God’s Design for Men, Women, and Marriage - Genesis - February 8th, 2026 (Sermon Transcript)

Well, if you have a Bible, you can open it to Genesis chapter 2. If you don't have a Bible, you should have gotten a handout on the way in, and I'll have the passage on there as well. Well, back in 2020, I don't know if anybody can remember 2020.

It's kind of a significant year. Back in 2020, Black Lives Matter was a pretty big movement. It almost got sort of, I don't know, washed away by all the pandemic stuff, but there was a point in time where that was the thing on everybody's minds.

And I'm sure you remember, it was a really big deal. People tried to spin the whole thing. Like Black Lives Matter was simply about equality for black people.

Like if you believe that black people matter and that their lives matter, well, you should support Black Lives Matter.

It's simply about making sure black people were treated with dignity and respect and about making sure they were given the same opportunities as everybody else. But everybody would agree with those things.

I'm sure that we all would agree with those things. The fact is, the Bible teaches, Christians have always believed that it doesn't matter what your skin color is or where you're from. Everyone is made in the image of God and equally valuable.

But here's the problem, Black Lives Matter wasn't really about that. It was about far, far more than that. To give you just one example, they had a statement on their website that said this.

Eventually people found this statement and publicized it, and they removed it and tried to pretend like it didn't exist. But this was part of their core values, their statements of their beliefs on their website.

They said, We disrupt the Western prescribed nuclear family structure requirement. Let me say that again. We disrupt the Western prescribed nuclear family structure requirement.

That was their intention. That was one of their core values and goals. And what is this family structure that they decided was so evil and harmful?

Well, it's the exact family structure that God creates for us in the Book of Genesis. It's a man and woman getting married, having kids, and raising those kids together. According to the BLM mission statement, their goal was to disrupt that.

Maybe by having a woman and a woman raising kids together, or a man and a man, or you just abolish marriage all together, and you raise kids as a village of political activists. Something like that.

Anything but a man and a woman raising kids together. And it wasn't just BLM. The cultural tides, it seems, have shifted a little bit, but for a while, it seemed like everybody was opposed to the nuclear family structure.

Whether it was BLM, or LGBTQ, or Planned Parenthood, or local libraries, or your kid's elementary school, they wanted everybody to know that a man leading his family and loving his wife and them having kids together and raising those kids together,

that's white supremacy, or that's Western ethnocentrism, or that's patriarchy and it's evil. That's the problem with this world. But is it really the problem, or is it the solution?

Today, I want to show you where the Western prescribed nuclear family structure comes from, and it's not the KKK. It's from the Book of Genesis. It's from the Word of God.

The reality is, when people live this way, they flourish and thrive. And when people don't live this way, they struggle and they often fall apart. And I know that for many of us, we want to live this way, but it hasn't worked out.

And God understands that, and God has grace for that. That if you've tried to live this way, and it didn't work out for whatever reason, or you weren't raised this way, the point of this message is not to condemn you.

The point of this message is to hold up God's ideal and to recognize that when we fail, God has grace. When the people around us fail, God has grace. God can redeem anything.

But generally speaking, we need to understand that this is the way that God designed us to live.

And when we live this way, we, like Jesus said at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, when we live this way, it's like we're building our house on the rock.

And when the winds come and the rain comes and the storm beats on that house, it will not fall. But when we live any other way, we are like the unwise person who builds their house on the sand.

And when the wind comes and the rain comes, that house collapses. When people don't live this way, they struggle, and they will often fall apart.

So we're going to look at what the Word of God says about this family structure, what the Word of God says about men, what it says about women and how they relate to men, and what it says about marriage. Please stand for the reading of God's Word.

I'll read the text for us. Genesis 2 verses 18 through 25. 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. But for 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 ribs the Lord God had taken from the man, and 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. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated, and please join me as I pray for us.

Father, I pray that you would be with us this morning, present in this room, that your spirit would be at work in our hearts and in our minds, that your spirit, God, would guide me into the truth. Guide us to the truth, God.

We need your truth with all the lies in this world, all the destructive, all the destructive lies that lead to sin and death. We need your truth above all else. Please be with us, God.

Help us to understand and believe your truth and to live in accordance with it. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

8:06

Designed for Relationship

Now, as we get into this passage, I want to start with that first statement by God in verse 18. God says quite clearly, it is not good that the man should be alone.

And I think we could make the case from the scriptures, if we look at the rest of the Bible, if we put the pieces of the puzzle together, we can make the case from the scriptures that it's not good that the woman should be alone either.

And therefore, it follows that it's not good for human beings to be alone. In other words, we all were designed by God from creation onwards to exist in relationship.

Fundamentally, foundationally, according to God's good design, men were designed to be in relationship with women, and women were designed to be in relationship with men, and we were all designed to be in fellowship with one another.

We'll come back to the male-female relationship in a moment, but I want to make this very clear from the start. This passage is mostly about men and women and marriage, but not everybody in this room is married.

So I think it's especially important to highlight these things, that all of us, married or not, are designed to be in relationship with other people. That's just how God made us. That's how we function, how we flourish and thrive.

And we can see that in a thousand different ways. There's all kinds of research that bears this out.

If you are socially isolated, scientists have studied people who live in extreme social isolation, and they have found that if you are socially isolated, that's roughly equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes per day.

That's how bad it is for your health.

But if you have good, healthy social connections, you have, when facing the same struggles that people struggle as they advance in age, if you have good, healthy social connections, you have a 50% greater survival rate. Isn't that incredible?

God made us as social creatures, and He designed us that way for the sake of our physical health, but especially for the sake of our spiritual health. You simply cannot grow as a Christian if you are not in deep relationship with other Christians.

In our society, in the modern world, we often think of religion as a very private, personal, individual thing. And there's some truth to that. Like being a Christian, being a follower of Jesus, is a private, personal, individual thing.

There must be a personal relationship between you and God. And yet, if it's only a private, personal, individual thing, you are going to fail. The Christian life will not go well for you.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the apostle Paul said this. He said, you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. And he explains how each individual Christian is a different part of the body.

Whether an eye, or a hand, or a tongue, we are all different parts with different gifts and different purposes, but we are all part of one body. It's a very helpful and powerful metaphor. Now, let me ask you this.

What happens if you disconnect a hand from the body? What happens to that hand? Does it go off and just live its own little hand life and do hand things?

No, it dies. Any part of the body, if you disconnect it from the rest of the body, it will die. And so does the Christian who is disconnected from the body of Christ.

If you try to do the spiritual life all on your own, you will die. Your faith will die. As a Christian, as a human, you were designed for relationships with other Christians.

And if possible, if possible, get married to one of those Christians. From cover to cover, the Bible elevates the relationship between a man and a woman. We see that starting right here in verse 18.

It says, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. So fast forward a little bit, and you can see that the helper that God makes for the man is called a woman.

And before we talk about that relationship, I want to take... Does that mean that God is less significant or valuable than Israel? Of course not!

Even though he's their helper, he's infinitely more significant and more valuable. Then you get to the New Testament, and Jesus introduces the Holy Spirit as our helper. That's the name that he gives to the Holy Spirit of God.

John 14 verses 15 through 17, Jesus said this. There's a lot of other really good stuff in this passage, so pay close attention, and I want to highlight the part about the Holy Spirit being the helper.

But he said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Attempted to do a whole sermon on that right now, but it's entirely off-topic. But he said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Jesus introduced the Holy Spirit of God to the disciples as the helper. That's who the Holy Spirit is. Does this mean that you are superior to God's Spirit, who dwells in you because he's your helper?

Obviously not. And so it is with men and women. God made women to play the role of helper.

And it is a very God-like role, and it does not undermine equality between men and women. In fact, most of this passage is making the exact opposite point. Adam needed to find a helper who was equal to him.

That's the whole problem that we see throughout this passage. He needs to find a helper that is equal to him, not less, but equal.

So starting in verse 19, we see how Adam searches high and low for a helper that is like him, somebody that's on his level, somebody that shares his nature. And none of the animals meet that criteria. But the woman does.

The woman is created for the very purpose of meeting that criteria, being equal with Adam on the same level with Adam. Her equality is emphasized by the fact that she was made from the very same stuff that he is. Looking again at verses 21 and 22.

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.

And what does he say? Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. Women are made of the same substance as men, the same essential nature, not less, but equal.

And equality between men and women was already established in chapter 1 anyways. Genesis 1, 27. So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them in his image. Both male and female are made in the image of God, and that is the foundation of our value and worth, both male and female.

We see this reverberate throughout the Bible from beginning to end.

From beginning to end, believe it or not, whatever the professors these days might say, whatever the readers of the New Yorker might think, from beginning to end, the Bible elevates the status of women.

One way we see that is just in the creation story. There are many other creation stories from other cultures and religions throughout the ancient Near East. And other creation stories do not elevate the status of women like this.

They do not portray women like this. In other creation stories, and many of them in women were just a footnote. They don't get their own paragraph.

They don't get their own section in the story for their creation, because in these other cultures, they were simply less important. It wasn't worth explaining how the women were created, because all that really mattered was how the men were created.

But the Bible's not like that. In the Bible, women are equally important. In fact, the Old Testament law was intentionally designed to protect those who were typically abused.

We look at the Old Testament law, and we're like, oh, how primitive, how brutal, how racist, how misogynistic, and it supports slavery and all of these things.

Modern Western people look back on the Old Testament law and judge it ruthlessly, but mostly because they misunderstand it, and mostly because they have no idea of the historical context.

If you were a woman in the Old Testament culture, at that time, at that place, if you were a woman, you better hope you were an Israelite, because you're going to get treated a thousand times better than if you were part of any other culture.

The Old Testament law was intentionally designed to protect those who were typically abused, whether women or orphans or widows or foreigners. And then you get to the New Testament. What do you see in the New Testament?

You see women who are among Jesus' most prominent disciples. You see women who are the first to discover the resurrected Jesus, and then they go and tell everybody else about it.

You see women who are influential in the early church, influential missionaries, influential parts of the early church. And to be clear, in the New Testament, women are not pastors.

They're not apostles, but they are important, and they are valuable, and they are key contributors, and they are respected and valued in a way that was completely foreign to every other culture and religion. Here's the bottom line.

The Bible teaches that men and women are equal, but we just have different roles. Men and women are equal, but we just have different roles. You can see this in the life of Jesus.

I could go on for this for another 20 minutes, but in the life of Jesus, Jesus submits himself to the Father. Does that mean that Jesus is not equal with the Father? Of course not.

They are equal. But Jesus plays a different role, taking direction from the Father, submitting himself to the Father. He says, I am only going to do what the Father tells me to do.

I'm only going to say what the Father tells me to say. And he does that all the while maintaining their equality. He's just playing a different role.

If Jesus can play that role without sacrificing his equality with the Father, a woman can play the role of a helper in a marriage relationship without sacrificing the equality with her husband.

20:32

True Value Defined

I think for many people, in order to really understand this and embrace it, they need to make a fundamental shift in the way that they think about the world. Imagine how hard it would be.

Say you're raised in a place like the Bay Area, you go to college in a place like the Bay Area, and everybody you know believes the opposite of this. Imagine how hard it would be to believe something like this.

But if your God always agrees with you, it's not God you're worshiping, it's an idealized version of yourself. We should expect for God to disagree with us sometimes. We should expect for God to challenge us.

And for many people, in order to embrace the truths of the scriptures, the plain truths of the scriptures, this is a creation thing, not a culture thing. This is how God created the world to operate, not how some culture made it up.

In order to embrace this, we need to paradigm shift. And it all starts with one simple truth. If we're really gonna get this, if we're really gonna believe this and live in light of this, we need to understand that we are not defined by what we do.

We are not defined by what we do. If I can put on my BLM hat for a second. Let's talk for a moment about Western capitalist ideology.

We are Western people, right? This is Western culture in the Western world. We live in a capitalist economy.

And we have come to believe, as the result of our culture and our economy, we have come to believe the lie that your value is determined by what you do. So if you're a doctor, you are more valuable than a gardener.

If you're a scientist, you're more important and more significant than a factory worker. If you're a pastor, you're more important than a volunteer leader. These are lies.

The lie that the CEO is more important than the stay-at-home mom. These are lies. Your value is not determined by what you do.

It is not determined by the role you play or the job that you have. In fact, the gospel says that your value is not determined by what you do. Your value is determined by what Christ has done for you.

The gospel sets us free to embrace our God-given roles when it comes to relationships between men and women, because the gospel turns the thinking of the world upside down. The kingdom of God is the upside down kingdom.

The world says that in order to be important, you have to be in charge. You have to be the one in power. But Jesus accomplished our salvation not by holding on to his power, but by letting it go.

Ponder that for a second. Think about that for a second. Think about what Jesus did.

Do you have to be in charge to be important? In order to be important, do you have to be the one in power? In order to do great things or do the right things, do you have to be in charge?

No, Jesus accomplished our salvation not by holding on to his power, but by letting it go. The world says, in order to get what you need, you have to take control, but the gospel says that we get what we need by giving up control.

The world says that the one in charge is the one with the servants, but the gospel says to be low is to be high. To bear the cross is to wear the crown. You want to talk about being a helper.

If you want to talk about being a servant, look at Jesus. Philippians 2 verses 5 through 7.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

We serve each other because Christ served us. We serve each other because Christ served us. Pastors serve their churches.

They don't rule their churches like medieval kings. They don't manipulate their churches for their own benefit. No, they serve their churches in order to bless their churches because Christ has served and blessed them.

And men are called to serve their families because Christ has served them. And God designed women to help men as they lead their families. That's what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches that a man is given authority, and we're going to see this play out more throughout the book of Genesis in the following weeks. The Bible teaches that man is given authority not to benefit himself.

He is given authority to wield it for the sake of others. Man is given authority and responsibility not to exploit it for his own pleasure.

He's given responsibility so that he will take care of others, make sure they get what they need, and he will answer to God for how he uses his authority and responsibility.

According to the Bible, men are given a heavy weight to bear for the sake of others, and they need help, they need support as they bear that weight.

The world says that putting men in charge means that they're just going to drink beer and watch TV and go play golf with their buddies, right? That's the idea.

But the Bible says that men are put in charge so they can sacrifice their lives to love and serve their families. Just like Christ sacrificed his life to love and serve us.

26:48

Marriage Leadership

In verse 24, the author describes marriage, which is the ultimate expression of the relationship between men and women. It says, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

This is the beginning of marriage, the invention of marriage. A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Later in the Bible, in the Book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul unpacks this for us.

Because remember, in Genesis, we're getting the framework, the foundation of all these things.

But with all this stuff, and especially with marriage, later God reveals more, and he gives us more clarity about men, and women, and marriage, and how all of this stuff is supposed to work.

I've been trying to describe it for you, but now I want to show it to you more explicitly in the scriptures. This is what God said through the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter five, verses 22 through 28. I want you to listen carefully.

I want you to think of the stereotypes and all that garbage about men dominating women and men sitting around doing nothing while the wife works her tail off and men being the bumbling fools that are supposed to be in charge, but they're actually

just another kid that you have to take care of. Take any TV show from the past 30 years, any movie from the past 30 years, and look at the husband. What's he like? He's an idiot.

He's a fool. He's just another kid that you have to take care of. That message has been pounded into our heads for decades, that the dads aren't these powerful leaders that love and sacrifice for their families.

The dads are selfish dummies that you have to work around and clean up after. That's not what the Bible teaches. That's not what Genesis is talking about.

That's not how we are created to be. And just to be fair, some men are selfish dummies that you have to clean up after. Some men are domineering and wicked and stupid and abusive.

But they're not that way because of the teaching of the Bible. They're that way because they haven't been following the teaching of the Bible. They're that way because of sin.

The Bible knows nothing of that kind of garbage. Listen to what the Bible says, Ephesians 5. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

And let me just add again, Jesus submitted in everything, Jesus submitted to the father. And that did not make him any less equal with the father. It was just the role that he played.

Now listen to the role that the husbands, the men are supposed to play.

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.

I don't know how anybody could read that and fail to see the magnificence of it. I don't know how anybody could read that and think that men are supposed to have it easy. We're talking about sacrificial love.

We're talking about the kind of man who would sacrifice everything and even die for the good of his wife and children. That is not sexist. That is glorious.

That is not misogyny. That is beauty. Marriage is the ultimate expression of the God designed relationship between men and women.

And the Apostle Paul goes on to say that marriage is supposed to be an expression of the relationship between Christ and the church. He says this mystery is profound, this mystery of marriage. And I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

So his husbands love and care for their wives. They're meant to be showing the world what Jesus is like when he loves and cares for his people.

Marriage is the ultimate expression, and yet it's not the only expression of the relationship between men and women.

This God given order, this God created order of men and women and how it's all supposed to work, it's supposed to apply to all of our relationships in some way.

And that's hard to understand and it's hard to articulate, but men are made by God to be leaders, and women are made by God to be helpers.

And women are equally competent, equally able to lead, and they lead in their own ways and their own spheres, and they do important work and contribute important things.

This isn't meant to diminish that at all, but I want you to think about some things here. And this is the part that makes me a little nervous saying these things, but I think it's true.

I think we need to be confronted with reality and with the truth of the word of God. Why has every president in the history of the United States been a man? God made men to be leaders, to take charge and to lead.

Why has every president in the history of the United States been a man? Is it because we're sexist? Is it because we're stupid?

Is it because there's an evil patriarchy that runs the world? Or is it just the natural result of how God made human beings? God making men to be leaders.

Now, let me ask you this. What percentage of CEOs are men? What percentage of chief executive officers running companies are men?

The first female CEO, it used to be 100 percent, but the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company was Catherine Graham in 1972. She became the CEO of the Washington Post. So the barrier was broken, right?

The glass ceiling was shattered. That was in 1972. The first woman CEO.

And for the last 54 years, what's been happening? For the last 54 years, America has been creating organizations and creating laws and departments to make sure that every woman has every opportunity possible in the workplace.

And I agree, every woman should have every opportunity possible in the workplace. There's nothing wrong with that.

But we have to recognize that through legislation, through our universities, through our media, from the top down, from the bottom up, through every aspect of society, for the past 54 years, we've been pushing women towards the role of CEO, as much

as humanly possible, right? I think we can all agree that that's been happening. So, after 54 years, what percentage of women are CEOs? Ten percent, ten percent.

So, after 54 years, the percentage of CEOs that are men is 90 percent. Why is that? Is it because we're sexist?

Is it because we're stupid? Is it because there's an evil patriarchy that rules the world and just keeps women down? All these evil white men who run the world, they're just shoving all the women down?

Or is it just the natural result of how God made human beings? Women are incredibly smart, and capable, and tough, and resilient, and creative. There is nothing about women that is inferior to men.

Nothing. Maybe, like, on average, men can squat more than women in the gym or something like that, like physical strength, but we're talking about really important things. We're not talking about, like, women are less than men.

Women are just different. They're designed for different things, equally valuable things, equally important things, equally impressive things, just different things. That's what the Bible teaches.

That's the truth. And we need to think about and apply these truths to every area of life, at work, at school, in politics, in culture. And that's a hard thing to do.

Like, what if you're a man and your boss at work is a woman? What do you do in that situation? How do you act like a man in that situation?

And how does that woman act like a woman when she's the one with the authority and the power? When the roles have been reversed. And what if you're a woman and you're raising a teenage son who is quickly becoming a man?

How do you navigate that? I don't know. It's hard to navigate all these scenarios perfectly, and I don't have all the answers for every possible situation, but God does.

And he promises wisdom to anyone who asks him. Living out the truths of the Bible requires a lot of wisdom and grace from God. But first, we have to see the truth.

We have to see the truth. A lot of people never even get to that step, step one of seeing the truth, because they never read the Bible. They just scroll Instagram and watch Netflix and listen to the culture.

But here's the truth. We have seen it right here in the Bible. We have to see the truth.

We have to understand it. We can't mischaracterize it. We can't ignore it and distort it because we don't like it.

We have to see it. We have to understand it and we have to submit ourselves to it. I know there are a lot of women who don't like these truths.

Well, guess what? There are a lot of truths in the Bible that I don't like. But I submit myself to them, whether I like them or not, or at least I try to.

So let's all be praying for the Holy Spirit to guide us into the truth and to help us surrender to it, even if we don't fully understand it, even if we even if it rubs us the wrong way, even if everybody around us thinks that these things are sexist

and stupid. If you were to walk around this neighborhood today and lay out the basic facts from the book of Genesis, the basic facts about men and women from the Bible and say, what do you think of these truths?

If you were to walk around this neighborhood, 98, maybe 100% of the people would say, oh, that's awful. How morally regressive, how sexist, how stupid, how offensive. I can't believe people believe those things.

What a bunch of horrible garbage. I'm so glad that our society has advanced beyond that stuff and we don't have to live that way anymore. Everybody around us thinks that this stuff is sexist and stupid, but God doesn't.

This is his truth. And we are called to surrender to God and say, not my will, but your will be done. To surrender to God and say, I don't know if I fully understand this.

This is hard for me to accept, but I trust you. This is how God designed us to operate. And if we do it any other way, we will crash and burn.

But if we do it God's way, imagine if we live our lives God's way.

If we learn and study and plumb the depths of the scriptures, and then we do our very best to apply every truth of God's word to every aspect of our lives, not just men and women, but money and forgiveness and aging and everything.

If we do our very best to apply every truth of God's word to every aspect of our lives, that would change the world. It would change the world if Christians did that. It would change the world into the very place that God created it to be.

That's the goal. That's the plan. That we start living the way that God created us to live.

One person at a time, one church at a time, and that will change the world. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the glorious, beautiful truths of your word.

I think of the psalmist in the Old Testament, Psalm 119 especially, just declaring the goodness of your law, the glories of your commandments, the beauty of your truths, God. They are good. They are sweet.

And I pray that we would embrace them wholeheartedly. God, give us wisdom as we navigate these things, as we think about these things. It's not always easy to live in accordance with your truth.

Usually, it's not easy at all. But Lord, with your help, we can do it. So I pray for your Holy Spirit to help us, to empower us to live in accordance with your word.

We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.