Embrace God's Design (Joe Penner)

A few weeks ago when talking about God's law, Pastor Jake

used this this illustration of a road trip.

And when you're going on a road trip, you have a destination in

mind. And as you travel down the road,

there are many signs that are pointing you to your

destination. But he talked about the fact

that if we focus too much on those signs and we pay too much

attention to those signs, we lose sight of what those signs

are there for and the purpose that they are there.

The signs if if they accomplish what they intend, guide you

safely to your destination and once you get to your

destination, you won't be thinking back to the signs that

got you there. You'll be enjoying your vacation

or whatever destination you were seeking to arrive at and

throughout the Bible God has given many signs.

One of the ones that we think of is the rainbow.

We think of Noah, we sin came into the world through Adam and

Eve. And it didn't take very long for

sin to become so bad that God decided he had to destroy

everything. But he found.

But Noah found favor in God's sight.

And so God delivered Noah and his family and and the animals

and preserved them through an ark.

And when they came out the ark on the other side, they offered

a sacrifice to God. And God was so pleased with

their sacrifice that he said he made a covenant and he said I

will never again flood the earth.

And the sign that he gave for that covenant was a rainbow.

Now rainbows are incredibly beautiful.

I remember a few months ago I was working at the golf course

in the morning and, and I was struggling this particular

morning and, and struggling with things going on in my life and,

and I was listening to music. And also in this song, it said

God is faithful to his promise. And I turned around and this is

what I saw. Now it was way better in person,

I'll tell you that. But here's a, a, a full rainbow

over the tree. That's what I turned around and

I saw. And, and then that moment I just

was reminded of God's faithfulness to his promise.

Here is a visible reminder of God's faithfulness to us in our

day. Now, if we focus on that rainbow

and just talk about the rainbow's beauty and its colors

and how vibrant it is and, and how it works scientifically and

all of these things, we lose sight of what the rainbow is

pointing us to, which is God's promise, God's faithfulness.

This morning as we continue in our series through First

Corinthians, which is we're continuing through our series in

First Corinthians, which is a letter that Paul wrote to the

church that he started in Corinth.

And this morning we're getting to Chapter 11 where Paul talks

about head coverings. Now Paul has, has been talking

about Christian freedom over the last three chapters.

And now he's going to begin a discussion about this is how

worship needs to look in your churches.

And he, he begins the conversation with husbands and

wives. Paul is going to tell the women

to wear head coverings, but the head coverings point us to God's

design. And the same thing with the

rainbow. If we focus too much on the head

covering itself, we forget the purpose and the the symbol that

that head covering is pointed to.

Now it seems that head coverings were a cultural norm in the city

of Corinth. This was not just a Christian

practice. This was also a practice in

Greco Roman society and their culture.

They wore head coverings and the reason they wore them was to

show that they were married and submitted to the authority of

their husband. And during the time of Paul's

write what? During the time of Paul's

writing there was a new rebellious woman that was

emerging in society. Now, during that time it was

socially acceptable for a man to be promiscuous, but not women.

And so these women were rebelling against this

inconsistency in society. And one way that they would show

their rebellion was they would remove their head coverings.

And so Paul wrote to the church to remind them of God's design

that they are to honor and obey. And so maybe you've wondered

about head coverings. Maybe you wonder where we stand

as a church. But it's probably pretty obvious

just by looking around that, that we do not feel that this is

something that is, that is held, that they're not binding on us

in our day and in our cultural context.

But that doesn't mean that we just skip over this passage.

There's a principle behind the head covering that we must

embrace and live by. Today we're going to see that we

must embrace God's design for authority, embrace God's design

for roles, and embrace God's design for gender.

Let's bow for a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for your

word to us this morning, and we recognize that it is your word.

It is not my word. It is not our word, it is not

ours to use, to manipulate, to say whatever we want it to say,

Lord, but we are bound to the meaning that You have given to

Your word. We are bound to how You instruct

us and have instructed us faithfully through Paul.

And we pray, Lord, that You would give us eyes to see what

Your Word has to say to us this morning, the principles that are

to lead and guide us in our worship and how we live our

lives. And that that will be a sign to

the world around us, to our culture, of the fact that we

follow God and His authority and not just at the whims of the

day. We pray for wisdom through your

Spirit to open our eyes to see your Word and to have the faith

to obey it so that we may bring glory and honor to You.

We ask this in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.

Turn with me in your Bibles to 1st Corinthians Chapter 11 and I

will read verses 2 through 16. First Corinthians Chapter 11,

1 Corinthians 11:2–16

verses 2 through 16. Now I commend you because you

Remember Me in everything and maintain the traditions even as

I delivered 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 prophecies with his head covered

dishonors his head. But every wife who prays or

prophesied with her head uncovered dishonors her head,

since it is the same as if her head were shaved.

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 it is 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 inclined to be

contentious. We have no such practice, nor do

the churches of God. So the first thing we see this

morning is that you need to embrace God's design for

authority. Now, authority and submission

get a really bad name in our day and in our culture.

And it's just not because the authority and the submission is

a bad thing. It's because our world looks at

sinful, poor models and they think that you just throw out

this idea because there's been people who don't exemplify it.

Well, sin is not sin is the problem, not God's design.

And besides that, we, we accept authority in every area of our

lives. So these people who say, well,

authority and submission are wrong or evil are not good.

Well, we do it all the time. We, we embrace the authority of

our government when we pay taxes.

We embrace the authority of a police officer when he pulls us

over. We embrace the authority of our

boss because he has the authority to tell us what to do.

There's authority all around us, and we deal with it all the

time. And so why would we throw out

authority in the church and in marriage?

This is part of God's design, and so we need to embrace it.

First, let's look at authority that honors God.

Look at verse 3. Paul says, 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.

Here we see God's authority, God's design for authority.

First, we have Christ as the head of man.

He is authoritative over every man, and men are to submit to

the lordship of Christ in their lives.

And we willingly do this, because Christ himself willingly

gave Himself as a sacrifice for us.

And so we joyfully give our lives to Him as our head, as our

Lord. 2nd, we see that the husband is the head of the wife.

He has authority over her, and wives are to submit to their

husband's authority. The man is is to model that same

Christ like sacrificial love for his wife, and she submits to

that authority. Now you may bristle at that

idea, but I want to submit to you that it's because of culture

that you bristle at that idea. Because look at what?

Look at what Paul says next. The head of Christ is God.

Now the amazing thing that we see with authority and

submission is that Jesus Christ, God the Son, willingly submitted

himself to the will of his Father.

In John chapter 6 verse 38, he said I have come down from

John 6:38

heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

And the Holy Spirit actually does the same thing where Jesus

says the Holy Spirit only says what the Father tells him to

say. And so even in the Godhead, God

the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, we see submission

to one another. The Son submits to the Father,

and the Holy Spirit submits to the Son and to the Father.

And so if you bristle at the idea of of having a head over

you, you're in good company that that Jesus himself submitted

himself as well. This is God's design for

authority. And authority is not a bad

thing. It's a good thing, and we must

embrace it. Next we see authority that

dishonors God. Look at verses 4 through 6.

Paul says every man who prays or prophecies with his head covered

dishonours his head. But every wife who prays or

prophecies with her head uncovered dishonours her head,

since it is the same as if her head were shaved.

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 off her hair or shave her head, let her cover

her head. And so again, in that society,

in that culture, it was custom for wives to have that covering

on their head. This signified that submission

to their husbands. And so in that culture, when a

woman wore a head covering and a man did not, they showed their

submission that they were embracing God's design for

culture. If man wore a head covering and

a woman did not, it showed that they were rejecting God's

design. They were rebelling against it.

Even worse, it was a disgrace. Now, in that day, Paul talks

about shaving your head. And that day it was only

prostitutes and feminists who shaved their head.

And it was incredibly disgraceful in that culture.

And Paul's saying, you know, for a woman not to wear a HUD

covering, it brings that same sort of shame to the woman.

And so he tells them to wear a head covering.

And so now the question for us today is, does does this command

from Paul to the Corinthian church apply to us today?

Now again, in that day, it was very culturally obvious when a

woman would wear a head covering or not, what she was saying.

Now in our culture that that same idea doesn't exist, that

doesn't carry that same weight, it doesn't carry that same

meaning. There's not a cultural shame

when women don't wear head coverings and most people don't

even understand the meaning of the head covering.

John MacArthur in his commentary says the apostle is not laying

down an absolute law for women to wear veils or coverings in

all churches for all time, but is declaring that the symbols of

the divinely established male and female roles are to be

genuinely honored in every culture.

This is what the the sign, the symbol of the head covering is

pointing to. And what God is wanting to

remind you. And what is wanting you to

understand is that He has designed a structure for

authority that you need to embrace.

Husbands are to lead their wives.

Wives are to submit to that authority and leadership of

their husbands as the husband submits to Christ.

And right from the beginning of the Bible we see the breakdown

of this authority, don't we? Adam and Eve are placed in the

garden. They have everything they could

ever want or need. They can eat from any tree of

the garden except for the tree of knowledge and good and evil.

And we know the story. The serpent comes and, and goes

to Eve and begins to tempt her and, and to question God's

goodness. And she takes of the fruit and

she eats and she gives to her husband who is with her and he

eats. And we have so many questions,

so many questions from this passage.

Why did did she not defer to her husband?

Why does she not turn and ask him where is Adam?

Why? Why is Adam not taking control

of the situation? Why didn't he step in and remind

Eve of God's command? Why didn't Adam protect his

wife? Adam failed to fulfill his role

of authority over Eve, and so they suffered the consequences

of their actions. And it is interesting that

though Eve was technically the first one to sin, she's the

first one who takes of the fruit and eat.

It is Adam who is held responsible for plunging mankind

into sin. Look at what Paul says in Romans

Romans 5:12

5 verse 12. Therefore, just as sin came into

the world through one man and death through sin, and so death

spread to all men because all sinned.

Adam had been given the responsibility to lead and

protect his wife, and he failed. Husbands, God has called you to

lead and protect your wife and your family.

And it's easy for us to to go to work and to provide for our

family and feel like, OK, now my job is done.

I have done the job and the work of providing for my family.

No, you must also lead your family spiritually.

That is a part of your role. Husbands, God has made you the

head of your wife. It is your responsible

responsibility to lead and disciple your wife and your

children to grow them in Christ. It is your responsibility to

call out sin and to protect your family from the consequences of

sin. It is your responsibility to

protect your wife and your family from the enemy.

You have been given that authority not to use and abuse

your wife and your children for your pleasure, but to sacrifice

your life for their health for their benefit.

When you lead well, you honor Christ your head and you will be

held responsibility responsible. Don't pass off this

responsibility to your wife. Step up and lead your family as

a godly man. And I'm not standing here in

judgement of you as pastors. We were talking about it this

weekend and how we see the areas where we fall short and the

areas where where we have neglected to step up and, and

lead our families. Well, we're all in this

together, but we need to be diligent.

We need to be faithful. We need to step up and lead.

And maybe you're wondering where to start.

And I just want to give you a resource.

We have a free resource for you this morning.

We, we purchased these books called Family Worship by Donald

Whitney and we brought them for our men's conference last week

and we got, I don't know, maybe 60 to 80 of them left on the

table out there. Maybe you, it's a short little

book, maybe you don't know where to start.

And that book would be a really great resource for you, a way

for you to be encouraged at how you can begin family worship and

leading your family. Another wonderful thing that

we're already doing for you is Pastor Jonah has has this

curriculum that we're using on Sunday mornings.

And if your children go to Sunday school, you receive an

e-mail on Sunday morning that says, here, parents, walk with

your children through the lesson that we went through on Sunday.

All of it, all of it's done and it's there for you.

Take that resource and lead your family with what is there.

And maybe you just start small by picking a day of the week and

saying, on this day, we're going to sit down and we're going to

read God's Word together and we're going to pray.

It doesn't need to be long. It doesn't need to be a sermon.

It just needs to be you faithfully leading your family

for Christ and wives, God has called you to submit to the

authority of your husband. He is there to lead you, to

guide you, to protect you and to sacrifice himself for your

benefit. Don't try to control and take

over, but invite him to lead your family.

Encourage him where he steps out in faith.

Honour the ways that He does lead and protect you.

And when you submit to Him as your head, you honour Christ.

Next, you need to embrace God's design for roles.

Once again, this is something that we sense that culture is

pushing back on very strongly. Now, churches generally take two

approaches when it comes to gender and roles.

You may you may have heard the terms.

There's complementarianism and egalitarianism.

Now complementarianism teaches that that men and women have

been created by God to complement one another.

This view argues that that differing roles between men and

women are a part of God's design.

Egalitarianism teaches that in Christ there are no longer

distinctions between male and female.

This view argues that these differing roles have been done

away with in Christ. Well, here at LEMC we believe

that the most consistent view with the Bible is

complementarianism, and that is exactly what Paul teaches in

this passage. First, he says men and women are

distinct. Look at verses 7 through 10.

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. Here Paul clearly shows the

authority of a man over a woman, and he links it back to

creation, indicating that this was a part of God's design.

Men and women are distinct from one another, and that

distinction was placed in the garden before the fall.

It wasn't a result of the fall. It was before the fall.

Woman came from man and was made for man to be his helper, not

the other way around. God created man and then created

woman from that man. And since this was God's

intended design, Paul wants the Corinthians to maintain this

order. And he says because of the

angels now that word angels is messengers and and it can mean

angels or it can mean messengers from other churches.

And so at whatever Paul is meaning is, he's meaning to say

whether the angels are watching or whether someone comes from a

different church and comes here. They should be able to see your

good order and that you are following God's design.

Now, now Paul recognizes what the Corinthians might be

thinking at this point. And so he goes on to to make the

point that men and women are equal.

He says nevertheless in verse 11 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. Now Paul is very clear.

He's he's very quick to say, look, hey, be careful.

This is what I'm not saying is that men are superior to women.

That's not what I'm saying. They are equal before God.

They need each other. And in the same way that that

Eve came from Adam, now men come from women.

And so in this beautiful creation that God has set

forward, he shows the equality of men and women.

And yet they are distinct. They are both equal in God's

eyes, having been created in his image, and yet created

specifically with distinct roles to serve and build God's

Kingdom. And when we embrace those God

ordained roles, we bring glory to God.

Now, I don't know if there's anybody out there like me, but I

don't really enjoy taking out the trash.

And it's usually because I remember once I lay down and

then I have to get back up because I don't want to get up

at 5:00. That's when the garbage truck

runs by our house. And that's too early.

So now I have to get out of bed and I have to go.

And, and it gets worse when it's winter time, right?

Because you get out there and you're like, well, I really

don't want to throw on winter boots and a coat and everything

to just walk to the edge of the driveway and come back.

So I'll usually just if I'm in shorts and AT shirt, I'll throw

on, you know, my slides and I'll run out.

I don't know if there anybody out there about me, but this

usually ends up being a bad idea, right?

Especially when there's snow on the ground.

But you're like, you know what, if I lift my foot and I step

just right, I'm not going to get any snow in my sandals, right?

Has anybody anybody been there? You're like, I can make it.

I can do it. You know, that is it always

fails. It ends badly.

But that's because you're wearing shoes that are not

designed to walk in snow. You're wearing sandals.

They're, they're designed for summertime.

They're not designed to to trek through the snow and bring the,

the trash to the road. And in the same way, when you're

about to sit down on the couch and lounge and and maybe pop

some popcorn and watch a movie, you don't go throw your winter

boots on and kick your feet up on the coffee table, right?

That's not what those winter boots were designed for.

Both the sandals and your snow boots are, are equally types of

footwear, and yet they're designed with specific functions

in mind. And if you try to use them

against what their design is, then then you're going against

the purpose for which they were created.

And this is true of men and women as well.

We're all equal in God and yet in his beautiful, magnificent

creation, he's created us with distinct roles and abilities.

And we see this, you know, before we get to like the church

and the family, just look at the natural abilities of men and

women, right? Women have this natural ability

to to multitask. I couldn't do two things at the

same time to save my life. OK, But women can think of 100

things at the same time and do 15 things at the same time.

And I don't understand it. I was my wife is always doing

something. I'm like, you're not even

listening to me. She's like, yeah, you said this,

this, this and this. And I'm like, all right, I do.

I don't know how you do that, but you do it.

Women are good at communication, expressing their thoughts,

expressing their feelings. They have a good intuition,

right, Man, you know your, if you know your wife, they're

like, man, I just, I have this feeling.

And I don't mean nine times out of 10, they're right.

It's, it's amazing that ability they have.

Now, this isn't always true. It doesn't mean there's not men

who are good at those things, but generally speaking, women

are good at those things. And so men, when we try to do

things that are that women are good at or that our wives are

good at, we feel like we're wearing sandals in the snow.

You know, it doesn't feel right. We're not good at it.

Men also have natural abilities. They have natural abilities for

strength. And so they have jobs that this

gives them jobs and roles inside the workplace, right?

Manual labor. They have a spatial awareness,

awareness of their surroundings, a sense of direction, which most

women don't have. I, I, I, Jessica always tells me

to tell her when I'm going to mention her in the service and I

didn't, I didn't tell her this one, but sometimes I'll let her

walk out first. If we're coming out of Walmart,

I'll let her go out first because I'm always so interested

to see which way she's going to go.

She has no idea where we parked the car.

And I just find it so funny. But men are better have a

spatial awareness. Men have a natural ability to

leadership, right? They, if there's a, if there's a

void of leadership, they'll naturally step in and fill in

that void. Again, it's not 100% true, but

generally speaking, men, men do that better than women.

And so these are natural abilities.

And so women, when you try to do things that men were designed to

do you, you feel like you're wearing snow boots in the house.

You know, it just doesn't feel right.

And when it comes to God's Kingdom, both men and women are

tasked to work together for the building of God's Kingdom.

I think that's the first thing that we need to say because

sometimes we can be tempted to say it's like the men do the

work of ministry and the women just sit by the wayside and do,

and they just, you know, cook and clean and, and pray They

they do all of those things. But women are actually together

when God gives his order to say, have dominion in the book of

Genesis, that command is to the man and the woman.

So we work together for the building of God's Kingdom, and

yet we have distinct roles. We've already seen that in the

home the man is to lead while the woman submits.

And in the church we have the same sort of idea where God says

that men are the ones to lead the church.

They're the ones to have authority to shepherd, to pastor

the church. Women come alongside to help in

any sort of role that that doesn't involve teaching and

having authority over men. And so we work together for the

building of God's Kingdom, but each with our own distinct roles

and abilities. This is God's design for the

roles of men and women, and you must embrace them.

And when you do, you bring glory and honor to Christ your head.

So, so far we've seen that you should embrace God's design for

authority, embrace God's design for roles.

And next, you should embrace God's design for gender.

Now, I don't have to tell you how our culture is pushing back

on this idea of gender in our day, right?

We see the effects of it, of it everywhere.

Our world doesn't doesn't even know how to define a woman.

Our world doesn't know what the role of a man should be.

Our world doesn't know how to raise the next generation, and

so they're letting the next generation raise themself.

Here Paul shows simply and clearly what God's design for

gender is. First, God created 2 genders,

male and female. Look at verses 13 and 15.

Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a wife to pray

to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature teach you that

if a man wears long hair it is 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. Now I'm not saying that this is

the point Paul is making in this section.

I'm I'm simply noticing what Paul is doing here.

And I'm doing that because of our culture and our day.

I feel like it needs to be said that Paul here mentions male and

female. That's it.

There's not a whole bunch of other genders.

This isn't Paul's main point, but this is the two genders that

there are our world following Satan and their flesh is

rejecting God's good design. They're living in rebellion to

God. They're they're attempting to

distort God's creation, to distort God's design through

surgery. They themselves are deceived and

they're deceiving other people, even children.

We must embrace God's design for gender and faithfully teach our

families, faithfully teach our children, and correct others

gently, lovingly, patiently. We must correct them and teach

the truth. Next, Paul argues that men

should look like men and women should look like women.

He again says in verse 14, does not nature itself teach you that

if a man wears long hair, it is 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. Again, men and women have been

created and they're distinct from one another.

And even though we're removed from that culture in Corinth, we

see that this principle applies today as well.

When a man has long hair like a woman does, it doesn't look

natural. But when a woman has that long

hairdresser glory, it is, it does look natural.

It does look beautiful. And the same goes for a woman.

If a woman's going to shave her head, that looks unnatural, but

a man who shaves his head looks totally fine.

We don't see any problem here. And it's interesting actually,

that when we when we look at this idea of hair, a man's hair

just naturally doesn't grow the same way a woman does, right?

That's why we call it male pattern baldness.

You know, as men, as we get older, it's not uncommon for men

to go bald, but that doesn't happen nearly as often with

women, right? And so there's a natural way

that God has designed us and men should look like men, women

should look like women. That's a an order and a design

that we ought to be faithful to in God's word.

Now, Paul isn't getting into a debate about hair length.

He's just simply making that point.

Men should look like men, women should look like women.

So God created only two genders. They are each unique and

distinct. So don't resist how God created

you. Embrace it.

This week I was listening to Doctor Linda Siler and her

testimony and, and maybe you've heard it, Focused on the family

aired a talk that she gave and she shared her story of being

freed from Jesus, from gender dysphoria.

She was confused about her genders and, and as she was

growing up as a boy or she was growing up, she longed to be a

boy. She struggled with with

attraction to girls, but she always kept this a secret.

She kept it to herself because in that day nobody was talking

about it. And so she kept it to herself.

And when she went off to college, she she joined this

campus ministry and she became a genuine believer in Christ.

And so she still kept her her desires, her flesh.

She kept it a secret because now you take while the world isn't

talking about it and you're definitely not talking about it

in church, right? We're definitely not talking

about this stuff. This was like the early 90s.

And so she kept this a secret and it wasn't something that

that they talked about. And she thought, man, as I grow

in Christ, this struggle is just going to eventually go away.

But it didn't. It only intensified and she came

to a breaking point in her young Christian life where she

wrestled through the thought of, you know, at some point I'm

either going to have to live sold out for Jesus Christ, or

I'm going to have to give in to my desires and just live and

satisfy my flesh. And at a conference, she heard a

speaker say, if you're stuck and you're caught in habitual sin,

the answer is James 5, verse 16. Therefore, confess your sins to

James 5:16

one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

In her testimony, Linda said, I didn't hear anything else the

speaker said that day. I just knew that unless I took

what was in the dark and exposed it into the light of Christ with

a trusted leader, I would never get free.

And I did discover the truth that when you take what's in the

dark and you bring it into the light, it breaks the power of

the enemy to energize that sin in your life.

But when we keep sin quiet and hidden and silent, it actually

energizes the enemy. And we are naturally going to be

opposed by God because God opposes the proud.

When we're too proud to get our sin into the light because we're

afraid of what other people would think of us and we wear a

mask and we pretend like everything's OK, you will stay

in bondage to those areas. But you know what Scripture

says? He opposes the proud, but he

gives grace to the humble. Linda decided to open up to her

pastor about her sin and she was terrified at how he was going to

respond. But he showed her grace, he

said. Linda, thank you for sharing

that with me. It took so much courage and I

want you to know that doesn't change our opinion of you.

We love you. We see the hand of God in your

life and we're going to get you the help that you need.

Through counselling and through being involved in discipleship

in her church, Linda was able to overcome the lies of the enemy

and embrace God's design for her gender and the female that He

made her to be. Maybe you're struggling with

those feelings of gender dysphoria.

Maybe you think that you are the wrong gender.

You need to know this is a lie from the enemy.

Satan came to steal, kill, and destroy you, and he does that

through deception. But Jesus came that you could

have life and have it abundantly, and you can have

that abundant life through His truth, through embracing God's

design for who He made you to be.

Maybe you've never shared that with anyone and you're

terrified. You're terrified because you

think that you'll be judged, but you're only going to break the

power of that sin in your life or any sin in your life.

This, this, I am talking about gender dysphoria, but this goes

for any sin in our lives. If you want to break the power

of sin in your life, you need to confess it to someone, bring it

to the light. Find someone that you trust and

share your struggle with them and begin the journey to

embracing who God made you to be.

Now maybe you don't struggle with gender dysphoria, but I

want to ask you the question how would you respond if someone

came and shared that struggle with you?

Would you have the same grace and compassion as Linda's

pastor, or would you judge and condemn?

Would anyone even share their sin with you?

Or are you such a hypocritical, judgmental person that that you

are not a safe place to go? You are not a person that

anybody would even come to to share their sin?

We all struggle with sin. We don't all struggle with the

same sin, but we all struggle with sin nonetheless.

And so pray for the Lord to give you a compassionate heart for

others in their sin. Commit to having a gracious

response if someone were to share a sin struggle with you.

We all need grace as we seek to embrace God's will for our

lives. Now, as we close this morning,

Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians so that they would

wear coverings. That's what he was telling them

to do. But if we focus too much on the

head coverings themselves, then we've missed the point of why

they were there. And so here at this church, we

we have Christian freedom. If you feel convicted to wear a

head covering, then we would encourage you to do that.

But don't forget the purpose for why you wear it.

Embrace God's design for the symbol.

And if you do not feel convicted to wear a head covering, we

encourage you to embrace that freedom.

But don't forget God's design. You are obligated to be obedient

to God's design for your life. And so we've seen that God has

given us his design for authority, for roles, and for

gender, and we should embrace those designs.

But the problem is that in our flesh we resist God's design for

our life. We reject it in our flesh.

The world, the flesh and the devil are all fighting against

us, trying to lure us into the things of the world, and they're

fighting against God's design for our life.

And we've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory.

And look at at earlier in the book, Paul gives his judgement

of those who are caught in sin. He says, do you not know that

the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral,

nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice

homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor

revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God.

Our sin, our rejection of God in our lives leads us to not

getting to experience His Kingdom.

But look at the hope that Paul gives in the next verse.

And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were

sanctified. You were justified in the name

of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

For those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ

and the sacrifice that He made on your behalf, you have been

washed and you will inherit God's Kingdom, not because of

anything good in you, not because of anything good that

you will do, but because you have trusted in the goodness of

Christ and what He has done for you.

Have you been cleansed and forgiven through faith in the

sacrifice of Jesus? Maybe you think you're too far

gone, maybe you think you're too sinful.

No, your sin is what qualifies you to come to the Saviour.

Jesus said come to me, all who are heavy are labour and are

heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Don't wait to find the rest that you're looking for trusting in

Jesus. It doesn't mean everything's

going to go perfect in your life.

It doesn't mean that everything's going to be great

from here on out. But it does mean that you can

live with joy and peace and hope knowing that all your sins are

forgiven in Christ and you will be with him forever in eternity.

And if you would like to talk with us about that, we would

love to have a conversation with you.

We welcome you to come up afterwards.

I'll I'll be around and feel free to find me.

We'd love to chat with you and then talk about what it means to

give your life to Christ. Let's bow our heads in prayer

this morning. Father, we thank you for your

design for us. You are the Creator.

You are the designer. We see your creation at the

beginning of your Word, which says that you breathed all

things into existence. And we see your grand design.

We see the order in your creation, and Lord, we confess

that that in our sin we have rejected Your design.

We reject the ways that which You have made us.

And our world seeks to lead us astray.

Satan seeks to lead us astray through our world, through our

flesh. But Lord, we pray that You would

lead and guide us by Your Spirit, that we would be a

people of Your Word, that we would embrace Your design,

embrace Your authority over our lives, that we would seek to

live for your glory and honor. And we pray that Your Spirit

would strengthen us to be faithful examples so that when

the world looks at us, they can see the beauty and the wonder of

their design and give glory to You as their Creator.

We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.