SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Mark.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the leaders here at City Church.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to you.
SPEAKER_00: If you are new or visiting, we are in the second week of our series in the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we're going to be up until the start of Advent.
SPEAKER_00: We'll cover the first uh 12 chapters or or so.
SPEAKER_00: This week forms a little couplet.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be looking at Genesis 2 actually over the next two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be the same passage for the next two weeks, but uh through two slightly different lenses, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: This week we're going to be looking at uh what God says uh around the issue of gender and the interactions between uh the genders, and then next week we'll be looking at uh a biblical view of work, uh both from Genesis 2.
SPEAKER_00: So that's where we're going to be uh going over the next little while.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why we we normally have three songs and we cut a song is because we're talking about gender, uh, we'll hopefully get a Q ⁇ A in.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's just a a heads up.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to I'm gonna I'm gonna motor uh as quickly as I can, and then uh if you have questions, you can ask them uh after the sermon before we take the Lord's Supper together.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray uh as we as we look at God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Father, we do pray that you would give us uh soft and attentive hearts, open ears to receive your word.
SPEAKER_00: Uh would you uh both encourage and challenge us uh where that is necessary?
SPEAKER_00: And may we see the beauty of your creation and the beauty of the Lord Jesus uh to whom all of this points we ask it in his name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Sam Smith recently uh came out.
SPEAKER_00: Sam Smith the the uh musician uh recently requested that uh journalists and people who refer to him no longer referred to him as uh as he uh but as they.
SPEAKER_00: Sam Smith said that he doesn't anymore identify simply as male or female, uh, but that he he flows in between uh the two genders.
SPEAKER_00: This for us raises questions, uh raises questions like is gender something that you can flow between?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a matter of perception?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a matter of how, more precisely, how individuals perceive themselves to be?
SPEAKER_00: Does it matter how others or society or God perceive them?
SPEAKER_00: Many in our world, and I'm sure Sam Smith as well, would say no, it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: And yet society still plays a huge role in determining what sort of identity uh it finds valuable, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: What's more, if Sam Smith wants to claim that he is uh a woman from time to time in our post-truth world, he is certainly free to do so.
SPEAKER_00: But doesn't it strike you as slightly misogynistic?
SPEAKER_00: Fewer women here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't he kind of saying that femininity is little more than a mood to be adopted and then discarded?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that actually demean what it means to be a woman?
SPEAKER_00: Again, Sam Smith is personal, I don't know him.
SPEAKER_00: He's perfectly entitled to do that, but aren't we entitled to ask those sorts of questions?
SPEAKER_00: Gender, of course, is a hugely provocative topic for the reasons that I've just outlined.
SPEAKER_00: And no wonder, I mean it's complicated, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh and it's universal.
SPEAKER_00: One of the reasons why it's difficult to navigate is because everyone has one.
SPEAKER_00: You carry it with you.
SPEAKER_00: I think part of the reason why we find it difficult to navigate is that we no longer have a framework for understanding uh what maleness is and what femeneness is, and so masculinity and femininity become a matter of personal taste, a matter of self-determination.
SPEAKER_00: And the church has been poor.
SPEAKER_00: The church has been poor at articulating a vision for what it means to be gendered creatures, to be male and female.
SPEAKER_00: We have lobbed verses at people like some sort of uh moral spiritual grenades, but we haven't woven together a better narrative of human flourishing.
SPEAKER_00: The reality is that there are very few, if any, of us in this room this morning that feel totally comfortable in their own skin.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure every one of us gets out of the shower on a morning, and there are things that we don't like about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: What's more, all of us know the tensions that are that exist and are fueled by our world between the sexes, between males and females.
SPEAKER_00: But the story of gender in the Bible is a story of flourishing, it's a story that has mutual self-giving as its goal, that seeks to cultivate harmony, a harmony that images God to the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this this sermon is going to cover a lot, but it cannot possibly cover all that the Bible is going to say about sex and gender, and so but what we must say must be the truth, but it must also be the truth in love.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of us here, every Christian in this room is a priest sent to minister to a hurting world, and so while we speak the truth, we speak the truth in love, we comfort people with the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Gender is an issue for each one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we carry it with us everywhere we go.
SPEAKER_00: But for some of us, it is such an issue that it defines every thought, every relationship, every feeling.
SPEAKER_00: It is my contention this morning that Genesis 1 and 2 offer us insight into what it means to be made in the image of God as gendered beings.
SPEAKER_00: So let us begin.
SPEAKER_00: Point one.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be some stuff here, by the way, just that some of you just aren't gonna like to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm gonna be as loving and as compassionate as I can possibly muster.
SPEAKER_00: Can I uh come along with me, hear the whole argument, and then push back in the QA or privately?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, point one.
SPEAKER_00: God created two sexes.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis one, we looked at it last week.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis one twenty seven, and God made man in his own image.
SPEAKER_00: In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 1, 27 shows us the basic binary nature of human sex.
SPEAKER_00: Male and female.
SPEAKER_00: This is affirmed throughout the Bible and is affirmed by Jesus in Matthew 19 when he talks on the issue of divorce.
SPEAKER_00: He affirms the binary nature of the sexes there when he quotes Genesis 2 that a man should leave his father and mother and be united to his wife.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, in our world that is broken and tainted by sin as a consequence of the fall, which we'll get to in two weeks' time, there are people who experience certain sex development disorders.
SPEAKER_00: These conditions are rare and do not denote the existence of a third sex.
SPEAKER_00: Nor do they point to the to the idea that human sex is on a continuum where the extremes on one end are male and the extremes on one end are female, and there's a lot of blurriness in between.
SPEAKER_00: So, what then is the relationship between sex and gender?
SPEAKER_00: People increasingly believe that uh biological sex and gender vary independently from one another.
SPEAKER_00: That you can be one biological sex in terms of your physiology, but a different gender in terms of your psychology, how you feel, how you perceive yourself to be in the world.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 1, 27, we are told that human beings are made male and female.
SPEAKER_00: That's sex, male and female.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 2, the passage that Duncan just read, Genesis 2 focuses us in on the creation of human beings, and here the male is determined to be a man, and the female is called and determined to be a woman.
SPEAKER_00: What I am saying here is that between these two chapters in the Bible's mind, there is a corollary, a link to, or a link between both biological sex and gender.
SPEAKER_00: Their sex communicates something about their physical attributes, but it also points to and corresponds with their gender.
SPEAKER_00: And it is their gender as male and female that in Genesis 2 helps us understand their purpose in creation, which we'll get to in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the Christian worldview, sex and gender do not vary independently of one another.
SPEAKER_00: God creates a man who is a male.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, God creates a male who is a man and a female who is a woman.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, if that's if that's not true, once we get to Genesis chapter 2, can you see that you're like, well, when Genesis 2 says uh male, is it referring to the uh to the creature that was born anatomically male or the one that was born anatomically female?
SPEAKER_00: And so you're not really sure which one it corresponds to at all.
SPEAKER_00: Rob Smith is an ethicist in Australia.
SPEAKER_00: That's somebody who deals with and teaches uh in ethics, and he says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says that a person's biological sex reveals and determines both their objective gender and certain key gender roles.
SPEAKER_00: That is, human males grow into men, brackets, and potentially husbands and fathers.
SPEAKER_00: Human females grow into women, and brackets, and potentially wives and mothers.
SPEAKER_00: So rather than presenting a picture where sex and gender vary independently, the Bible presents us with a picture where human beings are integrated at the level of both biology and psychology.
SPEAKER_00: And this would make sense of the uh of Genesis 1, of the God who makes, because one of the things that God does is he makes an orderly creation.
SPEAKER_00: It is not the case that human beings are uh body suits in which a soul is placed.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the soul gets mixed up and put into the wrong body suit.
SPEAKER_00: That to say nothing else is simply not an idea that the Bible would have.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the Bible's idea of human beings, that's a Greek idea.
SPEAKER_00: We're taking ideas from Greek philosophy, that dualism between body and soul, and projecting it onto the Bible's mind.
SPEAKER_00: No, rather, the Hebrew idea, the biblical idea is not that we have a soul, but that we are a soul, that we're integrated at every part of us, in the same way that God is, in whose image we bear.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way that his creation is orderly.
SPEAKER_00: Point two.
SPEAKER_00: Completely non-controversial so far.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, good.
SPEAKER_00: More caffeine required.
SPEAKER_00: Point two.
SPEAKER_00: Both sexes are made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: This can't be stated enough.
SPEAKER_00: That was the whole point of the sermon last week, but it can't be stated enough.
SPEAKER_00: The image of God exists in both males and females.
SPEAKER_00: It exists in every creature, every human creature, rather, I should say.
SPEAKER_00: The image of God means unchanging, unwavering value.
SPEAKER_00: Every human being, male, female, intersex, is made in the image of God with dignity, value, and worth.
SPEAKER_00: And this is so important, it's so necessary for us all.
SPEAKER_00: Because in our world, people derive their value from things that can change.
SPEAKER_00: People derive their value from their success.
SPEAKER_00: And what if it fades?
SPEAKER_00: Some people derive their value from a relationship that they're in.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a spouse.
SPEAKER_00: Or I'm a mother, and I'm defined by that.
SPEAKER_00: My children are what give me value.
SPEAKER_00: But relationships change and evolve and end.
SPEAKER_00: A career that can be lost, beauty that will fade, intelligence that can be surpassed.
SPEAKER_00: Our world derives its value from shifting stands.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas God comes and the Bible speaks to people and says that they have an inherent value.
SPEAKER_00: It speaks to people who have no idea what their purpose is, and it speaks hope to them.
SPEAKER_00: It speaks hope to people who have failed or who have been surpassed by someone else.
SPEAKER_00: It speaks hope to a person who is crippled by anxiety because they think that others are more beautiful, more successful, more intelligent than them, and says that they are valuable, that everyone in this room is crowned with dignity.
SPEAKER_00: It says that you are an image-bearer of the living God, crowned with a glory that can never be taken away, no matter the change in circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: Let us look briefly at both of those sexes.
SPEAKER_00: In turn, let's think about the men.
SPEAKER_00: In part that's due to the absence of fathers as role models.
SPEAKER_00: There are two hundred thousand single mother families in Ireland today.
SPEAKER_00: And they do a fantastic job.
SPEAKER_00: Many of them.
SPEAKER_00: My mum was a single mum.
SPEAKER_00: But many young men grew up not having those positive male role models.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, our world is valuing men less and less, I think.
SPEAKER_00: In return, young men extend their childhood long into their twenties.
SPEAKER_00: Becoming like Peter Pan refusing to grow up.
SPEAKER_00: There are men in their twenties who continue to be infantilized by sisters and mothers.
SPEAKER_00: And this has one of two effects.
SPEAKER_00: It either makes men very passive and very quiet.
SPEAKER_00: Or it can make them very angry and resentful.
SPEAKER_00: Some men, many men, think that their dignity lies in their independence.
SPEAKER_00: I need to pick myself up.
SPEAKER_00: I need to do this for myself.
SPEAKER_00: I need to forge my own path.
SPEAKER_00: Constantly having Franks and actress my way playing in the back of their heads.
SPEAKER_00: But this is not what we see in Genesis 2.
SPEAKER_00: This is not God's vision for masculinity.
SPEAKER_00: The dignity of the man here in Genesis 2 is found not in his independence, but in his relationships, in his dependence, in his interdependence.
SPEAKER_00: There are three relationships outlined here.
SPEAKER_00: First is his relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: What do we see about his relationship with God?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 1, God has been speaking the world into existence, or singing the world into existence, as the ancients believed.
SPEAKER_00: He's been speaking, and photons have burst into being.
SPEAKER_00: Here, when he comes to form the first man, he gets down into the dust of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He gets his hands dirty for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: And he crafts a man.
SPEAKER_00: And he places him in the garden with the purpose to tend it and to work it.
SPEAKER_00: Then what he does in verse 16 and 17, the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree that it is in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.
SPEAKER_00: From the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks to the man, he gives him a command.
SPEAKER_00: In doing so, what God is doing is he establishes a relationship with the man.
SPEAKER_00: Every human being in this room is in a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: It just might be a very bad one.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know?
SPEAKER_00: You think, well, I don't believe in God.
SPEAKER_00: That just means that your relationship's not on a good footing.
SPEAKER_00: God relates to his creation, he relates to the man, he speaks to him, he establishes a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: Men young men, you have dignity because you were formed by God, given a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: A relationship has been established with him, whether you recognize it or not.
SPEAKER_00: The man relates to God.
SPEAKER_00: The man also relates to creation.
SPEAKER_00: Look down at verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Now the Lord, no, sorry, 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.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
SPEAKER_00: The man gave names to all the livestock and the birds of the heavens and every beast of the field.
SPEAKER_00: God brings all of the animals to Adam.
SPEAKER_00: And Adam gets to name them Ardvark, Cat, Saber-toothed Tiger, Dung Beetle.
SPEAKER_00: Why is that important?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because in Genesis 1, one of the things that you see God doing is naming things.
SPEAKER_00: God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.
SPEAKER_00: He called the ground that appeared land.
SPEAKER_00: He called the waters that had been gathered together seas.
SPEAKER_00: God names things as an expression of his dominion over his world as an expression of his rule.
SPEAKER_00: And now his image-bearer is naming things with great freedom.
SPEAKER_00: God wasn't coming whispering in his ear, going, Don't call it an art mark.
SPEAKER_00: That's a silly name.
SPEAKER_00: That was its name.
SPEAKER_00: Adam relates to the creation.
SPEAKER_00: Men, young men, there is dignity in all your work.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever your work is, there is dignity in it.
SPEAKER_00: There is dignity in your creativity.
SPEAKER_00: There is dignity in your stewardship of creation.
SPEAKER_00: Lots more on work next week.
SPEAKER_00: Third, he relates to the woman.
SPEAKER_00: He relates to Eve.
SPEAKER_00: Eve is made from Adam.
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, she derives her humanity from him.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a controversial thing to say.
SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that, so keep listening.
SPEAKER_00: This is, of course, is not to depersonalize her because who is presented to Adam is a fully formed, beautiful, whole person with her own heart and her own will and her own dignity.
SPEAKER_00: And she is brought to the man.
SPEAKER_00: And he sings over her.
SPEAKER_00: But what I want you to see is that there is a there's a dance here that goes on between the genders.
SPEAKER_00: The woman comes from the man, right?
SPEAKER_00: But keep reading, but the man comes back to the woman in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: And so do you see the dance?
SPEAKER_00: The woman comes from and the man comes to her.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that the woman is doing all in subjugation.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the Bible's view.
SPEAKER_00: It's that there is a movement, a glorious dance between the two.
SPEAKER_00: It is a lie that there is a tug of war that exists between the sexes that is a result of the fall.
SPEAKER_00: It is not God's vision for how men and women should relate.
SPEAKER_00: The relationship between the genders is not a tug of war, it is a dance.
SPEAKER_00: Men, young men.
SPEAKER_00: There is dignity in your joyous love and respect for women.
SPEAKER_00: Taken together, all three of these things, the man relates to God, he relates to creation, he relates to women, particularly to his spouse.
SPEAKER_00: Taken all together, what we see is that one of the divine characteristics of what it means to be a man in the Bible's view, this is not exhaustive, but one of the things that it means is that men are encouraged to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Adam is given a task, working and tending the garden.
SPEAKER_00: He is given a place to be in Eden.
SPEAKER_00: He is given leadership.
SPEAKER_00: He is given the command of God before Eve exists to infer that he should be the one to lovingly lead his wife and say, you know, before you arrived, and I'm very glad that you did, but before you arrived, one of the things that God said is that we're not supposed to eat the tree that's in the midst of God.
SPEAKER_00: He was supposed to be a loving leader.
SPEAKER_00: He's given responsibility over the world.
SPEAKER_00: He's given the responsibility of obedience and fealty to God and to his word.
SPEAKER_00: He is given responsibility to leave his father and mother and to create a new family.
SPEAKER_00: Men, young men, you are made for responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: So ticket.
SPEAKER_00: Young men are like flatbed trucks.
SPEAKER_00: They drive straighter with a load on them.
SPEAKER_00: Take responsibility for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Take responsibility for your hygiene if you have not already done so.
SPEAKER_00: Take responsibility for your spiritual health.
SPEAKER_00: Get up and read your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Pray to God as an act of dependence on Him.
SPEAKER_00: Take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Don't think that you know when I get married, this will all be fine.
SPEAKER_00: Take responsibility for your sexual purity.
SPEAKER_00: Another thing, people think, well, when I get married, that'll be fine.
SPEAKER_00: No, if you're addicted to porn now, you'll be addicted to porn in your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Great metric to think through.
SPEAKER_00: As now, so then you're not a fundamentally different person than walk up and out of the walk down it.
SPEAKER_00: Take responsibility now.
SPEAKER_00: Take responsibility for your finances, for your work, for your budget.
SPEAKER_00: Stop living like Peter Pan, refusing to grow up.
SPEAKER_00: Stop playing with relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Stop playing with women's hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Stop playing with yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You can and should do this.
SPEAKER_00: It does not help that our society tells men that they are either toxic or unnecessary or inept.
SPEAKER_00: Every man in a cartoon.
SPEAKER_00: Homer Simpson's an idiot.
SPEAKER_00: Peter Griffin is an idiot.
SPEAKER_00: And do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what the really tragic thing is?
SPEAKER_00: Men need so little encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: Young men need so little encouragement in order to thrive.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a sister here, one of the things that you can do to help the men take responsibility is to encourage them.
SPEAKER_00: To see that little spark of responsibility taken and commend them for it.
SPEAKER_00: Young men spend a lot of their life told being told that they are unnecessary.
SPEAKER_00: They take n it takes so little encouragement for them to step up and to thrive.
SPEAKER_00: Men, you are an image bearer of God.
SPEAKER_00: Express that dignity by taking responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Women one in nine women in our world are forced into marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And by women I mean girls who should be playing with easy big ovens or hopscotch.
SPEAKER_00: Four out of five people who are trafficked are girls.
SPEAKER_00: One in five women in Ireland have experienced violence at the hand of a current or former partner.
SPEAKER_00: One in five.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the Bible's view or vision for female flourishing.
SPEAKER_00: Eve is created by God.
SPEAKER_00: She bears the same image.
SPEAKER_00: She is crowned with the same dignity.
SPEAKER_00: She has the same value.
SPEAKER_00: There is no denigration of women in the Bible's mind.
SPEAKER_00: When she is brought to the man, he rejoices over her.
SPEAKER_00: He sings with delight at who she is.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a word that might have tripped some people up in the reading.
SPEAKER_00: Eve is described as a helper.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18, then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone.
SPEAKER_00: I will make a helper fit for him.
SPEAKER_00: We instinctively think that helper means that she is inferior.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you four reasons why this is not the case.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, women are a helper because men need help.
SPEAKER_00: The snickers that were around the room were from the married men because they understand just how true this is.
SPEAKER_00: Any married man who didn't realize this before he got married knows it now.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean this point quite seriously.
SPEAKER_00: Women have different traits, they have different characteristics, and they are a complement.
SPEAKER_00: This is what it means for her to be a helper fit, a helper that completes, a helper that is in correspondence and complement to.
SPEAKER_00: She is the perfect helper for him.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that born out in our psychology.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you one example.
SPEAKER_00: Women tend to be, not our not, this isn't exclusively true, but it's true kind of 80% of the time, women tend to be more agreeable than men.
SPEAKER_00: That's part of the big five character traits.
SPEAKER_00: Women tend to be more agreeable than men, more conciliatory.
SPEAKER_00: That is not a weakness.
SPEAKER_00: That is a strength.
SPEAKER_00: Agreeable people form trust bonds more quickly than disagreeable people.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of where the nurturing instinct comes from.
SPEAKER_00: Agreeable people tend to be more generous and more self-giving than disagreeable people, what men tend to be by and large, though not exclusively.
SPEAKER_00: But do you see?
SPEAKER_00: The genders, when they come together, are a perfect complement for one another.
SPEAKER_00: Point two.
SPEAKER_00: The same word helper etzer, is ir.
SPEAKER_00: The same word used to describe women as a helper is used to describe God as a helper.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 54, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: God is my helper.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is the upholder of my life.
SPEAKER_00: Surely we can see that there is no denigration or lessening of value of God when God calls himself a helper.
SPEAKER_00: And so there is no denigration, there is no lessening of value of women here.
SPEAKER_00: It is part of what it means for them to bear God's image.
SPEAKER_00: Three.
SPEAKER_00: One who comes alongside.
SPEAKER_00: We are allies in the world.
SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't fight one another.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, we fight side by side.
SPEAKER_00: The worst times in marriage are the times when you do not feel like you are allies.
SPEAKER_00: When you don't feel like you're on the same side.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the kind of dynamic we were made for.
SPEAKER_00: Do not buy the narrative that men are fundamentally opposed to women.
SPEAKER_00: That all of history is an oppressive patriarchy.
SPEAKER_00: Men and women have fought hard alongside one another against the suffering of this world for thousands of years.
SPEAKER_00: Life in a fallen world is hard.
SPEAKER_00: We are to be allies.
SPEAKER_00: We fight alongside one another.
SPEAKER_00: For centuries, men and women have taken up arms and helped one another to survive as well as to thrive.
SPEAKER_00: Women, you are our best allies.
SPEAKER_00: And fourth and finally, just to say that you don't need to be married to express this.
SPEAKER_00: There is something particular about the married dynamic, but men and women work alongside one another in society all the time.
SPEAKER_00: There are women in this church who are our allies.
SPEAKER_00: They lead teams.
SPEAKER_00: They lead teams with diligence and excellence, far surpassing any man's ability.
SPEAKER_00: They are our allies in the cause of the gospel here at City.
SPEAKER_00: They are not incidental.
SPEAKER_00: They do not add a little feminine finesse.
SPEAKER_00: We simply could not operate without them.
SPEAKER_00: They are essential.
SPEAKER_00: And we thank God for them.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is full of strong women.
SPEAKER_00: Women like Ruth.
SPEAKER_00: Women like Esther.
SPEAKER_00: Esther who used her, used her agreeableness.
SPEAKER_00: Esther who used her agreeableness to sway the heart of the king, to persuade him not to massacre the Jews, who went with the heart and courage of a lion, who turned to her uncle Mordecai and said, I am going to speak to the king, and if I die, I die.
SPEAKER_00: Great courage.
SPEAKER_00: We care for women here.
SPEAKER_00: We are jealous for their safety.
SPEAKER_00: We are zealous for their purity as our sisters.
SPEAKER_00: And where that is in jeopardy here, we must know.
SPEAKER_00: We simply must know.
SPEAKER_00: Women, you are crowned with dignity and with strength.
SPEAKER_00: And while there is a particular dance that is done in marriage, single women do not derive their dignity or their purpose from any man but Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Pursue him.
SPEAKER_00: May he be the object of your affections.
SPEAKER_00: Pursue his cause.
SPEAKER_00: Join him as he seeks to bring creation back into order through the word of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: You do this, and you have given yourself to a valuable and eternal end.
SPEAKER_00: Let us for these final minutes think particularly about a difficult issue.
SPEAKER_00: Let us think about the issue of gender dysphoria.
SPEAKER_00: Gender dysphoria, I'm going to read it, I'm going to read a definition now.
SPEAKER_00: Gender dysphoria, this is the third and final point.
SPEAKER_00: Gender dysphoria is the experience of distress associated with the incongruence, that is, not matched upness, the incongruence wherein one's psychological and emotional gender identity does not match one's biological sex.
SPEAKER_00: So that feeling of integration is simply not there.
SPEAKER_00: The world is no longer like the world of Genesis 2.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work the way it should.
SPEAKER_00: We don't feel rightly about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Very few of us, in fact, feel completely comfortable in our own skin, as I have said.
SPEAKER_00: But for some, the pain and difficulty is more pronounced.
SPEAKER_00: The sex that they were born into doesn't feel like it matches the gender that they perceive themselves to be.
SPEAKER_00: The mismatch causes a great deal of anxiety, pain, doubt, and confusion that I can barely understand.
SPEAKER_00: What can be said?
SPEAKER_00: How should Christians respond to our friends, our brothers, our sisters who feel like this?
SPEAKER_00: One.
SPEAKER_00: We are told to love our neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: That includes our transgender as well as our gay bisexual.
SPEAKER_00: Lesbian neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: Transgenderism is having a moment in our culture now.
SPEAKER_00: And at an abstract level, we can discuss it and debate it.
SPEAKER_00: We can discuss and debate the psychological and philosophical underpinnings of it all.
SPEAKER_00: But we as a church, as a family, as a body of believers, must also recognize and remember that it's not abstract for some people.
SPEAKER_00: We must remember that people with gender dysphoria sit in the pews behind you.
SPEAKER_00: They are real people who need our love, our compassion, our understanding, our generosity, and our grace.
SPEAKER_00: We are to love our neighbor too.
SPEAKER_00: We must, as Christians, acknowledge the reality of that person's experience.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8 reminds us that creation groans.
SPEAKER_00: Creation feels this disintegration and it longs for transformation.
SPEAKER_00: It longs for renewal.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, our brothers and sisters, our sons and our daughters with gender dysphoria are a living embodiment of that longing.
SPEAKER_00: Each one of them as an image-bearer of God created with dignity and eternal worth.
SPEAKER_00: They feel in their flesh what exists in the world as a result of the fall, and what's the hope?
SPEAKER_00: The hope is for renewal through the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: But we must acknowledge the groaning that goes on in the deep and bitter watches of the night.
SPEAKER_00: Third, I would say to anyone who feels this way, do not let your gender identity cloud your objectivity.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you identify as male, female, non-binary, non-conforming, gender fluid or queer does not impact on whether or not Jesus rose bodily from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Determining whether or not that is true is fundamental because it's what the gospel rises or falls on.
SPEAKER_00: If it's not true, we're done, right?
SPEAKER_00: But if it is true and Jesus is Lord, and therefore his word is true, we should go on a journey of working out the implications of that.
SPEAKER_00: Forth psychology does not transform use a big word and explain what it means.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't transform ontology.
SPEAKER_00: Psychology doesn't change being.
SPEAKER_00: Our chromosomes are different, our brains are different, our voices are different, our body shapes and strength are different, our reproductive systems are different, our design for what our bodies are structured and designed for are different.
SPEAKER_00: And these designs bear witness to God's creative work and will for humanity.
SPEAKER_00: Because men and women are different at all of these fundamental levels of being, it is physiologically impossible for a man to become a physical woman, or a physical woman to become a man.
SPEAKER_00: Faith.
SPEAKER_00: To love is to offer hope, not simply affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: Remember all of the things that I've just said.
SPEAKER_00: We're to love our neighbor, generosity, compassion, understanding, no judgment, embracing, walking alongside, journeying with, offering grace.
SPEAKER_00: But it does not mean simple affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: The sad reality is that many people who experience gender dysphoria do not feel at home in their own bodies, even after they socially or medically transition.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he doesn't affirm everything that we are.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't affirm every decision we make.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't do so for the woman at the well, who's living in adultery.
SPEAKER_00: He told her to go and sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't affirm everything that we do or feel as being good.
SPEAKER_00: But what he does offer is hope.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel offers freedom when we live in the truth of who God is and how he has made his world.
SPEAKER_00: Lies about God and about the nature of humanity may offer temporary relief, but they will never offer true freedom.
SPEAKER_00: They might dull the pain for a while, but it is only the truth that will set us free.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel offers us hope.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity doesn't guarantee total relief in this life.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't offer total relief in this life for my sexual brokenness or yours.
SPEAKER_00: But it does guarantee a future resurrection in which our desires, perceptions, and our bodies, which are subject to decay and to death, are renewed.
SPEAKER_00: This is a long journey.
SPEAKER_00: It is a long journey of faith and trust for anyone who feels or is dealing with gender dysphoria, but the answer is to pursue Christ and his cause.
SPEAKER_00: A person may never fully arrive at peace in this life, but putting on the new self, remain in the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It means embracing and trusting God every day.
SPEAKER_00: And as a church, we must journey with one another.
SPEAKER_00: We bear one another's burdens.
SPEAKER_00: We help our brothers and sisters who feel like this.
SPEAKER_00: Let me finish.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one that we all need to be oriented towards and looking to as an example of true humanity.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who perfectly embodies what it means to bear God's image.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul says in his letter to Colossians.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 1:15, he is the image of the invisible God.
SPEAKER_00: It is to him that we must look.
SPEAKER_00: For because while Adam slept so that God would make Eve, Christ slept in death in the tomb in order to make his bride.
SPEAKER_00: God took a rib from Adam's side, but Jesus' side was pierced with a spear in order that he might win his church.
SPEAKER_00: It was Christ who had his identity obliterated that we might be made whole.
SPEAKER_00: It was Christ who was disintegrated on the cross that we might be new again.
SPEAKER_00: It is to him that we look, it is to him that we strive.
SPEAKER_00: As we feel the brokenness, as we feel the disorder in our own hearts, we look to him, we look to the hope of the gospel, and we know that he is making all things new.
SPEAKER_00: We know that he is building the new self that images Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And one day we will see him again.
SPEAKER_00: One day, all of this, all of the disorder and disintegration and darkness and death that you feel will be counted among the former things.
SPEAKER_00: Pursue his cause.
SPEAKER_00: Set your life in the context of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: This 70 or 80 years where you feel like you do not belong in your own skin will pass.
SPEAKER_00: And all will be made new in glorious, eternal, new creation, existence.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, would you would you bind up broken hearts this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Would you encourage the weak?
SPEAKER_00: Would you give grace to the faint-hearted?
SPEAKER_00: And by your spirit, would you enable us all to pursue Christ and His cause for His glory?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.