different, taking up
this theme,understanding gender
in terms of syntax
agonism and thiscompetition. You've
lost it already.
You've lost what it
is. I feel like
this, even as this is
very old, somethingvery significant
happened in inAmerica in the 1970s.
It was real milestonefor announcing kind
of or reallydemonstrating the
loss of gender among
us. And that was the
tennis match betweenBobby Riggs and
Billie Jean King.
Now, I don't see alot of recognition on
some of your fists. You may not be quite
old enough toremember this, this
big media event ofthe 1970s. Actually,
I was saying to thisto to some friends
recently, I wastalking about this
and someone said tome, ohh, yeah, I saw
a documentary about
that. I said
documentary like onThe History Channel.
How old am I?I
remember watchingthis growing up and
if you remember whathappened, it was it
was Bobby Riggs, whoreally was not much
of A tennis player,went out to play
Billie Jean King, awoman in tennis. It
was called the Battleof the Sexes big
media event. Iremember watching
shaking my head. Ithink I understand
why. Now I was
shaking my headbecause even though
Bobby Riggs wasprobably doing this
as a joke or really
doing it to as as a
way to. To give
support to women'stennis. So I think he
probably was as a wayof putting women's
tennis in theforeground, actually
support and build itup, which actually
happened. I thinkthere was something
that was lost thatway he would go on
the TV and and makethese degrading
comments about womenand so forth to kind
of play this up thisthis contest. And
this frame it as acompetition was a key
event, I think, inkind of demonstrating
America's psychewhere it was, where
it was going andplaying this up as a
battle of the sexes. Even though there
were gains in women'ssports, there was
lost. There wassomething lost there.
And you know, genderis serious Business
didn't end up helpingBillie Jean in her
own life. And so,
because genderdiscussions are often
pitted ascompetition, it's
framed as a as an
antagonism. Firmdoesn't as an
overthrow ofoppression, which is
sometimes involved,but because it's
always framed as anantagonism, the glory
of what you are as a
woman or what you are
as a man is obscured.
And you see it inmany marriages where
where trust is lost.
That's a that's aplace where gender
comes into play, that
kind of relationship. And then when the
trust is lost, thecouple cannot enter
into their genders,can't even, can't
enjoy their genders. Because there isn't a
level of trust to
sustain it. Anymore.
So the first point
here is, is that
gender is defined interms of
relationship. Youhave to talk about
the other tounderstand what you
are. Woman wins by
man, manliness bywoman. Now second
point, Why would thisbe so?
Why would we? Whywould this happen?
Why would this be
this way?And because
of their origin ofyour gender, it's
very important for usboth to know us. OK,
Verse 12 gives us the
answer. Both genders.
Come out of God. OK
so I went verse 12says men, women,
women come from men. Both. All things come
out of guys sayingboth genders come out
of God, God's self.
In other words,France, it is proper
to say that Godcontains female as
well as male. Godcontains male, God
contains females. Proper to say that
that's the way thetext is telling us
there's there'sabsolute ontological
equality in a sexist.
Just as Christ asequal in substance
to. God, the first
member of the Trinityof the same nature.
So woman is equal inbeing to the man,
Same nature, samestuff, equal in God's
image. Now
this tells us also
that it's only in
God. Where true
androgyny isachieved, that's
where it occurs. That's when male and
female occurtogether, trying to
blend your gender. It's it's really
trying to be like God
in a way that you
can't because itreally only happens
true and judgeandrogyny in in God.
No one else can do
it. Not even Tilda
Swinton. And this
means two things.
When there stopsbeing man and woman.
They're stops beingthe relationships
that expresssomething about God
in the world.
That's why it'simportant.
When it stops beingman and woman, there
stops beingrelationships that
express somethingabout God in the
world. And secondly,to understand gender,
we need to look atthe relationship deep
into the Trinity ofGod, in the triune
nature of God tounderstand gender.
This is why it's soimportant to maintain
a distinction in ourfellowship because of
what this passage isteaching. Like what
it says in verse 3.
The head of woman,
this man. Just as
the head, or in some
some way the head of
the divine Christ,
the second is God the1st.
So listen to thisGender is expressing
something crucialabout the Godhead.
About a lovingfellowship between
the Sender and theChrist, between the
1st and the second of
the triune nature of
God. So
being a woman then?
With men or being aman with women,
especially in theworship of in the
church context. Findsthe relationship of
Christ to God.
And This is why it'salso difficult to
talk about genderroles and to grab
hold of themsometimes. Besides
the fact that they'realways culturally
mediated, they'realways expressed
through culture, likewe saw last week.
Besides that, it'sdifficult to define
them for the samereason it's difficult
to speak of the
Trinity. Becausethere's a oneness,
there's an equalitythere between the 1st
and the 2nd. There's
also a realdifference.
Differences in howthey respond.
She has a place ofher own in the
church. It'sdifferent from his
place, it seems. That's what this
passage is saying. Solet's look at that
and help it inform usto understand the
glory of gender. Let's try to
understand what wecan from this passage
about it. And I
would say that itreally all comes
under this heading of
head. Head seems to
be an important wordin this passage. He's
9 times.
And this is somehowexpressing the truth
about gender. What
that word means isdifficult to say. You
know, big debate,big, big debate about
whether it means head
in a sense of sourceof something, the
head of a river, or
head in terms of kind
of like the authorityof something like a
Sergeant or canal.
Debate is big friends
and you can go andyou can find
justification forboth in Greek
literature. You findjustification for
both in the OldTestament, find
justification forboth in the New
Testament, and what'sreally hard is you
can findjustification for
both in this passageis very passage.
Being, it makes mebegin to think that
they probably weren'tcompletely separate
in Paul's mind. What
he means by it whenhe says the head of.
So I would like to
try to draw out threethings from this
passage. Try to saywhat that means. What
is it that that head
means to be the head
of someone?Three
things.
And makes a meagercomments about this.
Put them togethersomehow. Source
authority.
And what what we see
is the first of Godproviding a
protection for theactivity of the
second while Jesus iscarrying out his
mission. OK, therewasn't authorities or
source there. Theauthority was there
to provideprotection, part of
forum for theactivity of the
second. And I
would interpret thatto mean that men are
called. And ifthey're given
authority in achurch, it is for
that reason toprovide a safe place
for the activity of
women. Remember, it'salways in
relationship.
And that safety, youknow, charges explain
what that is, whatthat feels like and
that we're talkingabout. And, and with
with some, some guysand one fellow gave
me this example,which I'm going to
use. You know how
when sometimes you'rein the city, you know
you're trying to make
your way in the city
as a single woman,
and what do you do?
You get a friend, a
guy friend who's gay,right? Often happens,
right? A single womangets a friend who's
the guy who's gay.
Why?Why is thathappening so often?
Because of the safetyit provides. Isn't
that so? Because inthat friend there's
there's, there'ssomehow a safe place?
For you to have your
lines respected andyet still have a
relationship you know?Or friends, if you
can think about thatfeeling, that is what
the church is meantto give you, only
much better. Thechurch is supposed to
be a place wherethose lines would be
respected and and youcan be safe.
Through a collectiverelationships between
brothers and sisters.
That's what it'smeant to feel like.
So then like likethese older brothers
in a family in acollective way. We're
not talking aboutindividually. So if a
woman says, well, Ilook at this guys,
what does that meanis who's my head in
this church?And
the answer would benot an individual guy
because it's not likea marriage. It's
different in achurch, but church is
like a family. Soit's supposed to be
the collective of thebrothers are called
to try to be that for
you. And you canrecognize that when
you see maturity. And
if the maturity isthere and the men,
then they can provide
that. And then we
tried to do that in a
formal way by havingwhat we call session
a group of elders,which is male, to try
to provide thatprotecting authority.
So that's one, one
thing. Second thing
is glory, OK.
Not only is HEADseemed to me
something like that,protecting authority
and enablingauthority, but also
there seems to be an
element of glory thatthis passage talks
about.
Paul's interest here
is in the glory of
how one aspect ofcreation, how one
aspect of creation is
the glory of another. It gives different
kind of examples ofrelationship, that
one who is the glory
of another somehowbrings honor, brings
praise. To that otherexcuses absolutely
opposite tocompetition can't
function in that kind
of environment. So
when Exodus 28 says,
you know that thepriests were given
these wonderfulgarments, these these
these beautiful,splendid garments
were given to them. When they received
these garments, they,the garments gave
them glory and honor.
The garmentsdistinguished them
and set them apartfor their sacredtask.
And So what we seethe second of the
Trinity doing. What
he did for the first?
Is to give him orgive him somehow or
what he was doinggory and he kept
saying that that whathe was doing is for
the glory of thefirst to reveal the
heart of the 1st. And
so I would suggest toyou that this that
women in the churchare needed to affirm
and believe in themission of what's
going on. Whichreally makes things
worth doing. Honestly, if we came
here, had a worshipservice and there
were no women, Ithink would be a
lousy worship
service. Because
Christ needs both toworship fully, to
worship well. And so
when men or women aredistinguished, the
angels who are close.
Look on and we're
close to heavenbecause through
womanhood there'shonor and glory in
the church. It's acrucial role.
And I want to saythat I feel like I
think this is goodnews again for single
woman. Who even
though she is notincomplete, sometimes
we know a singlewoman can feel and
single men like theyare incomplete.
They're not becausethey are fully in the
image of God asthemselves, but
they're not. Sometimes feeling.
They're feelingincomplete, but
they're not. Thispassage tells us it's
not so. This is how
you can make it
through the church. The church
relationshipscollectively allow
you to participate in
your gender whenthings work properly
as they should,whether you're
married or not. That
means you are notsingle in the church.
Women in many casesin the workplace
still are not treated
with dignity. Many
examples of that. In
the Church, thatdignity is restored.
Because you're in anenvironment that's a
place where ourdependence on women
in relationship isrecognized.
So you're not singlein the church and
this is what this isone place where it
does not have to be a
competition. So
that's gory. Somethoughts about that.
The third thing, thethird meaning of
having a head in this
passage is to be a
help. Now you see
in verse 9 says thewoman was made for
man on behalf of for
the sake of, to help. What's he saying?
What's the apostlesaying? He's saying
that man cannot do it
alone. He needs a
helper. He needs
help. Man cannot fill
the earth alone, andin the context that
they're talking aboutGenesis, man cannot
till the garden alonecan't do it. Enter
woman. Not as
inferior. But because
he needs help.
And So what does thatmean in terms of the
church? We try toread that in the
context of the
church. Well, we
look at, we look athow the second
number. Completed and
and and accomplished
with the first member
the mission that they
had together. That
means that in a
church, say, none of
a church, you need to
realize that they'recharged with the
responsibility ofmaking sure that the
church life is about
more than their own
lives. That
this project ofchurch that we have
is about somethingmuch bigger than just
kind of meeting ourown needs. It's about
the Kingdom of God on
earth. And then have
to rise to thatoccasion to to
realize that to bemen, it's to help us
all see that thechurch is more than
just kind of gettinghere to to meet our
own needs. And, youknow, we're prone to
bad attitudes aboutthat and make it
about our ownkingdoms, make it
about what we'regetting out of this,
you know?But to put
it succinctly, men,or men in the Church
when they're leadingus to see that the
Church is about thecoming of the Kingdom
of heaven on earth.
And This is why we
put men in thisworld, Elder, to
remind us all thatthe men are are
charged with keepingthat mandate in view.
Which we areselfishly prone to
forget. Now
women are necessarythen for carrying
that out, thatprogram out there,
necessary even todetermining how to
carry that out. And
so women are womenwhen they are helping
us all to complete
that vision. And
that's why, you know,since I've been
coming here. I've
tried to put women incloser roles of
counsel to the eldersand the interns. I
told you last weekabout our our leaders
fellowship that we'rehaving weekly, and
it's wonderful howit's worked out
because, yeah, wehave women in
different stations inthat group. We have
one woman who ismarried, has multiple
children. You haveanother woman who's
single, we haveanother woman who's
married withoutchildren and another
woman who's married
and just had a first
baby. So she's justspinning around and
has that perspective.
Trying to figure out
what life is. And
having thosedifferent voices are
important and crucial
to this church. We
have more steps to
take, I think.
In in closercommunication, but
that's that's ourfirst step.
So these are theseare meager comments.
What I thought wouldbe good since.
Sufficiency of myselfto this task alone
would be good is to
to bring up a woman
from our congregationto tell you her
perspective to give a
testimony to us about
this issue and howshe understands this
issue. And I could
think of no womanmore competent and
who. Is someone whounderstands and is
comfortable with hergender then MK
Andreis So what I'd
like to do now is
just ask her to come
up here if she would
and address this saywhat does this how
does she feel aboutthese things? How
does she understandit come up my fair.
Friend.
OK, hi.
Well, before I became
a Christian, I would
say I simultaneouslyidolized and and
rebelled against men.
Like many of my
friends, I wasambivalent about my
gender as about my
identity as a woman.
It was more important
for me to have the
attention of thatcertain. Boyfriend
then to have truth or
morality or God. All
my emotional life for
a whole weekend wouldrevolve around 1
particular phone call
from a guy that I
knew to be two timing
me. So
I realized this was
unhealthy. So I I I
I tried believing in
myself. Had feminist
books. I started totake up activities
that aretraditionally thoughtof as male
activities. Like Ithought, well, you
know, my boyfriendplays guitar, I'll
play guitar too. I
I worked in an allwomen woodworking
shop and then I took
up welding, which wasvery thrilling and
you know, but butEven so, there was
kind of an underlyingfeeling like.
There is an honor.
Like umm.
What's that? I'msorry, I lost my
place. There was anunderlying feeling of
see, I don't need a
man, I can do thismyself. Besides, I
look cute in thesewelding clothes,
right?And
then the phone wouldring and I'd just
drop everything. So Iwas a doormat
feminist.
Well then, Jesusbrought me into a
relationship with himas my boyfriend and
my fiance, and I
received a new senseof security and
purpose. This was the
first time I was ever
happy being single.
Through Jesus andthrough a lesser
extent through mypastor and my Home
group leaders, um. I
had a male voice in
my life and what I
heard from these men,which was which I
deeply needed, wasit's going to be OK
and God loves you.
Jesus and his godlymen inspired me to be
part of the missionof building the
Kingdom of God andspreading his love.
These men were not onsome kind of macho
power trip. Theywere. They wereleading and
sacrificing and love. And these men in the
church were safebecause they were
respecting myphysical and
emotional. BoundariesI really need the
security and love of
Christ and since I
had that you know,I'm comfortable being
up front or or you
know I find that it's
fun to serve others
because I have thesecurity since Christ
has raised me to
being a Co air with
him. I have a deep
sense of my equalityin Christ. So, you
know, I can be up
front or I can take acomplimentary role,
or I can even, likeJesus did, take a
subordinate role. It's OK.
The men in my life
need a woman's voicetoo. Psalm 46 said
God is a very present
help in trouble. God
is a help because hehas something we
don't have in thesame way women help
because they havesomething that men
lack. So we should,
you know, use all ofour. Gifts, including
our minds to help menas much as we can.
Sam and the other menin my life, and
sometimes I fail todo this miserably,
but Sam and the othermen in my life, they
need me to exercisefaith and be in there
and say, you know Godhas forgiven you. You
can do all thingsthrough Christ who
strengthens you. When
men receiveappropriate honor and
encouragement, theyglow. It's a glory to
them. It helps themreach their
potential. And I knowthere are many women
out there that thatexcel at doing this.
You know, when you,when you women are
able to able to dothis and give
encouragement toother people in the
church, you make thechurch shine. Thank
you.
Well, we are notexperts at all in
this, but I, I hopethat you discern the
three of those thosethree ingredients and
some of the thingsthat she was saying
there. Thank you somuch for being
willing to step upfront, by the way,
losing your place. Ido that all the time.
Nothing genderspecific about that.
Now let me bring this
to a conclusion hereabout going back to
our main lesson, allright, That gender is
there because we bothcome out of God's.
Gender is there toteach us about God.
OK, according to thispassage this is the
male femalerelationship can't be
understood in thechurch apart from the
1st and 2ndrelationship of the
Trinity. So it's the
other way around. You
know the 1st and the
2nd we can
understand. Through
gender we canunderstand some of
what, not all, and
not the depth of what
goes on, what went on
between them. At the
1st, the 2nd, and the
3rd, sitting incounsel before the
foundation of theworld, there they
are. These three.
Equal.
Individual persons of
God sitting incounsel.
And the first says
with gravity. Because
of how we will create
them. Because there
will be in our image,
in our very likeness,and because all of
the gifts that thatlove entails, that
will be given to
them. They will
fall.
And there will need
to be anextraordinarysalvation.
And then there was along pause.
And then the secondsaid.
Yes, we can do this
plan. I will go.
And I will become
them. And face
that awfulconsequence of the
breakup of our
gender, that is a
separation of our
fellowship. I will
face that and I will
do it because I'm of
the same purpose. With your good
pleasure, that wemight bring them into
our fellowship.
At first this.
I would never leave
you. As you
take this on. I
will be with you. I
will protect your
way. And I will stay
there and you don't
know it. Every
step that you take,
every movement, every
breath, I will be
there. Until the
time. When I cannot.
On the cross.
Yesterday we met as a
session to fast and
pray for you trying
to be men. And
we started going andwe started praying
through John 17. Andwe reached the point
at some point wherewe were just baffled
as we read this,because John 17, you
know, is a, is a
prayer. It's a, it'sa, it's a speaking
between the 2nd andthe 1st. The whole
chapter is the secondspeaking to the
first. As we got into
that and saw whatJesus was actually
saying, I mean, at acertain point it was
just baffling. Brennan. It was just
a certain point we webegan to understand
why he was doing whathe was doing, why he
did what he did. And
it was and it was. Itwas baffling to me.
So I felt undone. As
we consider the love
and the glory betweenthese two.
And and we're sayingthat baffles that
dawned on us whatJesus was saying,
that they wanted usdrawn up into their
fellowship. And they
both wanted that. Itwasn't just the one
who wanted that. Itwasn't just the
first, it was the
second. See read John
17. You hear Jesus
saying. Saying it's
talking to the firstthing, you know what?
I want them. With me.
Where I'm going tobe, wherever it is
I'm going to be, Iwant them with me.
I want them to see
what goes on between
us. I want to invite
them in to ourfellowship.
That they wanted us
to be there, that's
just baffling. With
all the glory and andlove that they had.
It's like gender isabout relationship,
all right?They wanted
us in there and that
is why Jesus did.
That's why he came,
became us, and waswilling to undergo
that separation on
the cross so that we
could be invited intothat relationship.
That's what he'ssaying.
And so he did. The
second followed the
first council. The
second was wasabsolutely necessary
to complete their
purposes. Or should I
say they're purpose?
The Father wasglorified, the first
was glorified in the2nd, and the second
kept saying that I'malways like, I'm
doing this to clarifythe first, I'm doing
this glorified first.
But let me ask you inthat plan of
salvation as it came
forth on earth. Who
ends up looking best?
Who ends up lookingbetter in that drama?
Who's the real hero?
I don't know. Maybe
it's a little hard totell.
When we lose gender
in the church, we notonly lose something
of who we arefriends, we lose this
story. And we lose
the testimony. To the
invitation of thegreatest feast of
love the universe hasever known, you are
being invited intothat love.
And and and how it
came to pass and howit was accomplished
has something to dowith whiteness. We
have gender. Can
we enter into that?How? How much have we
failed so often? Butcan we enter into?
I want.
Amen.
Will you rise?Let's
come towards table.