What's the Big Deal…pt. 4: How We Are To Be
On 5/21/17, I taught the 5th part of my church's relationship series. My topic was, “What is the big deal between men & women?”, which I decided to turn into a blog-article. Because of it's length, I have divided it into SEVERAL blog-articles. Part 1 I covered “How men and women are similar”. Part 2 I covered “How men and women are different”. Part 3 I cover “How things get complicated”. Here in part 4, I conclude with “How we are to be regarding each other”.
Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of topicy-topics, and this topic is so broad and so polarizing that up until after both services I was not sure how it was going to be received. Surprisingly, it was received far better than I could've imagined. Awesome how the Holy Spirit works, right! Based on the feedback I received, and since I had manuscripted the whole message (minus the parts where I expounded on the Bible references, and so on), I decided to post it along with the link to the audio sermon.
May this not only bless you but challenge you to better understand and obey God accordingly.
Conclusion: How are we to be in regarding and treating one another’s similarities & differences?
I started this blog-article series by saying:
A noticeable and touchy complication in relationships is in how men and women regard and treat one another’s similarities and differences and that we were going to have to address several things to discover how to biblically deal with this.
Throughout these posts, if you’ve noticed, I have pointed out several things we, as believers, “are to be doing” (and can do because of the Holy Spirit) concerning how we regard and treat one another’s similarities and differences.
We are to see and accept our co-equality in value to God, in our humanness, and in our status in Christ, so we can esteem and interact with each other appropriately in these ways.
We have to stop defining one another by mankind’s flawed opinion and not God’s Word, so we can treat and value each man and woman with dignity and equality.
We are to value and respect our God-shaped individualities as men and women without equating superiority or inferiority to the other, because your individuality is what makes you “you” and others “them”.
We are to rightly carry out our distinct roles as husband and wife modeled after Jesus’ marriage to the Church for our complementary benefit and to portray the hidden beauty of Christ and His Church (as well as the Holy Trinity).
We must recognize our necessity of each other because we are incomplete without the other.
My hope is that by now you’ve come to realize that the big deal between men and women is that our similarities and differences are good and necessary.
Our similarities are good because there is no superiority or inferiority between men and women in our value and dignity—we are co-equal as image-bearers, co-equal in our humanness, and (for Christians) co-equal in Christ.
Our differences as men and women are good because in them we can see how they cause us to complement one another and not dominate the other.
And our similarities and differences are both necessary because things get complicated (and real messy) between men and women when we don’t view or treat each other as God has defined in Scripture, and thus sin, selfishness, and fear creep in and corrupt that which is good between us.
We must be anchored in the truth of knowing that our similarities and differences are an extension of God’s love, goodness, and grace. Therefore, when we regard and treat one another appropriately in these ways we then are being an extension of God’s love, goodness, and grace to each other; which also means the opposite is true, we are then withholding God’s love, goodness, and grace when we don’t regard and treat one another appropriately in these ways.
I’ll end with some reflections questions and a time of response.
How are you with treating and valuing each other with dignity and equality?
How are you with regarding and respecting each other’s individuality?
How are you representing Christ in these ways toward each other?
How are you at encouraging and urging other believers to represent Christ in these ways toward each other?
Know that however you respond today, and anything you may have been guilty of from what you’ve read, it does not diminish the love, forgiveness, or grace of God toward you in Christ Jesus. He allowed you to read this today because He loves you, because He has forgiven you, and because He is gracious toward you. So respond to Him today confidently knowing these things.
For unbelievers, what you need to know is that the God that you are running from, rejecting, and rebelling against created you in love and has placed His divine imprint of value upon you. You are valuable to God, so much so that He doubled your value by sending His Son to die for you. I implore you to respond to Him in faith today for your salvation.