Rejoicing in Male and Female

Genesis 2:18-24 (NKJV)
¹⁸ And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” ¹⁹ Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. ²¹ And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. ²² Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. ²³ And Adam said: “This is now 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 mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

The recent hearings of Judge Kavanaugh have reminded us just how fragile the relationship between male and female is. Men often abuse women and women often make false accusations again men. But our text today reminds us that this tension was not God’s original design. God’s design was that the relationship between men and women image Him, be a representation of His own glory and splendor. God created man, male and female, to live in harmony and God has sent His Son Jesus to rescue us from our sinful corruption of this harmony and restore us to God’s creation design.

We see in our text that God has no interest in a world populated only by men or, for that matter, only by women. He hates chauvinism and He hates feminism. Throughout the creation narrative, God repeatedly pronounces that each part of His creation is“good.” But when God assesses the solitary male, He declares, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper suitable to him.” God declares that the solitary male was “not good” – a world filled with males only or females only is barren.

God created men and women to live together in harmony. Men are not supposed to be women nor are women supposed to be men. A soft man is shameful and a hard woman is cruel. Men and women are not interchangeable – no matter how hard our culture may try to make them so. God has created us different, He has hard wired us differently – and these differences are a gift from Him, a gift to teach us more about Him.

And so, women, have you given thanks that God created the men in this world to be men; have you given thanks that God created your fathers to be men, your husbands to be men, your brothers to be men, your sons to be men? Have you not simply taken mental note of the fact but actually thanked God for it; thanked God that He had the wisdom to put male and female into the world that we might learn to love and respect and honor Him more fully?

Men, have you given thanks that God created the women in this world to be women; have you given thanks that God created your mothers to be women, your wives to be women, your sisters to be women, your daughters to be women? Have you not simply taken mental note of the fact but actually thanked God for it; thanked God that He had the wisdom to put male and female into the world that we might learn to love and respect and honor Him more fully?

These are the challenges that God’s creation of Adam and Eve place before us. Reminded that we often grumble about our differences as male and female, that we often express bitterness and resentment toward the opposite sex, that we often fail to thank God for these differences, let us confess our sins together. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin.