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Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15-25
26 Then God said, “Let us make man1 in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 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 and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
[1] 1:26
(ESV)
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat1 of it you shall surely die.”
18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for2 him.” 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed3 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. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam4 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 made5 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.”6
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.
[1] 2:17
[2] 2:18
[3] 2:19
[4] 2:20
[5] 2:22
[6] 2:23
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Genesis chapter 2. Actually, Genesis chapter 1. We'll look at that first. Genesis chapter 1. This morning, we're gonna look at another aspect of what it means to be created in God's own image.
Joel Brooks:And in particular, I wanna look at what it means to be created male and female in his image. I just wanna say at the start that I'm gonna walk through some things that are gonna seem really obvious to many of you. Some of you might even wonder why we are taking the time to state such obvious things, and I'm gonna say some things that you might even be tempted to snicker at, and I'm just gonna encourage you not to do that. These things need to be talked about. Everybody has different struggles.
Joel Brooks:Everybody has different temptations, and we are to not diminish those who perhaps have different temptations than we experience. All of us are created in God's image. All of us need grace. All of us have an inherited dignity and value that comes from being God's child. And so I want us to remember that as we go through these things.
Joel Brooks:I do believe it is really timely that we are hitting Genesis 12 at this time and place, in history, in which there's a lot of gender confusion. And really, this is a confusion that has only gone mainstream in the last 4 years. In the grand scope of human history, it has not been the case. This is a very recent phenomenon that this has been so discussed. Last week, several of you actually came up to me.
Joel Brooks:Even today, I I've received a number of texts just saying, man, I'm thinking about you. I'm praying about you guys. You know, you're gonna talk to us about being male and female. Just minutes ago, I had somebody come up and hug me. Man, I'm just man, God bless you.
Joel Brooks:I'm not going off to battle. Okay? I'm not being sent off to war in this. I get to just tell you what God's word has to say about this and it's good news. Opinionated people make terrible preachers.
Joel Brooks:Okay? Opinionated people make terrible preachers. My job is not to give you opinions, even what I would say biblically shaped opinions. My job is to really walk through scripture and ask what is God saying to us in his word? And And to let God's word speak for itself.
Joel Brooks:And I'm really excited about that, because what God has to say is good good news. So Genesis chapter 1, we'll read we'll read Genesis 2 a little bit later. Beginning in verse 26, then God said, let us make man in our own image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image.
Joel Brooks:In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Father, we pray that you would bring clarity to these words through your spirit. And more than just clarity, may our hearts understand and be willing to obey. Lord, may we understand what you have designed us to be, and may we yield to that design so that humanity might flourish. All for your glory. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So we read there right there in verse 27 of chapter 1 that God created us male and female. Actually, he created us in his image.
Joel Brooks:In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And now what's interesting here is that up to this point God has not talked about the sexuality of any other creative thing. He hasn't talked about the sexuality of the animals or the birds or the fish. We do not read anywhere else how he created them male and female.
Joel Brooks:Their sexuality, their reproduction is just something that we have assumed. But human sexuality is something that is celebrated, Something that God takes time to describe, and and even bless later in the chapter. Being created both male and female is an an important part of being created in God's image. And this needs to be said clearly because no matter how we might feel or no matter the confusion that our culture has on this matter, humans we see here were created binary. Male and female.
Joel Brooks:This is the biological reality for how God has created us. So gender we see is not something that humans came up with. It's not a cultural construct. It is something that God has designed. And when we live according to God's design, we flourish.
Joel Brooks:When we go against God's design, we fall apart. And we're now living in a culture that is not only going against its design, it's actually refusing to even acknowledge that there is a design. My oldest daughter, she is, beginning to look at different colleges and starting to fill out different college applications. And so as I've been looking through these, I have noticed that some of these have up to 12 different gender options. And with that, the 12 gender options, you are allowed to pick as many as apply to you.
Joel Brooks:And then with these, there's also always a other, fill in the blank. Which is really what you're doing at that moment is you are designing your own gender. Not submitting to a design, but designing your own gender. We live in a culture that allows children to have their own gender reveal parties. And so children who cannot even spell the word gender, are then being given the ability to declare and to change their own gender.
Joel Brooks:We live in a time where a 15 year old girl can begin to transition to a 15 year old boy, and the parents are allowing this to happen. And if you think about this, this this is a 15 year old girl who cannot even drive herself to the doctor, and yet, she is now being allowed to make a permanent life altering decision, that every single study out there shows you she will most likely regret. I don't know if you read this past week in the news, but Mattel, the toy company that produces Barbies, just came out with a new line of dolls that are gender neutral. And this is their description of it. They've created these gender neutral dolls where kids are, I quote, being invited to customize their doll that isn't dictated by gender norms.
Joel Brooks:Because in our world dolls are as limitless as the kids who play with them. End quote. And I find it fitting that this brand is called creatable world because that's exactly what we're doing is we are trying to create our own world. We've denied that we actually have a creator who has designed us and created us in his image, and so now we're becoming our own creators. And this is the world that we live in.
Joel Brooks:This is a world that I I could talk a lot about, but I just want to say this. If we go against our design, it's for our destruction. If we yield to our design, we flourish. We see this in every created being. An eagle was not meant to swim.
Joel Brooks:If an eagle looks at a lake and wants to swim, wants to play in the water, do do all those things, if it decides to do that it will be for its own destruction. Only by yielding to its design does that eagle actually have freedom to soar and to do what the eagle is supposed to do. We are to submit to God's design. So what is our design? It's being created male and female.
Joel Brooks:Well, to begin to understand this, we have to go to chapter 2. So if you would turn to chapter 2, and we'll begin reading in verse 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
Joel Brooks:Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. 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.
Joel Brooks:Before 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. 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.
Joel Brooks:Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become 1 flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. So a couple of weeks ago, we began to look how God created Adam and gave him dominion over this world. We just read how God put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it, and this was how Adam was supposed to exercise his dominion over the world. How he was supposed to reflect God's character, God's love, God's glory to the world.
Joel Brooks:Adam was to be God's ambassador, and in particular, he's put in the Garden of Eden to exercise this. And it's here we come across these somewhat shocking words in verse 18. The Lord looked at Adam's state and said it is not good that man should be alone. Adam is alone. And for the first time after this entire creation account in which we hear it is good, it is good, God saw that it was good.
Joel Brooks:We have these shocking words, and God looked at Adam's state, and he saw that it was not good that man should be alone. Think about this, Adam is literally in what we would call paradise. He has everything his heart could want. He's the sole ruler of the entire world. He's got meaningful work.
Joel Brooks:He's got great food to eat. He gets to be out in nature. I just saw a, I was in traffic and the truck in front of me had a bumper sticker said, hike naked. And I was like, that's Adam. I mean that's what he got to do.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. You got to just enjoy that. There's not any remote that he has to share. There's not a bathroom in which he has to wait to be open. Adam is essentially living the dream here, yet it's not good.
Joel Brooks:He even has a perfect relationship with God. He's walk taking walks with God in the cool of the evening, and yet God still says, that's not enough. It's not good. Adam was not created to be alone. Now, we actually have no indication whatsoever that Adam thought his state was not good.
Joel Brooks:This is actually declaration of God. God is the one who is noted, noticing this. God is the one who is doing something about this. We often assume at this point that Adam was feeling very lonely, and that is why God decided to do something to give Adam Eve as a cure or a fix for Adam's loneliness, but if Adam does feel loneliness, we are not told that here. That's just an assumption we bring to the text.
Joel Brooks:And we're never told that Eve was given to Adam as a mere cure for his loneliness. Eve is way, way more than that. She is way more than that. And she might indeed have ended a loneliness that Adam was feeling, but that is not at all her primary task. She is a helper fit for him.
Joel Brooks:After God sees it is not good for man to be alone he says Adam needs a helper fit for him. Twice he says this. He then brings Adam, to Adam every animal and every bird he created and he asked Adam to name them. I can't imagine a harder task. Literally you're talking about thousands of names of of these animals being paraded before him, and what's happening is he's likely looking at the uniqueness of each animal, and then naming them appropriately.
Joel Brooks:And that'd be easy for a while. I mean, you have like anteater makes sense. You know, woodpecker makes sense. You know, but after a while you're going to run out of names. For some reason, I'm just studying names.
Joel Brooks:Do you know what the original root for giraffe means? Fast walker. I'm like, that's a swing and a miss right there. I mean, like, of of all the things like fast walker. But but but Adam, he's he's he's looking at the uniqueness of each of these animals, and he's naming them appropriately.
Joel Brooks:And what's happening here is Adam's beginning to realize he is unique. He's alone. And, of course, that's why God is doing this. God wants Adam to realize that he is alone. He wants Adam to realize that it is not good for him to be alone.
Joel Brooks:And so Adam is beginning to feel this. And after every animal has been paraded in front of him, we read these words. There was not a helper fit for him. Now we don't have Adam's reaction here or his response, but I'm imagining it was incredible sadness at this point. When he realizes that he is all alone.
Joel Brooks:And perhaps he goes up to God and he talks about that, and God says, let me do something about that. Go to sleep. And so Adam goes to sleep, and God causes this sleep to be a deep sleep. And while Adam is sleeping, God takes one of his ribs and fashions a woman out of it. And I find it absolutely fascinating that this is how God decided to create a woman.
Joel Brooks:It's to fashion her out of one of Adam's ribs. And and I grew up in kind of this, you know, rural Baptist church. So I've heard all the jokes about, you know, the wife being a pain in a man's side from the very beginning, you know, and like all of those things and there actually is, There is a there is a real reason why the woman was pulled from Adam's ribs or from his side. There actually is a purpose to that. It's because woman is to be seen as man's equal.
Joel Brooks:Many commentators have pulled out that Adam was or Eve was not created from his head, so that he might lord over her or her to lord over him. And she was not created from his feet in order to be trampled on, but she was created from his side, close to his heart as his equal. Because she has to stand by his side as his equal. And this is mostly lost on our culture. But he only created 1 woman.
Joel Brooks:Now this would have been something that really popped in the midst of this culture which was a polygamous culture, in which you had many wives. Moses himself who's writing this had many wives. And yet he's writing his own condemnation here as he's writing, there was one woman made. And what we see here is God was not giving the woman to Adam in order to be property to possess. She was not a gift to him just so he could be able to reproduce more and faster.
Joel Brooks:God is giving Adam an equal. 1 to be a helper fit for him, and Adam seems pretty thrilled about it. I mean, we have absolutely zero reaction, as all these animals are being paraded in front of Adam. But when he is presented with the woman and he hears the first wedding, God is walking Eve down to him. He breaks out into song.
Joel Brooks:It's that first couplet we have in the Bible. At last, this is bone of my bones and this is flesh of my flesh. He essentially writes a love song when he sees her. Now if we want to understand what women were designed for, we need to understand those words helper and fit. Helper and fit.
Joel Brooks:Twice these words are used to describe the woman. She is a helper fit for Adam. Now being described as a helper might rub some of you women the wrong way. Especially those who are married. You're thinking it makes you sound like you're inferior to your husband, like you're your husband's maid or something.
Joel Brooks:You're his help, but that is not the case at all with this word. First off, it says more about man's condition than yours. It's describing that man needs help. It's talking more about man's weakness than anything about the woman. And the word help or the word helper is used 2 primary ways in the Old Testament.
Joel Brooks:Its most common use is to to come and fight for them, they cried out for help. They needed strength. They needed the numbers. And this second way this word is often used in the Old Testament, is to describe God. Because God would be that military might and strength for Israel.
Joel Brooks:Many of the Psalms use this word to describe God. For instance, in Psalm 54, we read, behold God is my helper. The Lord is the uplifter of my life. And so women, if if God delights in that name, if God delights in being called a helper, I think we should delight in that. It's not a word that describes weakness, but a word that describes incredible strength.
Joel Brooks:And so what we see here is that Adam was given this task of exercising dominion over the entire world in a way that reflects who God is, reflects his character, and he can't do it. He can't do it by himself. And so more than a cure for loneliness, the woman was given to Adam, was given to mankind in order to fulfill his calling of exercising dominion and reflecting God's glory to the world. He couldn't be an image bearer alone. The task was too big for him, and he needed strong help.
Joel Brooks:He needed a partner. So, yes, there's a part of marriage that satisfies the loneliness that we feel in our hearts, but it's way more than that. Marriage is forming a team that can exercise dominion and reflect God's glory. There is a mission that comes with marriage. Women, you know who else you share the word helper with, don't you?
Joel Brooks:The Holy Spirit. The helper is the name of the Holy Spirit, and hear me. The parallels between your role and the role of the Holy Spirit are simply profound. I mean we read in John 15 and John 16 when Jesus is with his disciples, he gives them a mission. He gives them a task.
Joel Brooks:His disciples were to essentially be his image bearers. I want you to go and to take my name to the world. Here's your mission. And then he says I'm leaving you. And he says it is not good that you should be alone.
Joel Brooks:I will send my helper to you. And he sends his helper to his disciples so that they might be his image bearers to the world. That they may accomplish the very mission that he was given. This role, this title speaks to God and his function. It is in no way an inferior title or role.
Joel Brooks:So women, I hope you hear that you share both a name and a role with God himself, and I cannot think of a greater honor. And the more that you understand this and the more that you embrace this, the more you're gonna be able to live into this and to live according to the design that God has designed you for. This is one of the reasons that Christians actually understand gender to be an important issue is because it's actually teaching us something about God himself. The next word that we have there that describes the woman is the word fit. Some of your translations might say suitable.
Joel Brooks:God wants to make somebody who is a helper suitable or fit for Adam. And the word actually means like opposite. Like opposite, which I know sounds strange, because how can something be like and also the opposite? But what it's describing is a compliment. Man and woman complement one another.
Joel Brooks:They're alike in essence, but they're also different. They're like puzzle pieces. They're both puzzle pieces, but they fit together. And it's actually their complementary differences that's going to be able to unite them, to make them fit together. We see that man and woman, they're equal, but they're not the same.
Joel Brooks:And that's an important distinction that we need to have especially in our culture. That you can have equality without sameness. Because some feel that gender differences need to be removed completely if man and woman are to be seen as equal, but equality does not equal sameness. And the bible teaches us only by leaning into our god given differences that humanity flourishes. Man doesn't have to have the same strengths as a woman.
Joel Brooks:A woman does not have to have the same strengths as a man. It's by leaning into one another's differences that we flourish. God does not give Adam someone of the same gender, who has the same body, the same giftings, the same emotions, the same personality. Instead, he gives Adam someone different from him who will compliment him. Sameness will not help Adam.
Joel Brooks:And sameness will not help Eve. Sameness will not bring out mankind's potential. But these 2 different genders will allow each to specialize, to specialize in their strengths, and to focus on the different roles that are necessary for the flourishing of the world. And it takes these 2 genders working in harmony in order for humans to exercise their dominion over this world. What we really are seeing here, and I don't have time to unpack it more, but God is establishing the family unit as the building block for all of society.
Joel Brooks:Alright. So what are the differences between male and female? How are we distinct? I'm gonna disappoint you a little bit, because we're not actually told. This is where opinionated people can make terrible pastors.
Joel Brooks:I have opinions on this, But the truth is actually here in the text, we are told very little about the differences. I And there's the obvious physical differences that are there, which throughout scripture we're gonna see really mirror or reflect some inner differences. But we really don't know that much here. We do know that the woman's role is to be a helper. Once again, not an inferior role.
Joel Brooks:One that does not imply weakness but strength. You share that role with God himself. We also see here that man has this role of headship. Although both men and women were given the task of working into keeping the garden, man was the one who was initially given that task. And man is the one who will ultimately or primarily be held responsible.
Joel Brooks:So I'm gonna have to just jump ahead just a little bit towards week, but notice what happens when Eve sins. When Eve takes the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and eats it, and she is the first to sin, God does not go to Eve first. God goes to Adam. Eve sins first. God goes to Adam and holds him responsible.
Joel Brooks:And what you are seeing here at the very beginning is this notion of headship. Paul's gonna unpack this later in Ephesians chapter 5, as to exactly what headship looks like, and he's gonna point back to Genesis 2 to describe it. He says that the husband is the head of the wife. Now headship, I would define it as a leadership role that has nothing to do with one's strengths or weaknesses. Please hear me.
Joel Brooks:My wife is superior to me in just about every single way. She's the one who graduates from college early. You know, miss summa cum laude, alright. She's the one who reads a book every week and then has to tell it to me so I can understand it. She dumps it down for me.
Joel Brooks:She's the one who reads my sermon manuscripts and was like can't say that. Can't say that. If you only knew how many things she scribbled out for today, she would circle some and she would go like, Joel, that's not even a word. Like, you can't you can't use that. So if headship was based on ability or strengths, then hear me, I should not be the head.
Joel Brooks:Probably most of the men should not be the head, but it's a God given role. Now, I'm talking about within marriage here. I'm not talking about all men and all women. Men, nowhere are you asked to be the head of women in general. Nowhere.
Joel Brooks:So single, so I'm gonna talk to you in just a bit as to what this looks like in your lives. But right now, this is within marriage. And what this headship needs to look like for us men is sacrificial love. Husbands are called to love their wives, sacrifice for their wives, just as Christ loved and sacrificed for the church, and gave himself up for her. Headship is never domineering.
Joel Brooks:It's leading through sacrificial love. It looks like selfless service to the wife. It means providing a a loving and a safe home to where the wife can flourish in her gifting. And if you have like this this bad image, if the word headship even rubs you the wrong way, it's because we have seen that abused in our culture. We haven't actually seen it rightly lived out.
Joel Brooks:If you have a problem with the idea of headship, I invite you to come to my house for dinner and see it lived out and it's beautiful. Men and women, my wife and me, in our roles nurturing one another, it is a beautiful thing. And that's what we have being described here. And hear me when men refuse to be men and to step into God's given role, all of human society begins to crumble. That's just a fact.
Joel Brooks:You can look at this sociologically, economically, however you want to slice it, it doesn't matter. When men become takers and not givers, society crumbles. When they don't step up and lead through sacrificial love in their homes, everything falls apart. And every single study is going to show you this. Children without a father in the home, are 4 times more likely to live in poverty.
Joel Brooks:And are far more likely to have behavioral problems and to end up in prison. They are 7 times more likely to become pregnant as a teen. Twice as likely to drop out of high school. Go to the poorest, most crime ridden neighborhoods in the entire planet, and what you will find is men who have become takers and not givers. Men refusing to step up and to lead through sacrificial love.
Joel Brooks:And hear me, those of you who are single mothers right now, when the ideal is lacking, know that God's grace abounds, And God's grace is sufficient for you. And the church is here to come alongside you and to be that supportive role in that family. And so dig in your roots deep within the church if you find yourself in that position. But where the ideal is lacking, know that God's grace does abound. So, men, you are to lead through sacrificial love.
Joel Brooks:Husbands, you carry the primary responsibility for your wife's flourishing. Even though Adam sinned first, God went to Adam. Even though Eve sinned first, God went to Adam. Alright. So what about those of you who are single?
Joel Brooks:The single men and single women who are here. And when we see that wives have this role of helper, which is providing that strength and partnership necessary in order that, God's glory might be reflected in the world. Husbands, you have this role of headship, which is leading through sacrificial love. But what about for those of you who are not married? Well, single women who are here know that you are gifted in every way that the men are.
Joel Brooks:And I want you to encourage you to use your singleness as a way to be a helper within the church. Be the strength in the church. The church needs your strength. We need your teaching. We need your serving.
Joel Brooks:We need your encouragement. We need your giving. And while you're doing all of this, if you do feel a desire and a call to be married someday, can I just say don't settle for a boy? Wait for a man. Don't lower yourself to the lowest common denominator there.
Joel Brooks:Don't give yourself to a man who just wants to take. Find somebody who gives. Who already is stepping into this role of self sacrificial love. And single men here, although you are not placed in a role of headship, you can still exercise sacrificial love and you can serve the church. You were created to work.
Joel Brooks:You were created to serve. You were not created to sit around and play video games and just go to the gym. Be Be a giver and not a taker in your relationships. And hear me, if you desire to be married someday, which I would say if God has given you sexual desire, you are likely wired and should be moving in that direction. If you desire to be married someday, pursue marriage.
Joel Brooks:Date with the intent of building a friendship that leads to marriage. Be a giver and not a taker in your relationships. The world needs faithful husbands and faithful fathers who will be the godly heads of their homes. So this is what Genesis teaches us. It teaches a lot more, but all we have time for about being man and woman.
Joel Brooks:Now let's all confess we have failed at it. Men have failed to be men. Women have failed to be women. There is not a woman here who has not failed at being a helper. And there is not a man here who has not failed to give himself through sacrificial love.
Joel Brooks:But praise Jesus that he has succeeded where we have failed. And, ultimately, that's what being created male and female points to. It points to our Lord and our savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus who looked at our state and said, it is not good that you should be alone, but I will send a helper. A helper suitable for you.
Joel Brooks:A helper that will become one with you. And it's Jesus who loved his bride so much that he gave himself up for her. Think of it this way, Jesus is just like Adam, who on the cross had his own side pierced. He had his own side pierced in order that he might create his bride, the church. But Jesus wasn't just put to sleep when he was pierced.
Joel Brooks:Jesus was put to death. And the good news is death could not keep Jesus from his bride. But Jesus has risen from the dead, and he has made us into a new creation. And the good news of this, church, is someday, some glorious, glorious day, we we're gonna be given a new resurrected body, just like Jesus. And at that moment, Jesus is gonna look at us, and we will have a body just like his.
Joel Brooks:And he's essentially gonna say, at last, this is bone of my bones, and this is flesh of my flesh, and we will be united with him forever. That's the good news of the gospel, and that is what being created male and female points to is that glorious day. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, we do thank you that you were pierced in your side in order to create your bride. And we come now to this table to remember that and to celebrate that.
Joel Brooks:Lord, we thank you that you have made us distinct and yet dependent upon one another when you made us male and female. Lord, I pray that we would lean into our differences all for your glory. That the way we live out, being a woman or the way we live out being a man would indeed reflect who you are to the world. We pray this all in the strong name of you, Jesus. Amen.