From the Start - Part 7 (A Genesis Sermon Series Part 8)

Genesis chapter 2 is where we will be this morning.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

And I will just say we're going to cover a lot of ground this

morning. A lot of ground partly because

the goal is to finish get up through chapter 3 before we

begin Advent. So, so we're having to tear off

some some fairly lengthy sections and really what I'm

doing this morning could be two or three messages actually.

So we're going to cover a lot of ground.

And I'm just going to say this morning is not politically

correct. I'm going to say some things

that culture at large would disagree with things that they

would frankly and offensive. But scripture is our authority.

And if scripture is our authority, then it informs our

beliefs and stances on cultural issues.

And I will also say, I think this is probably if I was the

MPAAI would rate this PGI think if I'm thinking correctly about

it, I think it's PGI. Don't think we're in 13

territory this morning. I'm, I'm going to be vague on,

on a number of things because there's no need to be specific,

but just a fair warning that this is APG message.

So parents, my apologies for any conversations that may, that may

come up this afternoon. So if you are able, would you

stand as we read from Genesis chapter 2, beginning at verse 18

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

through the end of the chapter, 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 God had formed every beast of

the field and every bird of the 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 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 he brought her

to the man. 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 we're not ashamed.

You may be seated. We've backtracked.

If you notice, we backtracked from where you would expect us

to be is last week. We cover with these verses a

little bit, but I wanted to backtrack because there's a few

points that I want to draw our attention to.

First of all, here at the beginning of the text, we see

that the man is alone. Verse 18 said it's not that he

should be alone, I'm going to make him a helper.

And then verse 20 reiterated that again that they're not

found a helper fit for him. The man was alone.

There was no one else like him around.

God created the man to have fellowship with him as well as

with other human beings. And only when the man is able to

love and give himself away to another human is he able to

fully experience personhood. Verse 20 told us there was no

helper for the man. How did Adam arrive at at the

conclusion? How does he know he needs a

helper? Well, he'd spent time with all

the animals. He'd survey what kind there were

around him, both in the garden as well as out in the field.

And these were all of a different sorts than he.

They were most definitely not a Dom that is human.

There was nothing among the animals that could partner with

him in in the functions that he was serving of and reproducing.

This naturally leads us to the next verse where we find the

human exercising authority. Verses 19 and 20 told us God had

formed all the animals and birds from the dust of the ground and

then brought them to the man in order to be named.

And the man's very first act of exercising authority and ruling

was each of the animals. Each kind was brought before

him, examined, probably spent some time discerning their

qualities, their traits, who came up with a name for each

kind of animal. And the relationship between man

and the animals was likely stronger than the relationship

that we experience with animals currently today.

This is the garden, remember? Man and animals weren't yet at

odds. Animals had no need to fear man,

and man didn't have any need to fear animals yet.

Now the central focus of our text this morning begins at

verse 21. I'll reread it here.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man 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. The man said this at last.

His bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she was taken.

It's important to clarify that man isn't naming the woman when

he says she shall be called woman.

He's not giving her a name. She doesn't get a name until

actually in chapter 3 here he's actually categorizing the woman.

She's not one of those other creatures.

She's she's like him. The word for man is ish and the

word for woman is Isha. It's kind of like how we have in

English, you have man and woe. Man, man and the animals were

all formed from the dust of the ground, but not the woman.

See, God took the flesh from the man and he fashioned woman out

of it, creating the very first pair of humans.

Now here we see the woman's source is the man.

The woman's source is the man, not the dust of the ground like

Adam and the animals. The man and woman are alike in

that they are both nefesh, that is to to breathe the air of

life. They are soulish creations.

However, they're not like the other nepheshes that that

existed, the other creatures, the animals, and that's

immediately apparent. They're instantly able to relate

to each other in special ways as they connect over emotional,

intellectual, and spiritual dimensions.

These are areas that are specific to personhood.

Now, it's helpful to remind ourselves that our culture is

quite different from that of the ancient Near East.

We gloss over the references to the woman's creation.

One, because we've heard it a lot, so we've kind of become a

little numb to it. And secondly, because we live in

a post title 9 world void of understanding the cultural

context of the Israelites. The telling of the woman's

creation is unique among the cosmogonies the the foundational

stories of the ancient Near East.

See, it's clear from the text that the woman is important in

the mind of God. God is intense and sets on

creating this new creation. Verse 18 it says the Lord God

said and remember from last week, the Lord God means Yahweh

Elohim, that is that is His personal revelation as he enters

into this realm of creating and forming humanity.

The Lord God said I will make him a helper.

Verse 19 the Lord God formed. Verse 21 the Lord God caused a

deep sleep. Verse 22 The Lord God made the

rib into a woman. Here we see that God is very

active in these verses that talk about the creation of the woman.

Now this is contrary to the ancient cultures who often

oppressed women and the emphasis God gives to the woman sets her

up as equally as important as the man in fulfilling God's

purposes. Now, it probably goes without

saying, but alone the man is incapable of fulfilling the

command to be fruitful and multiply.

Only with the woman by his side is Adam able to be fruitful and

to do what humanity was intended to do.

Actually, I think we could go so far as to say that Adam and Eve

are interdependent on each other.

They're interdependent on each other.

The woman makes it possible for the man to achieve the the

blessing that he could not possibly accomplish on his own,

and neither could she accomplish it on her own.

Even more than that, her importance is further

underscored and in chapter 3, in chapter 3 tells us that the

woman's a seed, her, her offspring, which is a prophetic

reference, a future reference to Jesus.

It says the woman's offspring will defeat the enemy.

So the woman is indispensable in the story of humanity's

redemption. Now, in light of what this text

communicates about gender, it's important for us to consider

gender in our own cultural context.

For the next few moments, I want to look at gender through the

lens of science, culture, and the word.

First of all, what makes someone biologically male or female?

While there are a lot of similarities, all those

qualities I mentioned earlier that men and women share in

common, there are some significant differences.

They each have different reproductive roles.

The male contribute sperm in the female's egg is the receptor of

that sperm. Men and women have of course,

different external anatomy. Men and women are differentiated

by their chromosomes. A female has XX chromosomes and

a male has XY chromosomes. Yes, I understand that there's a

a small segment of the population that is born intersex

with both male and female parts. However, the majority of

intersex people first of all are not even identified as intersex

at birth, as only one in 2000 newborns has genital variations

that involve consultation with a sex differentiation specialist.

Intersex people are a genetic anomaly, not a third gender.

It used to be that gender dysphoria was considered quite

rare, but in the last decade it has dramatically increased the

DSM Five that is the Manual for Psychiatric practice.

It defines gender dysphoria as a condition characterized by a

marked and persistent incongruence between one's

experienced gender. Maybe I would say how they

present and their assigned sex. Feelings of being trapped in the

wrong body tend to pervade the thoughts of the person who

experiences gender dysphoria. They feel like they belong to

the other sex, not the sex that their genitalia would indicates

their their birth sex. It's estimated that .6% of

American adults experience gender dysphoria.

And for teens, the numbers trend higher at 1.4%.

From 2017 to 2021, there was a nearly threefold increase in

reported gender dysphoria among children and adolescents in the

US. And I think we could explain

some of that issue. It is interesting for me to also

tell you numbers are now starting to decrease.

Increasingly, our culture has fallen into a state where it has

actually served to uphold gender stereotypes while simultaneously

trying to tear them down. When people talk about living as

trans, they're usually talking about affirming the gender

stereotypes of the opposite sex, and they usually present that

way. When a girl is interested in

sports or cars, does that mean she's actually a boy trapped in

a girl's body? When a boy is into music?

In the arts, does that mean he's a girl trapped in a boy's body?

The answer is no. Nonconformity to gender

stereotypes does not make one the opposite gender.

When we don't conform to gender stereotypes, that doesn't make

us the other gender the other sex.

Gender stereotypes are not the same as gender stereotypes are

culturally and socially constructed and gender is

biologically identified. The doctor didn't assign sex at

birth. The doctor identified the sex at

birth. Sometimes when people are asked

about gender, they'll say it's a social construct.

What's they should be saying is gender stereotypes are social

constructs. Culturally, we expect boys to

wear blue, be tough and play sports.

We expect girls to wear pink, dance, be into music, and look

pretty. These characteristics don't

determine gender. So we need to keep our heads

screwed on and not jump to conclusions that neither science

nor scripture supports. Furthermore, there is objective

truth. Objective truth exists and

gender complementarity is affirmed by science.

I know this is kind of a big word.

Gender complementarity is affirmed by science.

It means that the genders complement each other.

The truth is that scientific scientifically there are only

two genders, male and female. That is XY and XX chromosomes.

Male and female anatomy support this as well.

The parts fit and function together.

The male part was designed to coordinate with the females.

The females incapable of conceiving without a male

contributing sperm to fertilize the egg, Right?

This is science. There's no sperm, there's no

fertilization. So gender complementarity,

genders complementing each other in reproduction is affirmed by

science. Genesis 127 tells us God created

them as male and female. So our next question is what

does the Bible say about being male and female?

Well, Jesus was a Jew, and as a Jew the question of sex was

settled in the Torah. No, the Torah does not contain

other genders. If you listen to this

conversation, you may hear people try to say that it does,

but it doesn't. The Mishnah and Talmud are

reported to have other genders as well, but.

What we see reported in the Mishnah and Talmud is basically

descriptions of what is or isn't present.

It describes a condition of somebody rather than another

gender. Also, it's worth noting that the

Mishnah and Talmud were not written anywhere near the time

of when Moses writes the Torah, so the Torah does not affirm

another gender outside of male and female.

The question of someone's sex wasn't a topic of debate in

Jesus time, so he didn't specifically comment on it.

What Jesus did do was he quoted Genesis in an interaction with

the Pharisees. The Pharisees were looking for

excuses to to divorce their wives for any reason.

So in Matthew 19 verses 4 through 6 Jesus said this.

Matthew 19:4–6

Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning

made them male and female, and said therefore man shall leave

his father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the

two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer 2, but one

flesh. What?

Therefore God is joined together, Let not man separate.

Here Jesus reaffirms the original order of creation.

Of course he would, since he was complicit in creation, right?

He he was the one creating. But he affirms the original

order laid down in the law by quoting Genesis 127 and 224, and

he demonstrates himself to be in alignment with the Torah's

teaching and the fact that there's only male and female.

In that same exchange, the topic of eunuchs was brought up again.

If you're online and you're listening to some of these

conversations, transgender proponents will tell you, oh,

look at the eunuch, it's another gender.

No, that is not what is happening here.

When, when Jesus is talking about eunuchs in Matthew 19,

he's not talk. He's not talking about another

gender. That is what we would call

isagesis. Isagesis is where we take our

own biases and we start to read into the text what we want the

text to say. And with isagesis, you can

basically make the text to say anything you want.

When Jesus talks about eunuchs. And eunuchs are men who had been

castrated in order to prevent them from sexually abusing the

queen or in order to protect a King's harem.

They were castrated. So when he talks about eunuchs,

he's only describing their physical condition.

He's not creating and advocating another gender.

So how else might Scripture speak to us on this topic?

First of all, Psalm 139, verses 13 through 14.

Psalms 139:13–14

It tells us who God created. For You formed my inward parts.

You knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

God formed you and knew you from the moment of conception and

that is why we are also pro-life.

You were wonderfully created and can trust God's good design in

who you are. Also, Scripture tells us that

you're loved by God. Just one example.

Psalm 36. Seven.

How precious is your steadfast love?

O God, the children of mankind, take refuge in the shadow of

your wings. We're loved by God now

unfortunately though, because of sin, this world is is broken.

This world does not function the way that God intended it to

function. So if we look at Romans eights,

there on the screen, for the creation waits with eager

longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but

because of him who subjected it, in the hope that the creation

itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain

the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning

together in the pains of childbirth until now.

All creation is groaning, longing for the day when when

things will be made right. It's not just the trees,

everything out there. That means humanity as well.

Right now, confusion reigns in this world as Satan does all he

can to pull people off course and keep them from seeing God's

truth. And as we speak to truth, I

think it's important to say that changing one's gender,

transitioning doesn't bring clarity.

Rather, it only serves to bring confusion.

Transitioning doesn't bring clarity, it only brings

confusion. When people transition, they

expect things to magically get better, but there's a long list

of people now who expected things to magically be right and

only found themselves disappointed and saddened

because they'd done irreparable damage to their bodies.

Culture doesn't want you to hear those stories by the way they

they suppress those stories. But when you hear these people

talk, the stories are are sad to hear what they have experienced

and what was pushed on them. I think Romans 121 through 25

applies here. For although they knew God, they

did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.

But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish

hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became

fools and exchange the glory of the mortal God for images

resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to

impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves,

because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and

worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator

who was blessed forever. Amen.

Satan's goal is to bring confusion.

He darkens the hearts of people who are just trying to figure

out who they are and they fall into his lies.

They think they've got it figured out.

They profess to be wise, but in actuality they've lost touch on

reality and have have chosen to glorify their bodies and and

self above the creator. This is what's happening in the

transgender movement. Mass confusion brought on by the

enemy. Before we leave this topic, and

this has just been intended to be kind of a primer to this

topic, but before we leave this topic, there are a few things I

want to say. Parents, family member, friend.

I know some of you us have relationships with people who

are going through this right now, people who experience

gender dysphoria or who want to transition.

It's everywhere. Love people well, love them

well. Don't abandoned them, of course.

Treat them with the utmost respect and dignity as image

bearers of our God. But also remember, love does not

equal affirmation. Loving someone well does not

mean that you have to support their choices and affirm where

they are headed. Sometimes love means saying the

hard thing. You can love people without

affirming their decisions and choices.

It's also worth noting that our brains don't stop developing

until we're in our mid 20s. Thoughts and values can

significantly shift during this time and it's completely normal

for youth to feel weird and and to not like their bodies as they

change and grow. Guess what?

These feelings don't mean you're broken, they just mean you're

growing. So when questions about gender

and sexuality arise, there's usually something else under the

surface contributing to to that thought pattern.

Because gender dysphoria, I believe, is a symptom and not a

root cause. Secular psychologists would not

agree with that assessment, but gender dysphoria is a symptom,

not a root cause. Whenever we see gender

dysphoria, we can know that there's something going on,

because this is not how God designed people.

This is a product of a fallen, broken world.

Lastly, the focus of scripture is on our behavior, not our

desires. Focus of scripture is on our

behavior and not our desires. Now I wanted to be careful with

how I said this because our desires do matter to to some

extent and I'll explain that here.

But desire in and of itself is not a sin, but rather what we do

with that desire is what makes it a sin.

Not all feelings and desires are intended to be acted upon, and

bad desires become a sin when you act upon them.

When someone chooses transitioning, they're moving

away from God's desire for them. When someone continues to

entertain ideation of being the opposite gender, they need to

take those thoughts captive, take those thoughts captive,

surrender them to God, and fix their minds on thoughts that are

true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable.

As it says in Philippians 4/8, actions are what matters most,

but the battle starts in our minds.

The last item we see in this passage is marriage.

Verses 24 through 25 revealed to us the very first marriage.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast

to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife, we're both naked, and we're not

ashamed. There are a few points I want to

draw our attention to here. First is leave and cleave.

Leave and cleave. This saying is taken from the

King James Version where it actually says, therefore shall a

man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto

his wife. Now I know we don't use the word

cleave in our in our normal everyday language, but leave and

cleave. Leave and cleave rhymes.

And so when we talk about marital commitments, those are

the words we use. I think it's weird, but it makes

sense. We may have to change that

someday as people get further and further removed from that

word cleaving to something, because then you when you have

to explain it, it just is a little awkward.

But that's the that's the way we talked about it.

Leaving and cleaving in marriage prior familial commitments are

are superseded by our commitment to to our spouse and this

commitment to each other, even parents, especially if you have

little ones. This commitment to each other

even supersedes our commitment to our children.

Our marriages are not to be centered on our children.

Next marriage is to be heterosexual in nature.

Doing my best to get us cancelled here.

Am I doing a good job? I think so.

It's absolutely appalling to me when people try to say scripture

endorses and affirms same sex marriage.

The interpretational gymnastics one has to do in order to arrive

at this conclusion are deserving of a gold medal, if not even

better than that. Not to mention ignoring clear

teachings of scripture. But I'll address that sometime

this winter so you can look forward to that.

You absolutely cannot say scripture endorses a lifestyle

of same sex attraction. The prescription here is that

marriage involves a husband and wife.

Not only does it call out the husband and wife, but it even

goes so far as to speak to the one flesh union that they

experience. Humans experience this one flesh

union in a way that is different, and the true one

flesh union only happens within the context of a male and female

sexually uniting. The next characteristic of

marriage is that it's monogamous.

Marriage involves one man and one woman.

You might be asking, well, what about all the polygamous

marriages in the Old Testament? Well, there's an important rule

in apologetics. It's important for us to

understand the difference between descriptive passages and

prescriptive passages. The Bible contains much that is

descriptive in nature. In fact, I think it's probably

safe to say that most of the Bible is descriptive.

It's telling us what has happened is happening or what

will happen. Just because something is in the

Bible doesn't mean it's a prescription for how to live.

Many men in Scripture had multiple wives, but that is not

God's design. His design is seen here at the

beginning when He created the man and the woman.

Everywhere we see polygamy in Scripture, we see problems the

very first instance in scripture of someone having a second wife

was lamech, and we will see that he was an evil man in chapter 4.

The Polygamy was always problematic in Scripture, but

it's possible. It's possible God allowed

polygamy to exist, since in the ancient Near East it was nearly

impossible for an unmarried, uneducated woman to survive on

her own. Women had to rely on their

fathers, brothers, and husbands in order to not end up

destitute. It's also significant that in

the New Testament, one of the expectations of an elder, a

church leader, is that he's the husband of one wife.

This phrase has been interpreted in various ways, but an

interpretation allowing for a church leader to be polygamous

is most definitely not an option.

And if it applies to our church leaders, then of course it would

be good for everyone else to follow suit right now, why would

I even take time to make this point in a culture that is

driven towards monogamy? First of all, Mormonism's

polygamous roots are well documented and even celebrated

with shows like Sister Wives, which has now had, even though

it's in its last season, has now had a 15 year run.

And that polygamy is problematic is well documented in the show

if you have any idea what's been going on with it and what has

brought the show to an end. Dissolution of the marriages.

Also, earlier this year, I was surprised to hear that one of my

favorite apologists, Mike Winger, had to address the issue

of what has been called Christian polygamy as it began

surfacing online due to a man promoting Christian polygamy and

online articles and on his YouTube channel.

Now, you think this idea wouldn't gain traction in our

western culture, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it catch on

in a society like ours that has distorted sexual mores.

Yes, the tide is turning, but our culture has gone so far with

their distortion of sexuality that the doors open for

something like polygamy to be mainstreamed.

The last point I want to draw our attention to is that of male

leadership. Even before the curse of sin

corrupted the world, God's good design included male leadership,

male headship with female support.

The complementary roles of husband and wife aren't a result

of the fall. Rather, this is God's good

design for the whole. We need not apologize for the

stance, but rather seek to understand what it truly means.

Yes, Ephesians 522 does call for the wife's submission to the

husband's leadership, but don't stop reading there.

Verse 25 tells us what that relationship is really to look

like as as the husband is called to love his wife in the same way

that Christ loved the church and sacrificed himself, gave himself

up for her. The authority structure in a

godly marriage is not that of the husband as a dictator.

The picture we have is the husband being like Christ,

sacrificing himself, serving the wife as he leads the whole today

marriages to consist of a husband and wife, just the two

of them in a sense, forsaking their familial obligations and

committing wholeheartedly to each other as the man

spiritually leads the home to follow after God.

That that's God's design. Fourth season.

That first marriage was everything God had intended.

They were naked and unashamed. Life was easy.

The work was easy, the relationship was easy.

The sex was easy. They were two souls united

together as one, ruling and reigning as God intended.

But then chapter 3 happens. We'll pick that up in a couple

weeks. Let's bow our heads and close

our eyes. God, we thank you for Your word

to us, Your word that is guidance to our lives.

It is not cumbersome. Your word is actually freedom.

Freedom from the world's ways of thinking and doing things.

Freedom from the ways that do not fulfill, the ways that leave

people wanting. And God, may we honor you with

all aspects of our sexuality. May we honor you with the

marriages represented in this room.

May we be a people who hold your ways above cultural desires and

preferences. It's in Jesus name we pray these

things. Amen.