Well, I invite you to turn tonight to the book of Genesis, the book of Genesis. If you're visiting tonight, we have started a series on sexuality, holy sexuality, and I'm working through the little booklet. Hopefully, if you were not able to pick that up, Jerry's back there and he'll bring one to you if you need that so you can put your hand up. And we're working through some of the question and answers here that provide sort of an overview of the crucial issues of our day in light of the moral revolution and the challenges that we face and tonight we come to this really important issue of what is a man what is a woman god created them in the beginning male and female and so we're going to give our attention to this tonight i'm going to be reading um the scripture passages from genesis chapter 2 and we'll read at verse 18 to the end of the chapter let's give our attention tonight to the word of the lord beginning at verse 18 then the lord said it's not good that the man should be alone i will make I will make him a helper fit for him now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them and whatever the man called every living creature that was its name the man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him so the lord god caused 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 and the man said this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man therefore 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 particularly i'm focusing tonight on the creation part on page 12 of the little booklet the creation part um which will look at questions three four five six seven and eight so so three through eight tonight and I'll be referring to those throughout the message so please keep that open well tonight we consider the heart of really what's happened in our culture and the current moral sexual revolution that we are living in and the particular lie that we that we have seen the culture really accept and buy into from the evil one that has really wrecked havoc on god's good creation design that's where we have to sort of begin with this is that there has there has the evil one has really wreaked havoc on the good creation design and convinced many people to accept his lie and as we looked at last time this is this is right out of the garden of eden the devil uses his not he doesn't have new tricks he just knows how to recast them he's the same old dog and he's doing the same things all undermining the word of god but particularly in our time he's undermining creation he's working hard to undermine creation all the problems that we are facing are really an assault on genesis 1 and 2 and at the heart of it comes the question that god that satan challenged eve with are you really happy is it it was an issue of happiness at the current challenges of our day it all comes down to personal happiness that's what this is all about how can we be happy and i don't find it coincidental that in our morning series we're considering what constitutes true happiness true blessedness in this life of the true blessedness that comes from jesus christ and it's everything contrary to exalting ourselves isn't it It's everything contrary to putting ourself in the front and center. It's everything contrary to changing your sex. Well, I didn't really plan it that way, but in God's providence, the Beatitudes have been a great blessing to sort of set us next to this series. But let me be up front. The heart of our problem that we're experiencing in the culture is that we've listened to the lie of Satan, that if we could just be unshackled, if we could be unshackled from God's good creation design that he has convinced us is oppressive then we will achieve this happiness that people are so desperately searching for that's what he has sold that's what he's pitched and that's what the people have believed but the basic question of where this has led us is entirely self-evident when you now are dealing with a fallen human heart and seeing how far I still think of when James Boyce was preaching years ago on Romans 1 and he said it's like when God lifts his hand of restraint it's like lifting hell's lid that's what the human heart is like lifting hell's lid when his hand of restraint is taken off and you're appalled by what you see that's our heart that's out of the human heart well what we are seeing here through the moral revolution is a complete reset of all creation norms that's the goal here they want to reset this all to the of the creation norms that god put in place for good a reset is before you and the reset has to do with abolishing distinctions that god put in place for the flourishing of the human race for the family for society to function they want to reset all that they're not quite sure on what way to go but that's what they're doing at the most basic level what we're what they're trying to do is to eliminate anything that is perceived as a boundary established by the lord that defines who we are and how society is to function we've seen for a long time now that institutions are all under attack anything that has any authoritative place is all under attack right now. The institution of the church is under attack. It's all really an assault on God himself. Any boundary, any law, that's why it's Psalm 119, so beautiful to sing. Any law that God put in place is in question. The ideals behind it is that we would achieve, the ideal behind the current moral revolution is that we would achieve autonomy from god free from any sexual boundaries that's a scary thought isn't it remember in a post-freudian context culture freud taught us that sexual liberation and the pursuit of all sexual desire untethered from anything that would hold you back and constraint is what society ultimately wants to achieve and should achieve we have to appreciate this that the new ways of defining people in our moment through the letters l g b t you know q t q plus we should look deeper at that that's not really providing us new categories for people to live their sexual fantasies behind it is to eliminate god's creation categories altogether that's the goal the end goal is to eliminate marriage altogether the end goal is to eliminate who a man is what a man is and what a woman is to eliminate sexes as god made that's the end goal of this. To live free from constraints without any constraint on our desires. That's what all this is. Consider where this has led us. Our leaders now purposely no longer care to define what a man or a woman is. That's not ignorance. I really don't believe when our Supreme Court Justice was asked that question. I don't think it's ignorant. I think it's a purposeful choice to eliminate the definitions and categories and the consequences are self-evident we now celebrate men dressing as women in the public square with the most disgusting sexual perversions possible all championed in the name of freedom and our children are the primary targets in society there's a sort of existential push to transition children from their god assigned sex to encourage them to identify in whatever way they want and with that now comes hormone blockers and genital mutilation to destroy the very bodies good bodies that god gave them as male or female to destroy their sexual organs that makes them male or female to create even as the end goal an amorphous humanity that is the satanic assault we're living through the image to destroy the image of god and man which includes how he made us as male and female that's the time we're living so i'm trying to i don't know if i'm saying anything you don't already know but it's helpful to work through this so that we have some kind of answer from the church on these issues i don't i'm not sure the church is doing and being loud enough about these things this is not good for on its basic level this is not good for neighbor most importantly it's an assault upon god so we've got to consider these things and that we have to think about an answer which is really the goal in this series so what i'd like to do is just briefly tonight consider the goodness of the creation order where consider a little bit more of the current deviation and then end with considering the purpose for which God made us and as I said last time this really isn't rocket science any of this we simply need to be good at what we do best and understanding the scriptures and being clear on distinctions and think thinking through issues like anthropology and how God made us as human beings and who we are created in his image that's important so and then to consider where these deviations have led us with the goal of hopefully inciting and i appreciate to see some of our young people here tonight to incite a new generation um to to value these things and to react and respond to these things in a way that honors the lord and all of us that's our responsibility well that's why genesis 2 is important tonight that's why i read genesis 2 you'll notice there in verse 20 just to give us a few moments in the scriptures you'll notice here but for adam there was not found a helper comparable to him there was nothing of his own uniqueness there was nothing that complimented adam in the way that he had been made and so all of a sudden adam becomes very conscious that he is alone so what does god do something beautiful something wonderful for adam he causes a deep sleep to come over adam and as he sleeps god himself takes one of the very ribs out of adam's side and he creates the woman notice there's a few things here that are important to consider in this that the woman was created for the man and she was taken from the man you have to say these things today because i think these are really repudiated there's a beautiful design here. God created something beautiful here. The woman was, Hebrew word, built by God. He built her specially, beautifully, as a help me to the man that would make for this beautiful fulfilled marriage design it was a beautiful relationship and i know the word today has taken such a hit but i i don't know what other word to use it was a beautiful relationship of companionship and um mutual respect and honor helper here is not an insulting term i mean it's just you know even all the lingo that we use to today in the scriptures all of it now when it comes to any authority structure and it comes to particularly men and women you have to explain your terms very carefully because people hear something like submission and they hear oppression same thing with helper this is meant to be beautiful as god she compliments the man in the way that god made her and we have up front a beautiful wedding ceremony with god himself presenting i mean you can you the imagery of this is so overwhelming god himself adam awakes from his sleep and god himself brings this creature whom he built for adam for man to adam the imagery is beautiful the lord was joyful to present his good gift to the man you imagine i'd love to you know one of the things i've done at weddings is is the these grooms are kind of cocky until they get to the the front here and then the bride breaks through the door you know and all of a sudden they're they're they're nervous and they're shaky and the tears start flowing and i want to say that must have been just what adam was like he looks at his bride and she's beautiful and Adam's response he lays eyes on the woman whom God built for him this is bone of my bone and this is flesh of my flesh she shall be called a woman because she's been taken out of Adam she's been taken out of me he's ecstatic she's beautiful she's right for him she's god constructed she is everything that he could he never would have imagined to have this kind of gift that would complement and make for a beautiful design that god established from the beginning and the original design here the bride was presented is that she was radiant and beautiful and there was pure love god right then in their sanction and established marriage as a lasting ordinance creation ordinance creation ordinance that god established between a man and a woman for life and it concludes therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and they shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh he will leave his home and cleave to his wife the man and the woman are married and god originally designed it that these two would become one because what god has joined together let not man separate what god has built let not man destroy what god has ordained let no one tear down and they were both naked and there was no shame what a what imagery that so far today just it's hard to even imagine this there was harmony in the family there was mutual respect and love and honor nakedness there's no sexual perversity imagery there is that of openness and trust it was beautiful within that design there was no need to protect their vulnerability and temptation with clothing there was no improper lust there was no shame there was no abuse there was a complete relationship of love and trust that leads to the important question for our moment you know this um question that we're dealing with tonight what is a man and what is a woman i asked that because that seems to be the most ridiculous question of the catechism when i was passing it to dr godfrey he said i can't do you really have to ask that question and answer i've ever i don't know if you remember saying that to me i remember that um i said yeah i i think we do i think we're there um it's really shocking isn't it how many sexes did god make at creation god made two sexes at creation in the image of god he created them male and female he created them that answer is taken right from genesis 2 god had made two sexes at creation in the image of god male and female he made them but what is that right what is that what does that mean and on the one hand i don't think it's something that should be that overthought this is part of the problem it's pretty self-evident a man is a creature uh created by god in god's image who is he's an adult human male and a woman is a creature created in god's image who is an adult human female great those are basic definitions of a man and a woman the bible maintains those distinctions uh throughout in fact very clear there was to be clear lines all throughout history even from the law of God. Creationally and functionally, there were to be clear lines of distinction that properly defined the sexes. So take Deuteronomy 22. It deals with the issue of cross-dressing. Transvestism. Men's dressing and women's clothing and vice versa. In the passage, God commands that a woman is not to wear that which pertains to a man. and a man is not to wear that which pertains to a woman for that would be an abomination that's not just tied to theocratic law there's something that's rooted in nature about this there's something that's rooted in creation about this the hebrew translated abomination means a disgusting thing why would it be so disgusting to the lord well because it would be against nature it would be against a good beautiful design he put in place for our benefit it would be against creation as god made us and the scriptures bear this out everywhere there was this um head covering controversy and authority controversy in corinth and paul says something shocking that i'm not going into but he says something shocking that i think illustrates the point does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it's a disgrace for him. Now you see how you could get in all kinds of trouble with that verse today. I'm not pulling out measuring and measuring men's hair. That's not what I'm doing right now. What is Paul reacting to? There are cultural applications to this. In cultures, we know what defines a man and what defines a woman. Paul was simply saying there are things that mark a man as a man and there are things that mark a woman as a woman and these things should never be confused. Blurring the line so that distinctions are lost, that's what Satan's trying to do right now. My point is that God built into nature what a man is and he built into nature what a woman is and that is fairly self-evident, isn't it? that's the way god made us especially physically this bears that out but now we're being pressed with something that has never happened in the history of the human race until about 1970 we have in recent years entered the category of gender into the discussion when you go back to the 1970s post 60s should all make sense it was the feminist movement that introduce gender as a new category in the pursuit of personhood so in the 1970s the feminist scholars adopted the term gender now this is really important gender as a way of distinguishing socially constructed aspects of male and female differences from biologically determined aspects let me say that again they adopted the term gender as a way of distinguishing socially constructed aspects of male and female differences gender from biologically determined aspects sex so biological sex we have always understood a female has you know two xx's chromosomes a male has an XY chromosome that defines biologically who is a male and a female and all of you when the doctor saw you said that's either a male or that's a female the category of gender was entered in in the 70s to take a hierarchical place over that a place of authority over that socially constructed sex designation tied to a social construct they said gender may be different depending on how somebody thinks of themselves or how they feel about themselves and it may be different from who they are biologically now i'm no scientist but this is really basic stuff it's really basic stuff can you make that kind of separation whatever let me be clear what gender is saying whatever internal feeling you have about who you are and your experiences of gender defines who you are even if it's different from biological sex and that leaves now this door open this is the problem now is it's left a door wide open to identify and the identification labels don't stop now where are we going to stop i mean that's why now they're they're encouraging children to identify as animals the image of god has been obliterated so if you're going to open this door to say you can identify to whatever you want to be based on your feelings where does the end point to that what we've done then is use gender as a new category of personhood separate from the biological category of sex in pursuit of a different sexual identity that's what's happened i just heard a mother saying that her son this is she was born as a female her son liked vegetables so much and that's because she determined he needed more testosterone and the conclusion was i i'm not kidding this is how ridiculous this is it's almost embarrassing to report the conclusion was because her son liked vegetables is that he must, she must be a man. And so she ordered puberty blockers and began gender reassignment therapy. This is happening all over. One thing I learned about raising children, they love to push back against their parents' values. This is madness. A good parent instructs and a good parent guides and a good parent leads bad parents leave these things up to their children if if you all had children who identified that all their they said our teeth are all sweet mom my teeth are all sweet tooth teeth would you say okay well you can eat chocolate cake all day long you're a bad parent how much more when it comes to the whole defining of who somebody is by changing a sex based on an intuition of somebody whose mind they don't even know anything about development right now they're trying to figure out who they are they're not sovereign in these decisions well this is the challenge that we're living in and now I have to say it's true that we've seen a lot of in recent times what you call gender dysphoria and that can be a hard thing to sort through, sure girls may struggle to feel like they're boys and boys at times may struggle to feel like they're girls but at the end of the day what I'm saying here tonight and the point that i'm making is god created us either as a male or a female that is evident and our feelings don't give us the right to change how god made us it's that simple why can i say that so dogmatically because what has happened at the fall what happened at the fall well if we're going to follow the whims of our desires we're in a big mess and that's what got us here it was precisely due to faulty desire from where our first parents sin it began with desire problem and the desires of the heart even if they are unchosen and distorted and fallen we say and this is where again you need a good help with people about our basics on anthropology and sin our desires are not to be trusted that's what it comes down to and someone may come along and say but isn't life about my happiness and we say guess what God did make us holy and happy but it was precisely because of deviant desire that we got here in the first place and none of those desires now can be trusted and pursuing false desires and contrary desires does not take into account that what we lost in the fall was exactly that. We robbed ourselves of happiness our way because we've obeyed these desires and nothing is different today. That's our basic answer to this. And that, of course, led me to have to address the question of people who are born, because what about those born sexually indeterminate? Well, I'm going to have to get into the science of all of that. There are anomalies. Doubt that chromosomes may be affected in very strange and anomaly-like circumstances, but that does not ever give us the right to establish new categories of personhood. So what we're seeing now with this great push to transition to change one's sex, let's be clear what that is. God created us male and female. An attempt to change that is acting on fallen thoughts and self-perceptions. And what that is, is rebellion against God's creation, good creation design. And here's something to think about. When God restores us in the new heavens and the new earth, In the resurrection, He's going to restore us as He made us, male and female, in the New Jerusalem in glorified bodies. We don't have the right to chop those up. That leads me to my final point tonight. is to say this, that there is no true happiness outside of the design and will of God. Apart from what it means to be created in the image of God and true righteousness and holiness and how He made us, that must be our pursuit in honoring Him. Certainly, we are called in this life, all of us have stations and callings that are hard. All of us are at times put in situations that are difficult. But the basic calling to be a Christian, and I'm focusing on us now, because I think this ties to our witness, is to be in submission to the Lord. And that's not a burdensome thing. That's a good thing. That's a right thing. To be within the bounds of His will. That's a safe place to be. I think we're seeing everything else is not safe. What I said last week, we have to show again with purpose the value of who we are as image bearers and redeemed people to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Part of that now we have to say includes very clearly when we say love the Lord our God, all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. In the face of our current challenges, we have to add into that now as he made us male and female. You know what I love when I'm officiating a wedding is to read out of the old form this little statement. Marriage then is a divine ordinance intended to be a source of happiness to us. An institution of the highest significance to the human race. A symbol of the union of Christ and His church. That's what Satan ultimately wants to take down and destroy. One of the purposes of redemption is to restore the creation design that would reflect something beautiful. And now I'm speaking particularly of us as believers. A man is to demonstrate the love that Christ has for His church. And a woman is to demonstrate the responsive love that the church has for Christ. That's beautiful. That's right. Those are great privileges. And Satan wants to blur all that up. In any calling in life, there's never an easy road. No one says that. I mean, it's important to say that because at the heart of what it means to become a follower of Christ is to become a servant in denial of ourselves. Jesus said something powerful when He talked about denying ourselves. Whoever wants to be great in this life must become a servant. This whole movement is about exalting people to make them great apart from anything that looks like serving somebody else. It serves their own wants and their own desires. Jesus said this. He did not deny greatness or happiness can be achieved in this life. What he denied was that greatness or happiness could be achieved by exalting ourselves over God's will. Did you hear that? He did not deny that greatness and happiness can be achieved in this life. He denied that it could ever be achieved by exalting ourselves over God's will. Happiness follows when we're living for the true purpose that God made us. And we've got to help the world see that right now. That when we gladly submit to the Lord and His beautiful design as men and women, And we in body and soul as male and female glorify him. That's worth a lot today. That's worth a lot today. And that should be an encouragement to us. That's why we're going to go into marriage. And next time what marriage is and how we love one another and serve one another. What the family is. How we care about each other in the family. And what the family, how it should be constructed. And all these challenges even for singles. These are all answers to us. But tonight, it's enough to say, let us serve Him as He gives us a true identity as male and females made in His image and renewed in Christ. And as we provide a witness to the world of God's good creation design, may that be something that we give great attention to in our lives and in our marriages. That He established from the beginning for our good in this beautiful design of marriage. when god blessed this and male and female he created them and he blessed that union i mean we have confidence in the beautiful design he put in place for our good we'll come back to this next week let's pray heavenly father thank you for um guiding us tonight and helping us through these challenging subjects i pray lord that you would help us to be discerning in these times and that we would be wise that we would know how to conduct ourselves and give answers to these people who ask us about the hope that we have maintaining a good witness and we pray oh lord that you would expose the lies of the evil one who has taken so many captive to these false ideas and has ruined a good design that you put in place may there be in our time again oh lord all seems set for some kind of renewal again in the truth a great return of people to the faith to Christ to righteousness to life through Him. Hear our prayer, O Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen.