Womanhood in a Changing World

[0:00] All right, well, I really pray that all mothers this morning would be encouraged every day, but especially today.

[0:10] ! For all that you do and all that you continue to do. I'm so grateful that my mother is still with us and thank God for her. I thought this morning what I would do is I would give all the mothers a gift. And the rest of you would benefit from that gift, but I want you to know the gift is not intended for you.

[0:34] And the gift that I'm going to give to the mothers this morning is a very short sermon. The rest of you will benefit, but just know it's not for you. So when you walk out, if you're feeling happy, just stop that and don't feel happy. This is for the mothers, all right?

[0:51] Now, mothers, that's the intent. The intent is a short sermon. So pray for me and see how we would do this morning.

[1:04] But this morning, rather than exclusively talk about mothers and bring a sermon, focus on mothers, I thought it would be more useful to take this opportunity to talk about womanhood in general and to talk about womanhood in a changing world.

[1:20] So from the outset, I realize that for most of you, what I will be sharing is not new. This message then is not so much to inform you as it is to remind you.

[1:34] Remind you of things that you already know. But I believe that in light of the blurring of true womanhood, what it means to be female, and the blurring of true manhood, what it means to be male, that we are witnessing at home and abroad, I think it is appropriate for us this morning to talk about womanhood in a changing world.

[2:01] Many of us have only recently been hearing words like transgender and transsexual. Those words are now becoming a part of our vocabulary and perhaps more so since just last week.

[2:18] Representatives of a local group of transgendered individuals recently held a press conference to voice their concerns and to call for some special rights.

[2:28] And I trust that you're mindful of the progression of how we got where we are. We didn't just arrive where we are overnight. This journey to gender confusion began with the God-given roles given to men and women in the home and in the church being blurred and ignored and redefined.

[2:53] People were fighting the biblical idea that men and women are equal but different. They were fighting the idea that although men and women are equal in personhood and dignity and worth, men are the head of their wives and their homes.

[3:11] And they should be humble servant leaders and their wives should be submitted and supportive of their leadership. But the understanding that is a biblical understanding of roles was fought as being oppressive and offensive to women.

[3:34] And for a number of years now what we have seen is that same aggressive effort to blur and ignore and redefine the roles of men and women in the home and the church, that same aggressive effort has now turned to blur, ignore, and redefine the biological identity of men and women.

[3:57] It's no longer focused on the roles that God has given to them but now it's actually focused on the very biological identity of who we are as men and women, who we are as male and female.

[4:12] And so we live in a world where there is increasing gender confusion. There are biological males who are saying that they are females trapped in a male body.

[4:25] And there are biological females who are saying they are males trapped in a female body. Prior to 2013, the American Psychiatric Association diagnosed this gender confusion as gender identity disorder.

[4:45] But in 2013, just three years ago, just three years ago, the American Psychiatric Association removed this condition from its list of disorders so it's no longer disorder and they have now substituted calling this same condition gender dysphoria.

[5:06] And dysphoria means to be in a state of anxiety or stress, restlessness. And so when you talk about gender dysphoria, what you're saying is that it is the condition of being under stress and restlessness and distress and anxiety because there's this conflict between your psychology of who you are and your biology of who God made you to be.

[5:33] And so the American Psychiatric Association just three years ago is now saying, well, that's really not a disorder as such, it's just gender dysphoria. And what they are now doing is they are treating this condition of gender dysphoria with cross-hormone sex therapy, cross-sex hormone therapy.

[6:01] In other words, injecting into men the hormone of females and injecting into females the hormone of men so that biologically you can begin to look like the particular sex that in your mind you identify with, this desired sex that you want.

[6:20] Some states of the U.S. have actually made it illegal for licensed counselors to attempt to help a child who is experiencing this gender confusion.

[6:34] But they actually call it gender expression. So it is illegal to try to counsel a child who has gender confusion or would they say gender expression.

[6:49] And the sad truth, brothers and sisters and friends, is this will only grow in the days ahead. And how should we who belong to Jesus Christ, how should followers of Jesus Christ respond?

[7:05] How should we respond to this changing landscape of gender? Well, the way we should respond is the way we should respond to all issues.

[7:19] The way we should respond on this issue is the way we should respond on all issues and that is the first look to God's Word. So this morning let us do that. Let us turn to God's Word in Genesis chapter 1.

[7:32] And I will begin reading in verse 26. Read 26 through 28 and then we'll turn over to Genesis 2 and I'll read verses 15 through 25.

[7:43] Genesis chapter 1 starting in verse 26. Then God said let us make man in our own 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.

[8:08] So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created them male and female. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them.

[8:22] 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.

[8:41] Let's turn over to Genesis chapter 2 starting in verse 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it and the Lord God commanded the man saying you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.

[9:15] when the Lord God said it is not good that the man should be alone I will make him a helper fit for him now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them and whatever the man called every living creature that was its name the man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him so the Lord God caused the deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man and the man said this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man therefore man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed let's pray together father we thank you this morning that in a world that is confused about sex and gender that you and your wise providence have given us your word

[10:54] I pray Lord that your word will function for us as light in this dark area in our world today I pray that you would use it to speak to our hearts to cause us to understand your wisdom in creating man as male and female and I pray Lord in particular today as we talk about womanhood in the context of Mother's Day I pray that you would cause each woman present in particular to hear firsthand from your word what you have created them to be and who you have created them to be so father speak to all of our hearts now we pray in Jesus name amen when we consider the creation account of man as recorded in Holy Scripture here's what we see we see that the creation of man as male and female is part of God's good design the creation of man as male and female is part of God's good design in Genesis 1 13 we read these words and God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good male and female are part of God's good design in our remaining time this morning

[12:24] I want to point out two truths that are foundational to biblical womanhood that are very clear in the creation account of man as male and female and the first truth is this males and females are equal males and females are equal this is a foundational truth to understanding biblical womanhood and it's the truth that we see in Genesis 1 26 through 28 this equality between males and female is first seen in the fact that both are created in the image of God notice the equality that is expressed in verses 26 and 27 the equality is based on the fact that both were created in the image of God and it's stated two times first in verse 26 and then again in verse 27 both males and females are created in the image of God so they're equal in their personhood they're equal in dignity and they're equal in worth the second way that we see this equality expressed between males and females not just in terms of them being created in God's image but also in terms of the dominion mandate that is given to both of them again in verses 26 and 27 the mandate was that they were to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth it's a joint mandate given to males and females now this equality is foundational to understanding biblical womanhood since that's what we're talking about today women and men are equal males and females are equal and this is a conviction that believers hold and we hold it because it is clearly taught in the word of God and so when you see me and other pastors publicly oppose bill 4 in the referendum bills you should immediately know that we're not opposing it because we oppose the equality of men and women there has to be some other reason why we oppose it it's not on the basis of this clearly communicated truth that males and females are created in

[15:04] God's image and they are equal in their person dignity and worth we oppose bill 4 because bill 4 as has already been said will open a door in our laws for same sex marriage to be demanded and enforced we oppose it because property owners and business owners will lose rights that they have now over how they handle their property to whom they rented and what happens on their premises in their businesses and I don't have time to go into all of that but I encourage you to go to Think Bahamas and learn more about what those issues are but ladies I want to say to you this morning that this is where you are to receive your conviction that you are equal to men you shouldn't receive it from a constitution because if a constitution gives it a constitution can take it away the same way it's being put in a constitution sometime down the road they can be taken away but your equality is not given to you and established in a constitution your equality is given to you and established in God's word

[16:27] God created males and females in his image and in his likeness and he gave them dominion over his creation together and that's where your equality is established so the first truth about biblical womanhood is that we see in the creation account that males and females!

[16:51] are equal the second truth is this males and females are different males and females are equal but males and females are different now I want you to think for a moment we read two sections of scripture we read the one that we discovered and then we read the one that we're going to turn to now in Genesis chapter 2 but if Genesis 1 26 through 28 was all that we had to tell us about the creation of men and women males and females although we would be able to see that they are equal it would be difficult to see how they're different I mean in a sense you could say well one is called male the other one is female so they're different in that regard but how they're different we would not be able to see all we'd be able to say is God created man as male and female so they're different in that way but we would not understand how they relate and how their differences relate to understand that we have to go to

[17:58] Genesis chapter 2 and what we have in Genesis chapter 2 is we have a detailed account of the creation of man as male and female in Genesis chapter 1 we have a summarized account so we see the summary of what God did but Genesis chapter 2 is the detail of what the Lord did and this is where we're able to see the differences between males and females highlighted now I want to just quickly walk through this section that I read a while ago to help you to see how the differences are highlighted and how they inform how we should think about males and females and the differences between them the creation differences between them the first difference we see is that God started with the man in verse seven we see that God created the man he created

[19:03] Adam and he then we see in verse 15 he placed him in this garden he is put into the garden he is given commands about what he is to eat what he is not to eat we see Adam is the one who's naming the animals and whatever he named them God didn't even intervene and try to change what he did he was not present to help him to suggest a name for the zebra or for the kangaroo or for the ostrich Adam named them and when Eve arrived!

[19:36] he said that's a zebra but there's something interesting that's going on God sees that and when it says God sees that's really God condescending to our understanding to help us to get in the story but not that God just realized oh my goodness there is none like Adam but what scripture says is that there was no companion for Adam the animals obviously had companions Adam watched them he named them but Adam had no helper he had no one who was suitable for him and so God decides that he is going to make a helper who is suitable for Adam so he out of Adam's rib out of one of his ribs!

[20:33] He creates this woman this helper for Adam and here I think it's important to see that Eve was created for Adam and understand now what we're doing is we're looking at the differences we've seen the equality in chapter one we're now seeing the differences and how we understand these differences should be rooted in our understanding of equality what happens is people get bent out of shape that Eve was created for Adam only because they forget that they're still equal they're still equal the fact that Eve was created to be a helper for Adam Adam to be the leader and Eve to be the helper does not in any way take away from the equality that is established in scripture they're both created in God's image and they're both given this mandate to have dominion over God's creation so

[21:35] Eve is Adam's helper that speaks about their differences it speaks about their roles and their functions and again it doesn't disturb the equality between them and I think it's instructive in verse 21 that Eve comes out of the side of the man not out of his foot but she comes from the side and I think it's a wonderful visual of a woman who is his equal standing by his side but standing by his side in the capacity as helper in verses 24 and 25 we see the beauty of God's design equality and diversity expressed in unity because it tells us that the man and his wife who are equal but different become one flesh in marriage and so what we see is we see this equality and this diversity this difference male and female coming together in unity they become one flesh they become they are complementary to one another and what we have here is the foundation for marriage males and females as one flesh in marriage and what we have here is the highest expression and the deepest expression of human intimacy that can be experienced between two persons this kind of intimacy can be experienced between two men this kind of intimacy cannot be experienced between two women and even when a person biologically changes his or her biology that person at his or her core is still male or female whatever

[23:39] God created them to be now all that's good and wonderful but it doesn't end there chapter three records what we call the fall Adam and Eve disobeyed God and it affected everything with the fall the equality and the difference between males and females didn't change but it was distorted so we now have men who think they're superior to women women who think they're superior to men and what we see in a very glaring way from the fall is broken sexuality what we see is individuals who are expressing various degrees of broken sexuality and it's a big spectrum and we have heterosexual brokenness and we have homosexual brokenness we have heterosexual brokenness when sex takes place outside of the boundaries of what

[24:54] God determined and that is the context of marriage and homosexuality and homosexual brokenness is wrong on two fronts because it it it actually violates the natural order of what God created and then it still is an expression of sexual conduct outside of marriage and in a way that is impossible to reconcile because the only way to reconcile that is within the confines of heterosexual marriage and see this is one of the differences and I think it's important for us to see about the aberration between heterosexual sexual sin and homosexual sexual sin heterosexual sexual sin in many cases can be made right so for example if a guy and his girlfriend are living together and they're not married that's sin that can be corrected through marriage whereas if you have two men living together in a sexual relationship or two women living together in a sexual relationship the only way for that to be corrected is for them to go their separate ways there's no way to make that right but brothers and sisters all of that all of that is an expression of the sexual brokenness that came as a result of the fall and even when we have individuals who are psychologically disturbed and who feel that well I'm a man trapped in a woman's body or I'm a woman trapped in a man's body that's all a part of the fall that's the effect of the fall on us as individuals because remember our sexuality is not just biological it is also psychological

[27:02] God makes us male and female both physically and also in a a soulish way in terms of the psychology of of who we really are and it's a beautiful thing to behold it's a beautiful thing to behold a a woman being a woman a man being a woman to see those instincts I mean what would I say what would I say tell me what I said a man being yeah okay you understand it but it's a beautiful thing to behold just imagine if you're driving home and Alexei and I you see us on the highway the car has cut off and I'm sitting in the car staring and Alexei is pushing what goes through your mind I mean you think what in the world that is absolutely crazy that's not instinctive that's not instinctive

[28:10] I mean naturally I would I would seek to take responsibility and care and and and to do that and it's just a beautiful thing when we see men and women functioning in those particular ways one of the most beautiful things is to see a woman nurture and to see her care but in the fallen world it's not always as straightforward as that all of the sexual confusion that we see the full spectrum of it is as a result of the fall but things don't end in chapter 3 of Genesis before the foundation of the world God ordained that he would send his son who would come and give his life as a ransom for fallen men and women and through him fallen sinners can be forgiven broken sinners can be made whole and that's the hope for sexual brokenness that we see in our world today that's the hope for all of the confusion and the fighting between the sexes and the misunderstanding about the roles that God has given to us and Jesus

[29:32] Christ is the hope for all the brokenness that we see in our world today and so on this Mother's Day as we think about womanhood as we think about male and female and how they are to relate together let us remember how God created them in relation to one another he created them equal but different to complement one another and as we observe how things are going in this changing world let us remember that these truths never change these truths are never updated these truths are never modernized these truths are fixed because they are true and let us remember that salvation through Jesus Christ is the only hope for broken sexuality in our fallen world let's pray God