Genesis 1 to 11, today we're going to be studying gender and family. This is going to be the last lesson that we have, as you see at the top of your outline there. The last lesson we have before what I call the rending of the fabric, before sin enters the world. And we have... There are a number of ordinances that are in place before the fall, which continue past the fall, and this is really the last one of those that we're going to study. We have looked at environment, the world that God made, certainly it's still here, it's broken, but we still live in it and we still understand that God has made it. We've had the law, which includes in particular, one thing we haven't talked about too much yet, is the Sabbath. and the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath principle, but the law, how God would have us live. We've had covenant. We've looked at covenant, the idea of that glorious union and communion, that communion that God has with mankind in particular and that that happened in the garden, that happened according to God's stipulations as he's the one who initiates covenant. He's the one who condescended and established a particular and special relationship with Adam and Eve. But now we're going to look at gender and family, and really we call this the Who of Life. We're going to look at mankind, the creation of mankind, and the creation of man, male, and female. Gender and family. If there's one place in our present world where there is increasing confusion, it's right here. Every day you read more and more of sexual perversion, sexual sin. I saw a headline the other day in the news that sexual addiction, whatever that means, just I guess bondage to sexual sin, is on the rise. Families are increasingly and increasingly more broken and fragmented. Perversion is increasingly, particularly homosexuality, is increasingly being paraded and trumpeted as that which is good and normal. If you look at... Again, I was looking... I saw it in the news the other day at the recent state dinner. Sitting at the right next to Mrs. Obama, was a man from Hollywood named David Geffen. You've probably heard the name. Have you heard the name? He's Steven Spielberg's, I think, partner in business. And this man was openly, here sitting at the right hand of the First Lady, was sitting there with another man, who was the one who he was taking to the dinner. I mean, we're talking here, enshrined now in the halls of power and granted a stamp of approval and even high honor is great wickedness and perversion in our land. Now this is happening not just, it's very interesting, it's happening not just here in the United States, as a matter of fact in the United States. though it's very prevalent, it's not as militant as other places in the world. But it is very interesting to watch that countries like Brazil, Colombia, Canada, I mean all of Europe and the United States really to a lesser degree, even though it'd be hard to imagine that, well sometimes you look at, are embracing and even legislating that perversion and wickedness are good, righteous, to be defended, to be upheld. and that anyone who speaks against these things is actually wicked and ought to be prosecuted. Have you heard of hate crimes? Hate crimes legislation. Canada has a fine set of such legislation in place where if I was to preach what the Bible teaches on gender and family on a street corner right now in Canada, I could go to jail for five years with a criminal, we call it a criminal code offense, which means that I would be a convicted felon. Five years for simply speaking what the Bible says. Now no one's been prosecuted because there's a little phrase in the law that if you aren't, if you're in a church then you're covered. So long as you're in the four walls of a church, they don't want you to go outside the church. But understand how chilling that really is. I don't think anyone has been prosecuted for anything public yet, but the laws on the books and the weight of the law is going in the wrong direction. All of Western culture is doing this and the church, sadly, seems to be saying very little useful. Now, not the church as a whole, but even much of evangelicalism, there's a lot of confusion There's not very much clear speech on what the Bible teaches about gender and family. Now, where do you think? Where do you think this began? Well, this really began in the church, sadly, because, now there is sin and there is brokenness in the world, we have to understand that, but this began in the church, sadly, because of a low view of really the biblical outline of what gender, family, and marriage really ought to be. And that low view in the church and in culture led to increasing acceptance of deviance and sinfulness. Now, a lot of people you will find, if you've heard the Family Values Coalition or people, a lot of politicians want to talk about family values and recovering family values. But how is a Christian supposed to stand? And when we talk about these lessons as biblical foundations, biblical foundations, what I'm going to argue here is that if we don't understand gender and family as rooted in Genesis 1 through 11, and particularly in the creation account as it is literally set forth for us in the first two chapters of Genesis, we will not have a foundation to stand against what the world is now trying to redefine as gender and family. So we're going to look at this account here in Genesis 1 and 2. We're going to look at this account. We're going to try and study it, go through it, and see how God made man in his own image, the image of God. He created him male and female. He created them. We are going to look in particular at the creation of Eve in Genesis chapter 2. Genesis 2 beginning at verse 18. And we read these words, and the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. Well, as long as Adam was alone, as long as Adam was alone in the garden, there was no really discussion of gender or gender and family. I mean, he was all on his own. Obviously, he was there. and he was in communion with God. But God says something quite remarkable here in this text in Genesis chapter 2 verse 18. If you look at the end of chapter 1, 1 verse 31, and God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good. Very good. So everything that God had made was very good. Now, you have to understand where the chronology is here just to make sure. We're on the sixth day. Genesis 2 is giving us an expansion of what happened on the sixth day. It's not something that happened afterwards But if you look even earlier in Genesis chapter 1 God Let's say chapter 1 verse 18. That's it After the creation of the lights in the heavens and God saw that it was good Genesis chapter 121 the creation of the great sea creatures and The fish and the birds and God saw that it was good. There's this refrain all through Genesis 125 and God saw that it was good the beast of the earth according to its kind and Every time God is saying, it is good, it is good, it is good, He's putting a stamp of approval and approbation on what He's made. But He comes to Adam now when he's alone, and this is the Word of God. It is not good. that he should be alone. These are amazing words in light of what God has been saying so far. It is clear that it is very important that Adam not be alone for God says it's not good. I will make him a helper comparable to him. Now there's a covenantal context here. We spoke last week about that, or three weeks ago, about the glorious love affair between God the Creator and this creation, with man at the head of creation. And there was that union, that bond of communion and fellowship, mutual exchange between God and man, man in this creation. But now we find that the Creator has a further purpose for Adam. And that is union and communion among men, particularly in the family, generally among mankind, particularly in the family, and even more particularly in marriage. And the question that's going to come to us here is how does human union and communion relate to union and communion between God and man? Because in some way there's a relationship here. Does this, will this fellowship between Adam and this helper be a replacement? Will they be completely independent of each other? Well obviously we already know because Eve's going to be described here as a helper. But there's a number of possibilities. That this communion fellowship between Adam and Eve would be a replacement or be a substitute for fellowship with God. It could be that Adam and Eve would completely independently live lives in the world and be related each individually to God. Or they could mutually support one another, be engaged at once. in fellowship with God and fellowship with one another. And then the second question is, so how does human communion relate to communion with God? Second question is, and why is man's state without the former not good? Now let me press this home a little bit. Understand what we're saying. Adam is created in perfect communion with the living God, the fountain of all good and life, grace, kindness, and God still says He's alone. You understand that? God still says that He is alone and He is not good. It is very clear from the scriptures God intended us and created us and His original pattern for mankind was that we would not only have fellowship with Him, but it would not be good until we had fellowship, yes, with God, but also with our fellow mankind, particularly here illustrated in marriage. Well, the Creator's next move, after He has said this is not good, was to do this. Having formed every beast and bird, the Lord God brings them to Adam. Verse 19, Out of the ground the Lord formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam, or to the man, to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each creature, each living creature, that was its name. And it's interesting, Adam apparently here had some understanding already of how to interpret that creation. He understood each one. Apparently he named them according to their nature. But the conclusion of this, this isn't an exercise that just happens to fall here in the narrative. There's a conclusion to this. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. So, you know the first question might be, The first answer to the question was that he might have companionship from amongst the animals, the living creatures that were already there. There's a whole world full of living creatures. But, here's an illustration, and God puts this illustration before us. There was no companion, no helper suitable for him in all the creation. Which means, the Bible says that a dog is not man's best friend, very clearly. So, we are not created simply to relate to the animals, we are created to relate first to one another. There was no one suited, no creature suited to the union and communion that the Creator has in mind. The reason for this is that the beasts and birds cannot be a helper corresponding to his needs. And it points us, this points us in the direction of our answer to our central question above. Why are they unsuited to meet Adam's needs? Primarily because they're not. They're all entirely different than Adam. What's the central difference? I mean, this is very clear. They're not made in God's image. They're not made for union and fellowship with God, union and communion with God, the way we have been. And so they are utterly and completely different than man. They're unsuited to be the answer to the question that he is alone. So then God goes on in the narrative and does something very remarkable. He 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. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into a woman and he brought her to the man. Now this is very interesting because you're going to see already in the way of creation there's already something being said about this union, communion, and fellowship and the helper comparable for him. God made Adam out of the ground. God made all the other creatures not from Adam but all the other creatures in the creation by the word of his power. But here he does something specifically He takes that rib from Adam, who was the crown of creation, and he makes from Adam, he fashions that rib into a woman, who with him together with Adam then would be the crown of creation, male and female, he created them. And he brings this new creature to Adam. And notice Adam's immediate response. This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called a woman because she was taken out of man. Now here the narrative breaks down for a moment because Moses interjects and he does this throughout Genesis. He interjects here at one of his editorial comments. Because here we're running through the narrative, what's happening, and now here Moses, divinely inspired writer, God moves him to make a comment on what this means and what the implications are. Adam says, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, he shall be called woman. And then Moses says, therefore, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Now, if we stop here for a moment and go back to the idea of biblical foundations. If we do not take this simply at face value, we have now undermined all of biblical sexuality, the foundation of the Christian home and family, Moses simply states that therefore on account of this narrative and what God has done in the way He created Eve for this reason we have the foundation for marriage and family. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. The Apostle Paul will use this statement throughout his writings on marriage to define biblical marriage and biblical sexuality. So, it's very important, again, as biblical foundations, this is going to, this short, from Genesis 18, 2 verse 18 to the end of verse 25, sets the foundation through all the scriptures and all of history for what marriage, gender, gender roles, marriage and family and all of these things flow right from this text. If you don't have this text, You don't have a foundation for any of these things. Now we keep reading. When they were both naked, the man and his wife and were not ashamed. Now notice the wondrous features of this first human relationship. They're suited to do things together to help one another. Here is the companion, the helper, comparable to Adam. Not only in gifts, but in desire and in will. Perfectly created by the power of God to be complementary in gifts and in callings. They belonged one to another. They were partakers of each other. And Paul will reflect this in 1st Corinthians chapter 7 where the husband belongs to the wife and the wife belongs to the husband. They were perfectly vulnerable and delighted in each other. There was no fear, no embarrassment, no self-protective walls, no baggage, no selfishness, but a perfect communion between Adam and Eve. which reflected God's purpose for this one flesh relationship. And the purpose is here, now to outline some of the questions we asked a minute ago. Why? What's the relationship between communion between this husband and wife and then the communion between Adam and Eve and God? Well, very, very clearly what God is teaching in the fabric of the creation is that where we were created to be social beings with fellowship one with another, marriage being the closest picture of this, But we're not created to be alone. We're not created to be on our own. We're created to be in fellowship one with another and that fellowship together in that fellowship to be in fellowship with God. Well, what are the Creator's purposes here for this foundational moment in creation? What are God's purposes? Well, we have a few purposes and hopefully we'll get through them. I think I'm going to be a little optimistic here, but let's see if we can get through these purposes from the beginning of the creation before the fall. Okay, we have a Genesis 128 something which we've read before, but let's start at. Verse 27, so God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. And that last phrase, male and female he created them, has been now elucidated or expanded by what we read in verse 18 to 25. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Here was what we could call a great commission. A great commission which was to fill the earth with mankind. And notice that this is pre-fall. This is before the fall. This is God's original purpose for Adam and Eve. And notice that this mandate is in the context of blessing. And God blessed them. We saw this when we looked at law, that this was a command. But we saw that this command also was a blessing. It was a sign of God's blessing on them that He gave them this command and also enabled them to fulfill this command. They were to have children. They were to be fruitful and to multiply. This was intimately connected to the institution of marriage. Why? Well, God gives two reasons. Fill the earth and subdue the earth. To fill the earth, points to this, that God would have dealings with all the generations, the generations that would flow from Adam and Eve, that they would carry out their tasks to the glory of God, to worship and commune with Him, that a great and mighty nation of worshipers, or people, would rise up and bless the Lord, and that Adam and Eve being placed in the garden in the center of the earth, that from there would emanate mankind in communion and fellowship with the living God. That was the picture here. And as they were to go out, they were to subdue the earth, they were to be laboring in it, making it fruitful, cultivating it to the praise and glory of God. So, if we recapitulate, God created the family consisting of a man, a woman, and multiplication, or children. And there's an application here right away for us that the family consisting of a man and a woman And this principle of multiplication, they're all intimately connected. We can't take one apart from the other. And now, if we're going to expound on multiplication, it's kind of funny that I'm talking about that this morning. Some of you know why. But I don't know if we told, I shouldn't announce it in my lesson. I'll announce it later. There you go, you can guess. God has created family to be growing. Dependent on ability and circumstance, we're not going to get into all that right now, but this is a commandment, a direct order from God. He created this husband and wife to be fruitful and to be filling the earth. Man, God created Adam first, and in this family, and in this order of multiplication, and having children, Adam was created first. Paul would say, therefore, he's the head of the household, he's responsible for the household, he's the leader of the household, he sets the pattern for all men. In the New Testament, Paul would say he's the head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church, he's to love, nurture, care for his wife, provide for her. The woman Eve created after Adam, out of a rib from Adam, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. She's a helper for Adam. She supports Adam in his calling before God, under Adam's leadership and authority. And Paul says, from these principles, a wife is to submit to her husband as the church to Christ. She's under authority. And then children, from the multiplication, to live under the leadership and authority of Adam and Eve together who are one flesh. And the subordination in the relationship between Adam and Eve exists not outside of that relationship, the two roles, but it's particular to that relationship. But together, Adam and Eve's parents are to be honored by their father and their mother. So, very quickly, we see the family structure. Clearly rooted in the very fabric of creation. It was part of the good creation Marriage and family today are part of the original good state of affairs blessings remaining from the beautiful and perfect world that God Created what is also important to know is that God intended from the beginning? that the family be the nurturing with a nursery we're going to see this in a little bit later, but the nursery is of the church that the original fabric of creation included Adam and Eve would have children that would rise up and worship his name. Now, the family is second place. It's to be filling the earth. We have the whole picture of family here. Secondly, it's a teaching model. It's a teaching model. It is a place where God has ordained that union and communion with God Himself be mirrored and illustrated. Let's think about this very quickly. Union and communion with God between the Creator and man is to be mirrored here. There are many illustrations in the family which teach us by the very family's existence and the way God has created it, of how we are to relate to God. Think of the doctrine of the Trinity. Now we're not, I have to be, I'm going to be very careful here. We're not making a one-to-one relationship. Okay? The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine that stands on its own. We're not trying to define it or redefine it in any way here. But think of the doctrine of the Trinity And you have, in one sense, a pale reflection of that principle in the union of a man and a woman. Adam's comment, one flesh, that there's oneness of nature here with a distinction of persons. There's a oneness of nature, one flesh, with a distinction of persons, Adam and Eve. Again, this is not at all a theological definition of the Trinity, but a reflection of this idea of the oneness, but the distinction of persons. Union and communion of the father and the son mirrored very simply and powerfully in a relationship of a father and parents to their children, particularly fathers to their children. For us to understand, we begin to understand something of what fatherhood is. as we live in a family and we have a father. Now sadly, brokenness and sin means for many that that fatherhood was not mirrored as it ought to be. But in a Christian home, if any of you here are fathers, What you are doing every day, day in day out, even without saying a word, from the way you get up in the morning, the way you go to bed at night, the way you speak to your children, the way you think about them, love them, care for them, provide for them, all of these things are speaking something of the reality of who God the Father is. And it's intentional. It's a model. It's interesting. Fathers and sons For a long time for a while. I was thinking well When I was I was younger I was wondering well you have God the father and God the son But I'm a son and I have a father. It's a very different There's a lot of differences again. It's not one-to-one. There are a lot of differences here. We have to be careful theologically. We're not trying to redefine in any way the doctrine of the Trinity. I keep saying that. But there's reflections here of these doctrines, certainly even in that we have fathers and sons and God is called a father and the second person in the Trinity is called the son. But the human relationships begin to teach us and point us to, in some way, what that is all about. The union and communion of the Creator and the creatures. That God is the Creator, the one who brought all things into existence is mirrored in some sense in the communion and fellowship and relationship of parents to their children. Fathers and mothers in a sense create children. Now we know that God knits the child together in the mother's womb. He superintends the whole process. He made us. But there is that creative act The union in communion, again another way, between God of the covenant and Israel, between Christ and the church. It's mirrored through the whole of the scriptures in the union and fellowship between husband and wife. Marriage is to be a picture of Christ and his bride. Sinclair Ferguson has in one of his lectures on the Holy Spirit also, he talks about the reflection of fatherhood in God the Father and the earthly father. But then he puts, he points to a very interesting relationship between the Spirit's creative and ordering work. The one who Jesus says in John 14 through 16, who Jesus says is the one who makes a home, who orders our hearts and sanctifies them, and who makes a home in our hearts for the Father and for the Son. And he relates that, and he calls it very reverently and not in any way transgressing the fact that God has revealed himself with the pronoun he, but he says there's a reflection of that in the work of a wife and a homemaker and a mother as she orders the home and makes it a place of rest for her husband and for her children. There, the family in so many ways is to be a teaching model of the union and communion within the Godhead, between God and His creation, between the Father and the Son, between Christ and His Church. It teaches by illustration and by example. Now what does that mean for all of us? That means that either our teaching is going to tell the truth, or our teaching is going to give a distorted view. And we need to pray and ask the Lord to give us much grace. Because it's not just what we say, but it's also what we do that communicates these things. So we always have to be very humble before the Lord and say, Lord, I know you have created that this fabric of the family is to reflect these truths. Lord, grant me grace that this might be reflected in my life and our family. The family also is a training module, a place of training, not just teaching because of its structure, which is to reflect these truths, but it's a training module. Now, it's not so obvious from the text right here, but the rest of biblical revelation bears it out. The family trains for union and communion with God through union and communion among family members. It's the first divinely ordained institution in which humans would learn, as they relate to each other, how to relate to God. It's experiential. The communion with God, at times, especially for a little child, for example, may seem abstract. But the family helps it, make it concrete. It is the training ground for the gospel for Christianity. These illustrations assume here homes built upon Christ in which Christ is lifted up. Both husband and wife seek by God's grace to live according to these things I understand. Sadly, that is not always the case because of sin. But here, homes built upon Christ where husband and wife together seek lovingly towards one another and towards God to live according to His will. Children, then, will learn obedience to God by obedience to their parents. My little girl, Susanna, even though she can answer the first question of the catechism, who made you, she can say, she makes a sound that sounds something like the word God at this point. And she's happy to do that. But honestly, in her experience, in her ability to understand and comprehend, surely she can understand that there is a God already and God can work in her heart by His Spirit. No doubt about that. But, she is learning in an experimental way what it means to obey God as she relates to Laura Lee and I. And same with the rest of our children. But from a very early age. Obedience to God by obedience to the parents. They learn to trust Even as they learn to trust their parents, they learn to trust us. If there's some danger... Did I say Susanna? I meant Katie. I keep doing this at home, too, and Susanna's not quite as happy about it as you might think. Katie, because now I thought of Katie again. Katie, if there's a loud noise or something, she gets frightened quickly. She can get frightened. If someone starts running suddenly in the house, she thinks that there's a disaster happening. She doesn't think that someone found candy or something. She thinks that the house is collapsing. So she'll just start running and crying and looking for someone to hang on to, Laura Leroy. And she's learned already and children instinctively know there's some safety, there's some protection there. Again, it's training already from an early age that they can run to someone and we will teach her as she grows that she ought to run to the Lord, the God of her salvation. Parents learn obedience to the Creator by teaching their children to obey. We learn in the opposite. If we're trying to teach someone to obey, you know, very often you become aware of your own inability and sloppiness in obeying the Lord. In other words, you're sitting here, you're giving out all these commands, you're ordering this household, you're telling people what to do, and you go home and you go to your bed at night and you're laying down and then your own life comes before you and you say, I'm very good at telling other people what to do. And I see how it's hard for them to obey me, but how much worse I am at obeying God than I am at giving commands. And again, we learn the love of God for us. If you have young children, or actually any children, if they get older, it's the same thing. And you struggle with wanting them to obey. Then you start to realize how God is so patient with you and with us. how He's so tender and kind, and how much slower we are to obey, and how much more demanding we often are of others than God is even of us. Husbands, love of Christ and loving their wives, and how they ought to submit to Him through their wives' submission. Wives learn how to trust Christ and submit to Him as they submit to their husbands. And then family, worship, communication, service, and fellowship, all the relationships at home, what are they for? They're training for something higher and better. Family is preparatory for the church and for the relations and fellowship we have here. Here at home, this training is that we might learn to have fellowship with God and particularly the family of God, the church. One writer said this, if the family is preparatory, the church or covenant community is the centerpiece in which both the relationship of God with man and the relationship of that man with man come to full flower. The covenant family trains for the church. It trains for the union and communion with the Creator in the context of relationship with His covenant people. Just for that reason, the Church ultimately, and we can talk about this in a minute, holds primacy over the family. It's the relational end to which, toward which the training in the family is directed as a means. And it follows from this that the church is to be the covenant family on a large and full scale. The rich, tender relationships which God designed in the home are to be experienced even to a higher degree in the church. They're the template for relationships here. And apart from conformity to that template, God has designed for the home, if we don't get it right at home, by God's grace, learning from His Word, and relationship in the church often wander as well. And the church may know that it is achieving the relational vision, if we can use that phrase, set before it in the scripture, when this, what does Paul say, when older men act as fathers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters and daughters, younger men as brothers and sons. In other words, Paul uses in Titus, he describes the church as the glorious expression of these relationships in their fullness. And when we think about heaven, when Jesus says that those who are in heaven are like the angels, they neither are married nor given in marriage, And that full fellowship and communion will come to its full light and glory in that place as the children of God, the family of God, are with God himself for all eternity. We can understand why this would be so. Fourth, in the family, God is at work redemptively. The promise to Abraham, the promise given to Abraham was that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. The promise given to Abraham was that from his seed, I'm jumping out of Genesis 1 to 11, but I'm going to relate it back in a moment. The promise given to Abraham to get you out of your country, from your family, from your father's house to a land, I will show you, I will make you a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. Will bless those who bless you I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed the promise to Abraham was that God would work through him to bring a restoration of this original goal that Adam and Eve would be in fellowship with one another, be fruitful and multiply, and have children to His glory that would worship Him. That was God's intention when He came back to Abraham. When God came to Abraham, He said, I will be a God to you and to your children. Walk before Me and be blameless. Teach them all the facets of My covenant that they might rise up and bless My name. The promise to Abraham. was to be that God, in his mercy, would work again not only to bring the promised seed, Jesus Christ, but that God would raise up again a great and mighty family of God through the sons and daughters of Abraham. And even after the fall, as before the fall, this is a reflection of the garden, the family is a blessing in that it is a conduit by God's grace of redemptive blessing to the next generation. I'm not in any way undermining here the doctrine of election. Not in any way here. I'm saying this in general terms, but God works through families. He's designed this and he has designed also that his gospel to the nations goes out to the nations in family lines from as fathers teach their sons and daughters and they in turn teach their sons. This is part of God's design for the family. Family line after family line would be conquered by the gospel. I have some friends at Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church which are a beautiful illustration of this. Not going to, not worshiping anywhere. Five young children come into contact somehow with the gospel, feel moved that they should go to a church. Someone recommends Woodruff Road. They're converted. and their children are now all being raised under the sound of the gospel, hearing the glory and majesty of God as God has brought that whole family into his church. And we pray that the true fruit of that by the power of his spirit would be realized in every one of their children. But here's God's design from the beginning of creation, that the children's children from generation to generation would be a mighty army of God. This is much more than simply reading the Bible to our children because it's good for them. This is more than praying with children because it sets a good example. This is because God, this is that God has designed this family order that in it he might establish his promise, the promise of his gospel to you and to your children that he would work from generation to generation raising a people for himself as was his original design. Well, we do have, today we actually do have a few minutes for questions. So, anything on gender and family, how this relates to contemporary culture. I could say one more thing. Paul says that rebellion against these truths, particularly in the realm of sexuality and perversion, homosexuality, is the in one sense, a sign of just abject, hardcore rebellion. It's not only rebellion against His revealed will, but it's rebellion against the very pattern of creation. When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, does not even nature itself teach you, that man ought to have long hair. Paul is setting forth that there are some things that are evident in the pattern of creation, in creation itself. And one of these, which is very obvious, is how human sexuality is supposed to work. But sin is so blind, so hardened, and so rebellious, it would rather despise the Word and the creation and go off in its own way. But the antidote to that is to realize we need to be rooted here at the very beginning. God was clear from the beginning and throughout the scriptures of what these patterns were. Anyway, I just didn't aside. This topic could be controversial. There might be one question. Jim? Sure. Paul in 1st Corinthians 7 lays out a number of principles of marriage in there. He points to the fact that he is not bound by the pressures of a family. He's not married and doesn't have a family and he says, I wish that men were as I was, remain unmarried. And he particularly links that to two things, being able to Historically, I guess the church would interpret it this way, being able to be unmarried, in other words having the gift of being able to abstain from marriage and sexuality and all those things that God has designed us for, and for a particular reason that he might be of greater service to the church. In other words, so He doesn't feel it's necessary that he should be, number one. Number two, he's doing it for a particular reason. Now, if you go back to what I said earlier about the end game, that family is to be preparatory for the family of God, Paul is not in any way short-circuiting that. He is laboring for that. But ordinarily, this, the Roman Catholics, for example, took this. Roman Catholicism took this principle and said, therefore, priests shouldn't be married. We would distinctly disagree with that. We would say, no, only in particular cases and unique cases. I have one friend who's a pastor who is single and is able to do a lot different things than I am as a pastor because he dedicates, actually two friends that are pastors are single. And they can dedicate all of their time, they're completely flexible, and in a different way, to labor for Christ and for his kingdom. So that would be the reason for it. It would only be those who are able to do so. It's not something... Actually, you see the fruit of twisting this text in the demand to force people to be celibate, to serve the church. And it brings great ruin. So it would be someone who is able to deal with their natural desires, or that those aren't so strong they would have to do something else. And it doesn't violate the overall principle because of its service to the kingdom. I don't know if that's helpful, but it's... Paul is not saying, he's not giving a new ideal here. He's not giving a new ideal, he's giving what would be an exception for a particular purpose. A good question. Kevin. Yeah, and I'm... Yes, I think that... Yeah, I'm looking here for that phrase. I don't want to comment on it until I see it. I wish that all men were even as himself, but each one has his own gift from God, one in another manner and another in that. It was good for them to remain as I am. If they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. I can't find that phrase, Kevin. Verse 26. There it is. Because of the present distress, it is good for a man to remain as he is. I'd have to look at that more. I don't want to give an on-the-fly interpretation, but a good question. Anything else about family as nurturing and training ground? I think it's really important that we grab hold of these principles in the church because, again, It's much more than simply setting an example and hoping that something comes from it. The very pattern for the Christian home is that God delights, He intended it to be, in Adam and Eve, to be the place where His people would multiply, and He still does today. He attaches promises to that. And He does it, He uses the family pointing towards the final goal as the family of God, us as brothers and sisters one of another. So, let's pray together. Our God, we do bless your name. We bless you for the wondrous perfection of your creation. We bless you that you have made us not simply to relate to you, but to relate one to another. We thank you for the delights that are ours here even in this place this morning. We can be called your people. We can be called members one of another, brothers and sisters in that great and glorious family of you, the living God. We do praise you that you have done this by your grace and mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ and by the power of your spirit. Lord, we pray also that you would bless our homes and families, that they would be nurseries indeed of the gospel. That you would enable us to teach children and even children's children these great truths, and that you would be pleased to add it to our labors, your blessing, the work of your spirit, the mighty work of regeneration, that they indeed might truly, with living faith, embrace Jesus Christ as he's freely offered in the gospel, and grow up to tell another generation. And, O God, we pray that none would stray away, but that all would follow after you. We thank you that you've designed, from the beginning, the family to be this place, a place where you delight, to fellowship, commune, and dwell with your people. And we thank you that it is reflected in all of its perfection and glory in heaven and here on earth in this place again in your church. We thank you for your mercy and grace. We pray for grace to follow these patterns that you might bless them, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.