The Complementary Gender

The Complementary Gender

Genesis 2:18-25

I find it hard to believe that any adult who is living in American today could not see that we are living in and witnessing all around us a MAJOR MORAL REVOLUTION.

Some of the things which are occurring are things which many people never believed would ever happen within the span of their lifetimes.

Recently, Pastor David Jeremiah wrote a book entitled I Never Thought I’d See the Day wherein he outlined nine cultural developments which he never believed would become social norms, and yet have in a very short time.

One of the most scandalous of these “new norms” is the ever increasing tendency of people to blur the lines between manhood and womanhood.

It seems like everywhere we look, there are attempts to remove any type of distinctions which would be common to men and women exclusively.

Even the popular website Facebook has waded into this social issue by creating now a new way for a person to “define” their gender.

No longer are the choices limited to male and female.

When a person creates a profile now, he or she is given 51 different options regarding gender.

These include:

Agender - Someone who refuses to identify exclusively with any gender identity.

Androgynous - Someone who identifies with neither male or female, but maintains traits of both.

Neither - Someone who refuses any label at all.

They go on to include: Gender Fluid, Gender Diverse, Gender Variant, Gender Nonconforming, on and on, etc.

If this seems like madness, there is a reason: It is madness.

But Facebook is not alone in their provision of the absurd in the new cultural morality.

Many public schools across America are having to deal with the legal issues which are associated with “gender-related” issues.

Many schools are having to make difficult decisions regarding what to do with boys who identify themselves as girls and likewise vice versa, and with the many in society who are supporting them.

Consider the words of Oakland, California psychologist Diane Ehrensaft, who said: “This generation is really challenging the gender norms we grew up with. . . . A lot of youths say they won’t be bound by boys having to wear this or girls wearing that. For them, gender is a creative playing field.” (http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/11/20/the-blur-of-gender-is-the-new-york-times-trying-to-tell-us-something/)

Just consider the massive implications of that statement: Gender is a “creative playing field”.

What a tremendous shift in the moral conscience of a nation it must be to ever support a statement that is so obviously fraught with error.

Beloved, this morning I want us to take an opportunity to look at the subject of gender from a biblical perspective.

Primarily, since this is Mother’s Day, we are going to examine the female gender.

I want us to see that God did create men and women differently from one another and He did so that they would COMPLEMENT one another in this world.

And I hope to show the blessings which result when we have a proper understanding of the roles in society and in the family which God has established in and through our genders.

While the world is desperately trying to ELIMINATE the differences between the genders, we as the Church should CELEBRATE God’s distinctive design.

READ: Genesis 2:18-25

Many years ago, within the church and Christianity as a whole a new debate arose regarding the specific roles which men and women should fill in the church.

There were basically two positions:

Complementarianism - Masculinity and femininity are ordained by God and that men and women are created to complement, or complete, each other.

Egalitarianism - There should be no distinctions made regarding gender because we are all equal in Christ.

From a biblical perspective, there can be no doubt that Complementarianism is the teaching which comes from the text.

Those who teach the Egalitarian perspective must re-interpret or simply ignore the many passages which speak of God’s different design for man and women.

As Dr. John Macarthur has said, men and women are different, and we are “Different by Design.”

So, when we consider the idea of “Design” it is good for us to go back in Scripture and look at the passage wherein God tells us about His creative purpose.

Genesis 1 thru 3 tells us about God’s creation of the world and man’s subsequent rebellion against him.

In Genesis one, we have the outline of the six days wherein God created the world, and on the seventh day He rested.

In Genesis three, we have the narrative of mankind’s rebellion which resulted in God’s punishment.

But it is in Genesis two, that we find the expansion of God’s creation of mankind.

Genesis one mentioned man and woman both having been directly created by God to be His image bearers.