First Wednesdays - Why Does God Gender Humans?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why does God gender humans?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a big question, and it's one of the deepest questions, and when you try to find the answer in the Bible, the Bible indirectly speaks about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't directly speak about it, but I think we can go there.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the topic, it's not gender roles.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just introduce to because sometimes those are the things that bring us the anxiety, perhaps the dysphoria, perhaps the anger and the frustration over the constraints.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it gets at that question why gender in the first place.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about that, why gender humans?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say, first point, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got five, four, five.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll see how many I got, all right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, it better displays the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: It better displays the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Genesis 126, God says, let us make man in our image after our likeness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when God makes man in his own image, man kind exists, like I said before, two genders, male and female.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there is equal dignity and worth, but the differences between us complete the picture.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we represent God to the world as we rule, create, and relate to one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, individually, we image forth our creator.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think we have to acknowledge that two genders better display the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a fuller picture displayed to the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And John Piper agrees, and he says this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has created man as male and female, because there are aspects of Christ's glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, as Christ's glory, that would not be known apart from their complementary differences.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the first reason why gender individuals would be that it better displays the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go further, point number two.

[SPEAKER_00]: why gender people, why male and female, it provides community instead of isolation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, we're going back, like if God had a fresh canvas to paint on and we're asking the question, why did you create it this way and not that way?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he is providing community instead of isolation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Genesis 2-18 says, it's not good for a man to be alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will make him a helper fit for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, someone might say in response like, well, that doesn't address the two gender-quandery.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, why it could have been easily addressed with an additional atom, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Just multiply the people and you got company.

[SPEAKER_00]: God could have, God makes the rules, you know, He could have done anything, but one gender, if we had one gender, able to produce, so just one, this, think with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: If there was just one gender, and that gender had the ability to produce, reproduce.

[SPEAKER_00]: God could have made it that way, but that's not what he decided in his infinite wisdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when he was thinking like,

[SPEAKER_00]: What would be the perfect fit for Adam?

[SPEAKER_00]: He created complimentary human being, name woman, not another man, which leads me to think that the deepest and most satisfying companionship for human flourishing would be complimentary, not uniformity.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you just think about it, again, one gender,

[SPEAKER_00]: But yet, when he thought, okay, how can we make the best of things?

[SPEAKER_00]: How can we make this community even richer and fuller and better?

[SPEAKER_00]: It was not uniformity, it was complementary, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: Thirdly, why gender, why male and female?

[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, it provides additional support for the family.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think with me,

[SPEAKER_00]: God did not create one gender to be able to do everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just imagine like that, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: So that if there's one gender and we're able to reproduce, we would be, and when we had children, multiple children, we would be a complete unit and it would be only one in the home, as an adult.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he separated the capabilities.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's just interesting to me that he separates it like that because only one gender can carry a nurse of baby but you need both genders to conceive in the first place.

[SPEAKER_00]: Male and female bodies are not identical, but reproductively corresponding bodies.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says in Genesis 1, 28, be fruitful and multiply and feel the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is God's design.

[SPEAKER_00]: He separates the capabilities so that there are two people watching over the home.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two people, it forces us together raising up Godly children.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it speaks to the importance that God places on the family.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you know that we have single moms in the world and even in our own church and whether out of pregnancy out of wedlock or because the marriage fell apart,

[SPEAKER_00]: That is a situation, and for those of you in that situation, you know how difficult it is when you don't have support.

[SPEAKER_00]: God intended there to be in the home.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the ideal to have just one, which if you are in a situation where you're a single mom or a single dad, that's where the church plays a larger role to help out the families

[SPEAKER_00]: that because we live in this world, it's going to break down things are going to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we as a church, we come alongside and we make up the difference because we're the family of God collectively.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a sweet thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But my point is that God intentionally divided up the capabilities so that you need to tune the home rather than one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think of the richness now of all of the diversity of strengths in the home.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you have a male and female, mom and dad, fourthly, it provides an arena for self-sacrificing love.

[SPEAKER_00]: It provides an arena or a theater of self-sacrificing love.

[SPEAKER_00]: We do need each other to multiply and fill the earth, but the differences between us can aggravate and annoy.

[SPEAKER_00]: God knows that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you and I said, well, why does God do it that way?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why does he make us so different?

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not so different, but there are some differences.

[SPEAKER_00]: Enough to create, listen to this, the irritant that sanctifies us.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's true, it's that theater where sacrificial love is going to be worked out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two genders work in together, especially in marriage, provide this arena for self-sacrificing love, which will ultimately picture the love that Christ has for his bride, the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is hard work, amen?

[SPEAKER_00]: It is hard work and self-sacrificing.

[SPEAKER_00]: God knew that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians 5, 22 and 23, and 25, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord for the husband is head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: His body and is himself, it's Savior.

[SPEAKER_00]: Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her.

[SPEAKER_00]: First Peter, chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, and verse 7.

1 Peter 3:1

[SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, wives be subject to your own husband, so that if some do not obey the word, they may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

[SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the women as the weaker vessel since they are airs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's so much we share alike, but the differences are purposeful.

[SPEAKER_00]: And could it be, because I believe it is, God knows how to perfect his image in a husband, in a man.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will go to his knees, independent upon the Lord quicker by bearing the needs of his wife, drawing her out in conversation, patiently listening to her perspective, working toward consensus, and bearing the burden if he should deviate from her, her counsel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Learning to love and lead a wife so that she flourishes is the crucible by which men are forged and sanctified.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I mean, that it's the arena of sacrificial love.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is doing something in the man to bring him in more dependence upon the Lord by putting a wife with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God knows how to perfect his image in a wife, in a woman.

[SPEAKER_00]: She has asked to come under flawed leadership.

[SPEAKER_00]: and she will go to her knees quicker and depend it's upon God when by submitting and trusting that husband.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, she is to share her wisdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Voice or concern contribute to the common good, but she is to keep herself from taking over eroding God, the husband's God or Dane to Thorety in the home.

[SPEAKER_00]: That kind of sacrificial love worked out in the home.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it manifests to the world around the kind of love that Christ has for His people.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the question of why does God make us male and female?

[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, it better displays the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like in stereo.

[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, it provides a community instead of isolation.

[SPEAKER_00]: and exercise dominion without both coming together.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can't even fulfill the first commandment, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: And less were made different complimentary.

[SPEAKER_00]: It also provides additional support for the family.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, not just one gender, one person over children, God cares for the homes so that he wants to, watching over raising up God be children in the home.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it provides an arena for self-sacrificing love, gospel love.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is to image forth in this world what Christ love is,

[SPEAKER_00]: for us who believe, you know, putting his knees aside, dying on the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of that is to be displayed in the home.

[SPEAKER_00]: Men displaying that in the home.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you ask an atheist, why male and female,

[SPEAKER_00]: They would probably explain the evolutionary process of sexual reproduction through random selection of mutation.

[SPEAKER_00]: The bottom line is there is no purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's absolutely no purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nature accidentally found a way.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how they would say it.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you asked a Buddhist, he would tell you that gender is part of the material world that you need to transcend at scape.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not something that is good.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's something to escape and transcend.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christianity is the only one that has the better answer.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a gift given by God to be received.

[SPEAKER_00]: received and cherished for God, after creating men and women, stated of his creation, oh, it's very good.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's very good.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was the Creator's expression after he created us both men and women.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's very good.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that we should,

[SPEAKER_00]: We should try to align our attitudes and emotions toward that saying, it is very good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Which is what I would say, this is my concluding comments, which could be number five, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: embrace your gender as a gift from God, don't fight it, don't get angry, don't be frustrated, that's not going to help you in the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not as much as you can to come and reconcile the fact that God graciously gave you this exquisite gift.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the more that you can embrace it, and then to move down that path, you are going to just glorify the Lord all the more.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, how do you do that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because some of us may be end up despising and fighting gender that you were given.

[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you turn it around was always going to start with repentance?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you nurse a distrust or frustration or anger that God made you a certain way, perhaps you have gender dysphoria and you feel out of sorts with your receiving that gift, your assigned gender,

[SPEAKER_00]: The best place to be is not to do cosmetic surgery.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not to take hormone replacement.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not any of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's to, as much as you can, align yourself with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because in this world, there's going to be a lot of brokenness in this world.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there won't be complete alignment, but as you move that way, I guess what you're doing, you're affirming what God has given to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're affirming the gracious gift that He says is very good, and you're working that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in that process, God is gonna be glorified by that effort and He's going to aid you by the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: to start to live in maybe more alignment with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because a grumbling spirit stirs up rebellion toward God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because really you're saying in your heart, if you're wrestling with it, you're saying, the gift you gave me sucks.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you want to be in that spot.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I say repentance starts with an attitude change that you embrace the exquisite gift that he gives and I would just say bring all your pain and all your sorrow to God and lay it out there before him and repent.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He cares for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And once you embrace it, that's the attitude part than you maintain gender distinction.

[SPEAKER_00]: That would be the action.

[SPEAKER_00]: Deuteronomy 22 verse five prohibits cross-dressing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Believe or not, that imagine I put on women's clothing and vice versa, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: In 1 Corinthians 11, without getting in the details, it takes up this theme in the New Testament somewhat.

[SPEAKER_00]: The bottom line with 1 Corinthians 11 is it shouldn't be confusing to the world what you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: It should not be confusing to the world what you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: Keeping the gender distinction glorifies God rather than blurring the lines.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wants us to stay in our gendered lanes even if we feel out of sync with them for the time being emotionally.

[SPEAKER_00]: And gender markers in most cultures, they revolve around clothes, hair, gestures, activities.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think of that kind of order, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So guys, you can have long hair, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you have long hair, make sure the other markers are really distinctly male.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: You can be like Thor or whoever you want to be like, that's cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But just, you're not, you're not painting your nails and you're not wearing earrings or you just kind of, you make sure that people are, other dudes are not going, hmm, this creeps me out, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: It needs to be distinctly male if you're going to on something else.

[SPEAKER_00]: You look a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: different.

[SPEAKER_00]: Girls, you don't have to wear pink dresses and bones, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: But make sure there's visible markers that identify you as female, if you have short hair, then make sure the way you dress looks female.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so it's just, it's a bunch of markers.

[SPEAKER_00]: It isn't just one thing, and I don't want us to be the gender police in the church, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what I want.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to give you some things that might help.

[SPEAKER_00]: Close, hair, gestures,

[SPEAKER_00]: activity gestures would mean there are certain gestures that are more masculine, there are more feminine gestures, and some of those you're going to have to try to work on if you're having a difficult time being clearly masculine or clearly feminine.

[SPEAKER_00]: But all of that honors the Lord, I think, that's why I'm trying to say that you're attitude and then moving in the lanes that make you clearly male, clearly female.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just said, don't fight gender assignment, embrace it as God's gift and learn to love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can empower you to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He really can.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just needs to be your heart's desire to honor the Lord in your gender.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gender is not a punishment.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is an exquisite gift to be cherished.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as Redeemer folks, I just want that for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want us to cherish it as a gift.

[SPEAKER_00]: To be celebrated, some of you, again, may still have a really hard time with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I just invite you to pray.