Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…
We are created for community in the image of Trinity/community God. This shows up in how Jesus taught us to pray saying, Our Father… Outside of Biblical community your life is lacking. It is not good for you to be alone). All of us are called to live in the context of community. Paul makes it clear that some people are called to be single without the distraction of marriage (1 Cor 7). Nobody can become all God designed them to become outside of community.
Genesis 1:27-28 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply… ESV
Genesis 1 introduces, and Genesis 2 explains. This is a pattern throughout Genesis. Chapter 1 introduces Creation of Light, Boundaries, Crawling life, Flying life, Rhythm of life and Identity of Humanity. Chapter 2 explains, going into further detail.
Genesis 2:20–24 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. 21 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. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 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.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. ESV
Marriage is not as much of a union of man and wife as it is a reunion of God’s original design where the two become one in the image of God. Who created us male and female? God. Who created marriage? God. Who created sex? God. God was not shocked when they consummated their covenant.
The Bible does not simply say: “two humans come together.” It says: a man and a woman come together because woman came from man. Men and women are not the same.
Jesus defines marriage by creation and covenant not culture.
Jesus makes this point: Matthew 19:4–5 “He who created them from the beginning made them male and female… Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife…”
Men and women are similarly powerful, but distinctly different.
These are important truths to discuss and it is important to discuss them from the perspective of love. It is not easy, but it is possible to desire change in our world and love everyone involved in the tension of those circumstances.
In today’s day it is important that we come back to this point consistently. 1 Corinthians 6 makes it clear that sexual sin is in a category all its own and is unlike other sins. Sexual sin is fornication, homosexuality, adultery, incest, bestiality, prostitution… We live in a sexually confused world.
You are not a sexual being with a spirituality. You are a spiritual being with a sexuality. Our primary identity is in God, not in our desires, our bodies, or our sexuality.
Sexuality is part of God’s design, but it is not the center of your being. When sexuality dominates your identity, it distorts God’s design and leads to these sin patterns.
The reality of male and female is written into the biology of the human body. On a cellular level our genetic sex is encoded as either male or female and the entire human reproductive system is organized around only two sexes. Look into it.
Theology and Biology prevail over social ideology. Wokeism suggests there are 72 genders in today’s world, and many sources say this list is incomplete. Culture treats gender as something we express. Scripture and biology both tell us it is encoded within us. The human body is organized from the cellular level around male and female — and there are only two reproductive designs encoded into creation.
Science and scripture agree, our biology is either male or female. Anything else is an ideology of delusion that is not rooted in truth, science or reality.
Former NAACP president Rachel Dolezal was exposed by her parents for disguising herself as a black woman. She claims she identifies as a black woman despite being “born biologically white.” You may choose to identify as black but if you were born biologically white that doesn’t change the truth that you are white, and the NAACP rightfully won’t let you be their President.
Your race, like your gender, is given to you by God and that makes it sacred.
We live in a fallen world. I was not born with the desire to forgive. The way I was born is not how God made me. If you hurt me bad enough, I’m coming after you. So, I have to ask myself is seeking revenge what God created me to do or did God create me to forgive. What comes naturally to me is not God’s best for me. I was not born with a sexual desire for just one woman. I’ve had to make that decision to honor God and to honor my wife, kids, family and this church. We are all born into the sin nature. The Bible says sin is at work in the members of our body warring against the eternal purposes of God – Romans 7.
There are a lot of sinful things to get into and entangled with. Honoring God and his sacred design in your life brings tremendous rewards of true life on every level of life you can know.
You were not born for your pleasure. You were born for God’s purpose. When you put your pleasure above God’s purpose it never ends well.
GP2RL: Reflect more deeply on the ideas of blessing and multiplication in Genesis one and two this week.
