Thanks for listening to our podcast. The following is a ministry of Orchard Bible Church in Centennial, Colorado. Please join us on Sunday mornings. For more details, visit us online. Today's scripture reading is from Genesis 2, verses 18 to 25. Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground, the Lord had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Let's pray. Father, we come before you this morning and we have a topic that seems pretty straightforward, but it's not. Sin has confused gender. Sin has confused marriage. And I pray, Lord, this morning, as we look at it, that we would see your creation order and see the way you meant it to be. In your name I pray, amen. Please be seated. When somebody starts a conversation with, please do not be offended, what do you instantly do? You're offended, right? They don't have to say that if they're not gonna offend you at some point. So I'm gonna start the sermon with, please do not offend me, or please do not be offended, because I'm gonna offend you. At some point, someone in this sermon will be offended by what I'm about to say. Why is that? Because the gospel in creation order is an offense to our society right now, especially in the topics I'm gonna go over this morning with gender and marriage. So prepare to be offended. I'm not gonna apologize for it. I'm sorry, I'm not. This is God's word and that's what it needs to be. But it's important for you to understand that we need to have grace and love in this area. Now, when I talk about these types of subjects with our youth, I always start with it's okay to laugh. Some of these words are funny. When you say words like sex, they have to laugh a little. And that's okay. If you need to laugh too, that's okay. You can laugh. They're a little funny. But remember, these are serious subjects that we're gonna be talking about that have confused and created so much pain in our society that we'll never understand. We'll never understand. Now, I wanna start this morning by giving you a timeline. We're not gonna start with the passage itself. I'm gonna give you a timeline of some things that have happened over the last 100 years that have shaped the conversation around gender and marriage and how it affects us. And I hope by seeing this timeline, you'll get an idea of why this is so important that we understand creation order and we go after it. There should be some slides coming up as I go through this. 1930s. Condoms become accessible and affordable. You can get them through the mail. 1952, President Eisenhower signs an executive order that bans homosexuals from working for the federal government, saying that they are a serious security risk. 1953, Hugh Hefner starts a magazine called Playboy. aimed at a more civilized clientele that combines interviews and nudity to attract the masses. 1960, the first oral contraceptive or the pill becomes publicly available. Some say this marks the beginning of a second wave feminism. Women can now start to be on equal footing with men and sexually active like men without the bad pregnancy part. 1961, Illinois becomes the first state to decriminalize homosexuality by repealing their sodomy laws. 1965, Griswold versus Connecticut. Supreme Court rules that the prohibition of contraception was unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated people's right to marital privacy. 1969, California becomes the first state to allow a no-fault divorce. The Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act of 1970 is a model law in the United States now. 1969, the first pornographic film was released by Andy Warhol. 1971, more than 75% of Americans thought that premarital sex is acceptable, a three-fold increase from the 1950s. And the number of unmarried Americans aged 20 to 24 more than doubled from 1960. 1971, hotels start to offer pornography for purchase on their TVs, taking it from public to private. 1972, Eisenstadt versus Baird, Supreme Court rules contraceptives should be available for unmarried also. 1973, Roe versus Wade, abortion is federally legalized. 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in the DSM-II Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 1977, Cary versus Population Services International. Contraceptives should be made available to minors. 1980s, pornography becomes available on videotape in CD-ROM format so it can be used at home. 1981, first cases of AIDS in five gay men in California. 1986, Attorney General's Commission on Pornography. American adult, I'm sorry, American adult entertainment industry has grown considerably over the past 30 years. They are now having over a billion dollars in revenue. 1993, President Bill Clinton signs a military policy directive that prohibits openly gay and lesbian Americans from serving in the military, but also prohibits the harassment of closeted homosexuals. The policy is known as, don't ask, don't tell. 1996, President Clinton signs the Defense of Marriage Act, banning federal recognition of same-sex marriage and defining marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and a wife. 1996, wow. 1996, same year, Hawaii's Judge Kevin Chang rules that the state does not have a legal right to deprive same-sex couples the right to marry. 2004, the first legal same-sex marriage in the United States takes place in Massachusetts. 2008, voters approve Proposition 8 in California, which makes same-sex marriage illegal, the proposition later found to be unconstitutional by a federal judge. 2011, Don't Ask, Don't Tell is repealed, ending a ban on gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the military. 2015, the Obergefell decision legalizes same-sex marriage. 2016, President Obama announces the designation of the first national monument to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. The Stonewall National Monument in New York is founded. 2017, District of Columbia residents can now choose a gender-neutral option on their driver's license. 2019, the Trump administration announces a new policy that bans most transgender people from serving in the military. 2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a ruling that the state of Idaho must provide gender confirmation surgery for Adria Edmo, an inmate in the custody of the Idaho Department of Corrections. 2020, the Fourth Council, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules in favor of former student Gavin Grimm in a more than four-year fight over restroom policies for transgender students. The ruling states that policies segregating transgender students from their peers is unconstitutional and violates federal law. 2021, President Joe Biden signs an executive order repealing the 2019 Trump-era ban on most transgender Americans joining the military. 2021, the State Department announces the US has issued the first US passport with an ex-gender marker. 2022, President Biden signs the Respect for Marriage Act, which includes new federal protections for same-sex and interracial couples. The new law officially voids the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. If you're not heartbroken by this, I don't know what would break your heart. This is horrible. This is a very hard thing in our society. Such confusion that we see with man and woman in marriage. This breaks homes apart. This breaks families apart each and every day. Why? Because we hate God. We hate God in our natural state. We don't want him to be Lord of our lives. We don't want his creation order to be in charge. We rebel against it at every turn. But this morning we're gonna look at it. This morning, we're gonna look at it, and we're gonna see what did God truly intend with a man and woman? What did God truly intend with the sacrament of marriage? So let's turn in our Bibles. Let's start in Genesis 1, and let's look at verse 27. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. So that is our creation account in Genesis 1 of man and woman, how they came to be. A couple of weeks ago, Rick talked about the difference between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, that Genesis 1 is a broad stroke and Genesis 2 focuses in on what we see with the man and the woman. giving us more details that are relevant to the story, telling us a little bit about everything else. Why? Because man is different. Up to this point, God has created everything as creatures, and now he's got a special creation, an image bearer that's totally different than everything else. Let's look at verse 15 in chapter two. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat it. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. So man, before woman is created, is put in this garden. He's put there and he's given a job. He's given the job to work the garden and to keep the garden. Now keep has a very special meaning, and I'm not gonna dive too much into it. I'll encourage you to listen to last week with Ben, but keep means a little more than just keep it, like make sure the plants get their water. It's also the idea of protecting and guarding it. So man is put in the garden to work the garden, to protect the garden, and to guard it And he's given the one rule that God has for the garden. Then in verse 18 we read, then the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock into the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not a helper fit for him. So in verse 18, we see God making a statement. He's saying, this isn't good. And then verses 19 and 20, we learn why this isn't good. We learn that Adam has been given this huge job. He's been given a job to learn all of God's creation. How are we given that? Because he's told to name all the animals, get to know the animals. Now this tells us a couple things about it, right? And there's a couple things we should take away. First is this, up to this point, God has called everything good. After this point, we already know from Genesis 1, it's very good. But in between, we have this period of time where it's not good, right? Because it's not complete. And up to this point, God has named everything. Light, darkness, day, night, sea, land, and it's all complimentary in nature, right? Complimentary in nature, but God has named everything. Now he's giving it over to the man. Why? Because he's supposed to have dominion over it. He's supposed to know it. And how does he name those? By getting to know all the animals. Now, I kind of see it something like this. Right, it's not this huge parade of animals coming by, which kind of I have in my brain, right? There's a huge parade and all the angels are in the background, and he names one, and they go, yeah, Adam, that was a good name, or ooh, I didn't like that name, let's try again. No, Adam is walking through the garden, he's a normal day, and he sees something, he goes, oh, I'm gonna call that an ant for some reason, right? because it makes sense that the ant is doing what ants do. They work hard. Oh, I'm going to call that this name, getting to know the animals in their natural habitat. So he's taking time to know them, and he sees something. He sees that everybody has a complement to them, except for himself. Where's my help rat? What's going on here? Now, let me take a moment and address something. We have, in software development, this idea of requirements. The higher-ups don't trust software developers. We're a little too techie. We don't understand what products really are. We don't understand how things work together. They give you this thing called a requirement. You get a requirement, and you build your code. based upon this requirement. This requirement is the button has to be blue, per se, right? So you code the button blue. And sometimes during this process, a requirement gets missed or forgotten, right? And you have a bug. You have something that needs to be fixed. Now, this is not a bug in creation. This is not something where God missed a requirement that he needed to do. But yet this is God's plan to show Adam that he needed a helper. This was all planned. This is not God learning on the fly, and this is not God doing something wrong. This is God helping Adam understand what he's supposed to do, what he's supposed to have. Then we go to verse 21. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed it up, closed up its place with the flesh. In the rib that the Lord had taken from the man, he made into a woman, and brought her to the man. Now, I'm not going to dive into the intricacies of putting him to sleep or waking him up or anything like that. Rick addressed that a couple weeks ago. But I instead want to focus on the idea of the rib. Why the rib? Matthew Henry has a very famous quote, not made out of his head to top him, not made out of his feet to be trampled upon him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved. This is beautiful. God takes a bone out of man and presents him with a beautiful woman. Kent Hughes says, she is the prototype of all women. Fresh from the wells of creation, every aspect of her is perfect. She is perfect in body, perfect in soul. She is perfectly sinless. And as she stands on the arms, so to speak, of God, she is all there for Adam to behold. So there she is. All of a sudden, she's there, and he's awake. He's got a little ache in his side, but he's awake. And you have to remember, and what you have to remember is that Adam has been carefully programmed and prepared to recognize his need. And what does Adam do in this situation? But he rejoices. This is at last, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out a man. Can you imagine the ecstasy of him in this situation? He's looking, he's seen all of God's creation, and he doesn't see somebody for him, and he finally sees the helper that he needs, and he is just awestruck. Look at this beautiful woman coming with God. Now it's interesting, I think back to my own wedding day, and I've seen my wife many times, obviously before the wedding, but when you see a woman walking down the aisle, there's something you see different in that woman. And there's this, I don't know, responsibility that comes over me that says, wow, this is gonna be my wife. Amazing, this is something different. God created this for me. Thank you, God. That's the exact same thing we see here with Adam, that he sees this woman for the first time and is awestruck by this woman. As Kent Hughes says, walking hand in hand with God, coming down the aisle, he sees this woman. Now, let's stop here for a second, and let's look at man and woman, and let's look at some differences, and let's look how they're similar. Now, I like the way that Kevin DeYoung phrases a question here. He says, when a young child comes and asks, what does it mean to be male or female, how do you respond? Are you ready to respond? It's a great question. It's a hard one. But let's look at this. There's some equality things and then some diversity things. First in equality, they are both created by God, not by something else, not by some other power. They're both created by God, and they both bear his image, male and female. Both are intended for a future union in Christ. Galatians 3.28, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus. So they're both intended for a future union with Christ. even though not all accept that. But there's also some big differences. They have different roles. They have different needs. They look different. They have different physical traits. They act different. They have character traits. Why? Because they're complementary to each other. They complete each other. The idea is they are not one in the same, but they help each other in different ways. Now, before we get into it, I think it's important with our society to define what sex and gender are. I had always thought they're the same thing, but they're not. Sex and gender are two completely different things, I hear. Let's look at the definition from the Institute of Health Research. Sex refers to the biological characteristics that distinguish males, females, intersex, and hermaphrodites. These characteristics include chromosomes, reproductive organs, hormones, and gene expression. Gender. refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, and expectations associated with being a man, woman, boy, girl, or genderly diverse person. Gender is influenced by social, cultural, and personal experiences. It can also refer to how society responds to an individual based on their gender representation. Gender identity is not fixed and can change over time. It exists on a continuum and is not limited to binary of girl, woman, or boy, man. For example, A person who was assigned male at birth, but identifies as a woman, is considered a trans woman. This is how society defines sex and gender. Do we find separate definitions in Genesis? I've been studying this a lot, I can't find it. Because in Genesis, God puts this all together. There is man and there is woman. They're completely equal, but yet they're very different. in the way that they look and they act. There's differences in their body makeup, there's differences how they react to people, and in the biblical narrative, there's differences the way that we see them interact with God. Now I'm gonna use the ABCs from Kevin Young to quickly describe some of the differences. And I'm sure many of you have heard this before, but let me go through them quickly. A is for appearance, B is for body, C is for character, D is for demeanor, E is for eager posture. This all comes from his book that I think we have in back if you want to see it. And these help us understand what the differences are between man and woman. And let's take a look at these as they appear in Genesis. The first one is this, man was created first. and man was created as a leader. He was put in the garden to work it, to guard it, to protect it, to keep it. He was given the command not to eat the forbidden fruit, the man was. He was given charge to name all the animals. And later on in Romans 5, we see he was given the responsibility for the fall. Woman, woman was created as a helper. Her role was to complete the man by helping him. He was not complete without her. He needed a helpmate. Now note, this is not a demeaning role or a lower role. In fact, Yahweh, God, is considered the helper of Israel multiple times throughout the Old Testament. If God is considered a helper, it's not a lesser role. Right, this is an exact equal role. Now these roles are not just meant in marriage. These roles are meant overall through our culture, but especially in the church as well. Men are told to lead the church as seen in 1 Timothy. And we have these roles in our church body. Now there is equality, but we're different in many ways. And with these things, sin has polluted so many things. Men, we either lead in a fashion that is domineering or abusive, or we go the exact opposite direction, we don't lead at all. We're completely passive, and we don't do anything. We're meant to emulate the leadership of Christ in everything we do, but that puts everyone ahead of ourselves. This type of leadership is loving and caring, and it sometimes looks different, but that's the point. Our leadership is supposed to help everyone else thrive in the Lord. Culture tells us different. For women, culture tells you not to be a helper. Helper is bad, helper is lesser. Helper doesn't mean you're important. Helper puts you to the side. And sometimes when a man is a terrible leader, that makes sense. That makes sense, right? Lead yourself. But the role noted in Genesis is that of the helper. Someone who completes and comes alongside the man. Yes, it's much easier to submit to a man or listen to a man when he's perfect like Christ, because men are sinful, but men are trying their best, and that's the role to help complete them. I think of Judges and Barak and Deborah. Deborah was probably a much better leader than Barak. Does she take the army and go defeat the enemy? No, she says, Barak, stand up and be a leader. Let's go, I've got my role, you've got your role, let's go. She's known as one of the most courageous and well-known women in the Old Testament because of that. Did she lose her role in doing that? No, she played her role perfectly in doing that. Now let's look at some of our physical difference. Our bodies are different. Just think of this, as Adam cries out joyously as this naked woman is before him. And he says, wow, that's different and that looks good. I like that a lot, right? She's beautiful. God has created our unique bodies for pro-active, or pro-creative, pro-active, yeah, pro-creative purposes. And that's natural, that's natural. We're supposed to look at the other sex and be attracted. Anything other than that is unnatural, as it says in Romans, Romans one. It's unnatural to look at the same sex and be wanting that. God has made each one of us for a purpose and a part. And that purpose is the body we are given, and we're told to glorify God. In 1 Corinthians 6, glorify God with your body. Not only are our bodies different, but we are naturally inclined to appear differently, right? We dress differently, we look differently. A couple years, Lars spoke on this and talked about kilts. Right, if I wore a kilt today, you might laugh at me a little, but you get it, because you understand what a kilt is. It's not a dress, it's different. But if I wore a straight dress today, you would look at me a little funny. Right, why? Because we understand men and women appear differently. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 14, does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is a disgrace for him? Sorry, Fabio. But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory, for her hair is given to her for a covering. Paul says it's a disgrace for a man to wear long hair. Why? Because appearance means something. Appearance means something. We know the difference between a man and a woman. We know the difference of what it should look like. I think of my own kids growing up. I think of how my kids dressed as young kids. And I'll have a picture up here in a second. My daughter loves her dresses. Loves her dresses. She wanted to be a princess every chance she got. And I've got my nephew Blake up here. He was like most of my boys. Whatever military costume they could find and put on, they wanted. And this is a perfect picture of that. My daughter with her beautiful dress and Blake not wanting to be seen because he's in his ghillie suit. Right? We're naturally inclined to know by appearance what the difference between man and woman is. Now the last character is, the last category is character differences. Kevin DeYoung splits these into two groups, demeanor and character. I'm gonna merge them for now. But we see these traits throughout the Bible. Multiple times Paul uses examples of these traits that people understand, whether he's like a nursing mother or an exhorting father, Paul understands that there's certain traits that you'll understand better as a woman. If I say there's a nursing father, you're gonna look at me like I'm crazy. What are you talking about? Because that doesn't exist. So there's certain traits that make sense. Men are naturally drawn to strength and feed to strength. And again, back to my kids, this shows up so much. Over the years, I don't know how many times we had sticks at the back door. And you'll see Logan here showing us how big of a stick he can carry. But we would have sticks at our back door, and we'd come home, and the boys would say, well, this is my gun, this is my bat, this is my sword. Whatever it may be, sticks they picked up throughout the day. Right? Nice big pile of that. And my daughter would walk in with flowers. And she'd say, look how pretty these flowers are. And being the wonderful father that I said, I was like, eh, they're flowers. Let's toss them. Let's move on. No, no, we've got to put them in water, Dad. They're beautiful. They're beautiful, you gotta see this. We're wired differently. This can be seen in kids. Kostenberger tells a story that this can be seen in adults, too. He said one night he got woken up very late by dogs fighting in his backyard. So he went down, found the neighbor's dog in his yard, politely took the dog back, he says, and made sure it never happened again, and went back to bed. And he said, if I forced my wife to do that, what kind of man would I be? Now, I'm glad my wife is teaching Sunday school, because she'd laugh right now, because I typically sleep through incidents like this. But for Kostenberger, he said, you're the protector. When somebody hears that story and the husband turns over and says, honey, go get the dogs and tell the neighbor to stop doing that, that just doesn't make sense in our brains, because you're supposed to be the protector in this situation. So we've been given specific ways to do this. I always think of how do these two harmonize together with singing. When we have singing up here, I love a strong male voice leading worship. But when there's a female voice complementing it, how much more wonderful is it? The same is true in everything. Yes, it's wonderful to have one, but when we have both, the picture is completed, and only then can we truly love and appreciate everything God has given us. Culture's trying to tell us these differences are not that big. They don't matter. Yet because of these differences, God called creation very good. And it was beautiful. It was beautiful. Pointing to the glory and the majesty of a creator who wanted perfection that was very good. You know, the saddest part of this is looking at ourselves will never bring true happiness. What we want in ourselves will never bring us true happiness, especially in this. But if we look to the Lord and what he has made us, we will have true happiness. Men and women are created in the image of God, they're equal, but they have very different roles. But those different roles are what ultimately complete the creation story. Now let us turn to marriage. Verse 24, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Let's go back to this story. Adam, waking up from his sleep, he's just had a hard day of naming work, he doesn't feel so good, but he looks up and he sees God walking with this beautiful creature and he says, wow. That is amazing. Look at this. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Yes, my wife. And they were both naked in front of each other. No ashamed, not ashamed at all. Nothing was wrong with this picture, but they loved each other purely. And who's at the center of this first marriage? Who's walking her down the aisle? Who did the creating? Who did the matchmaking? Who did the decreeing of this union? God. God is at the very center of our first marriage that we see. And we also know that God is using this marriage to tell us something about the last marriage we see in the Bible. In Revelation 19, verse six, hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory for the marriage of the lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saint. The final marriage is the union of Christ to believers. That's the ultimate marriage. In heaven, Christ says, we won't be given to marriage. Why? Because we'll be married to the lamb. That's ultimately what we're prepared for. And that's the picture that marriage gives us and is supposed to point to. But as in all things, we've tainted that picture. We've chained that picture. Sin has made it look different. But let's dive into Genesis and let's see what we can learn about marriage before the fall. One, it is between a man and a woman. That's extremely clear. There are no others involved, just a man and a woman. That's all that's needed for marriage. Once they marry, we see this leave and cleave. I think some of you have heard that before, leave and cleave. Now it's interesting, when Moses wrote this, it was probably normal for women to move into the man's household when they got married. The man wouldn't leave his household, but the woman would come in, why? Because the man had responsibilities to his family. He had jobs he had to perform, he had a reputation he had to upkeep, he had the name, that he had to do the family business that he was supposed to do. So why does Moses say here, or God say, they need to leave and cleave? The idea here is not that man, or the man in this situation needs to leave his family and go somewhere else. The idea is that his family is no longer his priority. His wife now is. His wife is the number one priority over His family, she is his new family, and it has been replaced. So the man is told to leave his family, put them behind him, and focus on your wife. No longer should he be looking to his parents' care, but to his wife's care. Parents, there's also something for us in this too. When our sons get married, we need to let them be. Let them form their new family, let them go away. Let them move on. It's a new beginning, a new union. They are now one. Now, you're gonna hear when I say covenant a lot of times going forward that covenant is different than a contract. Now, marriage sometimes gets confused between covenant and contract. I don't know if you've heard this. A contract is a mutually beneficial, agreement with each party getting something in exchange for the other. It is invalid if one party breaches it. A contract is based on conditional statements and fulfilling certain requirements and can be terminated if a situation can't be resolved. Whereas a covenant is a promise to benefit the relation with each person encouraging and helping the other, even if one falls. It remains completely valid even if one party breaches it. So marriage is a covenant. You're gonna hear that. Now, how big is this covenant? Matthew 19. Let me just read something. This is a verse that we don't always see, but in Matthew 19, the disciples say to Jesus, if such is the case of a man with his wife, isn't it better just not to marry? Now, what is the perspective here? The Pharisees just came to Jesus and said, hey, when can I get a divorce? Tell me about divorce. Moses says we can get divorced. Tell me the right time that I can get a divorce. Obviously they had their cultural problems also, right? And Jesus says, no, it's one man, it's one woman. God has joined together, let no one break apart. And obviously this is so authoritative to these disciples that they walk away and they go, Jesus, why is anybody gonna get married if that's what it means? Sometimes we don't put that in perspective. We don't think about that. The disciples are so awestruck by this, they're not even sure they should be married. Do we take our marriage vows, that seriously? This is huge. This is not a small thing. This is something that is very important, and it's a covenant, a covenant, where through thick and thin, we stick together. And we understand that along the way, there's gonna be failures. We're both gonna fail and there's gonna be sacrifices. We both have to sacrifice, but it's a covenant that we stay together. Now, when we look at this covenant that we have and we look at our roles, there's some things that we can take apart. Men, are you lovingly leading as Christ led the church and gave himself up for it? Using the strength you've been given, you're ultimately responsible for your home. Do you understand this? You're in charge of your home. Why? Because you're gonna be asked how you did someday. Do not dominate, but don't be passive. Lead in a way that will enable your wife and your family to live completely for the Lord in every way possible. It's interesting, I think back in my own marriage, when has marriage been the worst? It's when I think my wife can complete me. When I say, Lexi, you have to complete me in every way for my happiness. That is so ridiculous. She can't do that. I can't expect that of her. And in the same way, when she doesn't do it, I get angry and upset. Why? Because no longer am I leading towards the Lord, I'm leading for my happiness and my benefit. Men, that is not how we lead. We lead to the Lord in everything that we do. Protect what you've been given, lead her closer to God, and you will be fulfilled by the Lord. Women, submit you as your husbands as to the Lord. Now, let's take a second. Submit has the worst stigma in the world, doesn't it? Submit, when we hear in culture today, all I think about is no. You need to submit this, no I'm not. I'm gonna do exactly opposite of what you're about to say, because that's bad. Submission doesn't have that idea. Christ submitted to his Father. The church is supposed to submit to Christ, right? And women were submitted to men. What does that mean? That does not mean ignorant, stupid submission, that you do whatever they say. Obedience and submission are not always hand in hand, all right? It means that you let him lead in these situations. You let him be in charge. Now, is this easy? No. Your husband's a sinful man. But if he's leading in the way he should with Christ, it becomes much easier because he's not leading for himself, he's leading for the benefit of the family. When he's not emulating Christ as a helper, it's your job to call him on it. Maybe that's a gentle rebuke. Maybe it's bringing him closer to the scripture. Maybe it's reminding him of the beauty that God has given us in appreciating you more. Use your gentleness that you've been given and help the man lead. Men and women, we complete each other in our marriages. On our own and for our own happiness, we'll never be happy. But if we complete each other and point each other to Christ, we will always be happy. Now I wanna touch on something for a second, and that's singleness. I haven't talked about singleness, but there's something very important about those who are single also. I'm gonna go back to Matthew 19. Verse 11, not everyone can receive the same, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this, receive it. 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says it's better to stay single than to be married. Why? because you're gonna look more like our ultimate union with Christ. Did Christ get married in this earth? No, he was completed by the Father. And if you've been given the gift of singleness, don't look down upon it, praise the Lord for it. You can be complete in the Father without a spouse. Yes, it may be hard, yes, it may feel like a curse, but you are loved by the Lord and he is there for you. and he loves you in a special way. And if you have to get married, that's understood also by Paul. Some of us have to get married. But those who don't, rejoice in this. Rejoice that the Lord has given you this gift that you can see him as your completion. Now let me close with a couple final thoughts. The original creation was perfect and it was stated as very good. but the curse has changed everything. Sin has corrupted and confused everything. Satan wishes nothing more than corrupt creation order at every turn he gets. He thrives when he attacks marriages, when he attacks gender, and when he attacks our families. He wishes nothing more than to remove every single creation order that God put in place. He wants to see it in complete chaos. Our calling is to show the love of God in creation order. But this has to be done with absolute grace. For those who see creation in different order cannot see that they are in sin. Only the Holy Spirit will be able to open their eyes. So when we go and we talk to our coworkers, maybe our family members, and maybe others that see man and woman, see marriage, as something as an offense, we need to be loving and kind. Most of the time, we tend to be arrogant and joking. There's no place for that in this. This is a very serious matter that cuts to the core of someone's being. If they're confused about their gender, they're confused to the ultimate core of who they are. And the only way they can come back is through the Holy Spirit and prayer. And if the Holy Spirit chooses to use us, We have to have grace and compassion as we reach out to those. We need to respect them, love them, knowing they are created in the image of God, but they are confused by sin. We also need to remember we're going to be offensive. We're going to be labeled as bigots. We're going to be labeled as hateful, as people who don't understand anything. But we need to take that. Why? Because there is a creation order that God created. And if we lovingly show this to people, they'll understand. But for those who don't want to understand, we will be the enemy. And remember, one glorious day, this will all be behind us. We will no longer have to worry about any of this. Because the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with us. We will be his people, and God himself will be with us as our God. He will wipe away every tear, and death shall be no more. There shall be no mourning, no crying, no pain, for the former things have passed away. As we go out, I pray that the Lord will strengthen you and guide you when it comes to gender and marriage. not only in your own marriages, not only in your own relationships, but as you talk to a culture that hates you in every way. May He strengthen you, may He give you patience, may He give you peace, and may He give you understanding that many can be one for His glory. Please stand with me as we pray. Father, we come before you this morning completely humbled, completely humbled by creation. What a great creator you are, that not only you would give us this entire earth and everything in it, but that you would give us companionship, that you would give us the other, and that you would complete us in this way. We just thank you so much for this gift of gender, of difference, inequality, this gift of marriage, of companionship, And we pray, Lord, that in these things, we would uphold your word in all ways, that we would not listen to society, that we would not cave in, but that we would lovingly and prayerfully bring all these things to those around us. In your name, I pray. Amen.