What is Man - God's Design for Gender and Sexuality

Well, welcome to the Roots where it's all about Jesus.

It's all about Jesus. We love God, we love people,

We reached the lost, and we make disciples. That's what

we're all about here at the Roots. And we want

to help you grow in your love and knowledge of

Jesus Christ. And we also know that it's the deepest

roots that grow the strongest trees. So what we want

is for you to get plugged in here or once

you get rooted here at the roots, because that's how

we're going to grow together.

Amen.

Well, we've been in a series called What is Man

God's Design for Mankind? What is Man God's Design for Mankind?

And in this series, we're taking a moment to reflect

on the fact that the one who created everything and

all of creation, created everything that's the earth and everything

in it, all the plants and all the animals, creepy

crawley things across the earth. The one who created the

vast oceans, these oceans that we haven't even explored the

full bottom of yet. It's kind of scary down there,

all kinds of weird creatures down there. And the one

who created all the stars in the sky above. In

this seemingly endless expanse of space, that creator is mindful

of mankind. Listen to Psalm chapter eight says, Oh Lord,

our Lord, how majestic is your name And all the earth.

You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of

the mouth of babies and infants. You have established strength

because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars which you have set in place.

What is man that you are mindful of him? And

the son of man that you care for him. Yet

you have made him a little lower than the heavenly

beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have

given him dominion over the works of your hands. You

have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field, the birds of

the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whichever or

whatever passes along the paths of the seas. Oh Lord,

our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

So when we look at everything that God has created,

it should raise a sense of wonder in us. It's

amazing should grow our wonder for who God is. But

it also should blow our minds that the creator of

all things cares about us at all. That should blow

our minds. We are so small and so seemingly insignificant

in comparison to all of creation. Space goes on forever.

It seems like you can what was that thing? Like?

You point a hubble telescope at one spot and there's

like how many galaxies? Thousands of galaxies that one little

dot you move it over, and then there's another thousands

of galaxies there. We seem kind of small. That's incredible,

that's crazy that we're so seemingly insignificant in comparison to

all of creation. Yet God is mindful of us. That

God does care about us, and he cares so much

that he actually came up with a design and a

plan for us too. He didn't leave us in the dark.

God holds the blueprints for what humanity is and what

humanity is for. And that's what we're talking about in

this series, this blueprint. What is God's design for us

when it comes to mankind? What is God's design for mankind?

And Pastor Duncan did a fantastic job last week showing

us what God means when he says that we're created

in His image. That was very cool, and asking how

well we're doing at reflecting his image is such a

good question. It was a convicting question for me personally

sitting through and listening to him, But it's a question

that we should be asking ourselves on a regular basis.

When someone looks at me or looks at us, do

they see the image of God? How well do I

reflect the image of Jesus to the world, And generally speaking,

when they look at me, do they see Jesus? Well, Today,

what we're gonna do is we're gonna move from that

general kind of question and we're gonna move into the

very specific. And so what we're gonna do is we're

gonna start looking at some of the specific designs that

God has for mankind. And this is going to be

most of this will be in stark contrast to what

the world says. But when there's a disagreement between God,

who created everything, and anyone else, who's right? I mean,

I'm leaning towards the one who created everything, God's right.

When there's a disagreement between the creator of all things

and anyone else, I'm gonna lean towards the creator. God

is the one who is right, and that's gonna be very,

very important for us to remember today because today the

topic we're talking about is God's design for gender and sexuality.

It's a big hot topic in today's world. God's design

for gender and sexuality. God has a design and plan

for everything, everything, a plan and an intention for all

that we are and all that we do. In gender

and sexuality is no exception. He has a design and

a plan for that too. So let's grab our bibles,

and I want you to turn with me to Genesis.

Chapter One's the first book of the Bible, and we're

gonna be right there in the first chapter of the

first book. And if you need a bible, Gabe has

some at the back, and you wave your hand at him,

he'll run it to you right now. So want to

make sure you have a Bible in your hands, and

that's our gift to you, so please keep it, take

it home with you.

We want you to have God's word.

But we're going to be referencing the Book of Genesis

a lot throughout this series because in order to know

God's intentions for things, it's kind of helpful to go

back to the beginning for when He created everything. And

so we're going to go back to these verses often,

and these few verses tell us a lot. So let's

look at Genesis chapter one, and we're gonna be reading

verses twenty six through twenty eight, and then we'll pray.

Starting in verse twenty.

Six, then God said, let us make man in our

image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over

the fish of the sea, and over the birds of

the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth,

and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

That sounds a lot like the Psalms text. We read

verse twenty seven. So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God. He created him male and female.

He created them, and God blessed them. And God said

to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth

and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of

the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and

over every living thing that moves on the earth. Let's pray, God,

we thank you for your word. We thank you that

you're leading and guiding us through it today, that we

hear your truths, and we accept your truths because you're

the one who said it and you are the truth.

So God, we just thank you for this time that

we get to study what you say. God, give us

ears to hear it and hearts that are open to

receive it. And if it's a challenge for us to

receive today, God, I pray that you soften our hearts

to see you as good and lovely and true, and

let us fall in alignment with your design for us,

your design for all of mankind. So God, we think

of you haven't left us in the dark, but you've

given us your word. You've given us instructions. You've told

us what the blueprint is for life. And so God,

we thank you for that, and we give all of

this time in your word to you for your glory

in the name of Jesus. Everybody said, a men, Well,

who here likes puzzles? Like putting puzzles together? I got

some some people, Amanda, raise your hand much higher than that.

A man is like the puzzle queen, puzzle princess. As

Jordan says, I love puzzles. I don't get to do

them very often, but I love puzzles. There's something therapeutic

about it for me, flipping all the pieces all right

side up after you dump them out of the box,

and then organizing them all into their they kind of

like these ones look like these ones, so sticking them

in there whatever, and then pulling out all the edge pieces.

Because you always start with the border, right, come on,

you gotta you gotta start with the border.

What do you do it if you're not starting the border?

But I don't know, there's something therapeutic about doing that

for me, the simple task of putting everything in its

right place, it's not overly complicated. I have a clear

goal in mind, and it's very clear when I've accomplished

said goal.

That's a puzzle for me.

And I was trying to think, like, what is my

favorite puzzle I've ever done? And to be honest, I

just enjoy the organizational process so much. I can hardly

remember the puzzles I've done. I know it's really nerdy

for me to admit that I just like the organizational

process that much. But no matter what, how these puzzles

are made, like some of them are designed to bextra

have like extra layers of difficulty. If you guys, see

in the puzzles that aren't a rectangle, but they're like

weird shapes like a circle.

Or even some oblong shape.

Or it's unnatural, it's not the way God intended to puzzle,

or I like or like puzzles for space. How almost

every puzzle piece looks kind of the same. It's just

a few white dots on a black background. So that's

definitely something that will raise the difficulty of a puzzle.

But no matter what the form the puzzle takes, whatever

shape it takes, or no matter what the picture the

puzzle makes, the goal is always the same. Every puzzle

has the exact same goal. It's put the right pieces

in the right place. It's put the right puzzle pieces

in the right spots, because every single puzzle piece has

only one spot it belongs. It belongs in one place,

it belongs nowhere else. And some will argue, but the

shape is exactly the same as this one, so it

fits in the spot. But you put it there, and

what does it do to the picture. Well, now the

picture is not right because every single puzzle piece has

only one spot that.

It fits that is correct for it.

The picture only comes together when every single piece is

in its proper place. Now, what do puzzles have to

do with God's design for gender and sexuality? Well, like

all topics that we talk about and then we're gonna

talk about, when we don't operate within God's design for

gender and sexuality, we don't see the correct picture that

He intended. We don't see it the way he made

it to be. What we see as a distorted picture.

Or when we try to force puzzle pieces to go where.

They don't go.

When we try to do things our own way, which

I say in short, is when we sin, right, that's

us fighting against God's way to do things, and we

just do it our way. When we sin, it mars

the whole picture that we were intended to see. The

only way to see the picture clearly is to follow

God's design for where all the pieces go, to put

every puzzle piece in its proper place. So, what I'd

like to argue today in this whole talk, considering all

this puzzle talk, is that man was made to fit

with woman. Man kind was made to fit with God.

The man was made to fit with woman. A mankind

was made to fit with God. Men and women are

made biologically different or distinct and that was by God's design.

He did that on purpose. They were made to fit

together in all the ways that you can imagine. They're

made to fit together. And mankind as a whole was

designed by God to fit with him, to be one

spirit with him. So let's talk about this, and it

all starts with a fundamental truth. It's in that first

verse that we read in Genesis one twenty seven, So

let's look at that again. Says So God created man

in his own image, and whose image, God's image, In

the image of God. He created them male and female.

He created them. So God created males and God created females.

That's it, nothing else. He didn't listen anything else on that.

In this verse. He created males and he creative females.

Each and every single human being was created by God

as either a male or a female. And He wrote

our genetic code when we were conceived, and everything about

us has been following that blueprint and will continue to do.

So this was an intentional decision by God, and that's

very important for us to remember. It's an intentional decision

by God. I want you to turn to Psalm one

thirty nine. Psalms is the song book of Israel, a

big book of songs and poems. We're gonna look at

Psalm one thirty nine. It's one of my favorite verses

or two verses, because whenever I start to feel like

God wasn't intentional, or whenever I start to feel a

little down on myself and I need a little pick

me up, I read Psalm one thirty nine, Verses thirteen

and fourteen. They say, 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. Wonderful are

your works. My soul knows it very well. That should

be some awesome verses for us to memorize. And David

might have been the one to write this psalm, but

this is true of us all. God formed every single

one of us in our mother's womb. We were all

fearfully and wonderfully made by Him. And this is something

I really want you to understand today, is that God

doesn't make mistakes and you weren't an accident. Let me

say that again. God does not make mistakes, and you

were not an accident. Even if your parents weren't trying

to have a baby when you were conceived, and maybe

they even called you an accident.

You are not an accident. You are part of God's plan.

It was part of his plan for you to be

born and as part of God's plan for you to

be in this room today. It's part of God's plan

to make you exactly the way He made you, with purpose,

with intention, And if you were formed as a male

in your mother's womb, then that was on purpose. If

you were formed as a female in your mother's womb,

then that was on purpose. God uniquely made you the

way he wanted you to be. Now, that's cool to me.

When my youngest son is building stuff out of legos

and he builds it and I'm like, oh, put this here,

and he's like, I don't want that there, and he

takes the peace off that I put on there and

puts a different piece on there. What is he displaying

that he is choosing with intention, how he wants to

build something. God takes that kind of intention with you,

not that your legos, but he designed you specifically the

way he wanted you. And this is something that we

should celebrate, not reject, not push back against, not act

like it's not true, not try to force the wrong

puzzle piece to fit. No, we should celebrate it and

we should walk in alignment with it. Male and female,

He created them. God made males and God made females,

and he made them distinct where He made them different.

And it doesn't take us long to understand what people

mean when they say men are from Mars and women

are from Venus. You guys heard that saying before. Doesn't

take us long to understand like they say that. For

a reason, it's very easy to see how men and

women are different physically, biologically, chemically, mentally, emotionally, and.

Some of those are crossing categories.

Very very different in general, and I understand there's outliers

to this, so please hear me. In general, men are

physically bigger and stronger than women. Men have larger and

denser bones, produce more testosterone, but women produce more estrogen

than men. Women also tend to think more at long

term than men. Men are more laser focused on a

singular task. Women have a natural capacity to juggle tasks simultaneously.

See some nod and some heads out there. Don't elbow anyone, please.

Women have a.

Natural leaning towards nurture. Men have a natural leaning towards

challenge or facing competition head on. Men emotionally or excuse me,

women emotionally connect and care a little bit easier, don't they.

Men are biologically designed in such a way by God

to go first.

What do I mean?

They're made to walk into danger, to protect, to cover,

to defend, to carry. Like literally, we're built this way.

It's easier to hide behind Jordan than it is to

hide bind Lindsay. Lindsay's like puffing up here, you can

hide behind me. Men are just biologically built differently. Women

are biologically designed in such a way by God to

help and support, to manage, to remember to consider others.

My wife has brought a lot of awareness to me

when I don't consider others. So we can see she's like, yeah,

but we can see how God has made men and

women very different. He made them different. And although men

and women are different and distinct, they have the same

value dignity and worth. All of mankind the same value

dignity and worth. And we won't get too much into

the different roles for men and women this week because

we're going to talk about marriage next week, and so

we'll dive into it a little bit more. But it's

actually in the context of marriage that we see how

God intended for men and women to fit together. And

I keep saying, in all the ways you can imagine,

men and women were designed by God to fit together.

The emotional shit shortcomings of men are made up for

by women. The strength that's lacking in women is made

up for by men. Where a man will run into

the battlefield to conquer the enemy, the woman is waiting

to patch up his wounds when he gets back. It's

sort of this like Yin and yang situation, men and

women fitting together, kind of like puzzle pieces. But this

also applies to sex and sexuality, which is our big

topic for today. God has an intended design for how

sex is supposed to work. He biologically and physically designed

men and women to literally fit together like puzzle pieces.

You hear what I'm saying, like it kind of makes sense,

no more detail. But his design for sex is to

be enjoyed within the covenant of marriage.

He has a plan. He's very specific about it.

One husband, one wife, enjoying physical intimacy in the world,

one flesh union. So let's talk about God's design for

sex and sexuality. What's the purpose of sex? And biblically speaking,

I think there's three purposes or three reasons for sex,

and the first one is procreation. Look at Genesis one

again the verses we've been in the so verse twenty

eight says in God bless them, and God said to them,

be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it,

and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and

over the birds of the heavens, and over every living

thing that moves on the earth. Sorry, I read that

really fast. Realized I left you guys in Psalms, didn't I.

It's Genesis one, twenty eight. But we're told to be

fruitful and multiply, to go forth and produce more image bearers,

to have dominion over the earth. So that's the first purpose,

biblical purpose for sex. The second is because that's what

makes a husband and wife one flesh, this union. So

let's look at the next chapter in Genesis, Genesis chapter two,

and I want to skip forward to verse twenty four,

and this is very important for us to know. Therefore,

a man shall leave his father and his mother and

hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

So sex is what consummates the one flesh union of marriage.

It's also the physical representation of the covenant that you've

made with your spouse, and every time that you enjoy

physical intimacy, you're renewing that covenant with each other. It

really is a beautiful thing. So that's a second purpose.

The third purpose for sex is our enjoyment. Come on, now,

that's awesome. Praise God. He gave us thanks for our enjoyment.

That's cool because he didn't have to do that. He

could have made this not enjoyable. Proverbs five. Don't turn there,

it'll be on the screen. Let your fountain, this is

verse eighteen nineteen. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice

in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, a

graceful dough. Let her breasts fill you at all times

with delight. Be intoxicated always in her love. And if

those verses don't convince you, just read the Book of

Song of Solomon. You can't read that book and think

that one of the purposes for sex in a marriage

is enjoyment. It's so beautifully depicted there where the heck,

am I at my notes? Yeah, had something to do

with sex.

There we go.

Yeah, just be glad you're not me up here having

to talk about this with you guys. No, but God

included enjoyment in his design and that is a beautiful,

awesome thing because at the end of that verse thing

be intoxicated always in her love. We get to see

this and experience this as a joyous thing. So sex

is an intimate expression of love and joy that's shared

but between spouses. It renews the one flesh union that

we have as husband and wife. And it also has

the function of producing more image bearers to have dominion

over the earth. Puzzle pieces that fit together to produce

an image. You guys see that, puzzle pieces that fit

together to produce an image. Now, I do need to

say here because we're talking about the topic, that anything

that's outside God's designed for sex, he classifies as sexual immorality.

So what I'm gonna do is kind of like go

through a bunch of these different things. But sexual immorality

actually comes from the Greek word pornea, and it's any

illicit or for forbidden sexual act, So things like fornication.

Fornication is sex outside of marriage or sex before marriage,

so premarital sex. And we look at that verse in

Genesis too, where it says, therefore a man shall leave

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

and they shall become one flesh. That God's intention is

for this one flesh union to be brought together, never

to be taken part.

So fornication is the first one.

The second thing in under sexual immorality would be adultery,

so that's sex with someone other than your spouse. And

we talked about this when we were going through the

Ten Commandment series and going through Exodus and exists twenty

verse fourteen, you shall not commit adultery. But then we

also see Jesus take that a little bit deeper and

explain more that adulter begins in the heart, So this

sin begins way before anything physical has ever happened.

And that's in Matthew five. Adultery begins in the heart.

And the next thing underneath sexual morality would be an

unlawful divorce, So that's sex with someone who's still.

In the marriage. Well, that's the kind of interesting one

to talk about.

Matthew nineteen nine says, and I say to you, whoever

divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another

commits adultery, so Jesus again puts that under the same

category as adultery. The next one is incest or sex

with close relatives. Levitic eighteen pulls no punches when God

talks about these topics. It lists basically every single close

relative prohibition you can imagine. But that's also echoed in

First Corinthians five by Paul when he's talking to the

church in corinth and he says, it is actually reported

that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a

kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. Well, actually

be a slap in the face when you're talking to

a church, says, for a man has his father's wife,

and you are arrogant? Ought you not rather to mourn?

Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

So this is not just something that God forgot after

the New Testament Covenant.

No, this is something that we need to understand today.

The next thing underneath sexual immorality would be homosexuality, and

that sex sexual acts with someone of the same sex.

We see that also in Leviticus eighteen twenty two says

you shall not lie with a male as with a woman,

it is abomination. And then again Paul in Romans one,

and this is Verses twenty six to twenty. It for

this reason God gave him up to dishonorable passions. So

these are an This is not an honorable thing in

God's eyes. This is a dishonorable thing for their women

exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women

and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing

shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves to do

penalty for their error. So that's homosexuality underneath sexual immorality.

And the last one to mention is best reality or

sex with animals. And some of you are like, man,

this stuff's in the Bible. Yeah, read your Bible. It's

in there, Leviticus eighteen twenty three. And you shall not

lie with any animal, and so make yourself unclean with it.

Neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to

lie with it.

It is perversion.

If at any point when I was reading this list

you cringed a little bit, that's a good thing. We

should cringe when we hear these things that are sins

in God's eyes, because God's also cringing. In fact, it's

more than that, he says it's an abomination. These are

all outside his intended design for sex and sexuality, his

inded His intention for sex is the physical, intimate expression

of love and joy between one husband and one wife

in a one flesh union of marriage and the purpose

of enjoyment and filling the earth with more image bearers.

That's God's design. So everyone take a deep breath.

That's a lot, but it's important stuff for us to know,

and feels just like an information dump right now. But

there's going to be some stuff that we need to

wrestle with as we're kind of talking through this. So

God made man and God made woman, and he intentionally

made them different or distinct, but he made them to

fit together like a puzzle. And just as man was

made to fit with woman and woman with man, mankind

was made to fit with God. And this is really cool.

You got to think back to the garden, mankind walking

with God in the cool of the day. It's no distance,

no separation, only perfect fellowship between Creator and created. That

was God's intention for mankind, for God and man to

be in perfect harmony and union. But if that's God's

intention and that's how it was in the garden, what happened,

why isn't it like that anymore? Why is it not

the same? Well, it's because Adam and Eve are first parents.

They sinned, They ate the fruit, they ate the fruit

that they were told not to, and everything was fractured.

And now we all have a problem. All of us

have a problem because of sin. Because we were born

in sin or born sinful, and because we continued to

walk in sin, we were separated from God. Our sin

fractured the oneness that we had with God. And the

whole Bible is God's beautiful story of redemption. God is

fixing the problem of our separation from him. He made

a way for us to be in perfect harmony with Him.

And this is really really good news. Because anyone who

repents of their sin and puts faith in Jesus confesses

him as their lord. All their sins are forgiven, every

sin they've ever committed, every sin there in the middle

of committing right now, and every sin that they will

go on to fail in the future. The blood of

Christ covered all of them. That's amazing, that is amazingly

good news. The blood of Jesus washes every single sin

from us, the death that we deserve because of our

own sin, if we've put faith in Christ. Jesus took

that from us. He took that for us. Jesus brutal

death on the cross is applied to us, so we

don't have to die. And you know what we get

in return, We get eternal life. We get eternal life.

This is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus

that sinners separated from God. There is a fix for

the fracture, and it is only through faith in Jesus

that our relationship with God is restored.

There is only one way.

And I have to make that clear because the world

will tell you there's lots of ways. There is only

one way, and is faith in Christ. And the reason

there's only one way is because God makes the demand

and he made the fix and he said, this is

the only way. Who's the offense against we sin? Who's

the fence against God? It's, for lack of better terms,

his rules we broke. So he gets acide. How that's

fixed and he said us through Jesus Christ. So faith

in Jesus our relationship with God is restored. We're brought

back into union with the Lord, the way he intended

all along. And I want you to listen how Jesus

puts it in John seventeen. So let's turn there John

chapter seventeen, and we'll read verses twenty through twenty six.

I do not ask for these only these people here,

but also for those who will believe in me through

their word that's us verse twenty one, that they may

all be one, just as you, Father are in me,

and I in you, that they also may be and us,

so that the world may believe that you have sent

me the glory that you have given me. I have

given to them that they may be as be one,

even as we are one, I in them and you

in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that

the world may know that you sent me and love

them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they, also,

whom you have given me, may be with me where

I am to see my glory that you have given me,

because you loved me before the foundation of the world,

Oh righteous Father. Even though the world does not know you,

I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

I made known to them your name, and I will

continue to make it known that the love with which

you have loved me may be in them and I

in them. You, guys, hear all this oneness talk. It's

a lot of oneness talk in this text. That's the

desire of Jesus, our loving Savior and God. Mankind's place

is to be in the Lord. It's to be in

the Lord, and through faith in Jesus, that's exactly what happens.

Let's look at what Paul says. Turn to First Corinthians,

chapter six. This is Paul speaking to the church in

corinth just a few books over from John or a

couple fir Corinthians six, starting in verse fifteen, Do you

not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall

I then take the members of Christ and make them

members of a prostitute?

Never?

Or do you not know that he who is joined

to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For as

it is written, the two shall become one flesh. But

he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit

with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a

person commits is outside the body, But the sexually immoral

person sins against his own body. Do you not know

that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit

within you, whom you have from God. You are not

your own, for you were bought with a price.

So what.

Glorify God in your body? Now this text is talking

specifically about sexual immorality. We also learn something else here.

I think it's a good comparison here. Paul's using the

one flesh union as an illustration. But what's the illustration for?

Why is he using this illustration Because he's trying to

get us to understand the union we have with Jesus.

We learn that those who are joined to the Lord

will be one spirit with him. Those who are joined

to the Lord through faith in Jesus will become one

spirit with him. God designed humanity to be with Him.

And this is g talking here. You don't have to

turn there but John fourteen twenty. In that day you

will know that I am in my Father, and you

in me, and I in you. And one chapter over

John fifteen, abide in Me and I in you. As

the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides

in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am a vine.

You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I

in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For

apart from me, you can do what.

Nothing.

Apart from me, you can do nothing. Are you guys

hearing this theme? Kind of a theme being shouted throughout

all of this. We were meant to be with the Lord.

We were meant to be in his presence. We were

meant to be his people. We're meant to worship and

serve him only, to live and abide in him, to

rely on him, to be sustained by him, to be

led by him, to bring him glory, to enjoy him forever.

We were made to be in Christ, Jesus, our Lord.

That's God's design for us. That's how he designed mankind.

It's how he meant it to be in the garden.

And that's what his story of redemption is fixing. Kind

of the worship team, come up, please, this is what

God's story of redemption is fixing. It's our main topic

today is God's design for gender and sexuality. And we

see how God made man, and we see how he

made women, and he made them equal in value but

distinct in design. He intentionally made man and woman to

fit together like puzzle pieces. And then we also see

that God made mankind to fit with him. We're not

designed to be apart from Him. So this is the

case that I think is God makes clear from scripture

what should we do about it?

Then what should we do?

And I like it when things are simple because they're

easier to remember. So I'm going to keep it simple today.

God created you as a man, be a man. God

created you as a woman, be a woman. And as

God has created you to be with him, abide in him.

So if you are a man, don't try to be

a woman, don't try to be feminine. If you're a woman,

don't try to be a man, don't try to be masculine.

And because God made you distinct, don't try to blur

the lines between the two. And I do you need

to feel like I need to clarify that there are

men who have some feminine qualities. There's nothing necessarily wrong

with that. You don't try to You're not trying to

blur the lines between the two. God has made men

and women distinctly different. There are women who grew up

as tomboys. There's nothing wrong with that. She's not trying

to be a man. We don't blur the lines between

what God has made distinctions. What we need to do

is celebrate and be who God intentionally designed us to be.

So what I'm saying, I mean I probably I'm preaching

to the choir here, probably, But what I am saying

it is for you, especially if this is some stuff

you're wrestling through. So what I am saying is for

you today. But also we live in a world that

is full of people who are searching, people who are

searching for what their true identity is. They're trying to

find meaning and value and purpose, searching for happiness, fulfillment

and satisfaction. And the world is going to offer so

many different solutions that will never ever deliver. The solutions

the world will give are never the right answer and

they will never satisfy. The world will tell you to

push against what God has done, what God has created.

He's made us all with intention, not a single one

of us as an accident. No one's an accident, None

of us were made by mistake. God does what he

does on purpose. So I want you to feel confident

knowing that God made you exactly the way He wanted

you to be.

So we should take confidence in that.

But also I want you to help other people who

are struggling with us to see, we're gonna leave here,

and we're gonna rub shoulders with all kinds of people

in the world. Some of them might be struggling with

these very things quietly, and some of them might be

walking in this in outright rebellion against God very loudly.

But I want you to lovingly help them see what

God's intention is. To have confidence in yourself and what

God says so much that you can share the truth

with them. Help them see, help them accept the way

that God has made them. They're struggling to find happiness

and satisfaction in who God has made them.

Help them see if they were fearfully and.

Wonderfully made on purpose, that they were knitted together in

their mother's womb. That if God made them a male,

that was on purpose. He had a plan for that.

God made them a female, He made them that way

on purpose. He has a plan. And true, lasting happiness

and satisfaction cannot be found apart from God's design for you.

I'm going to say that again, true and lasting happiness

and satisfaction cannot be found apart from God's design for you,

it will always feel wrong. It's only when we're walking

according to His plan and design that we actually find

real happiness, because it's only in Him, the true source

of joy and happiness, that it's truly found.

I want you to look, you know, have to turn there.

I want you to look.

At the end of Psalm sixteen, Verse eleven says, you

have made known to me the path of life. In

your presence, there's fullness of joy. At your right hand

are pleasures forevermore. God shows us the path to life.

You know where it's at. It's in His presence. Path

to life is in God's presence. That's where life is.

That's where there's of joy. Think about the most joy

you've ever experienced in your life that wasn't full there

was more room. There's more joy to have in God's presence.

There's no more room because it's full of joy. There's

fullness of joy, and at his right hand there are

pleasures for how long, forevermore?

It never ends.

There's no end to the pleasure experienced in the Lord's presence.

That's where true life is found. So those who are

struggling to accept how God made them, you got to

help them see that true happiness and satisfaction is only

found in Jesus. It is only found in Jesus. You

will keep searching and searching and searching, and you will

never find true satisfaction and happiness unless it's in Christ.

It's only in Christ. Jesus is because we were made

to fit with God. We were made to be in God.

We will always feel like something is missing.

When we're not in Christ.

The world will come up with a thousand new genders,

it will come up with countless new sexual fads, and

all of those if they're outside of the alignment of

God's design for sex and sexuality, it will not satisfy.

Not only is it an abomination to him because it's

outside of his design, but it will never ever satisfy

you are satisfaction. It's being found is found in being

one with Christ and walking according to.

His design and his plans, his.

Designs for how He created us, and his designs for

sex and sexual So what I want us to remember

today and what I want us to help others see

have said it a thousand times. I want to say

it one more time before we stop. God made man,

God made woman, and he designed them to fit together,

and he also made mankind to fit with him.

Amen. Can you guys stand to your feet?