The Feast of the Holy Trinity Male and Female He Created Them Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. God says in today’s Old Testament, “male and female He created them.” Dear Christian friends, What is evolution? Evolution is a human attempt to defy God, ignore God, mock God, and rub the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit out of the picture. Evolution wants to explain how the world came to be. It almost does not matter how explanation goes, so long as that explanation does not include Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Evolution has given us Christians a great gift. Evolution has made today’s Old Testament more important for us. ALL the Words in ALL God’s Scriptures are important for us. We sometimes cannot see the importance of this or that Bible passage until life throws a certain amount of garbage at us. Here are two quick examples of what I mean: • Psalm 51 earnestly prays for the forgiveness of sins. Psalm 51 is important for every Christian. However, Psalm 51 will feel more important personally to you if your conscience nags at you, or if you feel burdened by some terrible thing that has happened. In a certain sense, sin makes Psalm 51 more important. • In John chapter 11, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. John 11 is important for every Christian to hear and believe. John 11 becomes sweeter for you after your loved one has died. Death makes John 11 more important. Evolution is a godless theory that ends only in misery. Even the stink of evolution is dangerous to your health. Evolution is also a gift for every Christian because it makes today’s Old Testament, Genesis 1, more important. Genesis 1 speaks what we believe, in defiance of evolution: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (v. 1). “God said… and there was” (v. 3). “God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good” (31). Evolution is old news. Another Philistine giant has recently entered the battlefield, so to speak. The Philistine demands that we accept his terms or die. The Philistine is named Same-Sex Union. What are same-sex unions? Same-sex unions are a human attempt to defy God, ignore God, mock God and rub the Father, Son and Holy Spirit out of the picture. Same-sex unions are ancient depravities with new justifications. Like evolution, same-sex unions also give us a great gift by making today’s Old Testament, more vitally important than ever before. “Male and female He created them.” These Words appear to sleep quietly on the page, easily overlooked by those who take it for granted that men marry women and women marry men. Same-sex unions rouse and waken these Words of God: “Male and female He created them.” These Words are a sword. These Words will rise to our defense. This single sentence from God is more than able to meet any Philistine challenge because we can take God’s Words to the grave. What has God given to us in the Words, “male and female He created them”? • First, these Words speak the good news that gender is not a mistake. Gender is a work of God. If you are female, sing praise to Father, Son and Holy Spirit! If you are male, bow your head in thankful adoration! God has chosen who you are. God has knit you together in your mother’s womb; you are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-14). Of course, many people will protest this. They will point to certain birth defects that throw gender into question. They will also suggest that a person can also have the body of one gender but the mind of another gender, and therefore changes must be made. We can only answer that this is the stuff of the sin imbedded in our bodies and souls; the result of being death-filled people who stagger through a death-filled world. That is not the way God creates. God continues to create in the manner that He has always created: “male and female He created them.” • Second, with the Words, “male and female He created them,” God places into order all the relationships you have in life. Marriage is the first human relationship of the creation, the foundation relationship of all human history. This does not mean that all people marry. It means that all human relationships proceed from marriage. What is the parent-child relationship? It is the produce of marriage. From where does all earthly authority come—teachers and governor and everything else? All authority on earth derives from the parent-child relationship, the result of marriage. What are common, everyday friends? It could be said that friendships give you certain help that is difficult to get from marriage, now that we have all crashed our way so hopelessly into sin. As I jokingly said during Wednesday Bible Study, why do men commiserate with other men? Because they do not understand their women—and vice versa. Every human relationship flows out of the fountain of marriage. Every pious connection we have with each other begins in these Words, “male and female He created them.” • Third, the Words, “male and female He created them,” give us a photograph of the Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—the God who loves us and created us. Stated another way, male and female together depict the image of God for us. Why do I say that male and female together depict the image of God? Because there was something in God’s creation that God saw was not yet good. You heard in today’s Old Testament, Genesis 1, “God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” But Genesis chapter 2 gives us a little more detail about what was good and what was not: “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone’” (Genesis 2:18). It is not good that the man should be alone because, by himself, the man cannot depict the image of God. “God is love” (1 John 4:8). God loves His creation. God is devoted to His creation. The man cannot depict the image of God until the man has whom he may love; one to whom he may be devoted, someone to whom he may give all that he has and all that he is. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5). Same-sex unions do more than violate God’s command (Exodus 20:14, 1 Timothy 1:10). Same-sex unions twist and warp and shatter the image of God that creation’s marriage depicts for us. A male in union with a male depicts a self-infatuated god, a god who loves himself more than he could ever love something other. A female in union with a female depicts a creation that wants nothing to do with the Creator; a creation that wants very much to take the Creator out of the picture (very similar to the desire and goal of evolution). All of this ends only in lifeless misery. Same-sex unions stomp upon the little seeds of salvation that God has planted in these Words, “male and female He created them.” • Salvation is a fourth blessing and gift God gives us in the Words, “male and female He created them.” How greatly we each need God’s gift of salvation! Marriage can be a difficult topic. Many regrets and sorrows have come into our lives as a result of abused or neglected marriages. We can only treat our marriage regrets in the same way that we treat all our other sins: We must throw ALL our sins—marriage and otherwise—we must throw ALL our sins upon Christ Jesus our Lord. He knows what to do with them. He has already dealt with them. Your sins are fully and completely forgiven in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. (Now is a good time to say Amen.) The good news of Jesus’ forgiveness of your sins can be found even in these Words, “male and female He created them.” We should think of these Words as being like an uninflated balloon that needs to be inflated before you can see its full size and shape. God’s apostle Paul later inflated the balloon for us. Paul declared to us how God’s salvation is contained in these Words, “male and female He created them.” Paul did this by comparing husband and wife—the first relationship in creation—to Christ and His Church. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church (Ephesians 5:25-29). Cling to these Words. Wrap your arms around today’s Old Testament—“male and female He created them”—and hold on for dear life! Life depends upon these Words. The Philistine giant named Same-Sex Union will not be going away any time soon. He will wreak his damage in our society. He will attack the Church, and has already done so. He will destroy those who go to him and he will pierce the hearts of their loved ones. Like evolution, Same-Sex Union may eventually become old news, but only because another, larger, more grotesque Philistine giant will follow after him. (Do not ask me to speak the next giant’s name in public because you do not want your children to hear the answer.) None of the Philistines are interested in suing for peace. What do we have? We have a Word from God the Holy Trinity: “male and female He created them.” These Words are God’s sharp two-edged sword. These Words will accomplish whatever our God desires. These Words must remain our confession of faith, repeated night and day against our aggressors. Even if these Words should someday spell our death, they shall not fail to bring us life. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
