1 Corinthians 11, let's open our Bibles together. We are back in 1 Corinthians after four months off. Of course, we left off before my summer sabbatical. Some of you are new to our church since then, but... Over the past year or so, I've been preaching verse by verse through the book of 1 Corinthians. That's our regular normal sermon series during this season. And we left off in chapter 10 this past May. And we left off there for a reason. There's a very natural break between chapter 10 and then beginning in chapter 11. Chapter 11, as we'll see today, kind of turns to a different focus here in the book. It was a very natural place to kind of drop anchor for a while. However, when we pick up in chapter 11, certainly not as though these things are disconnected, In chapter 10, and even the chapters before that, Paul had been talking about the freedom and boundaries of the Christian life, including how some of the Corinthians were still dabbling in worship that pagan worship practices, going back to their idolatry in some ways. Well, here, beginning in chapter 11 through chapter 14, Paul now turns to specifically focus on worship and liturgy. And we'll see there, there is freedom and boundaries to the worship of the church as well. And some things, the Corinthians were to be commended, but in other ways they needed to be corrected. And that's the focus of these next four chapters. But of course, as many of you know and have been anticipating, today we come to the difficult passage of head coverings. And actually, we are going to take two weeks to cover this passage. Today is part one. And I know that's gonna disappoint some of you because we're not gonna really get into the details of what this is until next week. But I wanna begin today with the theology of this passage. And next Sunday, we're gonna look at the application or how we obey this passage. And just to give you a fair warning as well, this is such a unique passage, it's such a difficult passage, that it's gonna be more like a Bible study in the next two weeks. I'm gonna move very carefully through this. Just remember, my goal is not just to preach to you, but also to teach you how to read and understand and interpret scripture on your own. So today, next Sunday, we're kind of going to do that a little bit. We're going to get more down to the brass tacks of just reading and interpreting scripture in detail. So with all that laid out, our focus today is going to be on verses 2 and 3 of chapter 11. We're going to grasp the theology before we turn to the application next week. But to do that, we do have to read the entire passage. And so 1 Corinthians 11, beginning in verse 2. Brethren, this is God's word. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I deliver them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ. The head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, In the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor man of woman, for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman, and all things are from God. Judge for yourselves, is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, is it a disgrace for him? But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory, for her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is cline to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God. Amen. Let's pray. Father, as we approach your word, we entrust ourselves to you. We give ourselves to You and look for and wait for the illumination of the Holy Spirit to hear these words that we might embrace the truth and that we might practice the truth. The truth that accords with godliness. So we pray that You would speak to our ears but ultimately to our hearts. And we pray this so that Christ may be honored and you may be glorified. For it's in the name of Christ we pray. Amen. I want to begin today by asking you a few questions. Questions that I'm pretty sure I know how you'll answer. Questions that I believe get to the heart of this passage. I want you to think about them for a moment as I ask them. Does God care about how we as a church worship Him? Yes, He does. Is corporate worship central to church life? To our life together as a community? To our unity as the body of Christ? Absolutely. Yes, it is. And ultimately, is our worship to be centered on us? Our needs, our desires, our preferences, our self-expression, our inspiration? Or is it to be centered on the glory of God revealed in the person of Christ? Of course, I hope you all agree that God being glorified, that God being honored is the ultimate purpose and goal of our worship. Well, given what I believe clearly are obvious answers to these three questions, wouldn't we expect our God to give us insight and direction into how we are to worship him as a church? And how it is that he is most glorified in the midst of his gathered people, the new covenant temple? Well, that's exactly the overarching point of these next four chapters here in the book of 1 Corinthians. In summary, these chapters make it clear that God cares how we worship. These chapters make it clear that we are to order our worship, our liturgy, our gatherings, according to the mind of Christ revealed in his word. In fact, our Confession of Faith says this very clearly in chapter 22, paragraph 1. We read there that the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself and limited by his own revealed will. We cannot worship God any way that we want, or any way that we please, or anything that we decide, any way or manner that we decide. The scriptures reveal to us how we are to worship God, and what it is that pleases Him, and how it is that He is glorified. Well, this revealed will of God is what's found in these four chapters here in the book of 1 Corinthians. Here in chapter 11, there was disorder among men and women in worship. Paul writes to correct that. In the latter part of the chapter, beginning of verse 17, they were distorting and abusing the Lord's Supper, an aspect of their worship. Following this, beginning in chapter 12, 13, 14, we find there, there was all sorts of spiritual gift chaos. Speaking in tongues, prophecy, disorderliness in worship, their prayers, their preaching, their liturgy was all out of whack. And so really the concluding summary, the verse really that sums up the entire point of these four chapters is found in chapter 14, verse 40, when Paul concludes by writing, all things should be done decently and in order. Brother, with such a large portion of this letter devoted to liturgy and corporate worship, I hope you see how important this is to the life of the church. The Holy Spirit does not waste words. Not only this, but I hope you see as well that each of the particular topics here, chapter 11, the head covering, chapter 11, the supper, love and spiritual gifts, 12 and 13, I hope you see, and 14, I hope you see these aren't isolated topics. But they all fall under the umbrella of God's instruction to us in corporate worship. Worship is central to the health and life of the church. What goes on when we gather on Sunday mornings is more important than anything else that goes on in the life of the church. Worship is central to the glory of God who dwells in the midst of his gathered people. And thus all of this, everything in these four chapters must be understood as taken together toward that end and interpreted in light of that end. Of course, I mention this because it's only within this greater context are we ever going to understand what Paul is talking about in the issue of head covering. We have to consider, ultimately, we have to begin, first and foremost, with how it is that God directs and orders our worship. I think of it this way, we just finished our series, Glimpses of the Gospel, and we saw that everything done in the Christian life flows out of who God is, what he's done, and then how he's commended us in light of that. Well, it's the same thing here when we come to the issue of worship. And that's the same kind of way in which Paul argues beginning here in chapter three in this chapter and following. Our worship is to be ordered after who God is and what he's done and what he's commanded as flowing naturally out of that. That's what we see here today, brethren. All of our worship is to be directed toward that one central purpose and goal, to honor the Lord Jesus Christ and to glorify God in him and to edify and build up one another. That's the point. And that is the theological context that I want you to see today and understand and embrace before we then turn to the application in the rest of this passage. verses four and following. So let's consider this theological context of worship. I said we're gonna focus on two and three. Three points today to help us work through this. Our corporate worship must be informed and directed by the doctrine of headship, the doctrine of creation, and the doctrine of redemption. Our corporate worship must be informed and directed by the doctrine of headship, creation, and redemption. So let's think about the doctrine of headship to begin. How it informs and directs our corporate worship. Now before we get to verse three, which is the point I want to begin by at least making a couple of comments on verse 2. I want you to see how corporate worship is in view here. In verse 2, Paul begins with a commendation. He praises them, he commends them that they had maintained the traditions. Traditions, and particularly it's used here in 1 Corinthians, refer to the central truths of the faith. These were themes that Paul had learned from the Lord Jesus Christ and the other apostles, and they had passed them down to the churches before the emergence of Scripture. It was all, in this sense at this time, oral instruction. And Paul commends them that these core doctrines that they had maintained. I do think, though, that as we think about this, it's an interesting way to begin because although he begins on this positive note, like nothing basically that follows in the next four chapters is positive. On one hand, we may think, well, Paul's being a good pastor here. He's making sure to praise them first, right, to build them up before he, you know, drops the hammer a little bit. But also I think as well that it seems as though Paul is praising them for their sound doctrine so that he can then labor to show them how their worship was inconsistent with that. I think that's why he says this and then immediately goes to a very lofty doctrinal statement here in verse three and then moves on to the practice. He's trying to show them how their worship was inconsistent with the doctrine that they had joyfully embraced. And haven't we all seen this before? I know I have. You ever read a church's doctrinal statement on their website and been like, oh, yeah, this is pretty good. But then when you actually visit, their worship seems to be like nothing like the doctrine they confess. Like, wow, why you have these great lofty views, statements about God, but your worship is like a concert. Like, is there a disconnect there? That's the issue here. Paul is commending them for believing the right things, but he's going to correct them because he's like, your sound doctrine is not leading to sound practice in worship. Your doctrine and your liturgy are at odds. This is important to note, but also important to note is I want to emphasize that the subject here is public and corporate worship, not private and personal worship. We know this, for example, from verse four, he speaks of praying and prophesying. We can pray in private, but prophecy is inherently a corporate activity, inspired speech directed toward the community, edifying one another. We know, of course, the rest of chapter 11, the Lord's Supper, that's corporate as well, the practice of spiritual gifts, when an unbeliever enters your assembly, he goes on to say in chapter 14, the point is that this focus is corporate public assembly of God's people. It's not talking about private worship or ways in which we might worship the Lord, again, in the privacy of our own homes. So with that out of the way, How is our corporate public worship to be directed? Well, we must first understand the doctrine of headship. I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of every wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. I hope it goes without saying that this verse is hotly debated and extremely controversial in our day. The chief reason is, I think, because of this statement, the head of wife is her husband on the surface. If we're conservative Christians, that doesn't sound too controversial because we know that that's said elsewhere in scripture. But to lay my cards on the table here, I believe this is a very poor translation from the ESV. In fact, you can even read that in the footnotes here. The Greek word for man is the same word used for husband. And the Greek word for wife is the same word that's used for woman. And so when you come to a text like this and you're like, is he talking about husband and wife or man or woman? It's only determined by the context. And I don't believe anything in this context leads us to believe that this concerns husband and wife. Marriage is not a view here. The roles in the home are completely off topic. In fact, the original Greek is also missing the word her. The head of wife is her husband. Her is not in the Greek either. To quote the KJV and other translations, which translate this very literally, it should read, the head of the woman is the man. And we're going to come back to that in a moment. But don't you see how controversial and uncomfortable that is to say that? Generally, we don't have a problem with saying that the head of man is Christ, but the head of the woman, man, and the head of Christ, God? I mean, what does that mean? How do we square that statement with the fact that Christ is God? These things are difficult. This is why it's important that we properly define our doctrine of headship and what he means by head before we then move on to draw those conclusions. And so how do we understand when he says the head here and he speaks of headship? I think that when we first hear this in our day, we kind of think instinctively think of authority, the head of a corporation, the head of state, the headmaster of our school. I mean, typically when we hear this, we think of the ones who's in charge, the one with the highest rank. But it is interesting, like, that is not exactly how the word was most often used in the first century. In fact, very rarely in Greek and first century literature did referring to someone as the head convey power and authority. Much more central to the idea of headship and the idea of head is the idea of the head being the source, like the head of a river. Or more specifically here, the head of a family line. So in the first century, when you referred to someone as the head, you were speaking of a prominent figure who is either honored or shamed by the actions of others. In this sense, the head is spoken of the head to show its connection with the body, the rest. A child who shames his father, shames the head of the family. Now, in this example, If we speak about a child shaming his head, the head of the family, are we talking about authority and submission? Sometimes, it's not entirely unrelated, but it's much broader to speak of a child shaming his father because a child can shame his father in ways other than just disobedience. The point I'm trying to argue here is that Paul doesn't use the headship terminology to speak strictly of authority and submission, but rather shame and honor. That's his focus. We know this, I think, most clearly because the next three verses, four, five, and six, speak of shame and honor, not obedience and disobedience. And then in verse 8, we read of man being the source from which woman was made. Source, like head, like the head of a river, the head of a family line. So don't just read this and think man is the head of woman means that man is in charge and women are called to submit because that's not the point. That's not what Paul is talking about. Furthermore, as we'll consider in a moment and next week, that's not what creation teaches us when we consider that man, that woman was created from man and for man. It's certainly not what scripture teaches when it says that man, excuse me, that the head of Christ is God. you have a sound doctrine of a Christology, you know there's no submission or subordination within the Godhead. The three persons of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit, are one God, same in essence, equal in power and glory. And so again, the point here, bringing up the doctrine of headship is not to stress authority, but to show the unity. There is a structure and a unity in creation and redemption. And it is within this structure and our particular role in that structure that is either unifying or divisive, that either brings shame or brings honor in our corporate worship. In a word, man and woman are called to show honor to their respective head, just as Christ, the incarnate Son, shows honor to His Father. Thinking about this practically, you know, some of you who've been with us through these first 10 chapters of 1 Corinthians, over and over again, haven't we seen like one of the main issues that Paul's dealing with is rampant individuality? Haven't we seen this? You know, not caring about one another, living your own life on your own terms, them being divisive, them having favorite teachers, favorite practices, not considering the weaker brother, all of those things. I mean, is it? It shouldn't be any surprise then when we see that individuality was also bearing rotten fruit in their corporate worship. And that's where he goes later in this chapter on the Lord's Supper, there were divisions among them, right? They were observing the supper in a very individualized way, leaving some people hungry, others were using the supper to get drunk. Same thing when it comes to the spiritual gifts in chapters 12, 13, and 14. They all wanted to exercise their own spiritual gifts at their own discretion, in their own way, at their own timing, no matter who it trampled on for their own benefit, for their own preferences. And Paul is arguing your gifts are there to edify others, to build up the body of Christ. That's why he begins right here with this statement of headship. to address the rampant individuality and self-centeredness of the church. You need to see that there is a theology of creation that structures and orders our worship. Of course, I mean, don't we see individualism in worship in churches in our day all around us as well? Don't we often think about worship sometimes or talk about it? We talk about whether we like the style of music or not. Whether we like the hymns or not. Or whether the service went too long, the preacher went too long. Or whether I got anything out of the service. Or whether I felt like I was worshiping God that day. Or whether this church or that church fits my taste or not. It's not wrong at all to have personal preferences. It's good that you do. And favorite hymns and favorite styles of worship, favorite styles of music, favorite liturgy. It's not wrong to have those personal preferences, but our personal preferences are always to take a back seat to the truth that we see here that corporate worship isn't just about you and me. Worship is not to center on our preferences. It's not based upon how we feel or don't feel or what we think we get out of it. When we think of worship and approach worship that way, we're falling into the same error that Paul is addressing here. So he's saying, look, long before we get into the details of worship, you need to understand your place and your role and your obligation in worship. First and foremost, worship is to honor and not shame the structure of creation that is woven into this world. and worship is to reflect the unity in creation, but the unity between man and woman as well, the unity enjoyed by the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit as well. That is how God is glorified. That is how the church is unified. That is how the church is built up. Each of us have a function and role in worship ordained by God, and that's where we must begin. We need to move quickly. Secondly, our corporate worship must be informed and directed by the doctrine of creation. So the doctrine of headship, the doctrine of creation. This is really just an expansion of what we just considered, but I want us to focus on this statement that the head of every woman is man. Of course, we're gonna come back to this next week as well. What does it mean? What does it mean that the head of every woman is man? Well, again, this statement must be understood in the context of corporate worship. I want to argue and make it clear that, right up front, Paul's not speaking about the relationship between men and women in the world at large. There are some who take this verse to mean that all women, in general, are subordinate to men, as if that's how the world was made. That's not what Paul is saying here. That's not what the Scriptures teach. This does not say that man is lord over woman or the ruler over woman. It's certainly not saying that God is lord or ruler over Christ. Rather, when the scriptures speak of the implications of headship and creation between men and women, most specifically the scriptures speak of the church and the home. Because that is the center of God's redemptive activity. That's where God's redemptive activity reigns. God is restoring the harmony of creation through his spirit, redeeming man and woman who are interconnected and interdependent and complement of each other in various ways. That is true in the church and among Christians. It is not true about society and community at large. That's why it's so weird for me sometimes to hear Christians transforming the culture and redeeming communities as if the society is the same as the church. The church is the center of God's redemptive activity. If we want to speak about redeeming communities, well, then maybe we do need to go out and say in our community, well, man is the head of woman, and so we need to structure society this way as well. But you don't see any of those transformationalists arguing that way. It's an inconsistency. The home, specifically the Christian home in the church, is the center of God's redemptive work in restoring the proper roles between man and woman. And so in this sense, I would say as well, this is why the ESV changes this to husband and wife. They do so because they want to be careful to translate these verses in light of what the rest of scripture teaches. And so they don't want you to misinterpret this as if you just interpret it literally, man, the head of woman. Well, they know how easily that is abused in our day, which is why the modern translations are sensitive to this when the older translations had no problem with it. Regardless, that's a side point. I want you to see the point I'm trying to make is that submission is not the emphasis here. Authority is not the submission here. And if we understand this, then we'll have no problem with this reading, the head of woman is the man. What does this mean then, most specifically? Well, the creation account teaches us that man was created first, and that woman was created after the man. And that she was created from the man, from his riven side, and that she was created for the man, as a helper. God does nothing by accident, and all throughout scripture, these three creational realities are often appealed to as having particular implications in the home and in the church, in the Christian home, that is. Man created first, woman created from man and for men. But the implications of this are not, as I'm arguing, in the sense of hierarchy. The implications of this are not in the sense of ontology either, ontology being like being, like the substance of who we are, as if one is superior and one is inferior. The implications are rather relational. How do we relate to one another? How do men and women relate to one another in the Christian home and in the church? Man was created first. Man then is the source and the fountainhead of woman. Woman derives her being, as it were, from man. She is dependent upon man in that sense, to follow the analogy of the theological metaphor. Man also, as Paul says down in verse seven, is the, excuse me, woman is the glory of man. She is his beauty. In fact, some women humorously say, yes, women were created second, right? God fixed everything he messed up with on the first try. He improves upon his creation. We say that jokingly, but there is an element of truth to the fact that woman beautifies and glorifies the first prototype. Woman is the eschatology. Right? She is the inglorification of what originally was. We see that. We recognize that. Paul's appealing to that. Woman is the glory of man. That's far from being inferior. In fact, it leans more towards a view of superiority. It's not, but still you get the picture. She glorifies man. Of course, she glorifies God as well, but that's not Paul's focus right now. That's why he's driving home this point. Also, as Paul goes on to say, woman was created for man. In Adam, in creation, Adam was entrusted with fulfilling the covenant of works. He is the one who's held responsible for breaking it. He was the head in that sense. He bore the responsibility to work and keep the garden. It is his fault, even though she is the one who ate first, but it is his fault. that the fall and sin and destruction have entered our world. Adam was called to work and keep the garden, to take dominion as God's vice-regent on earth, and woman was created as a helper in this. A helper's not inferior. God himself, all throughout the Old Testament, is called our helper, using the very same word that's used in the creation account. But a helper does mean that she was commissioned to help him fulfill the covenant of works. He bore the responsibility, but they were to fulfill it together. Woman was necessary for him to fulfill the purpose of his creation. That's what it means when the scriptures say that woman was created for the man. Paul really nails this down in verse 11 when he says, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man nor man of woman. All things are from God. Again, going back to in the Lord, in the church and in the Christian family, man and woman need each other. Man and woman are not called to live autonomously and seek God's glory in their own ways on their own terms, but are to do so together. in unique ways and within their unique roles. And to get back to the point here, this is what must inform our worship. As we'll consider next week, a breakdown of the distinction between the sexes is a distortion of creation. And I hope that of all people of all ages, you recognize this. In fact, reading through this, studying this chapter this week, more like the last six weeks, wrapping my mind around it, it's one of the hardest passages I've ever had to interpret to preach. But thinking about this, I'm like, I think this passage is more relevant to us than it was perhaps at any other time in the church's history. We live in the midst of the transgender movement. preferred pronouns, gender fluid ideas, men trying to be women, women trying to be men, men and women trying to be nothing. The differences between man and woman, male and female, are ways in which God is glorified. Our unique roles in this and working together and complimenting one another is what pleases and honors our God. It is a tremendous evil to distort or downplay or flatten out those things as if they don't matter. As if we're sexless beings. This brings shame. That's what Paul's getting at. That was going on in Corinth. There was some flattening out, and it was bringing shame. There was some, well, just like we saw in the issue of visiting prostitutes many chapters back in 1 Corinthians 6. There was like, well, I'm redeemed. I'm going to heaven. It doesn't really matter what I do with my body anymore. That's what's going on here. They're like, well, we're like the angels, I guess, because of the angels, verse 10. Because of the angels, Men and women are the same. It doesn't really matter. We're spirits redeemed. We're all going to be in heaven. Paul's like, no, no. God is glorified in your distinctive role and your distinction as a male or a female. And to flatten that out brings shame. And so in this sense, we think of God, He has assigned men and women different roles. And we know this from the creation account in general, right? Birds fill the heavens, fish fill the sea. Sun, you were created to illuminate the universe by day. Moon, you were to do so by night. Everything that God created was then given a specific role. The moon doesn't fulfill the role of the sun. The fish don't fulfill the role of the birds. Man does not fulfill the role of woman and vice versa. There is some uniqueness to this. Everything was designed specifically and purposely. And this brings glory to God and this informs, it must inform how we worship. If you are a man, if you are a male, you have a particular role and function in worship to glorify your head, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are a woman, you have a particular function in worship, and it's slightly different than man's, although the end goal is the same. You are called to glorify God, yes. You are called to glorify Christ, yes. But you can't do that if you shame your head, which is man, who is a type of Christ. Jesus is a man. Jesus being glorified is what ultimately brings glory to God the Father. Man is to glorify Christ and thus glorify God. And woman in worship is not to shame man but to honor him because to bring shame upon a man in worship is to bring shame upon Christ in worship, who is a man. You follow me? I know you're like, okay, what does this mean? Okay, what does it mean about head coverings? What does it mean about hair? Long hair, short hair, shaved hair? What does this mean and what does this look like? Well, brethren, we're gonna get there. We're gonna get there, but I want you to see just the basic theological point. It's not a hierarchy, it's not oppression, it's not subjugation. It is simply the way in which God has created the world. In this sense, our goal is to glorify God in worship. To do so, we must glorify Christ. And to do so, men and women have different ways in which that is accomplished. Well, I hope this comes together a little bit better in our third and final point. And that's what we're going to conclude today. Our worship must be informed and directed by redemption as well. There's a saying among theologians that eschatology precedes soteriology. I love that statement. My wife shakes her head when I say it. She says, what does that mean? Nobody understands. Eschatology precedes soteriology. What it means is that God's plan for the end of the world and the new creation came before and is even embedded in the original creation. He had his plan for the end even before the beginning. and everything in the beginning was designed to plan for the end. I hinted at this earlier, but to put it plainly, we must never think of the first Adam without also thinking about the second Adam, Christ. And that's what Paul is getting at when he says the head of Christ is God. Of course, if we think about this ontologically, that is within the inner relationship of the Trinity, there is no authority and submission within the Godhead. Father, Son, and Spirit have one will. You need two wills for one will to submit to another will. Father, Son, and Spirit are equal in power and glory and eternity and auseity and all of those other things. But in the work of redemption, In His incarnation as a human being, in His work on the cross, the head of Christ is God. And that's why Paul says here, Christ. He uses the word Messiah. He doesn't just reference the second person of the Trinity. He's talking about Christ as a man. We know Christ the man came from the Father. The Father is His source. Everything He is, He is in relation to His Father. We know that He came to glorify His Father and not Himself. We know that He came saying, I speak only what the Father told me to speak. I only do the works that the Father gave me to do. Christ as Jesus, the God-man, honored His Father and glorified His Father in everything that He did. Now, of course, Christ's relationship to the Father is not the same as woman's relationship to the man, but there is an analogy here that Paul is appealing to. There is a design and there is an order in the relationship between the Father and the incarnate Christ, and that design and order informs our understanding of man and woman's relationship in the church. And all of this structures and informs our worship. So even when we look at creation and man and woman, as we just considered in the previous point, we must also ultimately look at it through the lens of Christ and redemption. We can only understand Adam if we understand understand Christ, the second Adam, Jesus Christ is the true greater Adam. Jesus Christ is the epitome, the archetype, the standard, the complete and utter fulfillment of what man was created to be. Jesus Christ is the one in whom the Father is perfectly revealed and glorified and honored. And so now, again, think of this in light of the creation of man and woman. I spoke earlier of how Adam bore the responsibility of fulfilling the covenant of works. God invested Adam with dominion. Adam was called to take dominion. And he was not called to do this and fulfill this independent of woman, she was to help him. as they were to work together, but they each had different roles. The man was called to take dominion in a way and a manner that the woman was not. Man was to image God in ruling and conquering and taking dominion as prophet, priest, and king in a way that woman was not. There is a reason why the office of prophet, priest, and king were limited to men in the Old Testament, because they pointed to the man, Christ Jesus. And the man, Christ Jesus, is the ultimate Adam, the ultimate man. And as a man, he is not a woman. He had to be born as a man in order to fulfill the role of second Adam. He had to come as a man to serve as a type of Christ. And so because Christ is a man, men in the church point to Him and honor Him and glorify Him and play a role in worship in a way that is different than the woman. Not in a way that's more important than a woman, not in a way that's greater or better than a woman, but there's a distinction. And this is where we'll conclude today, brethren. We will conclude because that's really the essence of the theological point being made here. Do we want to honor God in our worship? Don't we want to remove any and everything that might possibly hinder or obscure the glory of God in our worship? Don't we want our neighbor to be edified and built up and encouraged in worship? Well, think about our worship. Who is the actor, ultimately, in our worship? Who is our worship leader? Who is the head of the church? Who is the one through whom, through which, everything done in the midst of this assembly is made effectual to our salvation? It's Christ. Two or three gather, I'm in your midst. The book of Ephesians, when the gospel was preached to this community that came way after Christ lived, in a region of the world way away from Jerusalem, Paul writes, Christ himself visited you and preached to you. Revelation 1, we looked at this on Wednesday night. Who is it that walks among the lampstands? Who dwells in the midst of his church? Jesus Christ. Worship is about the glory of God. Worship is about the glory of God revealed in the person of Christ. Christ is the one speaking and acting and blessing as our covenant head and Lord, and thus our respective place and role and activity is always aimed in this respect. In worship, woman is to honor and not shame the man because man honors Christ and is not to shame Christ, and as Christ is honored, God is glorified. That's the fundamental truth here. And that reflects the beauty and symmetry and mystery of the triune God in His work of redemption, the purpose of creation, as well as the order and structure of the church which is given for our blessing and unity and edification. So brethren, as we conclude this morning, I want you just to consider and think deeply about how God cares how we worship. And that we have worship as a gift and a privilege, yes, but we also have a proper role and responsibility. And that worship, we must never approach worship independently. As if it's about me and my walk with Jesus. me and how I'm living the Christian life, me and how I want to worship, but that we are unified, that we are a body, even as male and female. And that our endeavor and our goal in all of this is to bring honor and glory to Christ as the ultimate Adam, the ultimate man. Because we are really the bride. We are the beautiful woman, that is, who brings glory to him, He must be the center of all of our gatherings, all of our worship, and all of our adoration. And when you see this, brethren, far from being restrictive or oppressive, this is a truth that when we joyfully embrace it, it brings such comfort, such beauty, such edification to set in humility our own preferences aside. And joyfully embrace God's word, God's purposes in creation, and God's redemption as it has been accomplished in Christ. Well, brethren, we will connect some of the dots next week, but that's the theology that we are called to believe and embrace if we're ever gonna obey to the glory of God. May God give us the grace to receive these things today. Let's pray.