Welcome to The Journey Church. I'm Pastor Paris Pasch.

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At the outset of this year, God stated that 2026 is The Year to Bear Fruit.  Your pastors will be relentless with this message focus because time is drawing short for all churches to preach the good news.  The state of our world seems to indicate that Jesus is returning soon.

 

Today I will address a fundamental part of how we might bear fruit in a relationship with others.  Our world has ceased to dialogue, negotiate and hold civil conversations.  We riot, picket and protest, but never sit and talk or work through the process of finding common ground. This truth I will share can apply in all relationships, but I want to highlight especially our spousal relationship. I will cover love and respect between spouses, admiration and serving.  We will see that the same nonnegotiable warfare is destroying our marriages and homes.  Let’s start at the very beginning, so we can observe the difference between mankind’s idea and God’s.

 

Genesis 1:26–28 (NIV) Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

 

Do you see God’s design clearly yet?  Don’t try to fit our confused cultural reality into the scriptures.  We are actually commanded to adjust our culture to align with the scriptures not the other way around.  This understanding is critical to any marriage relationship.  Any part that is misaligned from a biblical truth is trouble the enemy loves to capitalize on.

 

Now the first thing to note is that mankind is the only image bearer of God.  No other part of creation holds this distinction.  Only human beings possess a unique awareness of themselves, creation and God Himself and can articulate that awareness though signs both verbal and written.  Humans are body, soul and spirit and no evidence exists that other forms of creation have these traits.

 

Tragically some of you in this room are struggling already with these statements, because the fallen world has had considerable impact on your thinking.  Please read your bibles to get adjusted.

 

Secondly, not sure if you’ve noticed, but men and women are divinely different.  From their very core to their exterior appearance, they are different.  God made mankind, then He separated them into man and woman.  Uniquely different but designed to fit back together.  Why didn’t God make Adam 1 and Adam 2?  Why didn’t he use the same parts, the same suspension or the same circuit board for both?  The answer is “only God knows”, but if you want to seek to understand better, then learn from the very creator.  Our world is struggling to navigate this dilemma and coming up with all types of explanations, but to their great peril.

 

Shape, size and even the way men and women process their surroundings is different by design.  Now I didn’t say better or worse.  We are not in a competition, despite what the reports indicate. Men and women; stop competing for market share, power or position.  If you miss this part of the class, you can be easily persuaded to believe all kinds of convoluted explanations that simply don’t align with God’s explanation and make little sense.  Resist the victim philosophy approach to your life and your gender.  Let’s read about the beginning again.

 

Genesis 2:20–25 (NIV) So the man (mankind) gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

 

You see, when God created mankind, He started with man and women together.  After observing all the animal world, mankind saw that no other creation was suitable or fitting to him, so God solved the issue by separating man from woman and making them unique.  He concluded that it would be better for mankind if they were in separate bodies that need to come together in a union called marriage.

 

Genesis 2:18 (NIV) The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. (more the sense of singular) I will make a helper suitable for him.”

 

Husbands, your wives are God’s solution to your aloneness.  She is your complimentor not competitor.

 

Genesis 2:24 (NIV) That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

 

God designed His unique creation called Mankind in a way that they are one from the other.  They are formed by the seed of one encountering the egg of the other.  They need one another to propagate, and they need one another to be complete.  (Pastor Brannen will speak of the exception of singleness in a few weeks but today is about spousal relationships)

 

I know this morning that I’m teaching the obvious to intelligent people, however we live in a confused world.  Men and women are unique from one another by fundamental design.  Can men bare children? No! Can men suckle children? No! Can women produce children, absent male sperm? No!  In addition:

• Men naturally have more muscle mass due to higher testosterone levels.

• Males have larger muscle fibers than females, so the average man is significantly stronger than the average woman. I said average.

• Women are biologically capable of menstruation, a process that involves the cyclical shedding of the uterine lining, which men do not experience.

• Women have the presence of two X chromosomes in their DNA versus one X and one Y in men, which influences gene expression, hormone regulation, and cellular function.

 

Stop the madness, stop believing God didn’t know what He was doing when he created them male and female.  God doesn’t make mistakes.  In the midst of this, we all must love the lost world so that God gets the chance to rescue them from their confusion not condemn them.  When someone is lost, we don’t punish them, we help them find tier way.

 

Number three:  How can these two types of creation be different but equal? Simply by understanding that men and women are made in God’s image but have different roles.  Their unique gifts and unique abilities add to a couple’s unified strength it doesn’t diminish it like our culture is trying to teach.  God doesn’t love women more than men because they have the role of childbearing.  God doesn’t love men more than women because He has asked husbands to lead the spiritual direction of their homes.  As is true in all battles; take the leader out and defeat is around the corner.  Read your Bible.

 

Matthew 19:4 (NIV) “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 

 

Satan is the enemy of harmony, love and unity along with being the enemy of marriage.  Satan pits the selfishness of a man against the selfishness of a woman and then it continues in marriage.  When we remove victimization, competition or preferential thinking and shift to understanding that we are valued for our role, not our gender.  We are fulfilling God’s assignments, not achieving our goals.  We are responding to a Godly calling, not outdoing our marriage partner.  It is only when we can see our spouse as God’s glorious answer to our life and not the problem to fix that we can fully enjoy God’s plan.

 

Ephesians 5:21 (NIV) Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

 

This “submit” is not some hierarchical positional power play.  It’s more like a shepherd guiding the sheep.  This is the equivalent of serving each other with our respective gifts and roles.  I bring my gift into the marriage and my wife brings hers.  It’s not about who’s the boss.

 

Far too many husbands today are coasting in their homes because they are married to a competitor.  Husbands, our wives need a partner not an observer.  We so often practice sitting and watching the game that we forget we are actually supposed to be on the field of marriage.

 

Ephesians 5:25 (NIV) Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

 

Ladies, many men today are emasculated by this culture and so step back from leadership and let you carry the load.  Refuse that role graciously and respectfully.  Be aware that often men get respect at work and in their professional environments, but see little respect expressed in their homes.  They may be admired for their corporate or athletic achievements but expressed admiration at home is virtually absent.  There is an all-out assault on manhood.  We’ve shifted from macho to effeminate and the result is spiritual powerlessness.  Wives, your role in life is not to help your husband stay beneath you or above you.  You are his equal, but you are not assigned the same.  So, learn as much as you can about your God ordered role.  I do not lord over my wife.  She is my teammate and my other half.  She trusts that God will lead me and I will listen to His instruction for my home as we march forward in life.

 

Ephesians 5:22–23 (NIV) Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

 

Just like in the human form, the head is of the very same substance as the body but serves a unique function just like Husbands and wives.  The head can’t survive without the body, and the body can’t survive without the head.  Stop separating the two and fully understand that they can’t both serve the identical function. 

 

So, do you see that men and women are fighting in the wrong direction vying for supremacy in the home, marketplace, entertainment field, sports and any other area?  Instead, we should turn and fight alongside our spouse to win the day battling against the enemy of God’s design for marriage.

 

1 Corinthians 15:57 (NIV) But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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      Message Questions

      Resource: Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood Grudem, Wayne • Crossway • 2002

1. In what ways has culture negatively impacted the view of the relationship between men & women?

2. Are men & women equal? Does that mean that our roles are the same?

3. How can we be complementors of our spouses rather than competitors with them?

4. In what ways do some men show complacency or passivity in their marriage?

5. In what ways do some women show disrespect to their husbands?