Men and Women: Who are We? (Part 1) - Ryan Fullerton

My topic over the next five days will be

revolving around biblical manhood

and biblical womanhood.

Marriage, singleness, manhood,

womanhood, raising children.

And I thought before I began
to think about those subjects

that I might tell you
a little bit about me.

Not to put the focus on me,

but because really I think the
Lord commands us to do this.

He tells us to remember

that we were once dead
in trespasses and sins,

and now we've been made alive.

And He actually commands in Ephesians 2

that we remember that we were once

alienated from God,

and how we have been brought near.

And then Paul models that for us

in 1 Timothy 1,

and he actually spells
out his own testimony

of how he was even
a persecutor of the church,

and though he was once
a persecutor of the church,

God gave him mercy,

so that he might become saved

and a minister of the Gospel.

And so, I can't help but think

it's a total miracle that I'm here.

I am a total product of the
early 1970's in which I was born.

Some of you are like,
ok, I can't listen anymore.

But, I was born and my parents

were both studying
psychology at university,

and so I called my parents Pam and Tim

when I was first born.

And then I got a fever

and I began to have hallucinations,

and I began to call for my mom.

And she came to me.

I have a deeply maternal mom.

She's a wonderful woman,

but she came to me and
began to care for me

and I said,

"Well, you're not my mom. You're Pam."

And that ended right there.

That was the last time she
ever had me call her Pam.

Again, so you see, how these lies

that pervert biblical
manhood and womanhood

get rid of gender roles:

mom, dad - just be Pam and Tim.

The truth always though
bursts out from it, right?

Every mom doesn't want her child

calling her Pam when he's got a fever.

As I grew up, first of all,
I went on like that,

but then was just a product of the culture

that really leaves children alone,

and was involved in sexual experimentation

when I was 8 or 9 years old

because there was no one watching;

no one looking.

I can't remember a time when I wasn't

exposed to pornography

from just the earliest of ages -

really from before I had hit puberty,

pornography was a reality,

and I'm that generation
that just missed the Internet

being part of my teen years

and college years.

And it's even a harder battle

for many who are here today.

But I don't remember a time

not being exposed to some sort

of sexual perversion.

My parents are divorced.

Multiple adulteries

is part of the cause of that.

And so the breakdown of manhood

and womanhood affected me there again.

I dropped out of high school

when I was 16 or 17 years old.

I left home when I was 17

and moved in with my best friend's mom

and her partner -

these lesbian witches who
were into white magic

which seemed harmless to me.

And that's where I spent my time

when I was 17, 18 years old.

I was immersed into promiscuity

and all kinds of sexual immorality.

I eventually left these smaller cities

of Western Canada where I grew up

and went to the big city of Vancouver.

And it was really, for
me, a prodigal son year.

And I became involved in
all kinds of debauchery

to the point where I was basically

living under a porch -

renting the underneath of a porch -

to live on.

And just absolutely depressed.

I would walk 100 blocks a day.

I felt more normal on drugs

than I did sober.

I remember putting my name in the paper

as a kid to support homosexual rights.

And you name it in terms of the effects

of sexual perversion,

they've affected my life.

And they've affected your life as well.

Maybe not in some of those ways,

but it's just simply
not possible to escape

what I'm describing at some level,

whether it's a cousin who's into this

or my son who was exposed to that.

The sexual dementia

that has really affected this culture

touches everyone.

Anyway, what I was trying to get at though

is that then when I turned 21,

I moved to a small town

and my step-mom started witnessing to me,

and I said there's no absolute truth,

and she said are you
absolutely right about that?

And then I said there's
no right and wrong.

And she said do you think
you're right about that?

And I began to read
the book of Ecclesiastes.

I knew the Bible.

I have three uncles who are ministers

I grew up a little bit in church.

I knew the Bible a little bit.

I found the book of the
Bible I didn't know the most.

It was the book of Ecclesiastes.

And there sexuality had a part there too.

Solomon was saying he had had women,

but vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

And I thought, that's me.

All was vanity.

I've had all those pleasures

and it's all meaningless, meaningless.

All is meaningless and
searching after wind.

And then I read the Proverbs.

I was not convinced the Bible was true.

And as I read the book of Proverbs,

and it began to warn against
the immoral woman.

Here's sexuality again.

It began to warn against
the immoral woman.

I thought to myself, the Jews were wise.

So I didn't think the Bible was true,

but the Jews now were up there

with the Buddhists and
the Hindus in my mind,

in terms of being a wise ancient religion.

And then I began to
read the minor prophets,

and hear them rail against sin

and this idea that the Bible
is the opioid of the masses

just didn't square

with what I was actually
reading in the Scriptures.

And then I began to read
the Sermon on the Mount.

And what did Jesus say?

He said if you even lust after a woman -

there is sexuality

and biblical manhood and womanhood again -

if you even lust for a woman,

you've committed adultery.

And all of a sudden, it wasn't just about

the Jews being wise,

but it was about my sin.

And the Lord began to convict me.

And I got ahold of a book of apologetics.

I began to read through it.

On the back of this apologetics book,

there was this testimony

saying within 40 minutes
of reading this book,

I became a Christian,

and I actually cursed and said

I know that's exactly what's
going to happen to me.

And so I read for 20 minutes

and went outside and
gave my life to the Lord.

I'm married. I have four kids.

And I'm a Baptist pastor.

I don't know how this happened.

God intervenes.

He comes in and He changes lives.

We think, oh, the culture's so hard.

My friends are so hard.

They don't seem affected by their sin.

They don't care about biblical manhood.

That can't ever work in this generation.

All of that - we need to sing that hymn:

we stand against the devil's lies.

That's all lies. That's all lies.

The Word of God is living

and active and powerful,

and it's absolutely able to break through

into any human heart -

the most sheltered, secluded,

home-schooled, cared for heart,

and the most debauched and debased

and out on the streets

and exposed to everything hearts

are equally dead before they're born again

and equally made alive

when the grace of God comes home

through the cross of Jesus Christ.

And He changes people.

And so when we talk about
biblical manhood and womanhood,

what we're talking about

is we're talking about
the idol of this culture.

Ok? We could get up and give a
scholarly lecture this evening

on Buddhism, and that would
be valuable to some degree.

Or, a scholarly lecture on
Hinduism to some degree.

And there's increasing numbers of
Buddhists and Hindus in North America.

But if you want to know the real
idolatrous religion of this culture,

it is not Buddhism; it is not Hinduism;

it is a constant lustful craving

after sexual immorality,

that people are willing
to kill 50 million babies

to support their sexual
immorality since 1973.

They are willing to
slaughter their marriages

to have adulterous relationships.

They are willing to get online

and just run their credit card bills up

to engage in sexual immorality online.

They are willing to abuse children.

Fathers in this country and others

are willing to leave their
daughters unprotected

so they wind up in the sex trade

all over the world.

We were in Moldova this year

and listening to this:

More women and men have been sold

into sex trafficking in Moldova

than people died in the Afghan War.

All of that revolves around what?

The sin of sexual immorality.

The sin of not understanding
what a godly man is

and not what a godly woman is.

The breakdown of the family.

You could spend all night

thinking about these things.

It's my belief that when
we preach the Gospel,

and we think about the Gospel,

we have to think about it

as it relates not to sin in general -

that's important -

but to sin as it touches our lives.

To the sins that we are locked in.

Listen to John the Baptist in Luke 3.

How did he preach?

Did he walk around saying,

there's sin in general.

We need to repent of sin in general.

No, he went right for
the jugular of his day,

which was - you who are
hoarding, quit hoarding.

He said you who are
extorting, quit extorting.

And you who are collecting
too much taxes, quit that.

He went right for what
was happening in this day

and what was happening were those things.

What's happening in our day

is a complete abandonment

of God's call on our lives

to be men like Jesus,

to be women with the character of Jesus

who reflect the church,

and to be people who
reflect the glory of God

in every area of our lives

instead of pursuing whatever lust

strikes our fancy at that moment.

And so I want to speak to you about

biblical manhood and womanhood

in these days.

These things all affect us.

All of us have uncles and bosses

and husbands and fathers,

and these men affect us as men.

And each of us have sisters

and mothers and grandmothers

and aunts and wives

and these women affect us as women.

And learning how to live out

what God has called us to

in our roles that God has given us

is vital to reflecting the Gospel

in our lives.

So where do you start?

Where on earth do you start?

Do you start with singleness?

That's where we start when we're born.

We start single.

Or do you start with marriage?

That's where many of us
wind up is married.

Do we start with
teaching on child raising?

That's how you get at kids the earliest

and get to do some
preventative maintenance,

Lord willing.

Do you start with manhood?

We know men are to lead.

Do you start with womanhood?

Each of us started from a woman Paul says.

Where do you start?

Someone said creation -
that's exactly right.

We need to start with creation.

Right answer.

What I want to do is back right up to:

who are we?

Before you get into the details,

the question is who are we?

Just as people made in the image of God

and made with genders;

made as male and made as female -

who are we?

So I just want to make

four simple points this evening.

We were created by God male and female.

Second point is going to be:

We were created different
as male and female

with different roles.

Third, we fell into sin and were cursed

as male and female

in our original roles.

And lastly, in Jesus,
we are being recreated

into those original roles and better.

Let me begin by reading
to you from Genesis 1.

And maybe if you have
a copy of the Scriptures,

you can open there.

Genesis 1:24-28.

This is the account of how
God made the world.

And on the sixth day, He made man.

We read this, v. 24.

"And God said,

Let the earth bring forth living creatures

according to their kinds,

livestock and creeping things

and beasts of the earth

according to their kinds,'

and it was so.

And God made the beasts of the earth

according to their kinds

and the livestock according to their kinds

and everything that creeps on the ground

according to its kind

and God sawthat it was good.

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.'

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.'"

Now I want you to look, if you would,

at Genesis 2 where the biblical story

now zooms in and focuses in

on that creation of that first couple.

We get a broad panorama in Genesis 1,

but now we zoom in and we focus in

on the creation of the first man

and the first woman in Genesis 2.

And I'll begin reading in v. 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 shall surely die.'

Then the Lord God said,

'It is not good that 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 every beast of the field,

but for Adam there was not found

a helper fit for him.

So the Lord God caused a 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.

Then 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 a 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."

And so we've seen in Genesis 1,

the creation of man and woman.

They were made to have
dominion over the earth.

They were made in God's image.

Now, in Genesis 2, we focus in

and see that it's not good
for man to be alone.

But Eve is made as a helper for him.

And now I want you to look if you will

at Genesis 3 where their marriage

and all humanity along with them

fall into sin and misery.

And I want to read to you

from beginning at the cursing

of the woman.

"To the woman he said,

'I will surely multiply your pain

in childbearing.

In pain you shall bring forth children.

Your desire shall be for your husband

and he shall rule over you.'

And to Adam, He said,

'Because you have listened to the voice

of your wife and have eaten of the tree

of which I commanded you,

you shall not eat of it,

cursed is the ground because of you.

In pain, you shall eat of it

all the days of your life.

Thorns and thistles it shall
bring forth for you,

and you shall eat the
plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face,
you shall eat bread

till you return to the ground.

For out of it you were taken.

For you are dust and to
dust you shall return."

The first point I want
to make this evening

is that we were created by God

male and female.

And I want you to notice my first point

is not Christians believe we were made

male and female.

It's not that Christians believe it.

It's that it's true.

Every perversion we're going to notice

over these coming days

is not a perversion from
the Christian worldview.

It's rebellion against God who is there.

It's that you can't live in another world

other than God's world.

And so when you rebel in God's world,

it always twists what He made good.

And we were created by God

male and female.

Genesis 1 gives us the most amazing view

of humanity that you can ever have.

It shows us that we were created by God.

And not only were we created by God,

but we were personally created by God.

Notice in v. 24 that the animals

come up out of the ground.

And God said, "Let the earth bring forth

living creatures according to their kind."

Some of you have read C. S. Lewis'

"The Magician's Nephew,"

and seen the animals burrowing up

out of the ground.

And of course, Lewis got
the idea from Genesis.

But notice that the creation
of man and woman

is different than the
creation of the animals.

We don't just pop up out of the ground.

We are personally made by God.

He says in v. 24 let the earth do that.

In v. 26 He says, "Let us
make man in our image."

Listen to this, every single human being

who has ever lived was
God's personal handiwork.

Psalm 139:14 says that each person

is fearfully and wonderfully made,

knitted together in their mother's womb.

In my family, we have lots of blankets.

We never have any shortage of blankets.

We have a chest full of blankets.

It's always wrecking the hinges

because the blankets push the lid open.

There's lots of blankets.

But there's only a few
that my mom quilted.

And those ones are the
most special in the house.

Because my mother made them

for each of her grandchildren.

And you, even if you
don't like your body type,

even if you wish you had your
body type from 10 years ago,

you were knitted just the way you are

by a personal God

who was personally active
in the formation of you

in the womb.

You were made by God.

And unbelievably, we are the pinnacle

of God's creation.

In Genesis 1, God creates the light,

the greater light, the lesser light,

the plants, the stars, the fish,

the birds, the animals of the ground,

and of all of it, He says it's good.

It's good. It's good.

But when He makes man, He says,

it's very good now.

The pinnacle of creation

is now on the scene.

People go to see whales in Sea World.

They go to see mountains.

But the most glorious thing on the planet

is right in front of me in the dozens.

People.

One preacher pointed out,

no engineer could design these things,

that have a coiling motion

and a grasping strength,

and a coordination.

And you have one on the end of each arm.

That's amazing!

That's God's good gift to you.

You are God's good gift to you.

And really ultimately to Himself.

We are by virtue of creation;

by virtue of what God did,

the pinnacle of creation.

And we are the creation -

this is important -

we are the creation of
a Triune relational God.

It says in Genesis 1:26,

"Let us make man in our image."

Now, someone would say

that's not a reference to the Trinity.

God's just speaking to the angels.

Well, let me tell you this,
when God looks at the angels,

he doesn't see ones that
were made in His image.

So He can't say to the angels,

"Let us make man in our image."

The only person - the only people -

in all eternity that God can say that to

is God the Father can say
that to God the Son

and God the Holy Spirit,

so we have here even a hinting

of what will become abundantly
clear in the New Testament,

that God is a triune God.

Why can't Allah be true?

Because Allah is not a relational being.

Allah is alone and lonely

and the best he can do is offer you

celestial virgins in paradise.

That's the best he can do.

It's all he's got.

He doesn't have anything -
he's just a demon.

He's false. Fake.

But the lie of Allah never
would account for this world.

Because if there was an alone god -

all alone forever -

he wouldn't make
relational beings like you.

You were made in the
image of a relational being.

Why do you like people so much?

Or why do you struggle
with people so much?

It's either because you're
embracing what God loves

or rejecting it.

But you can't avoid it.

You were made in the image of a God

who has never known a millisecond

outside the context of a relationship.

He has always been one
God in three Persons:

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And we are made in His image.

Now, you think about that.

And people in our day and age would say

that sounds like mythology -

just some god saying let there be light

and there was light.

We need something much more rational

like there was a ball of matter

all compressed and alone in the universe.

And then suddenly it blew up

and it splattered out all across

the infinite whatever,

and one of those places
had a really good puddle,

really condusive to lightning striking it,

and life coming out of it,

and then you know the
amoebas came out of the water,

and then from them the fish,
and then they grew legs,

and then you've got the
monkeys, and here we are.

Made in the image of?

Nothing. An accident.

Made in the image of an accident.

You better treat me with respect.

The world wants dignity.

The world wants esteem.

The world wants meaning.

And they've embraced a lie

for a worldview that will give them

no foundation for the very thing

they know they need,

which is what it is to be lost.

To be lost is to know
there's somewhere to go

and to know that you're not there.

And the world is lost.

Getting little glimmers of truth

and covering them up

with all kinds of lies.

But we as believers,

and those of you that are believers,

there ought to be a dignity about you.

There ought to be a dignity about me,

just from this one fact.

That we were made in the image of God.

It's amazing how quickly this can change.

Before I was a Christian,

I always walked around like this.

And my hair was usually
hanging in front of my face.

And one time, just a few weeks after

I became a believer,

my dad said, "Stand up. You
were made in the image of God."

Isn't that amazing?

Just one truth.

Just stand up.

You're not a worthless descendent.

You're not a bag of chemicals
just bouncing around on each other;

just having chemical reactions

that make you depressed one
day and happy the next.

You are made in the image of God.

But notice this,

male and female, He created them.

The image of God was not portrayed

in one sex.

Male and female, He created them.

So look at that. V. 27.

So God created man (singular)

in His own image.

In the image of God, He created him.

Male and female, He created them.

The world has always struggled

with what to do with women.

Always.

And the world either paints women

as these pure angels,

or it paints women

as immoral and ungodly.

Or, it devalues women.

One person said recently,

the most dangerous words
in the world right now are:

it's a girl.

Because as soon as
they find out it's a girl,

you're way more likely to be aborted

in China, in India.

The world devalues women.

Devalues them utterly.

It says you can be the
CEO of a major company

as long as you don't mind
that we strip you half-naked

and put you on the front of a magazine

to rape with our eyes.

Just degrades women everywhere.

And the Bible alone comes along

and says utter equal value.

And not just equal to man,

in the image of God.

That's what a woman is.

There's no greater foundation.

And sisters are constantly struggling

with perceptions of themselves

and depression over themselves

and self-hatred and self-
loathing over themselves.

And you need to know this:

No matter how far you sink in sin,

you cannot erase this about you.

You were made in the image of God.

It's amazing.

In the image of God, He created them.

Now in the ancient Near East,

where the book of Genesis was written,

the way you marked off your land

was you put a statue of you in your land,

so think sphinx in Egypt.

How do you know Pharaoh's in charge?

He puts a sphinx there

and says this here is mine.

You want a more modern example?

Saddam Hussein.

What was all over Iraq?

Big statues of Saddam Hussein.

They say Saddam's in charge here.

Well, what was God doing

putting people in His image

and saying cover the planet?

Saying "this is Mine."

Which means that what you are,

at the very fabric of your being,

is you are the best medium,

the best canvas possible to display

the glory of God.

I don't know about you,
I don't go to art galleries a lot,

but when I do go to art galleries,
what I notice is that there's

those little white tags under the picture,

and that's your only hope of making
sense of what's on the wall.

And so you read that

and it says there,

"fire."

"Mixed medium."

"Pottery."

"Bronze."

"Oil on canvas."

"Pastels on paper."

It tells you what the artist used

to display the idea
that was in their soul.

Well, when God wanted to stretch out

the perfect canvas to display His glory,

He did not use pastels;

He did not use paint;

He did not use a canvas at all.

He said I want five fingers

and I want five toes

and I want two ears and I want two eyes.

I want a mind.

I want a chest.

I want legs.

That's where I'm going to
paint a picture of Me.

You say, wait a second!

Can my person really be the best place

to display the glory of God?

You bet it is and that's why
Jesus came as a man.

And He is the image of the invisible God.

The exact - the exact representation

of His nature.

To be a person is to be the kind of being

it would take to display the glory of God.

What does that mean?

What does that mean to be
made in the image of God?

Are you beginning to get a little bit

of a taste of what it is to be human?

Sometimes we go through life

assuming the basics.

We say we want to see people saved,

and we never think: what is a people?

We want to see men saved. What are men?

We want to see souls saved. What's a soul?

And as soon as you start to think about

what a soul is, then you even more

want to say I want to see people saved.

These people made in the image of God.

What is the image of God?

Well, it's what we do

and it's how we're made.

It's two things.

It's what we do - that's our function.

And it's how we're made -

that's our structure.

Both of those are key to understanding

what it is to be made in the image of God.

What do I mean by that?

Well, think about the way you're made.

You're made with a mind.

Which is why God can say to you,

"Come, let us reason together."

He has a mind and you have a mind.

You're made in His image.

There's a correspondence
between you and Him.

He can make moral distinctions.

He says it is good, it is good,

it is very good.

He says some things are not good.

And you walk through
life just involuntarily

making those kind of
distinctions all the time.

We're able to make
these moral distinctions.

It's what it is to be made
in the image of God

is to notice what's good

and what's not good.

And to notice what's
right and what's wrong.

To be made in the image of God

is to be able to act.

There's a big difference here.

He gets to act without hands.

He says "Red Sea part," and it parts.

We have to build Hoover Dam.

But nonetheless, in doing so,

we are displaying the image of God.

I was flying above
Missouri in a Cessna today.

It was just a great gift

to be able to fly at a low altitude

and just to be able to look out

over God's creation.

God is able to be in
all places at all times,

but He's given us the ability to walk

and to run and to build cars

and to build airplanes and to move.

He's the God who acts

and we are people who act.

Being in the image of God

is right into our structure.

It's how we're made.

But it's not just how we're made.

It's what we're called to do.

What does He call Adam and Eve to do?

Go have dominion and subdue the earth.

So what does it take to subdue the earth?

You've got to have a mind.

You've got to know what's right.

And you've got to be able to act.

And so He makes man and woman

equally able to reflect Him

and to be a display of His glory.

Second point.

We were both created in the image of God,

male and female.

The second point is we were both
created in the image of God,

male and female with different roles.

Now this is a mystery.

We were both made totally equal

in the image of God for
something different.

And if you want to unravel the mystery

of how you can be equal
and for something different

you need go no further than the Trinity.

That's where we get the unity
of the one and the many.

That's how we can understand how

someone can be utterly equal

and yet in a different place.

The Son - totally equal with the Father.

Totally willing to submit to the Father.

The Holy Spirit - totally
equal to the Son.

Wants nothing more
than to glorify the Son.

And we are totally
equal - male and female,

brothers and sisters in creation

and for those who are Christians,

in the Lord.

And yet with different roles.

Now in Genesis 2, we see this,

but we have to be careful that we know

how to read Genesis 2.

Because Genesis 2 does
not talk like Romans.

People like Romans because Romans

just comes out and says it.

Romans will say:

"All have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God."

Genesis 2 will just tell you stories

about really sinful people.

Or, Romans 6 will say,

the wages of sin is death.

Genesis 5 will just tell you:

"and he died, and he died, and he died..."

So the book of Genesis
and the book of Romans

are both written by God;

both inspired by the Holy Spirit;

and yet, one makes its teachings

in a teaching way, a didactic way;

the other teaches in a narrative way

through story.

And you've got to learn how to read story.

And when you learn how to read story,

the points of different roles

begin to come out real easily.

The first way that we see role in Genesis

is that men were created first.

Men were created first.

How do you know men have a different role?

How do you know they're called to lead?

It's because they were created first.

Genesis 2:15

"The Lord God took the man

and put him in the garden of Eden

to work it and keep it,

and the Lord 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 shall surely die.'"

Adam is all alone and
he has a place to be.

He has a place to work and keep.

He has the Word of God.

He has the promise of God.

All when he's utterly alone.

And the fact that he
comes on the scene first

means that he is called to lead.

You say, wait a second,
you're reading into the text.

Well, I'm not reading into the text,
because it's just what Paul says

in 1 Timothy 2:13.

1 Timothy 2:13

In 1 Timothy 2:13, Paul speaking about

the context of the church says,

"I do not (v. 12) permit a woman to teach

or exercise authority over a man.

Rather she is to remain quiet."

Why? Why? Why this order?

Well, because of the culture in Ephesus.

It just demanded that.

That's the argument for why you would

ignore this verse.

But that's not the reason Paul gives.

What Paul says is,

"For Adam was formed first, then Eve."

This order of leadership

is not because he's smarter.

It's not because of the
culture in Ephesus.

It's because of the order of creation.

That he was formed first.

And Paul understood that to mean

he was called to lead.

Now, it goes on and makes
this in more ways too.

In the ancient Near East,

and really in our own day today,

to name someone was a sign of authority.

I mean, when my firstborn
daughter was named,

I named her Jordana.

I didn't wait till she was 10 and say,

well, what do you want?

And if she came to me and said at 15,

and told me she wanted a different name,

I would tell her she wasn't
getting another name,

because I gave her her name.

I'm her father and I
have authority over her.

For her to reject the name I gave her

would be a rejection of authority.

And in the book of Genesis,
what do we find?

We find Adam naming the animals.

He determines what their names will be.

And then twice it's pointed out to us

that he names Eve.

Specifically we can see
that in Genesis 3:20.

"The man called his wife's name Eve

because she was the mother of all living."

So he was created first,

and then he is also given
the ability to name,

and he names his wife,

which was a sign of authority.

And then also, when the serpent

deceived Eve, where did God go?

He went to the man.

The book of Genesis -

fascinating is too light a word -

but it's really quite amazing.

The order of creation was to be

God, man, woman, animals.

And in the fall, the
animal leads the woman

over the man over God.

But they might have
invented their own world,

but they were still in God's world,

and when they sinned, He came for the man.

Do you see what I was saying earlier?

You can be in rebellion
against God's world,

but you're still in God's world

while you're in your rebellion.

And He came for man.

He came to talk to Adam

when Eve fell into sin.

And Adam blame-shifted and said,

"This woman You gave me."

But God didn't take that.

Adam is a leader because
he was created first.

He's a leader because he was

given authority to name.

And he was given
accountability (Genesis 3:9).

When sin came into the world,

Adam was held accountable.

He should lead.

What we see about Eve -

now this is key -

she is actually created to be a helper.

She's created to be a helper.

Genesis 2:18

"It is not good that
a man should be alone.

I will make a helper fit for him."

Now, this is amazing.

Listen to those words.

We hear the word "helper,"

and it demeans women in our eyes.

Helper?

It's like "junior varsity."

This is demeaning.

But we don't listen.

A helper fit for him.

Who's he? He is made in the image of God.

He is the ultimate creation on the planet.

And it's going to take somebody special

to help him.

It's not a position of being demeaned.

If someone called you -

and forget the current president
and your feelings about him -

but if someone called you and said

you are going to be the
helper to the president,

you would not feel demeaned.

Right?

I didn't think so.

And God proves this
by parading every animal

on earth in front of Adam

and none of them are good enough.

"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

(here's those three words again)

a helper fit for him."

There's no helper fit for him.

You can take a dog for a walk.

You can ride a horse at a gallop.

A monkey can get your
bananas out of the tree,

if you're in Eden,

but a monkey doesn't have
a mind to fellowship with.

Can't make the same moral judgments:

good, very good, not good.

Can't act and do with the same dexterity

and the same mental control

as a man.

There's only one creature on the planet

that can fellowship with a man,

and that's a woman.

There's only one creature
that can help a man,

and that is a woman.

We'll probably get into
this more tomorrow,

but this idea that
helper is demeaning,

we need to do away
with this completely.

In the Bible, God is called a Helper.

The Holy Spirit is called a Helper.

And the Lord Jesus
Christ is called a Helper.

None of them are feeling demeaned.

But at the same time, we don't
want to get rid of this idea.

She really is called to help.

They tease me at the church I pastor

because I've had every
job there is to have.

I was a carpenter's helper,

an electrician's helper.

I've been a welder's helper.

And just helped everybody.

And when I helped them,

it was very clear they were to lead,

and I was to follow.

They couldn't do their work without me,

but my work was not to do their work.

They were called to lead.

I was called to follow.

Now some of us get
scared of this teaching.

Man's called to lead.
Woman's called to be a helper.

It all sounds good in the church,

but when you go talk about it out there,

it makes people a little more nervous.

But you need to be careful.

If this teaching that
man is called to lead

and a woman is called to help

does not attract you or seems foolish

to the eyes of the world,

let me ask you this.

What else seems foolish
to the eyes of the world?

Jesus Christ died to save sinners
seems foolish to the world.

You don't go to the world for your ideas

of what is foolish.

They'd get rid of your Savior too.

Not just get rid of the
Bible's gender roles.

Third point.

We fell into sin and were
cursed as male and female

in our original roles.

Now this is key.

This helped my wife and I in marriage

a great deal.

It's helped me at least.

Lots of other things have helped her.

I didn't mean it like that. Sorry, honey.

It's helped me immensely in marriage

to notice that the curse

put on Adam and Eve for their sin

is not a generic curse.

It's not just like you're
generally cursed.

Life's going to be hard.

It's a specific curse that touches

their gender roles.

So Genesis 3:16,

"To the woman He said,

'I will surely multiply
your pain in childbearing.

In pain you shall bring forth children.'"

So, it's not just pain in general.

It's pain as related to her role

of being the mother of all living.

And then in Genesis 3:18,

it's not just difficulty in general,

it's that Adam will have difficulty

with work and providing.

Halfway through v. 17,

"Cursed is the ground because of you.

In pain you shall eat of it

all the days of your life.

Thorns and thistles

it shall bring forth for you,

and you shall eat the
plants of the field."

So, very specific curses.

But I want you to notice
one part of the curse

that specifically touches

the way we relate to one another

as male and female.

Notice v. 16.

God says to the woman,

"Your desire shall be for your husband."

Now this is a curse, so what is the curse?

Is it: "I curse you and you will
really, really want your husband?"

I don't think that's
what is being said here.

If you look at Genesis 4:7,
we get the same word:

desire.

Now we're in the context of Cain and Abel

and the first murder in the world.

And God says to Cain,

"If you do well, will you not be accepted?

And if you do not do well,

sin is crouching at the door.

It's (same word) desire is for you,

but you must rule over it."

Sin's desire is to rule over you, Cain.

It wants to rule over you.

What's it saying in
Genesis 3:16 of the woman?

"Your desire shall be for your husband."

No longer will you be
content being a helper.

No longer will you be content submitting.

Why is it so hard for me to submit?

It's because I was born
in this feminist culture.

No, it's not. It goes
way deeper than that.

The reason it's so hard to submit

is because we were cursed
with an unsubmissive spirit -

women specifically.

We're cursed with a desire to be in charge

where they were once called to submit.

But then you go on and it says,

"And he shall rule over you."

And this word "rule"
according to Wayne Grudem

is not a shepherding, a loving rule;

it's that he's going to be a harsh ruler.

So you've got the battles of the sexes

born in Genesis 3.

She's going to want to rule,
and he's not going to rule

in a loving shepherding Christ-like way.

They both want to be in charge.

She's not supposed to be in charge.

And he's not supposed
to in charge like that.

But he's in charge like that,

and she's trying to be in charge,

and they can't get along.

And they get divorced,

and he starts looking at pornography,

and she starts reading romance novels.

And it goes downhill from there.

That's the way we've been cursed.

You need to know that if you can't

overcome a harshness towards your wife,

it's because you are in Adam

and you need to be born again.

You're under a curse.

And you need to know
that if you're a Christian

and it's a struggle to be kind,

to be loving,

it's because the flesh is strong.

You need to grow in the Spirit.

And you need to know

that if you're a woman
that has trouble submitting,

trouble coming up under,

and you can never do it -

you can never bring
yourself to submit at all -

you need to be born again.

You need a new heart within you.

One that loves what God loves.

But if you're a Christian

that struggles to submit,

you need to know you're not alone.

It's not some accident.

This is what it means to
be bent in the flesh.

And this really ought to
create a lot of compassion

towards married people in marriage right?

Why does my husband have
such a hard time being nice?

He's nice to everyone out in the world.

Why does he have such a hard time with me?

It ought to create compassion
owards your husband.

In Adam, he's under a curse.

And towards your wives -

there ought to be compassion
towards your wives.

Why is it such a struggle?

It is because she's so particularly bad?

No, it's because we're
all so particularly bad.

And there ought to be compassion

in marriage towards the struggles

that we all bear in the
infirmity of the flesh.

Now, here's my last point.

And I think it's glorious.

In Jesus, we are being recreated

into those original roles.

Every time I ask the women
of the congregation,

they all know.

What's the one thing Paul has to
say to you in the New Testament?

He just keeps saying it doesn't he?

Every chance he gets.

Ephesians 5,

Colossians 3,

1 Peter 3,

Titus 2.

Submit to your husband.

We look at that and we're like why?

Why not, "don't lie to your husband?"

Or, "be forgiving to your husband."

Why always submit?

Because in Jesus Christ,
the fall is being undone.

Paul knew his Bible.

Paul wasn't just picking
one random command.

Paul wasn't just jumping around.

He was like ok, listen,

when man fell into sin,

it touched women in a particular way.

It made them want to
rule over their husband,

and their desire was to conquer him.

And now in Jesus, they've been made new.

They've been given new hearts.

They've got the law
written on their heart.

They want to bow their knees to Jesus.

They have a submissive spirit in them.

And now he touches
where it's the most hard

and he says do it there.

Submit to your husbands
as is fitting in the Lord.

Why is it fitting in the Lord?

Because Jesus is making all things right.

Because Jesus is bringing all things

into union with Himself.

Which means He's taking all the ways

you're disjointed from Him,

and He's setting you straight with Him,

and that means restoring
that submissive spirit

that wants to affirm not
all male leadership,

but godly male leadership

and sometimes in a
suffering context (1 Peter 3)

ungodly male leadership.

But men, have you noticed?

He does the same thing with us.

It's always the same thing.

Husbands, love your wives.

I mean if only he had just said,

do your duty for your wives.

We'd all be fine, right?

But wives have got this sixth sense

that knows the difference
between duty and love

like nobody else, right?

Husbands, love your wives.

Colossians: Husbands love your wives

and do not be harsh with them.

1 Peter 3: Dwell with your wives

in an understanding way,

showing honor to the weaker vessel.

Why the same thing?

Because this is where men struggle.

Men are not naturally nice to their wives.

They're naturally nice to
the girls they're courting.

But then they get married to them,

and the battle with the
flesh begins in earnest.

And the Spirit of God is not interested

in sanctifying a people in general.

He does not sanctify a
people in the abstract.

He sanctifies a people in the particulars

of who they are;

in the particulars of their gender,

in the particulars of their sexuality,

and he says: "Let the Word of Christ

dwell in you richly."

Get the Gospel in you richly.

Let the Word of Christ
that says you're forgiven,

you are atoned for,

you are redeemed, you are loved,

you are a child of God,

you have His Holy Spirit -

let that dwell in you richly,

singing to one another in psalms

and hymns and spiritual songs.

Get that in you and then what?

Wives, submit to your husbands

as is fitting in the Lord.

And husbands, love your wives,

and do not be harsh with them.

The Spirit of God is redeeming us

through the blood of Jesus

in our genders

and in the relationships that
those genders bring us into.

Which means the church
is not for Sundays, is it?

It means that the Gospel
is for Monday and Tuesday

and when the baby's crying
at 4 in the morning

and you know you should get up, man,

to go take care of the baby,

but you just want to lay there

and let her do it again.

But the Spirit of God's touching there.

Do not be harsh. Go help out.

And it means that wives,

it's not just that you're to
submit to Jesus in general,

but there's also this guy.

And his ideas are never
quite as wise as Jesus'.

But Jesus doesn't want your submission

if it ignores him.

That's a false submission.

To think you're submitting to Jesus

while ignoring the one Jesus put over you.

May God help us all.

Let's pray.

Father, we praise You for Your tremendous

and mighty and glorious
work of redemption.

Lord, that though we were yet sinners -

first, made in the image of God;

first, made glorious, made to display You,

and then to sin in that,

to glorify lust and immorality

and all kinds of fantasy instead of You.

And then, Lord, to have You redeem us

and shed Your blood for us

and forgive us.

And then to call us back

to what Adam and Eve fell from.

And to give us Your Holy Spirit to do it.

Lord, I pray You'd do these
things in Jesus' name,

Amen.