Genesis 2_14-24： The Six Implications of Masculine Rule
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Summary
In this sermon, we take a look at the six implications of masculine rule in Genesis 2:15-17, and how they relate to the creation of the Garden of Eden and the relationship between Adam and the ground. We also see that before any sin, before the fall, while creation was still perfect, but God placed Adam in the Garden to work it and to keep it.
Transcript
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Today's sermon is titled, The Six Implications of Masculine Rule.
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Now, I've discussed these implications before in a different sermon series that I did on
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the covenant household, and so we're not going to go too deep into that dimension of this
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text, but I do think that it's impossible to get through this without highlighting those
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elements. And for those who have not heard the Covenant Household series, this might be helpful
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for you as they appear along the way. Now, my last sermon on Genesis, we saw how Moses shifted
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from this macro view in Genesis chapter 1, and then all of a sudden he shifted and zoomed into
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this micro view in Genesis chapter 2. And so we saw that the Hebrew had some really interesting
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transitions. We saw that in chapter one, God is referred to as Elohim, the creator. And then we
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saw this shift in chapter two, where you see the word Lord in your English Bible, but it really is
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Yahweh, the covenant keeping Lord. It's this shift from almighty creator into this relational shift
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here in chapter two. And we also saw that the order of creation in the last sermon showed that
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everything was being made for this pinnacle experience in which man was the capstone of
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that moment. Meaning that the whole world was created for man and not man for the world.
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We also discussed that Adam was formed from the Adama. When you see this in the Hebrew,
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you see this really great connection between Adam and the Adama. And the fact that Adam
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has a relationship with the ground, at least our physical bodies do. And the fact that God
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actually punishes Adam by cursing the relationship between him and the ground. And so those are
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really important aspects that we've covered in the past and will be helpful for us as we
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shift through today and on future sermons. So if last week's focus was a detailed look at Adam,
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This week's focus is a detailed look at Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
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Let's look at verse 15 through 17. Let's read it together.
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The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.
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You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.
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For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
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Now, right at the start, we see this first implication of masculine rule.
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We can't overlook the fact that God created man before he created woman.
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And the interesting thing is that God has enough power to create man and woman simultaneously.
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But he didn't create God, or he didn't create man and woman simultaneously.
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And this implies, at some degree, a chronology, a chronological order.
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Now, next we see that before any sin, before the fall, while creation was still perfect,
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But God placed Adam in the garden to work it and to keep it.
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Well, I think a lot of people think that work is some sort of post-fall result.
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And yes, I will say that the work is less enjoyable because of the curse of the fall.
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And it's something that I think every one of us, especially the men, need to remember in our day and age.
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Now, in other words, paradise was not about leisure.
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And here's why. Votie Bauckham did a great sermon. I actually had a chance to listen to it. I forgot who told me about it.
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But it was something called like the three trees of the garden.
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And he had this beautiful reference in there talking about how many men are quietly underwhelmed with the prospect of heaven
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because the way it is portrayed as a place of eternal leisure in which you sit around,
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Maybe you worship and you're on a cloud and you're relaxing.
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That has been the historic, at least the medieval, look at heaven.
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But scripture paints a different picture of heaven.
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The restored Eden, heaven, the restored heavens and earth.
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You know that this earth right here that we're standing on will be restored.
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On this land, that dirt, those plants will actually be restored without sin, without curse.
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This world is ours. It says the meek will inherit the earth.
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Now, in Luke 23, we see Jesus say to the thief on the cross,
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today you will be with me in paradise now that word paradise is the same greek word
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that you have for eden or paradise in genesis when it's translated in the hebrew or sorry in
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the septuagint now why is that important the septuagint is the greek translation of the hebrew
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scriptures. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. And the word that is
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translated in Genesis for Eden or for paradise is the same Greek word that Jesus uses when he says
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today you will be with me in paradise. It's tying Eden and heaven together. That's what the scriptures
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are doing. And why is that important? Because just as Adam was placed in paradise to work
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and to care for it before the fall, we will be placed in paradise to work and care for it
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in glory. It'll be a good thing. We will enjoy it. I don't know about you, but if you've ever
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worked the land and you've stood outside and you look at the glorious mountains and you have maybe
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its fall colors around you, the weather's perfect, the animals
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are grazing, and you look at it and you go, this is beautiful. We will
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have that and that glorious work again, but in a
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the restored earth, it says, no longer will there be anything accursed.
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a land that is cursed, there'll be no dead plants.
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There'll be no dead animals. There'll be no pain in your body.
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There's work to be done, good and godly work to be done.
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masculine rule when it says, quote, the Lord God commanded the man saying,
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you may surely eat of every tree of the garden.
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And he goes on to talk about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
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and the tree later in the trees of life, the tree of life.
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God delivers the rules of morality to Adam alone.
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god gives the rules of morality in the garden to adam alone and not to him and eve together
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and what this communicates is that adam is the responsible party for the moral state
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of the garden now how do we know that that is true because later as we will see in chapter three
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See, when Adam and Eve both sin, God does not call Eve.
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Again, laying the responsibility for the state of the moral failure upon Adam alone.
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Next, I want you to notice how disobedience or sin leads to death.
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We know it leads not just to physical death, but also to spiritual death.
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The death is defined as the separation of the body from the soul.
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And spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God.
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We know that there is physical death, and we know that there is eternal spiritual death, which is hell.
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Now this verse right here, that we're in right now, lays the foundation for the entire gospel and the rest of the Bible.
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this is what christ is saving us from disobedience produces unrighteousness
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unrighteousness produces guilt guilt produces consequences the consequence is death
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we are born dead we are born spiritually dead and we are born dying it is said from the moment
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of our conception, we are beginning to die. And this is why we need a way to escape death.
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This is why we need a way to escape death. One, to have our sins removed. Two, to be made righteous
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before God. And three, to be raised to eternal life. We need all of those things which are a
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result of this text here in Genesis chapter 2. It helps us understand the death-to-life motif
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of the New Testament. I think a lot of Christians read their Bibles, and they don't understand
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some of these connections between eternal life and the book of Genesis.
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Colossians 2 actually let me read John chapter 5 verse 24 it says truly truly I say to you
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whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and he does not come into
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judgment but has passed from death to life none of that would make any sense without Genesis
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with him, having forgiven us all of our trespasses.
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in mercy because of the great love with which he had loved us, even when we were
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This is just a small sample of New Testament passages that speak
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it says, Then the Lord God said, It is not good
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the object of this great interruption is that man is lacking a companion.
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Yet we have here God declaring that man's aloneness was not good.
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Because it shows that divine fellowship alone was not meant to meet man's earthly need for companionship.
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Divine fellowship alone was not designed to meet man's earthly need for companionship.
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now this is significant because it challenges the modern claim that we hear in the church
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usually off of a off of a poor understanding of first corinthians chapter seven
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that singleness is a gift of god singleness is a gift of god
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we've heard that many times well i will disagree i do not believe that singleness is a gift of god
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But I do believe that singleness may be a calling on a very select few people for the sake of the gospel.
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You might have a man like Paul who is not called to remarry because he is a missionary for the gospel.
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But I do not believe singleness is the normative reality of God's will for mankind.
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Why do people say, oh, your singleness is a gift?
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I think it's in an effort to kind of soothe this ache of singleness.
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And I've heard them say, hey, God is enough for you.
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Or seek the Lord in this season, which is true.
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but it implies that you should find everything that you need in the Lord.
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Yeah, great, I will seek the Lord, but also I really want to be married.
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It is not good to be alone for a man, which implies that it is not good to be alone for a woman.
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Now, singleness is not sinful, but I do not want to fall into the trap that it is the ideal.
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we have young adults ministries with three or four hundred people
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and nobody's getting married but everybody has a sex life
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is that when God said something that was not good
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well, how can it be not good in this perfect place?
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God intentionally withheld what would make creation whole
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in order to draw attention to the problem and his resolution.
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I mean, in a literary aspect, this is the most massive emphasis of chapter 2.
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so from the beginning God designed marriage as the ordinary and desirable condition for mankind
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now this should do something to us it should invigorate us our churches our families our
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friends to help facilitate introductions and opportunities that might cultivate courtships
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and I really hope and pray that we can be really good at it in the future.
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Well, because it removes many of God's intended blessings for humanity.
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You don't have motherhood and fatherhood or family.
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You don't have the preservation of God's people when you're alone.
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It leaves many men and women in a lifestyle that cultivates, even without intention, self-centeredness, loneliness, depression, isolation.
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It leaves many people without the sharpening and sanctifying edge of marriage and children.
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the National Marriage Project in a study recently showed that
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the longer a person remains single, the higher the chances are of divorce,
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and they associated that with the independence that is fostered in singleness.
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I've known many great men and women who have been married at 40
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But the reality is, is that it's something, if you are single, you have to guard against constantly.
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You have to constantly guard against the independent heart that is just a natural outflow of single life.
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You must surround yourself with families and submit yourself to authorities
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and walk in companionship and fellowship with many people to guard against those realities.
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This leads us to the third implication of masculine rule, which is God saying, I will make a helper fit for him.
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Now, while Eve is equal to Adam in value, we see that she is not equal to him in nature or duty.
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In other words, God didn't produce duplicated sameness.
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This creation for feminine support of the masculine being is confirmed in 1 Corinthians 11 verses 8 and 9.
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For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.
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Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.
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Ladies, if you want to know what your creational purpose is,
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it is to help men, in particular, your husband,
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but maybe your father, maybe men in the church if you're single.
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But you are designed uniquely to be a support of masculine rule.
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You fulfill many of the great qualities and needs that men lack.
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And when women try to be like men, as the feminists try to push, you lose that.
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It is so good and glorious when men can be men and when women can be women.
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In the same way that Adam was made from God and for God, Eve was made from Adam and for Adam.
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in the same way that Adam was to carry out God's will
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as Christ says to the father not my will be done but yours
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and as men say to Christ not my will be done but yours
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a wife says to her husband not my will be done but yours
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this sounds insane in our generation but if you look to 1st Corinthians
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used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands
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would have looked at the Old Testament and her calling him Lord.
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And saying, that was certainly the old covenant.
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But the fact that Peter brings it up, and the Holy Spirit includes it in the new covenant, is quite amazing.
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Though God recognized man's need, he delayed meeting it.
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You can see in verse 19 through 20, we see a narrative that lets us sense Adam's loneliness.
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He's got the animals, and they're parading through in front of him.
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And it's this moment that makes him go, everything has a partner but me.
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Now to the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens
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and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.
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And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
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The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.
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But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.
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This brings up our fourth implication of masculine rule.
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God gives Adam, not Eve, the authority to name the animals.
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This is not only demonstrating man's superiority over creation, but it's a unique responsibility not given to the woman, but given to the man.
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The text returns to the creation of Eve in verse 21.
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So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.
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And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed it up in its place with flesh.
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and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man
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not out of his feet to be trampled upon by him,
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But out of his side, to be equal with him, under his arm, to be protected by him, and near to his heart, to be beloved by him.
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More than that, God is trying to communicate oneness between a man and a woman.
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Ephesians 5.28-21, it's referencing this very chapter.
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If you go on and read Ephesians 5, he talks about this specific chapter.
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In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
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He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh,
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but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church,
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For a man to hurt a woman, or for a husband to hurt his wife, is for a man to hurt himself.
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This is the fifth implication of masculine rule, again, which I mentioned just a few moments ago.
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but in that Eve comes from Adam and not Adam from Eve.
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It's also important to notice that Eve is presented by God to Adam.
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Almost, and I don't want to use the word possession,
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but almost as a, this is yours, this is your wife.
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It's actually worth noting that God presenting Adam with Eve is actually part of the biblical foundation for arranged marriages.
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just as a loving God gave Adam a suitable and desirable Eve
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I believe that any loving father would desire to present his son with a suitable wife
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doesn't mean that we have to do arranged marriages
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but I believe that parents being involved especially through courtship
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and children need to learn to trust their parents in matchmaking
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He says, then man said, this is one of the greatest kind of acclamations of praise
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This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,
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and she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
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now there's a lot to unpack here and i don't want to go too deep bone of my bones speaks to her kind
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her species he just looked got done looking at all the animals that thing's not shaped like me
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and then he sees eve bone of my bone she's got the same architecture as him
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This is speaking to her external appearances like his.
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It's actually where we get the phrase, of my own flesh and bones.
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Now this is a verse where some people will abuse it,
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and they'll speak against interracial marriage.
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They'll say, well, look, you know, here's an example.
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Flesh of my flesh means that they probably had the same skin color.
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But Scripture never forbids interracial marriage, but it does absolutely forbid interfaith marriage.
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A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives.
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But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes.
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We also see that Moses married Zipporah, who's a Midianite.
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We know that Boaz married Ruth, who was a Moabite.
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Now, this doesn't mean that there are not benefits of marrying within your own race and culture.
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my wife is hispanic and there is cultural barriers that we've had to overcome
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being married from my history and culture to hers we've overcame them in christ
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but you could have further cultural separations and so yes priority number one is that you marry
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in the lord but it does make marriage a bit easier to marry someone who shares your culture
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Typically, historically, skin color and culture are typically related.
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This also leads us to the sixth implication of masculine rule.
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And in the same way that man exercised his dominion over naming the animals,
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we see that Adam is given the right and authority to name Eve.
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There is an exercise of authority and dominion there.
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Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife,
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And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
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Now in our modern day, we view this through the lens of individualism.
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But what we see in Scripture is men getting married and actually staying pretty close to their fathers.
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You see men getting married, staying close to their fathers, while women get married and totally move away from their families.
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It used to be honoring your father in a patriarchal society, submitting to him.
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You are to separate from that and your priorities are to change.
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Honoring your parents only comes second after honoring your wife.
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Number two, it implies that giving daughters away is righteously painful.
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Because in a sense, what you have raised often moves away and becomes part of another man's family.
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And so we who have daughters are raising these daughters to go be a part of another man's lineage.
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And it's a blessing when that lineage is, of course, in the name of Christ.
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And so you can see why ancient men were so focused on having boys.
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They wanted boys because you know what that did is that it built up kind of this dynasty element.
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Where you'd have your sons would stay nearby and bring their wives and their families.
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And you would end up building this tribe element.
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But if you had eight girls, you would be generally left alone.
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Your daughters would move away to be parts of different other families.
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And oftentimes, you would move to be with your daughter and one of those families.
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That was what was a very common practice of the ancient world.
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And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
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This is here to show that sin is the cause of shame.
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Without sin, there is no need for clothing because there is no shame.
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And this is also part of today's desire to be shameless.
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and not feeling the shame they ought to feel for it.
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And so we know that in Christ our shame is taken away,
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It is also that when we go to be with the Lord in glory,
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but we will be covered in robes of righteousness.
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and we are excited to move into chapter 3 of Genesis
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we ask that you would give us an understanding of it
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that it might shape and form our identities as men and women and children.