He is elusive. Itmight be something
different outside thehouse than inside the
house, and we can get
it wrong. And it is
far more dependentupon environment than
we would like to
admit. Well,
this passage that wejust read teaches us
that actually teachesus what what I'm
saying now as ittries to instruct us
on a principal way inwhich we find our
identity. So I
want to look at itwith you this
morning. We're we'rereading in this first
couple chapters ofGenesis. We've been
reading for a while.
We have one more week
back when things werevery good and we're
reading about thetime when the royal
bearers of God's
image. We're
walking before,before the time when,
when they fell, thatimage was broken.
They became thebroken image bearers
that we're familiarwith now that we see
in ourselves andothers. And we see in
these first couple ofchapters the origin
of many things weread about the origin
of many institutions. And we're finding,
aren't we, that when
we look at God's
creation, we find out
a lot about God's
character as well, aswell as the
institutions of ourlives? And today we
just read thispassage.
About the institution
and the instituting
of marriage. Right,
We would say from
from verse 18, atthat point there's
still only onehominid on the face
of the earth and to
whom God has breathed
the breath of life,formed his divine
image. But that wasabout to change
through a profoundand divine operation.
That takes place.
Puts him to sleep,takes out his rib.
And you know, often
at weddings you hear
the the, the little
ditty that when, when
God took from Adam,
he didn't take from
his head. Lest she
would rule over him. And he didn't take
from Adam's foot. Lest he would trample
on her. But no, he
took from her. He
took from his rib. So
that she would alwaysbe around his heart.
So whatever thatmeans.
It's not somethingI've ever said at a
wedding, but I I knowit said whatever
we're talking abouthere, it's something
very deep, friends.
Whatever the pointthe author is trying
to make is, it'ssomething that has to
do with the very guts
of a man. Something
about his identity.
And so he does thisoperation and he
brings the woman andwe witness the 1st
wedding. 1st wedding
here, right here in
this passage, and
it's set in the Royal
Temple Garden of
Adam. God did the
flowers.
He also gave away the
bride. And you know,there's that one
moment when Adam is
standing there and he
sees Eve coming down
the aisle and heutters the first
recorded words thathe spoke, first
recorded words, andthey are poetry.
There's that specialmoment when she's
coming down. And letme translate the
Hebrew for you.
Wow.
Wow, that's prettymuch what the Hebrew
is saying. Wow.
First time.
And something changed
in the bones and
flesh of atoms. Something got
defined. And then in
the in the following
verses, verses 24 and
25, we see that sex
flows out of thisdefinition.
And So what I want to
point out to you here
first is, is thatwe're not only
witnessing thecreation of marriage.
We're witnessinganother creation
here, and this
passage drives us tothe understanding
that the creation ofmarriage is
inextricably bound upwith another creation
at the same time, and
that's the initiationof human gender.
Other gender and andanimals that existed
on the earth, buthere it's the
initiation of humangender at the same
time. And it tells us
something, a couplethings, a couple of
observations we canmake about that. One
of them, it tells ussomething about God,
tells us that he isneither male nor
female. That Godcan't be
characterized as oneor the other because
they both come out of
Him. You know, there
are, you know,overwhelmingly the
the imagery used of
God in in the Bible
is male is masculine,
but there are places
Psalm 66, no Isaiah
66, Psalm 131, God is
pictured as a mother.
A couple otherplaces. But really
the hard evidencecomes from the
chapter we readbefore chapter 1
where it says thatGod made man in his
image, male andfemale created. He
then tells us thatmale and female both
are found in God,that God is not one
or the other. And
so really what wehave here are two
flavors of the image
of God. God's image
comes in twodifferent flavors.
And so that's
something to
contemplate. As we
look about at themeaning of this
passage, anotherthing I think it
tells us veryimportant is that in
this creation, thiscreation called
gender. The genders
are defined indistinction to one
another. The rib
tells us that, youknow, just as there's
not an Eve withoutatom, Adam doesn't
come to know himself
without Eve. You
know, and that's whyyou kind of picture
visually thisarrangement and the
yin Yang symbol. Iknow if you can
separate it fromDaoism there, it's a
great visual image ofgender. You can't see
one part without the
other. And that
tells the generalgender is is an
existence inrelationship to the
other gender. That's
how it's defined. Now
what I want to do isestablish 2 things
with you this morningand then talk about
the implications andthen the applications
of them. So 2propositions I want
to establish fromthis passage with
you. If you're goingto listen to what the
author is saying,what he's trying to
teach here, I want
to, I want to. Make 2
propositions and then
talk about what it
means for them to go
together. The twopropositions are
this. Proposition A
is that marriage is
predicated on gender
difference. Marriage
is predicated ongender difference and
proposition B is that
marriage is the place
is a place tounderstand your
identity. OK, so
let me just let's tryto establish the
first one with youthat this is really
what the author issaying. Moses in in
verse 24 tells usthat marriage is a
matter of gender. Hesays you see in verse
24 he says for this
reason. Managed toleave his father and
mother. Well, he'snot talking about
Adam and Eve, he'stalking about the
institution ofmarriage because they
don't have a fatherand mother. You're
saying for thisreason people get
married? Well, for
what reason?Because
of gender. Because of
what he just created.
To In other words,
the man is no longerdefined by his
parents, but instead
by his wife. To
find definition inthe complement.
Jesus is very clear. Jesus is even more
clear about themeaning of that. For
that reason, when hegives his commentary
on this verse inMatthew 19, Jesus
brings up this verse.
For this reason andhe he goes back,
Jesus does and heYanks out of chapter
1, Genesis chapter 1,the male female
thing, and then Ramsit up against this
verse. So what Jesus
says is God createdthem male and female.
For this reasonpeople get married.
Because Jesus goes
out of his way to
make marriage aboutgender. The meeting
of these two flavors
of the image of God.
Apostle Paul alsodoes in in first
Timothy too, when hebrings up this
passage in dealingwith marital roles,
he brings up thispassage and the
importance of genderand even in the next
chapter, Genesis 3,when when we
witnessed the great
fall. And when
marriage falls, we
find it's it's very
gender specific, theconsequences of what
Adam and Eve do.
Come out in in the in
the place where they
as as individually as
man and woman tend to
place their theirdeepest significance
respectively. So the
fall of marriage isis gender specific.
So what this issaying to us,
friends, is that this
this gift of our mostintimate relationship
is meant to be across
the genders. That's
Proposition 1.
Proposition 2,Marriage is a place
to understand yourdeep identity. Not
the only place, andI'll talk about this
a little later, butit's a principle
place and we can see
this easily, I thinkin the passage. We
can see it a numberof different ways.
OK, verse 18. He
says. I want to
make a suitablehelper. A suitable
meaning shecorresponds to him
helper. And that word
helper you might haveheard before is a
word in the OldTestament that's very
often used todescribe God. When
God says I'm going to
make a helper for forAdam, the word
helper, well, she's19 times in the Old
Testament and 16 outof those 19 times
it's referring to
God. So you
see, the emphasishere is on the need
of the man.
And the crucial role
of Eve. In filling
that need.
What's the need?
Well, I would say to
you, the need is the
man's need to define
himself, to find out
that elusive Who am I?
That's why when she,when she comes and is
brought to him and hegreets her, what is
his greeting? This isthis is flesh of my
flesh. This is boneof my bone.
It's about himunderstanding
himself. I could tell
you personally that
this is how I've
experienced it in
life, you know, as a
single person.
I was a lot of
things, but if youasked people around
me when I was single,
you know, to describe
me. Probably 1 of the
words they would usefor me is silly.
There are a lot ofmature single people
here, so I'm nottalking about you,
I'm talking about me.
But I've found that. I've found that in my
life. You know, I wasbouncing around all
over the place. Iwas, I was silly in a
lot of ways. And it
was it. It took anumber of things, but
one of them was
loving a woman. To
make me into a man.
That was somethingthat took place in
me. Through just kind
of what's being
described here. So
I can see this andand it resonates with
me. You know again
not that this is theonly way to
understand yourself. This is the way it
worked for me. And
that's why you lookagain in verse 23.
What's going on withthis naming business?
This name is reallyshows this definition
by the other gender
also because up to
this point in the in
the narrative, thenarrator has named
him only by hisrelation to the
ground, Adama only byin his relationship
to the work. That
he's doing. But when
Adam speaks. Adam
names himself in
relationship. To the
woman. Right when he
names her Ishah, he's
also naming himselfIsh.
Woman is the Shah,man is Ish.
So you see that in
naming her, he's alsofinding a name for
himself. Umm. You
don't wanna try tospell women a
different way, Youdon't want to go in
that direction, don'twanna spell it WO.
MYN instead of MEN.
That's going in thewrong direction. You
don't want to say,well, we want to
make, you know, womenindependent because
you're losing thegender thing. You're
losing what gender isabout in that.
This naming shows howcoming together with
this other genderdefined him and
defined her too.
And through it, hefound himself, found
his identity. OK, so
those are the 2
propositions. That Ithink this text
brings before us.
Again, one, marriageis predicated on
gender difference andtwo, marriage is a
place, even furtherwe could say, where
man finds himself.
So reason with me if
you cannot havemarriage without
different genders.
A&B if marriage is a
place where weunderstand our
identity. Then
it follows thatgender difference is
given to us to help
us find ourselves.
You see, that's why
marriage was made. To
combine these two
flavors so that you
find your identity.
You know you need thestrawberries to bring
out the tastes of thechampagne.
OK, we have onechampagne drinker
here. How
about that? You need,you need the garlic
to bring out theolive oil, right? And
you need the oliveoil to bring out the
garlic.
No, OK. You
need the peanutbutter to bring out
the richness of thechocolate. How's
that? There's alowbrow example.
You see what's goingon?Or as.
Someone in thischurch put it love is
a many gendered
thing. All right,
those. Those are the
propositions I wouldput before you, and
when we put themtogether, it it
brings it, it there
are implications. So
let me take a few
minutes now just and
bring out the someimplications for us
from this, OK? This
is why, my dearfriends, same-sex
unions are wrong for
you and for me.
There's a loss ofgender there because
the gender is definedby the other.
So in same-sexunions, there's a
failing to find yourreal identity as a
man. And as a
woman, if you makeyour your most
intimate relationshipa same-sex
relationship, thenyou're you're not
getting defined inthe ways that God.
Made you to be
defined. It's a
way of of getting theidentity wrong.
Now this this may bedifficult to believe.
For people who are ina homosexual
relationship. It'shard for them to
maybe accept this. Ifyou're here and
you're entered such arelationship may be
hard for you to
accept. Because of
the benefits that you
see in the
relationship. You
know, there's,there's confusion
over the wordlifestyle. I think
now people say, ohh,they're in the gay
lifestyle are comingout of the gay
lifestyle. What, whatexactly does that
mean? Because forsome people that
means just being in asame-sex
relationship. Forother people, it
means a lot of other
stuff, like a lot ofpromiscuity that's
going on. In in some
circles, you know,and I know you don't
really see thepromiscuity these
days in the media,
but. Well, let me
assure you thatpromiscuity is alive
and well in the gay
scene. But that's notwhat I'm talking
about this morning. I'm talking about
people who want to be
in a monogamous, youknow, committed
relationship. Justtalking to those
people, you might bein a same-sex
relationship, andthis might be.
Difficult for you toaccept what I'm
saying, and if that'sso, I want you to
look with me at verse
9. OK verse 9
tells us that all the
trees in the midst of
the garden. We're
good for food. Right
in the middle of thegarden, friends,
there's a tree calledthe Tree of the
Knowledge of Good andEvil. You're going to
look at actually in acouple of weeks.
Which God forbid them
to eat from. But I
want you to know thattree had fruit.
According to thispassage, that was
good for food.
That was good for
food. It was stillforbidden.
It's still forbidden.
You know, in the nextchapter, that's what
Eve uses to justifywhat she does. She
looks at the truth. She says this is good
for food, and infact, it's pleasant
to look at all. These
are good things. So
why not stillforbidden?
And there are thingsthat we can be
involved in this lifethat give pleasure.
I'm sure that whenEve took that fruit
and ate it.
It tasted good. Itwas pleasurable. It's
hard to, it's hard to
fathom that might besomething that God
says, No, this really
isn't good for you. Imean, pleasure is
good. And
I would go evenfurther, I would say,
as she was chewing on
that fruit. And
swallowing. I would
even say that therewas probably some
nourishment beinggiven to her body.
Don't go that far. Still forbidden.
Because while she waschewing it and while
even while she wasgetting nourishment
from it, was killingher.
The same is true ofsame-sex unions, I
would say. You might
look at them and someand say you know
there are great
benefits to this. And
there are, you know
you can, there arebenefits to any
relationship by God'scommon grace, good
things that come ofthat. Certainly there
are especially,especially if you
have been rejected by
your family, if you
have been isolated by
your desires. Of
course there is,there's comfort and
of course, of course
there are. There iscomfort in that
relationship. There
are things thatreally help.
It's still forbiddenbecause ultimately
God is saying this isnot what what is
going to help youfind who you really
are. Ultimately thisis stunting you. It's
stunting your gender.
Hmm.
Making your mostintimate
relationship. The one
of the same gendermeans a loss ofgender.
Now let me draw outone other implication
for us here in terms
of how we look at all
of our relationshipsto help us then talk
a little bit aboutapplying this.
In certainrelationships in our
lives, gender comesinto play. In other
ones it does not. And
it has to do with theintensity of the
relationship. For
example, in themarketplace, in the
in the workplace orin the body politic,
gender does not come
into play. A
gender shouldn't
matter. In the
gender of a personrunning for office
shouldn't shouldn'tmatter. I mean women
and men are going tobring different
things to to their
roles. For example,
men are dense.
I mean literallydense. Actually. In
the temporalneocortex,researchers in Spain
have recently foundmen have more
neurons. OK, they're
they're more dense in
that area, which is
probably why men arebetter generally.
It's spatialperception and women
can talk faster and
remember more of what
they hear probably.
But there aredifferences,
obviously, betweenmen and women.
They're going tobring that to to
their roles. But,
and you can, you can
evaluate that, but,but gender shouldn't
really matter becausein the body politic,
relationships aren'tintense enough. They
don't reach the levelof defining our
identity. It's saying
what the workplace,you know, it's A1
dimensionalrelationship that you
share with people inthe workplace. You
know, you're there tocooperate, to get
certain job done,certain bottom line.
It's it'sone-dimensional.
Gender should notplay a role.
Now when you come
into the church. Your
relationships aremeant to be closer.
They're meant to befuller. They involve
more of youridentity. And so
guess what? Gendermatters in the
church. There arecertain roles that we
take that have to do
with gender. OK. And
in the most intenserelationship of all,
that of marriage. Gender really
matters. And that's
why in the NewTestament, all
instruction that'sspecifically said to
be about marriage is
gender related. It'sgender specific
instructions aredifferent from men,
for husbands, forwives.
Both share the imageof God, but with
different steps inthe dance, different
flavors. And when
a marriage works theway it's supposed to.
You find your deep
identity. And you
find it gendered.
Kind of speaking ingeneral ways about
how to look atrelationships, but
that's an implicationthat we should draw
from this, I think.
Now this is an answer
for us. How come it's
it's not right to
have our mostintimate relationship
the same sex?You
say because it's notthe way in which we
really find ouridentity, which is a
difficult thing to
find. But let me go
even deeper thanthat. There's a
deeper reason for
this. Why this
is?If
you look at verse 24.
It says that it'stalking about them
coming together, Adamand Eve coming
together. It saysthey're united.
They're united. Veryinteresting because
it's The author isspeaking in covenant
terminology. He'stalking in the
language of covenantcommitment. That's
significant in thisbook because this
book is all aboutcovenants being made.
Book of Genesis hasfour different
covenants. And the
covenants that aremade are between God
and his people as an
expression of lovebetween God and the
people that he isworking with four
different times. Soin this passage, to
use the kind ofcovenant terminology,
it's inviting us todraw a parallel
between what's goingon between. Husband
and wife and what'sgoing on between God
and his people.
There must besomething done about
this firstrelationship, about
the creation ofgender, that's
crucial to thecovenant of God with
us.
And let me cite again
Warren Austin Gage, I
think my cited last
week has a wonderful
insights I think intothis. First, the
early chapters hereof Genesis and he
points out that ifyou'll notice in
verse 21. How
this bride was formedfor Adam?
We see that Adam'sside was wounded.
To make thismarriage.
Was wounded.
In order to. Make
this bride. And
so also. With the
last atom, JesusChrist, he was
wounded in his side.
On the cross to
secure and constitute
his bride. John
tells us in John 19
that a spear wasthrust into the side
of Christ on thecross, and out came
blood and water. Blood to purchase the
church and water topurify the church.
The first atom andthe last atom. A
wound in the side tocreate the bride.
God puts the firstatom into a deep
sleep. In order to
make his bride.
God put the Son of
Man into an evendeeper sleep, the
sleep of death, toform us, His people,
His bride.
An atom awoke. He
beheld his bride in
all her perfections.
And Jesus Christ, in
a way, awoke. He rose
from the dead. And
the resurrection thatwill flow from that.
In that resurrectionHe will see his Bride
perfected.
You see, friends,what what this issaying?
This is all aboutGod's love for us.
This is all about
what God would do so
that we could be
defined. He will
be wounded for us.
He'll be wounded so
that we could be
rescued out of this
swirling chaos ofself confusion that
we've lived in. That
God would go to thislane, He would go to
any lanes, He wouldtake the wound. In
order to form us as apeople, in order to
give us an identity,the very identity
that we needed. That's what all this
is about. And
in marriage, inmarriagerelationship, we
imitate that gospel.
That's why this isimportant. That's the
real reason. So
that we can preservethe understanding in
our lives. And
imitate it. Of what
God has done for us.
To make sure. That
crazy amorphous thingcalled our identity
is secured. And
that's what Jesusdoes on the cross. He
secures our identity.
Defines us as his
bride, as those who
are loved by him.
Umm, OK, briefly. Now
let me try to apply
these things. Justhelp you to think
about how to take
this and obey it. Because you know,
this passage gives ussomething to obey,
calls us to action.
Let me give you three
ways. To obey here,
to serve God in light
of these things. OK,
first thing to do is
help marriages. Be
sure to honor this
institution. And you
know, could. So much
to be said here, butlet's just say if if
you're a wife. Look,
Christ requiressingular fidelity
from his Church. Even
greater loyalty thanto father and mother.
Trust in him. Ifyou're a wife, trust
in your husband. Gives singular
fidelity to him,
trusting in him even
more than parents.
If you're a husband
here. Be wounded for
your wife. Every day
I get up in themorning and take the
hit for her.
Every day.
And corporately.
Support the coming ofpeople together in
marriage. You know,we certainly do that
as a church here, in
fact. We take
more personal effortwith couples that are
getting married herethan any other church
that I know.
Why do we do that
here? Because of thispassage, because we
understand howimportant marriage
is. We want to makesure they're
supported from thevery beginning, that
they're strong. Notthat, you know, I do
this with my wife in
our sessions, but notlike we're great
marriage counselorsor anything, but
we're going to giveyou. Everything wegot.
Because theimportance of this.
So anyway, helpmarriages, that's
number one, number
two. We need to
help single folksdevelop their gender
identity. Now some
of us maybe need to
be encouraged toward
marriage. You know,
you have kind of set
up your life in acertain way. Maybe
you've gotten alittle bit too
comfortable in insetting up being
comfortable beingsingle. Some people
need to be encouragedmarriage, but some
people don't get
married. Not
everybody getsmarried. And if
you're here and
you're single?You
might be asking,well, where do you
get your genderidentity developed?
And so if you havelistening, listening
to the implicationsof what I've been
saying, you shouldsee it. First of all,
you need tounderstand that God
has given you
families. As places
to discover, well who
you are, it's very
important. And so
your family is a giftto you, however
imperfect. There's aplace where gender
does come into play,those relationships.
Gender does come into
play, and it matters.
That's why, you know,as far as causes of
homosexuality areconcerned. Factors
and families continueto be, it's complex,
but factors andfamily continue to be
discussed asimportant fact. Right
now the the researchis going on as
talking about birthorder in families as
an important factor.
Very interesting. But
so that's somethingfor you to know, and
it's something for usto respond to. As
parents, we need torealize the role that
we're playing. In in
our children's lives,in defining their
gender. And helping
them understand whothey are, these inter
family relationshipsthat are so
important. And
this is very
important. If you're
here and you'resingle, I want you to
know, I want you herein the village
church, that you
belong here. Don't
let all these babies
fool you. Yeah.
Think that make youfeel out of place
instead?Sign up with
Rebecca for theHalloween Festival
because you need somekids in your lives
and actually morethan that, they need
you in their lives.
That's a that's animportant thing to
do. But you know morethan that. If if
you're single, youneed to know you're
not second class. Youknow, if God has
another track foryou, it's a good one.
And it's also one ofself discovery. But
the church is a placeto find it. You know,
a church is a placewhere gender also
comes into play. Itmatters. And that's
also where we findout that we're men,
we're and we're
women. I'll tell you
work that way. Forme, when I was
single, the churchwas very important in
helping me learn to
express myself. And
learn what it was to
be a man, to find out
who I was. In a
gendered way. Soyou're important to
me. You know, you'rein the image of God
and, and, and Iunderstand that the
church is one of themain places for you
to be exploring yourgender identity.
And so that's numbertwo. Number three,
friends, one more. We
need as a church to
embrace people whostruggle with
same-sex attractions. We need to. And
that's why we'revolunteering at the
Bailey House. Youknow, that's why
we're wanting to togive to.
To the Aaron DiamondAIDS Research Center,
it's because. When
you embrace someone,you take on their
problems as yourproblems. So the
problems of the gaycommunity are our
problems.
And so we need to bedoing in all these
different ways. What
we can to assistthese people, it's
certainly not turningthem away. It's a
heart, aheartbreaking story
of Josh and Josh'sfriend there because
I think it's theexperience of many
people. We need
to offer compassion
to the confused. We
need to assist thosewho struggle to walk
with them, to explorewith them what it
means to follow Jesuswhen you have this
struggle and youmaybe want to change
and you getabsolutely no support
from your culture.
To affirm to themthat God does not
tell you and give youcommands that are
impossible to keep. That there is hope.
Where he commands, he
empowers. And
to help those peoplewho want to be
following Christ'steaching aboutintimate
relationships, givethem a place where
they can reaffirm
their gender. Help
them stand against
defining themselves
by their desires.
To know that the bodyof Christ really does
care.
And that's why, youknow, finally, that's
why we asked thequestion, are you
game?And we're
going to be havingmore discussion
downstairs about thisgame is our gender
affirming ministry. Ensemble.
That's, that's,that's because,
friends, somebody inthe city needs to
stand up and say,come here, you have
an alternative hereat the village
church. And you mightsay, well, well, you
know, this is acontroversial
subject. Why shouldwe be doing this? Why
do we need to do it?Because we can.
Friends, we have thethe the theological
weight here to beable to provide
reasonable answersfor the questions
that culture isasking. And we have
the heart. Of more
than one man in thevillage church who
struggles, for whomthis is a struggle,
knows what thestruggle is about.
And we also have theheart, I think, in
all of us awillingness now to
live for others.
We have Jesus Christ,friends. We have it
all. That's why wecan.
So let me encourageyou, think upon these
things as we come to
the table, enter intothe love of God's
creative gifts, andknow yourself. Amen.
Would you pleasestand with me?