We have been created in the image of God - which includes both male and female!
27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. - Genesis 1:27
If we desire to know God, and to know ourselves, we cannot diminish the reality that male and female are different - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Both sexes are equally important, and yet are created differently. We compliment each other!
4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” - Matthew 19:4-6
Whenever we try to tamper with God’s Good and Perfect gifts, it leads to:
Confusion - so many people don’t know where to go? Who am I? John Piper quote - what does it mean to be a man, what does it mean to be a woman.
"The tendency today is to stress the equality of men and women by minimizing the unique significance of our maleness or femaleness. But this depreciation of male and female person-hood is a great loss. It is taking a tremendous toll on generations of young men and women who do not know what it means to be a man or a woman. Confusion over the meaning of sexual person-hood today is epidemic. The consequence of this confusion is not a free and happy harmony among gender-free persons relating on the basis of abstract competencies. The consequence rather is more divorce, more homosexuality, more sexual abuse, more promiscuity, more social awkwardness, and more emotional distress and suicide that come with the loss of God-given identity.
It is a remarkable and telling observation that contemporary Christian feminists devote little attention to the definition of femininity and masculinity. Little help is being given to a son’s question, “Dad, what does it mean to be a man and not a woman?” Or a daughter’s question, “Mom, what does it mean to be woman and not a man?” A lot of energy is being expended today minimizing the distinctions of manhood and womanhood. But we do not hear very often what manhood and womanhood should incline us to do. We are adrift in a sea of confusion over sexual roles. And life is not the better for it." John Piper
Chaos, - when the only answer to be found are in society, we are in trouble. Everybody becomes an expert.... People look for answers to TV - Arnold Swarchenegger or Lady Gaga; this is chaos. This leads to...
Corruption - we can’t tell truth from a lie!
It doesn’t matter what “side” you are on in the debate of human sexuality - be it liberal or conservative - if it’s not centered fully in the Scripture - it’s not helpful! We need to be careful that we recognize the ways the church has been more hurtful, than helpful in the past. But, that doesn’t mean that we ignore God’s Word or blame God’s Word! Instead, it should draw us back into God’s Word more fully!
28 “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ - Matthew 23:28-30
Even in the Church there seems to be a growing sense of corruption when it comes to understanding God’s created order. Rather than look at the source of the corruption - sin, we seem to be blaming the Word - as though it’s flawed or untrustworthy.
God created us male and female.
God did so, and established marriage in this context.
Sexual relationships are to be only in the context of marriage.
If we don’t believe that Male and Female are important, than neither is marriage. If marriage isn’t important, than neither is the context in which we express ourselves sexually!
This is corruption!
The solution to this problem is Creation!
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” - Genesis 1:26
We are made in God’s Image
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. - Genesis 5:1-2
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. - 2 Corinthians 3:13
Male and Female - each gender bearing aspects of God that the other doesn’t - we need each other to know God’s plan fully.
11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.12 For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God. - 1 Corinthians 11:11-12
28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. - Ephesians 5:28-33
Deviant forms of sexuality diminish not only our view of who we are, but also of who God is!
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
Romans 1:25-27
In beginning God created Male and Female - there must be a reason! Why would we seek to diminish what God has created! We must remember, that just because man has messed up God’s creation - we shouldn’t look to man to fix it! We can only look to God for setting things right!
46“For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. 47 “But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” - John 5:46-47
“Differentiated roles were corrupted, not created, by the fall!” John Piper.
