Weaker Vessel

[0:00] chapter 2. I hate to move on to another topic so quickly after that message, which was a real blessing, brother. It was. I needed to hear that because idleness is something that very easily creeps into my life. And he's right. It's always, if you're not doing the right thing, you're always doing the wrong thing. It's strange how that works. Well, let's switch gears a little bit, but I'm sure the Lord will tie it all together. We're in Genesis chapter 2. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. A quick one. Father, thank you so much for this opportunity for us to gather here in your name, Lord, with your word and to talk about your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and how good you are to us and what you would have us to do as men. Father, I pray that you'd be with us not only right now, Lord, but the rest of the evening. Open our ears, Lord, open our eyes, and let us hear what you'd have for us to hear. And I ask this in Jesus' name.

[0:53] Amen. So let's look at Genesis chapter 2. And why don't we look at verse 18. Chapter 2, verse 18.

[1:05] This is the creation, right? The creation story. True story. Creation story. The Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him and help me for him. So here's the introduction to the woman in the Bible. Yes? So let's see, like, when did God say that in the story?

[1:26] At what point did God say that? Well, God had already made the world, right? He made the earth, the heaven, the seas. He populated with animals and probably put all sorts of precious metals and gems in the earth for man to find and work with. He'd given, he'd made man, the male. He had not made the woman yet. He made man in his own image, right? Free, right? Good, powerful, a ruler, a king, right? Have dominion. He had already made the garden, by the way. He'd already made the world, and then he went to a corner of that world, and he made a garden, a special part of that world, and said, Adam, start here. This is your home. And they'd given him a job. So Adam, at this point, had the divine nature. He had the breath of life. He had power. He had possessions. He had a job.

[2:18] He had a home. And God looked at that, and he said, you're missing something. It's not good. He says, it is not good. After God made everything, he said, this is good. Everything but the firmament on day two.

[2:31] He looked at it, he made. Well, he's not done yet, right? He makes man, gives him all these things, and then he says, not yet. You're still missing something, right? And so God makes him a woman.

[2:42] That's what you're missing, right? God makes him a woman. And look, the woman is not an afterthought that God gave Adam. It's not like God made man, and he was done with his work, and he said, well, I'll just add a woman here, right? It's not. If you look at Genesis 1, man and woman, their relationship together in what we call a marriage is central to God's design of man, right? And not only humankind, it's central to your design as a male, a man, you see? Genesis 1, verse 26. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. This is the first thing God says about creating man, right? When he says, I'm going to create, let there be, you know, the stars, the moon, and the sun.

[3:32] He describes the purpose, right? He says, let the stars and the moon and the sun, the moon, and the stars be in the firmament so that they can give light on the earth, right? So the kind of, when he introduces the thing he makes, he's describing its purpose or its role. So when he makes man, he introduces man's purpose and role to reflect his nature. Let's make man, the principal reason, the first reason I'm going to give for making man is so they can be like me. Let's make a creature that's like me, has my nature, has my likeness, my image. And look at what he says. He says, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Verse 27. So God created man in his own image. Here's a curious verse. I want you to think about the way it's worded. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he, him.

[4:32] Masculine, singular. Here's Adam, right? But there's no period. Here's a semicolon. That tells you that here's a connected thought. We're not done yet. Yeah?

[4:43] Male and female created he, them. That's strange, right? That's strange. So God makes man in his image a male, and then says, this is not my image. Not yet. It's not complete. Okay? So the image of God is actually a man and a woman.

[5:03] If I go a step further, I might say the image of God is man-loving woman. The man loving and caring for the woman. Right? If you'll go with me to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5.

[5:18] So God looked at man. He has got power. He's got possessions. He's got a position. And he says, you know what? You're missing something. You need a partner. Not only do you need a partner, you need a partner that's different than you. You see, he could have made, we always make that joke, Adam and Steve, right? But we got to take that seriously because, you know, we know now that God wants it to be man and woman. But back then, it's not like Adam knew, right? Nobody knew. I mean, angels didn't know about women. That's a new thing. The woman's a new thing that God created for man.

[5:51] So go to Ephesians chapter 5. And look at verse 21. 22. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.

[6:09] For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. What's this passage saying? In this passage, God is saying, wives, the way you treat your husband is a picture of how the church should treat Christ, right? Okay, so let's go on. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. So what you get from this passage is that God has a purpose for your marriage, for every marriage, for every Christian marriage, God has a purpose, and it's to reflect the relationship between Christ and the church. That's so the man takes the role of

[7:18] Christ, and the woman takes the role of the church. And that is the image of God, because it says about Jesus Christ, that he is the express image of God, Jesus Christ. And he became that image. See, he fulfills the qualifications for that marriage because he came to earth to die for his bride. You see? So that's why in Genesis 1, God says, let's make man in our image. We'll make man, and then male and female created he them. You by yourself, you're not enough to express God's image because God, his nature is not selfish.

[7:53] His nature is giving. His nature is relational. That's why he's a triune being. Even when he's alone, and before he creates anything, he's got the Father and the Son and the Spirit, and they're in a relationship of love. And so when he creates man in his image, he creates two of them and says, I want you guys to have a relationship with each other. The kind of relationship that reflects my relationship with the Son, with the Spirit, a relationship of love. It's also a prophetic relationship.

[8:21] When God makes Adam and the woman and puts them together, it's a prophetic relationship that should show, you see, but Adam failed, right? But that should show Jesus Christ before Jesus Christ comes. Adam and Eve. You and your wife. That's the purpose of your marriage. You see, that's the purpose of your marriage. Now, you know, the Bible says about the woman that she's a weaker vessel. You guys know that, right? The woman is weaker than the man.

[8:55] So in essence, when God said it's not good for a man to be alone, and he said something's missing, you know what was missing in Adam's life was a weakness. That's what he lacked. He lacked a weakness. And I was thinking the other day that the tree was put in the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, right? The tree tempted Eve. Would that be a true statement? The tree was Eve's temptation, but it was not Adam's temptation. If you read 1 Timothy, it says Adam was never deceived about the nature of the tree. He always knew, like, I'm not going to eat that. God told me not to eat that. I remember. Not stupid, right? But the woman was Adam's temptation. So God said, you need a weakness. You're missing something. Someone weaker than you for you to take care of. For someone weaker than you for you to love and put up with. Put up with. Forbear. That's a big part of marriage. Christian marriage is putting up with your wife. Go to 1 Peter 3. Let's go to verse 7. It says,

[10:15] Likewise, you husbands, dwell with them, talking about the wives, according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel. So right there, it tells you the woman is weaker.

[10:30] And in 1 Timothy, it says, hey, don't put a woman up to teach people because she's going to get deceived. You're not going to get deceived. She's going to get deceived. Yeah. You know what's right and wrong. You're just going to choose to do the wrong. The woman, she's going to get it messed up. That's what he's saying, right? So he says, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel. Do you honor your wife's weaknesses as husbands? Or if you are a child, if you're a son, if you have sisters and your sisters are being stupid, do you honor them when they're being dumb? Because you know what men do? We despise weakness. We look down on weakness. But the thing is, God says, you need someone that's weaker in your life to rein you in and to shape you and to help you and to guide you. So God will use the weakness of the women in your lives and the lives of men to get them to go places they would never go. Because you can handle going 100 miles an hour. So you'll never slow down. But then God put a woman in your life who can only handle going 60. Not so you can yell at her and drag her along, but so you would slow down for her sake. See? Yes, sir. And you know, we as men, we get this wrong, right? We get it wrong. We get it so wrong. The reason why I'm talking about this is that I have some friends that have been having some trouble with their wives. And I've been seeing marriages being broken up, Christian marriages, because we don't understand that the importance of marriage, the central importance of marriage, right? When God created man, he put him in a, he didn't make man, let him live for a while, and then bring him a woman. He said, no, this is fundamental to who you are, Adam, that you're going to have a woman and you're going to have a wife. And you guys are together. And that's your ministry and that's your life. And then in Ephesians 5, the Bible says, look, it's a picture. It's a picture to your kids. Your kids want to know what the love of Christ is like? He should be able to look at how you treat your wife and say, oh, that's what Jesus Christ is like. Okay? Your kids want to know what submission to Christ is like? They should be able to look at your wife and how she submits to you. And that should be the picture. And that should be the picture to the whole world. People should ask you, like, lost people who look at your marriage should be thinking, wow, how do you guys have a marriage like that? And then you should be able to explain to them about Jesus and the church. You see? But the thing is, here's the thing, right? Like, we want, we want eye for an eye, ear for an ear. We want our wives to do something for us and then we do something for them. It's like a trade, right? It's like a transaction. But that's not how this works, right? It says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. So how is a Christian man supposed to love his wife? Well, how did Christ love you? Yeah? Did he die for you because you were being good?

[13:35] Did he die for you because you cooked the meal and cleaned the house and said the things he wanted? No. It was unconditional. It was one-sided. It was his job. And he loved you unconditionally.

[13:47] So, men, you want to get married? You have a wife? You're supposed to love your wife no matter what she does. In fact, in Ephesians, what we read is, you know, Jesus cleanses his church. He sanctifies his church. He's going to present his church to himself, glorious. And then we go home and then we're bitter against our wives when our job is to make them pretty. So we get mad at the ugliness of our women when our job is to take that ugliness and, by the love of Christ, turn that into something beautiful. That's the job, right? And we don't get it. And that's also the point of 1 Peter 3, right? It says, likewise, he husbands. Like, what does that mean, likewise? Why is that there? Well, come back with me. You'll get a laugh out of this. Look at chapter 2, verse 18. 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 18.

[14:38] Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward. For this is thankworthy of a man for conscience toward God and your grief, suffering wrongfully. So he says, hey, you got a job and your boss is a jerk. Treat him well, right? Serve him as if he's the best boss. And he says, it's a blessing when you suffer wrongfully. Like, you're doing the right thing and then you suffer for it. So if you go down to verse 1 of chapter 3, it says, likewise, ye wives, submit to husbands that are jerks. It's right there, right? They're not in obedience to the word. And so likewise, husbands, guess what? You're going to have to suffer wrongfully in order to love your wife properly. And that's what we just don't get as men, especially my generation, you know. We just want to get what we want from our wives. Just want our wives to serve us and please us and do all these things for us and be the perfect woman that we need when God says, no, you make her into that by unconditional love and by honoring the weakness. And so often we despise women's weakness. We do. I do too. It's frustrating. I could say that because we brought one lady in the back, but it's the truth, ma'am. I'm sorry. Men get frustrated. But it's not supposed to be. We're supposed to honor the weakness of women. You see? It's so important. And how are you going to serve in the ministry if you can't honor the weakness of your wife? Because guess what? If you're a pastor or a preacher or whatever you are in a leadership position, the Christians you're leading are going to be weak and you're going to have to honor their weakness. And you learn that at home with your wife or with your sister, with your mother or whatever. The women that God put in our men's lives so that we can learn to honor weakness. So we can learn what it's like to be, to give and to love like Christ.

[16:36] You see? Because if we don't have anyone weaker than us to love, how do we learn to be like Christ? Because that's what defines Jesus Christ. He found some creatures that were dirty and ugly and no good.

[16:47] Remember Ezekiel when God found Israel and he says, you know, you're like this ugly, weird, stillborn type of waste covered in blood, filthy. And then I cleaned you up and then I clothed you and then I adorned you. So that's, and you know, if you receive that from God, you ought to give that and the principal person we as men should give that to. The person that should receive it first and the most would be our wives, right? And for young men who are looking for wives, that's what a marriage is.

[17:17] Don't get it twisted. That's what a marriage is. It's not something you get into for your own pleasure. The pleasure comes with you fulfilling your responsibility and God blessing that marriage.

[17:28] See, but, but don't get it twisted. That's what marriage is. So we need to learn to honor women properly, starting with our wives, starting with our wives.

[17:40] And we need to learn to honor that which is weak and not to despise it. You know, how does Christ treat you when you're weak? How does Jesus honor your weakness?

[17:53] Do you give your wife the same patience that God gives you? When you tell him you're going to do something and you don't do it? When you nag him about something that he already told you he's going to take care of and you're like, where is it, Lord? How does he treat you, right?

[18:08] And, you know, if you're willing to treat your wife the same way Christ will treat you, if you're willing to show your wife the same grace and mercy and patience that Jesus gives you, watch how much patience, more patience and more grace that God will show you.

[18:24] Because that's one of the reasons why God shows you so much patience is so you can learn and then give it to other people. And if you won't give it to other people, he might just pull back a little on his grace and show you what it's like to be in the position of your wife.

[18:36] You know? So, yeah, and the weaker vessel, look, if I have a backpack, I like backpacks. They're sturdy. You can throw them around, right?

[18:48] You could stuff it. You know, when I used to go to high school, I used to just walk like this, this giant backpack with like 15 books in it, and throw it down on the ground. It's fine. It's tough, right? Men are strong. You can push men around.

[19:00] You don't have to treat men with honor so much. I can mess around. Anthony can boo when I walk up here. Okay? But if it was his wife walking up here to give a testimony, and he booed just jokingly, she could burst into tears.

[19:12] Because women are weaker than men. And you know what you do with weaker things? You know what? If you had a beautiful vase, like a porcelain vase, it's weak. But it's beautiful.

[19:23] The weakness makes it beautiful. You honor it. You don't, you know, you don't do that. You very carefully place it here. Place it there. You clean it. You take care of it. You guys get it?

[19:35] Yeah. And we're all called to do that. And beyond our wives, we're all called to do that for every single brethren who are weaker than us in some way. When we encounter the weakness of others, that's what we're called on to do as men, to honor that.

[19:50] So that's the message. Just honor the weakness in others, especially your wives, and next, also the brethren. And have grace. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.