The first question ever asked in the history of the world
was God asking our first father, Adam,
after he and his wife had sinned,
"Where are you?"
That question is the same question
that God asks every man.
And at Mars Hill Church, we ask that question a lot
and we expect men to respond to say,
"Here I am.
"Teach me, train me, correct me, rebuke me,
"prepare me to lead my family, to love my wife,
and to serve my kids."
This is our vehicle that Grace and I have a good time
driving around with the kids in, filled with lots of toys
and Legos and snacks and juice boxes.
And it's kind of a good analogy or illustration
of what I'm talking about.
Get the whole family together.
Mom and Dad are side-by-side, holding hands as friends.
Everybody is going the same direction,
but ultimately, Dad takes the wheel
and he leads the family in the direction that God
wants them to go, and so he's got to do a good job
making sure that everybody is together and making sure
he doesn't crash the metaphorical vehicle
along the way.
So that's basically our biblical view
of complementarian theology,
and you'll now hear a sermon preached at Mars Hill Bellevue,
where we unpacked exactly what God intends for us at home
and in the church, as men lovingly lead
their families and answer the question that God asks,
"Where are you?"
How many of you are men?
Okay, welcome men.
How many of you are women?
Oh, if you raised your hand, this sermon is for you.
I think that should take care of everyone.
And what I want to talk about today
is the legacy that you and I could leave,
by the grace of God, through our families
for the service of Jesus for generations to come.
And so I thought it would be fun to start with a story
and this is a very common story in the history
of Mars Hill Church.
This woman, lovely woman, says,
"When I came to Mars Hill Church,
I was not a Christian."
If you're not a Christian, welcome to Mars Hill Church.
You will be soon.
[congregation laughing]
"My father and grandfather," she says,
"had repeatedly physically, sexually,
and emotionally abused me."
All right, this is why we do Redemption Groups.
This is the story of one in three women, statistically.
"I came to Mars Hill as a non-Christian,
and Jesus is the first man I ever trusted."
I'll tell you what, if you're going to start with one guy,
that's the front of the line right there.
Trust Jesus first.
"Then I realized I wanted to be married and to be a mother,
"but I didn't trust men because of what had been done to me.
"I ended up meeting a guy who became a Christian
at Mars Hill."
You guys who don't know Jesus, welcome to Mars Hill.
You're here to get saved and knock it off.
Okay, that's why you're here.
All right?
Whatever it is you're doing, Jesus wants you to knock it off
and he's going to help.
"I ended up meeting a guy who became a Christian at Mars Hill,
"and his desires were for Jesus and marriage and kids,
"and he seemed like a good guy.
We got married."
We've got a premarital process for that to help you out.
"He's never raised his hand, he's never raised his voice
"to the kids or me.
He's very sweet."
See, we believe men should be tough and tender.
Somebody breaks into your home: tough.
Your wife wants to go on a date: tender.
Right?
Somebody wants to take your daughter out: tough.
[congregation laughing]
You're going to take your daughter out: tender.
See, tough and tender.
"He's very sweet.
"We have two daughters.
Every night, he snuggles with them."
That's good for daddies, too.
It changes us.
"He prays over them.
"He reads the Bible with them.
"He kisses them on the forehead.
"He tells them that he loves them.
"He sings worship songs to Jesus with them.
They think their daddy is the greatest man in the world."
Praise God.
"Almost every night," she says, "I cry
"because I realize that my family is changing
"and my daughters won't have to deal with what I dealt with
because they have a different daddy."
Amen?
Friends, honestly, that's what we want to see happen thousands
and thousands and thousands of times.
We want men to meet Jesus, women to meet Jesus,
to be forgiven of sin they've committed,
to be healed from sin that's been committed against them,
to fall in love.
Some of you are single, some of you are married,
93% of you, statistically, will marry at some point--
to have a marriage that is endearing and enduring,
you're friends and lovers, and worshipers of God.
You make some babies who grow up to love and serve
the same God as you, so that the work of Jesus
continues long after you're gone,
by people with your last name.
That's what we want, that's what we want.
He proposed to me after meeting me for 2 months,
like we'd only known each other for 2 months.
Everyone was freaking out, like, "You don't even know him!"
Everyone's looking at her stomach like, "Is she pregnant?"
I was thinking, "I love her but I have no idea what I'm in for."
No idea what to do, and that played itself out really quickly.
And so it all starts in the book of Genesis.
Genesis literally means beginnings.
Genesis is the book of beginnings,
and there we find God's intent for us.
I'm going to answer three big questions today.
What is God's intent for men and women?
What is God's intent for men and women in the church?
And what is God's intent for men and women in the home?
And it all begins in the book of beginnings.
God's intent for men and women begins in Genesis 1:1.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Everything begins with God.
It doesn't begin with men or women or marriage
or children or family or singleness or any of it.
Everything begins and ends with God.
Everything that is made comes from God.
We'll give an account to God.
Everyone will ultimately stand before God.
Everything comes from God.
Everything belongs to God.
It's all about God.
And when we forget God, we start acting as if we're God,
and that's where all the trouble begins.
And so God exists in perfect loving union and communion.
The doctrine of the Trinity is that there's one God,
three Persons.
They're equal.
They're coeternal.
They love.
They communicate.
They adore one another.
And then God decides that he would make men and women.
And we read that in Genesis 1:26.
"Then God said, 'Let us--'"
And so all the way back to the church father, Augustine,
we hear that this is the Trinity.
"Let us," one God, three Persons.
So the Father, Son, and Spirit say,
"Let us make man," mankind.
And so the man is the leader.
He is made first and so the human race is named man.
"...in our image, after our likeness."
That "our" language refers to the Trinity again.
And men and women both equally bear the image of God.
So men and women are different.
Do you know this?
Do you know that men and women are different?
Do you know that?
Any of you women ever lived with a man and thought,
"Well, he's different than me"?
Any of you men lived with a woman and said,
"She's definitely different than me"?
Any of you had children?
I've got kids.
My kids are different.
My son always dresses up as a warrior, a ninja.
He asked me, recently, "Are there Christian ninjas?"
I think he's trying to figure out his vocational path.
[congregation laughing]
It's ninja, cowboy, warrior, dragon slayer.
He even put on his pumpkin this year.
He literally wrote a note--he's 5.
And his pumpkin is a warrior pumpkin,
and it says, "Jesus will crush you."
[congregation laughing]
I don't even know what that means.
It's on the front porch of our house.
He stuck a note on it.
[congregation laughing]
"Jesus will crush you."
"Trick or treat."
[congregation laughing]
My daughters never did that, never, ever.
Dress up like princesses, right?
"Hey Daddy, can we go for a walk?"
"Yeah, we can go for a walk."
My sons, "Can we go assault someone?"
"Yeah, I guess we could."
[congregation laughing]
Men and women are equal, but they're different.
Boys and girls are equal, but they're different.
And they're equal because men and women, male and female,
bear the image and likeness of God.
Goes on-- God goes on to say,
"You have dominion, and you rule."
So there's God above us,
there's lower creation beneath us.
Bad anthropology says, "Well, we're kind of like God."
Well, we're not gods and goddesses.
And bad anthropology, in addition to pushing us up,
can pull us down and say, "You're basically just
highly evolved animals."
Well, we're not animals and we're not gods.
We're people made in the image and likeness of God.
We are under God's rule, and we rule over lower creation.
So "God created man," verse 27, "in his own image,
"in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them."
Now, the doctrine of the Trinity is that God is equal,
shares all the divine attributes,
loves and serves, but also has what we'll call
functional submission.
So the Father sends the Son.
And Jesus says over 40 times in John's gospel,
"The Father has sent me."
Jesus says things while on the earth--
he's the second member of the Trinity--
"I say what the Father has told me to say,
and I do what the Father has asked me to do."
And we saw this in Luke's gospel
not long ago, that Jesus even prays,
"Your will be," what?
"Done."
And it's been a struggle 'cause it was 24 years
that I had this feminist outlook.
We didn't really know what a godly relationship would look like
Like, I come from a long line of Christians
but they are very feminist leaders in my family.
The women--like the mom is the one that wants to go to church,
Grandma is the one who wants to go to church, like Grandpa or Dad
may support in that, like they'll go but if you want anything done
you'll talk to Grandma or you talk to Mom or you talk to Aunt or--
they kinda lead everything and so they're the ones praying with you
and having Bible study and quiet time and all that kind of stuff,
teaching you those things, but Dad's not really as much involved.
So there have been a lot of-- in my past--
emotional abuse with different men,
and so there was a lot of bitterness and anger towards men.
And so I was like, "Well, I can take control of this."
But instead of looking at it like, "Jesus, you need to be the one I look to,"
it was more like, "Jesus, I look to you but I'm also gonna still try to control it
'cause you kinda failed me before."
Soon we got married, that's why I was like, "Shawn's safe."
Like he's a safe bet, he's gentle, he's quiet, like, he's kind of a wuss.
I didn't know you were a wuss but-- he's kind of quiet, like quiet side
so I was like, "I can totally submit to that; that's fine."
But then as we started going through our marriage, I'm like,
"This is a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be."
All those feelings-- like I hadn't let go of yet
in trying to control Shawn.
And so Jesus, though he's equal to God the Father--
the second member of the Trinity is equal to the first member
of the Trinity--
he submits.
He submits, and then God says, "I'm going to make men and women
"in my image and likeness, and they're going to show the world
a little bit of what the Trinity is like."
They're going to be equal.
They're going to have union, communion, love,
affection, communication.
They're going to care for one another,
serve one another, and also the woman is going to respect
her husband so that he can lovingly lead the family
in the purposes of God.
That's ultimately where all of this is going.
"And so God blessed them."
And here's the good news about our God.
He likes to bless.
We don't need to make him bless us.
You don't have to manipulate God to be good.
He just is.
God wants to bless you, and he wants to bless your marriage,
if you are or will be one day married.
He wants to bless your children and your children's children.
I'm convinced the God of the Bible still likes to bless.
"God blessed them and said, 'Be fruitful, multiply,
fill the earth.'" Make some babies.
Children are a blessing.
Children are a gift.
Yes, sometimes they are difficult,
but they are used of God to sanctify us,
to show us the heart of God as Father and to reveal to us
sometimes how, as the sons and daughters of God,
we could be a lot of work to the good Father
that we have in heaven.
And God says that children are a blessing.
You know what's amazing at Mars Hill?
When we started, we had no children, 15 years ago.
Grace and I didn't even have a baby yet.
There were no kids at Mars Hill.
We didn't even have a kids' ministry.
Do you know that now Mars Hill Church has almost
2,000 children, elementary school-aged kids?
So Mars Hill went "Dibs!" on "Be fruitful and multiply."
We called that verse as our own.
And so we see marriage as a gift from God,
children are a blessing from God.
And then it continues, Genesis 1:31.
"God looked at all that he made and he said it was very good."
You look at the world today, you say,
"It doesn't look like that.
"There's sin and sickness, and suffering and sadness.
What happened?"
Well, when God was done, it was all very good.
Now, because of human sin, things have gone very bad.
But don't blame God.
Look in the mirror and ask, "How have I participated
in the demise of all that God made good?"
Genesis 2 then picks up the story
and it's the beginning of marriage.
It's the beginning of family.
It's the beginning of gender.
And it revisits Genesis 1.
We read Genesis 2:18.
"Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man
to be alone.'"
Up until this point, everything is good
and very good.
Sin has not entered the world.
God looks at the man and says, "That's not good.
It's not good for the man to be alone."
How many men know it's not good to be alone?
Amen, that's why you got married.
Every man who gets married is publicly declaring,
"I need help."
[congregation laughing]
And every woman who says, "I do,"
she knows he needs help.
[congregation laughing]
Some of you guys are like, "I don't need help."
You need the most help.
[congregation laughing]
Men need help!
It's not good to be alone.
See, he's got God above him, creation beneath him.
He doesn't have a friend alongside of him.
So what does God do?
God has a plan.
And when God calls the woman the "helper,"
it's not denigrating because the Bible
says in Psalms, Hebrews, and elsewhere
that God is our helper, that God is our helper.
So the woman is made to help the man glorify God,
as they live together as equals, with respect for authority,
imaging the Trinity to the world.
It continues.
"Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast,
every bird--" And what happens then is God brings
all the animals to Adam to name him.
And this had to be kind of a weird moment for Adam.
"Okay Adam, we're going to find you a spouse."
"Aardvark, is that her?
"I hope that's not her.
All right, goat, alligator."
All of these animals are brought before Adam
and he names them and he's wondering,
"Where's my spouse?
And I hope we haven't met them."
[congregation laughing]
And then God does this amazing thing.
He makes a woman.
He kind of saves the best for the last.
That's kind of the image you get here.
"So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man."
Maybe in a chair with a lever, we don't know.
"And while he slept he took one of his ribs
"and closed up that place with flesh.
"And from the rib the Lord God took from the man,
he made a woman and brought her to the man."
So ladies, where do you come from?
The side.
Isn't that beautiful? I love this imagery.
A woman's not to be out front like feminism teaches
or behind like chauvinism teaches.
She's built to be an equal, a helper, a lover, a partner,
a friend, alongside of the husband.
And then Eve-- this is an amazing day.
She's had a lot of things happen to her.
She got made.
[congregation laughing]
That's a big day.
She met God and God tells her, "We're going to have a wedding,
and you're naked."
How many of you ladies, that's a lot for one--
any one of those things is a lot.
[congregation laughing]
Right?
"I'm God, I made you, you're naked.
We're going to have a wedding."
And so then God escorts, like the father,
he escorts Eve down the aisle, our first mother,
and he introduces her to her husband.
They just met, and this is the first wedding between
the first man and the first woman.
And so we have the first recorded words in human history,
Adam speaking to Eve.
And in the Hebrew, it's actually poetry.
It's a song. It rhymes.
That's why guys with guitars always have a strategic
advantage to this very day.
[congregation laughing]
"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.'"
And then he lays down a process that Jesus and Paul
echo in the New Testament.
"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother."
So this is a big part of our theology at Mars Hill.
How many of you guys are single?
You're single, right?
Leave your mother and father's house.
If your mom's still cutting the crust off your sandwich
and tucking the Star Wars sheets into your bed
and ironing your footie pajamas,
you are not close to husband-ready, right?
So first thing, men, you've got to move out
of your mother and father's house.
Number two, "hold fast to his wife."
Not live with her.
He's not looking for a good time.
He's looking for a good legacy.
He gets married.
Okay, we want people to get married at Mars Hill;
93% of you will, statistically.
We've got a good premarital process to help.
And then number three, "they shall become one flesh."
They consummate their covenant of marriage.
And that idea of one there is that the man and the woman
become one, kind of like God the Father,
God the Son, God the Spirit are one.
This same word here is used in Deuteronomy 6:4.
It's called the shema.
The Hebrews would say it three times a day.
"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one."
So I tell the kids this all the time.
They're like, "Well, how can God be three in one?"
We had this conversation actually last night
with the boys, when I was tucking them in.
I said, "Well, it's kind of like your mom and I.
"Your mom and I are two people, but we're one.
"We have one last name, one house, one bank account,
"one bed.
"We worship one God. We're on one mission.
"We're one. We're one.
"We're two people, but in another real sense,
"we're one.
"God is kind of like that.
"Three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit,
but one."
And the Bible says they "were both naked and not ashamed."
So God made our bodies.
God made gender. God made marriage.
It's all very good.
There's no shame.
This is God's intent for men and women.
You say, "Well, what happened?"
Genesis 3,
Genesis 3.
Someone else enters the equation.
"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the other beasts
of the field that the Lord God had made."
And Revelation 12:9 and Revelation 20:2,
it tells us that this serpent is Satan, our enemy.
He was an angel made by God, a created being who led
a rebellion against God, and now Satan and demons are at work
on the earth.
You need to know this.
Satan didn't even show up until Adam and Eve were married.
You notice that?
He could've showed up and attacked Adam as a single man.
He waited until he was married.
I find this is the case.
Sometimes single people think,
"Well, we'll get married because we're feeling tempted,
"and tested, and tried.
And once we get married, then the pressure will be off."
No, it won't. It will only increase.
Right, married people?
You're like, "Man, once we got married,
"once we decided we're going to love and serve God
as a Christian family, then it got even harder."
Because you have an enemy.
And I want you to know this.
It's not just you and God.
There is a third variable, and that is Satan and demons.
They are real.
They are really at work.
They really hate God, and they really want to destroy you.
The story goes on.
"He said to the woman, 'Did God actually say,
"You cannot eat from any tree in the garden"?'"
That's not what God said.
God had told them, "You can eat anything you want.
"There's only one thing you can't do.
Do not partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."
It was right in the middle of the garden
because we've got to learn to walk by temptation all the time.
And he changed God's Word.
That's how Satan works.
In John 8, Jesus says he's a liar.
Satan still lies, and he takes what God said
and he twists it so it's not exactly what God said.
But if you're not discerning and studied and read,
you get deceived.
And then Eve has a conversation with Satan,
and she says, "God did say we couldn't eat,
and he said we couldn't touch."
She adds to God's Word something God never said.
We add to the Scriptures.
We add to the Word of God, to our own destruction,
and it started with our first mother, Eve.
The question then is, well, where's Adam?
What's he doing, our father?
He's supposed to be a dragon slayer like Jesus.
Here's what we read.
Verse 6, chapter 3 of Genesis.
"So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
"a delight to the eyes, and was to be desired
to make one wise--"
Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes,
boastful pride of life, 1 John says--
"she took some of its fruit and ate.
She also gave some to her husband, who was," where?
"With her."
What was Adam doing, men?
What was our father doing?
Nothing.
This is the common sin of many men.
Some men sin through commission.
They do what they should not do!
Other men sin through omission.
They do not do what they're supposed to do!
His is a sin of omission.
So what is God going to do?
Well first, we read in verse 7,
"The eyes of both were opened.
"They knew they were naked.
They sewed fig leaves together, and they made loincloths."
The first thing they did, they covered themselves.
The intimacy is gone in the marriage.
She's hiding.
He's hiding.
"You can't see me. You can't know me.
I don't trust you."
This is what sin does to all human relationships,
particularly marriage in this context.
What is God going to do?
"And they heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking
"in the garden in the cool of the day,
"and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence
of the Lord God among the trees of the garden."
They had no shame; now they have shame.
They were not hiding; now they're hiding.
When people sin, they tend to hide.
Have you noticed this with kids?
You're like, "Where did they go?"
They did something bad.
They're hiding.
This is what adults do, too.
They stop going to Community Group.
They stop going to Redemption Group.
They stop coming to church.
They stop returning your calls.
They stop answering your questions.
They start hiding.
You don't need to hide; you need to repent.
You don't need to try and cover up what you've done.
You need to bring it out in the open so that it can be
dealt with, and they did not do that.
"But the Lord God called to the man and said to him,
'Where are you?'"
That's God's question for men, to the husbands,
to the boyfriends, to the fathers,
to the grandfathers, to the brothers in Christ.
Where are you?
And this is God's question, men, for you and for me today.
I would ignore her. I would--
You watched a lot of movies during that time.
Yeah, I would silence the conversation by turning up the volume.
You know, it's like the universal coward move.
Like, "I don't wanna deal with this,
like I don't want to understand you."
I can't characterize it by behavior,
I can only characterize it by my heart attitude was like,
"I don't care."
Like, obviously not enough to invest in her
and take care of her.
I did not serve her and did not love her, the way Christ loves the Church.
Things just got more and more out of control
but I was just into porn and into myself and just watching movies
and just doing nothing.
Like if I would've been taking drugs, like that would've been an excuse,
like--but I didn't have one.
Now, let me ask you this.
Who sinned first, Adam or Eve?
Eve.
Who did God come looking for first?
Adam.
Why?
Because to be a man is to bear additional responsibility,
not just for yourself, but for your wife and your children.
Eve is going to be held responsible for sure,
but the problems in this family could have been dealt with
had Adam led, loved, humbly, courageously,
as God intended, and he failed.
Our father failed.
His sons, we tend to fail, and that's sin,
and what it leads to is separation from his wife.
They have two sons, Cain and Abel,
and one murders the other.
Men, you need to know this.
The decisions we make greatly affect,
for good or evil, our wives and our children,
which means the decisions we make,
they ring for generations toward death or life.
We are sinners by nature and choice,
which means unless God changes us,
we're dangerous for one another.
And we may want to love, and we may want to have life,
and we want to have legacy, but we don't have the means
by which to accomplish that apart from God's salvation
and intervention.
So then God shows up and he holds the man accountable,
and he holds you men accountable.
What I'm not talking about is being a bully.
I'm not talking about being a dictator or a chauvinist.
What I'm talking about is loving your wife,
loving your children, being courageous,
not a coward, taking responsibility
so that your wife and children flourish under your care,
that your wife and children flourish under your care,
that you're a blessing to them, that you're a protection
for them, that you're a means of God's grace to them.
That's exactly what is to happen.
I was really depressed at that time too.
We didn't have any really friends supporting to us at all--
or we weren't seeking that at all so if anyone asked
we'd be like, "Yeah, we're doing great!"
But there was never the--it never went deeper than that.
I hated my job but I had to work there because for a while
he was unemployed and I was like, "I married a bum."
And he was like, "I like being unemployed."
I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to--"
I didn't want a career but I'm like, "I'm gonna get a career.
That's what I need to do to fix this because--"
I knew that you didn't want one so I was like, "I gotta fix this marriage."
Like, "We gotta fix this."
And I was totally content and pleased to have her carry the load,
take everything on, build a career because it meant I didn't have to do anything.
And God comes and he holds the man accountable,
and he holds all of us men accountable,
and we want to create a culture or cultivate a continued culture
of accountability among the men.
Even in the previous service, out in the foyer,
I talked to men who were crying, holding their wife's hand,
hand on top of their children, saying, "I have not been
"a good husband.
"I have not been a good father.
I want to, by the grace of God, be different."
That's what we want: men not hiding their sin
and shame, but acknowledging that they are like their
first father and that they need God to help them
to be different.
So God comes to Eve and he speaks to her
and he speaks to Adam and he doesn't give up on them
and he doesn't give up on you and he doesn't give up on me
and he doesn't give up on us.
Sin does not get the final word.
God does!
Verse 10, "He said, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden--"
Adam does to God--
"'and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.'
God said, 'Who told you you were naked?'"
"Oh gosh, yeah, that's right.
Yeah, oh, you got me, Lord."
He said, "Have you done what I told you not to do?"
"Yeah, I did."
And then what does he say?
"The woman you gave me, she gave me this fruit,
and me, as a victim, partook."
Isn't that great?
"Adam, where are you?"
"Oh."
"What did you do?"
"Oh, the wrong thing."
"Why did you do that?"
"The woman you gave me."
[congregation laughing]
"You'll remember, Lord, everything was fine until
"this girl showed up, and then-- I think she's defective.
"In fact, you made her.
"I think you really need to take
some responsibility here, Lord."
How many men, that's the issue?
We look at our wife and say,
"You know, I wasn't like this until I married you."
She didn't change you; she exposed you.
That's all she did.
So Adam tries to blame it on Eve.
Now ladies, have you ever had this?
Now, don't raise your hand.
That would be an awkward moment in our service.
"Yes, I have!
"He blamed it on me.
"It's his fault!
"Thank you, Pastor Mark.
Put him in the clinch."
Okay, I know, I know, I know.
But how many of you, really, ladies,
you would say, "I'm tired of being blamed for all his stuff.
"He gets angry; it's because I made him angry.
"He fails something; it's because I wasn't good enough.
It's always my fault."
That's what men like to do: pawn the blame off on God
and the woman.
It goes all the way back to our first father.
So then God comes to the woman.
"Then the Lord God said to the woman,
'What is this you have done?'
She said, 'The devil made me do it.'"
She's Charismatic, so the devil made her do it.
[congregation laughing]
Because see, sometimes ladies, it's hard to just blame
your husband, right?
A lot of ladies are like, "Oh, I love him.
"I feel sorry for him.
"I've got to live with him.
"Uh, the devil.
Yeah, the devil, the devil attacked my husband."
No, your husband kind of attacked himself, right?
He didn't do anything.
He was a coward.
He saw this coming.
His eyes were open.
God made him a leader and, as a result,
it's his responsibility.
We can't blame the woman, and we can't blame the devil.
Ultimately, men need to take responsibility,
but it starts with one man taking responsibility.
You look at this.
You say, "Where's the hope?
"Where's the good news?
How's this going to work?"
Well, God curses Satan.
And then verse 14, "The Lord God said to Satan the serpent,
'Because you have done this, you're going to be cursed.'"
Down to verse 15, "'I will put enmity between
"you and the woman, between your offspring and hers;
he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.'"
God shows up and says, "This man and this woman
are the problem, not the solution."
God looks at it and says, "It's completely devastated.
"They are the problem, not the solution,
"so I'm going to send the solution.
"I'm going to send the Savior.
I'm going to send the Son of God."
And so this is the first promise of the coming
of the second member of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ,
in the Bible.
And he looks at Satan, and he says,
"I'm sending a Son born of a woman."
That's Jesus, born of Mary.
"You're going to have a great conflict with him.
You're going to hurt him, but he's going to destroy you."
And so Jesus is promised to be coming.
See, the hope is not in the husband.
The hope is not in the wife.
The hope of the husband and the wife is Jesus.
The hope for the family is Jesus.
The hope for the human race is Jesus.
The hope for everyone, everywhere,
all the time on the earth is this Son, this Jesus,
this second Adam, this last Adam.
Where the first Adam failed, the second Adam succeeds.
Where the first Adam brought death,
the second Adam brings life.
Where the first Adam failed in a garden,
the second Adam actually shed drops of blood and anxiety
on his way to the cross in a garden.
Where the first Adam failed at a tree,
the second Adam atoned for sin on a tree!
The hope is not in Adam!
The hope is in Jesus!
[congregation applauding]
And that's why-- that's why in Romans 5:12-21
it says there's only two kinds of people:
those who are born in Adam,
and those who are born again in Jesus Christ;
those who were condemned in Adam,
and those who are saved in Jesus Christ;
those who are sinners in Adam,
and those who are saints in Jesus Christ.
And so from this point forward,
the hope is someone else is coming
and he's going to fix what we have made wrong.
He's going to straighten out what we have made crooked.
He will forgive the sin we've committed.
He will take away the shame that covers us.
But God does predict that there would be conflict
between men and women.
God tells the woman that with great pain
she'll bring forth children.
Ladies, is that true?
I've been at a birth. I'll tell you, wow!
Wow!
It looks like it hurts.
[congregation laughing]
And it says that a lot of a woman's pain
is going to come through being a wife and a mother.
She's going to struggle with trusting a man
because men are sinners.
She's going to struggle in regards to motherhood
and her roles, and this is going to cause a lot of anxiety
and frustration, and it's still true.
And then for the man, God comes and says,
"Your job is going to be really hard,
thorns and thistles and frustration."
How many of you guys work that job?
You're like, "Yeah, my job is hard."
Do you know why?
God loves you.
You say, "My job doesn't work.
"It's hard to feed my family.
"I'm competing in business.
"It's so tough to pay the bills.
Why, Lord, why?"
And God's like, "Ah, now you know what I feel like
"trying to get you to do what you're supposed to do.
"Your job treats you like you treat me.
Ha ha, you're welcome."
So that's how it goes.
[congregation laughing]
So then they get kicked out of the garden,
so that they don't live forever because they would live forever
apart from God, which would be hellish.
Death comes into the human equation,
and for thousands of years, people are waiting
the coming of Jesus.
Finally, the prophecy is fulfilled.
The woman does give birth to a son.
His name is Jesus.
He lives without sin.
He's God among us.
He's the second Adam.
And he's the Savior of sinners.
He's the hope of the world.
He's the reconciler of relationships.
He goes to the cross, substitutes himself,
suffers and dies in our place for our sins,
out of love for us, to save the sons of Adam,
to save the daughters of Eve, to reconcile them together.
He is buried; he rises from death.
His friends, his family, his foes all saw it
and testified to it.
Jesus conquers sin and death.
Jesus gives salvation and life.
He is the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father, but by him.
He evidences his resurrection for 40 days,
ascends back into heaven, and the Holy Spirit is poured out,
and the Christian church explodes from 120 people
meeting in an upper room to what is now a few billion people
on the earth, and we're part of that great gospel legacy
in the wake of Jesus.
And Jason had never--he just shared his testimony with me and then left.
He was waiting on a ride so he had to leave,
but he had a lot of adultery and all this kind of stuff that God
had changed him, actually changed him.
And it kind of--God used that story to just break my spirit of "Men can't change."
And to hear his testimony, the Holy Spirit was like,
"I can change anyone.
"I can change anything and through the sacrifice of Christ,
"I can do whatever I want so you need to quit saying
that I can't change people."
We came to church, A.J. and Pastor Donovan approached us.
Pastor A.J. kind of started asking her questions.
Pastor Donovan asked me questions.
I'd heard about A.J. I heard the term, "Somebody got AJ'd."
I was like, "This guy's tough."
So when he came up to me I'm like, "I'm ready for this."
Like this guy takes down from this, like I'll take him on.
And he came up and just asked me a few questions like,
"Hey, how are you?" Like, "How did Shawn take care of you?"
I was like, "What is that? What is he talking about?
I take care of myself. We live together but I take care of myself."
And so he was like, "Oh, okay."
And that was all he had said and then he turned to Shawn
and he started asking all these much more pointed,
much more harsh and directed questions that I assumed
were going to be me, but were him.
- And I was like, actually-- - 'Cause she was the head at the time.
I was like, I actually kinda like this, I like that he's asking him
all these questions and just listening and observing
the way he wasn't freaking out but just responding to those questions.
God quickly convicted me that the answer to every one of their questions was "no."
Like, "Are you leading her?" "No."
"Are you loving her?" "No."
"How are you serving her?" "I'm not."
"What does your marriage look like?"
"Um, it's weak because I don't take care of her."
You know, and it was like God was just leading these answers
out of me that I didn't wanna give.
And it was really revealing and just really like we kind of left
just totally broken and in shock, like, "Really?
Was it that bad?"
And I'm like asking her--like gosh I can't believe how horrible
it was like just hearing it from her was just like a punch in the chest
like the Spirit was starting to draw me to repentance,
draw me to see my sin.
What it came down to is Jesus made it impossible for us to continue
in how I was stumbling, how I was misleading her, how I was,
in my sin, just leading us to death, leading our marriage to death.
I felt incredibly excited.
It was this crazy shift from,
"I hate all those people. I want nothing to do with them,"
to "This could work and I think it's the right time."
What is God's intent for men and women in the church?
And here's where we begin, 1 Timothy 2:11.
"Let a woman learn--"
In that day, that was controversial.
Women over here, men over here.
Men learn, women don't.
Most women were illiterate.
They weren't taught to read.
They were not recognized as equal to men.
We know that the Bible teaches men and women are equal
because they bear the image and likeness of God.
Like a right and left hand, they complement one another,
working together for the glory of God,
and God wants the women to learn.
So ladies, read your Bible, read books,
read theology, good podcasts, vodcasts, classes,
learn, grow.
Grow.
Don't borrow the faith of your parents.
Don't borrow the faith of your husband.
Don't take other people's word for it.
Open the book that God wrote.
Get to know the God of the book.
Do your own homework.
Come to your own convictions.
There is nothing better than to encourage the ladies
to be good theologians.
And so he says, "Let the women learn--"
and he says with a condition--
"quietly with submissiveness."
And the quietness here is not an abject silence.
It's a word used, as well, over in Titus to refer to men.
It just means respectful.
It means that sometimes, when we hear things,
our first thought is, "That's wrong."
Well, think about it.
Is it in the Bible? Is that what God said?
Let the Holy Spirit show up.
See if it doesn't get clearer for you.
What he's asking here is that people would learn,
particularly women, in this context.
And just listen.
Give it a shot.
See what the Bible says.
Some of you say, "Well, that's not how it works in the world."
Well, let me tell you this.
The world ain't working.
The world ain't working, and the Word of God stands forever.
I didn't know how to-- how to be a wife.
Like all these questions like I had no idea.
So I asked a ton of questions but I also like--
that's when I went to Mars Hill's website and just googled "women"
'cause I was like, "They've gotta have something,
like they've gotta have some kind of help for me."
And there was--I think there was like five sermons by Pastor Mark
and I just listened to them all. Like right in a row.
I was just like, "God I know what this is."
And some were from Timothy and 1 Peter and different things
but I was like, "I have to know what this looks like
if we're gonna live this way now."
Not totally in a pure heart; there was still some controlling there
but I was just like a sponge.
Like I have to know what this looks like.
I have to know how God sees marriage
and what God wants it to look like 'cause I didn't know.
He goes on to say, "I do not permit a woman to teach
or to exercise authority over a man; she must remain quiet."
Now, the word "teach" here is used of the elders or pastors
in 1 Timothy 5.
"Let the elders who labor in preaching and teaching
be worthy of double honor."
And this word for "authority"--usually,
when it comes to a word in the Bible,
to understand what is meant, we look at how the Bible
uses the word elsewhere.
This word only appears in this place
in the whole Bible, right?
The theologians call it a hapax legomenon.
I know, big word.
That's what they do.
This is the only place that word appears in the Bible.
So what does it mean?
Well, in context, it seems to mean that women
are spiritually gifted.
Women have all the same spiritual gifts
open to them as men.
The women should use them to the fullest, with one exception:
the office of elder, preaching and teaching
in the place of highest authority in the church.
You say, "Well, is this a cultural thing?"
No, it's a creation thing.
He goes back to Genesis 1, 2, and 3.
"For Adam was formed first, then Eve;
"and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived
and became a transgressor."
And it goes on to say, "Yet she will be saved
"through childbearing-- if she continues in faith,
love, holiness, and self-control."
What he's saying is God made the man first.
God made the man the leader.
God made the man responsible.
The woman was to help him.
She was to come alongside as a partner and equal,
a friend in the purposes of God.
God named the race "mankind."
God holds the race responsible through the man.
In fact, we're receiving of the condemnation of sin
through our father, Adam.
Even though Eve sinned first, men are told that it is Adam
who was our federal representative and head.
And when he sinned, we were all included in his decision.
And here's the big idea.
God wants men to take responsibility.
God wants women to take responsibility.
But God wants men to lovingly take responsibility
for the well-being of their church,
not to stand back in the church like Adam did
in the garden and say, "Well, this isn't my responsibility."
So here's the big idea, men.
We want you to love your wives and children.
We want you to help your wife learn: Bible study,
prayer, encouragement, book-reading, conversation,
investing in, so that your wife would flourish,
so that your children would flourish.
Too many churches have this idea that it's a man's duty
to drop his wife and kids off, while he drives away.
There's nothing wrong with children's ministry.
There's nothing wrong with women's ministry.
But you know what the world really needs?
More husbands and fathers that love their wife,
that love their kids, that love and serve their church.
And he then transitions in chapter 3 to the qualifications
of an elder, a pastor, the senior leaders in the church,
those who set the example, imitable for others.
And so the qualifications of an elder begin with,
"This is a trustworthy saying: If anyone aspires to the office
of overseer, he desires a noble task."
What he's saying is if in your heart you're saying, men,
"Yeah, I'd like to lead someday,
"I'd like to help this be a great church to God's glory,
"I'd like to make this a place that I take my time,
"talent, and treasure, and I want this to be
the best church it can possibly be,"
God says that's a really good thing!
So how many of you men aspire to leadership in this church?
You're not a leader yet but you aspire to it,
raise your hand.
How many of you men aspire to that?
And I love seeing the hands of the really young men.
God got my heart at age 19.
He saved me.
And let me tell you the truth.
I did it all wrong.
I was self-righteous and proud and religious,
and I didn't know God, and I was sleeping with my girlfriend
and I had a massive anger problem
and I came from a long line of wife beaters
and alcoholics and bullies and thugs and jerks.
And God saved me, and he gave me a love for his Son,
Jesus Christ.
He gave me a love for the church of Jesus Christ,
and he gave me a love for a girl named Grace.
And he put in me this desire to serve and love the church.
I want to love what Jesus loved.
I want to serve what Jesus served.
Jesus loved and served the church.
And so I'm inviting you men to aspire.
He says it's a good thing to aspire to leadership.
And, friends, as Mars Hill grows,
one of the fastest-growing, largest churches in America now,
we need more leaders.
We need more good husbands and fathers,
and the qualifications continue.
"Therefore an overseer," an elder, a pastor,
"must be above reproach, the husband of one wife."
This doesn't mean single men don't qualify.
If Jesus signed up, we'd take him.
If Paul signed up, we'd take him.
If Jeremiah signed up, we'd take him,
even though he cries a lot.
We'd take him, too.
[congregation laughing]
But it does mean that most of the pastors
are going to be married; and those who are married,
they're good husbands.
And then it goes on to talk about they're good fathers.
Their kids follow, love their dad.
Their wife is flourishing.
She's well cared for.
Their finances are in order.
Their life is in order.
Their household is in order.
And what he says is this: "If you can't take care
of your family, why would we give you the church family?"
Why would we give you the church family?
And then it goes on to talk about
the qualifications of deacons.
You can read the whole list for elders.
But it says, "Deacons likewise--"
beginning in verses 8-13.
A deacon means servant.
It's a word used in the Bible of men and of women,
women like Phoebe in Romans 16:1
and Euodia and Syntyche, I think it's in Philippians.
And it's coming alongside of the elders.
So we have roughly 50 elders.
We have roughly 550 deacons.
And it'll talk about qualifications for male deacons,
women deacons.
I won't unpack it all.
We do believe women have all the spiritual gifts.
We do believe that women are gifted to lead and to teach
and to love and to serve.
We do believe in every way that women are called to offices
of leadership in the church.
We call them deacons, along with godly men.
And in addition to that, we have elders.
And all of that comes out of 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Timothy 3
because what God's intent in creation is still to this day
God's intent in the church, God's intent in the church.
And the hard, cold, sad truth is in most churches,
all the work is getting done by the women.
All the prayer, all the love, all the service
is getting done by the women,
and the men, like Adam, are silently, cowardly,
passively just letting women serve God
and not doing their part.
And God wants that not to be the case in our church.
The third question, since I'm in the midst
of committing exegetical suicide and I don't have time
to answer this question, but we'll have a huge series
that kicks off in January for 11 weeks called,
"Real Marriage," answering this question:
What is God's intent for men and women in the home?
Ephesians 5:21-33, I'll only make a few cursory comments
by way of introduction.
Grace and I are going to answer this question for 11 weeks,
starting January 15th.
Please pray for Mars Hill Church.
It's crazy time.
We're up almost 2,500 people from the same Sundays last year.
This thing is a work of God.
We're a kite in a hurricane.
We're just trying to keep up
with our senior pastor named Jesus.
That's why I'm asking you to consider nominating yourself,
preparing yourself for leadership.
And in this, we really want to make sure that the marriages
and the families are strong because we believe that
strong marriages and families contribute to a strong church,
and that's good for all of the city in which
the church resides.
And so Grace and I have written a book,
and you could pray.
I mean, we're probably going to get whacked like a piñata
on this one because we're pretty honest.
But, I mean, we talk about our sin before marriage.
Grace talks about her sexual assault, which no one knows,
and how we really had some hard things to work through
in our marriage, how I wasn't as humble,
as good a friend as I should've been,
but how in the grace of God I've learned to become
a better friend to my wife so that she can flourish
and she encourages me, and how this works together
practically in a marriage that starts completely wrong,
but in the grace of God gets redeemed and restored
and renewed.
And the big idea is that God's intent in the home is the same
as God's intent in creation and in the church,
and that is that the men would take responsibility
and that the women also would take responsibility,
and that they would respect their husbands,
and that their husbands would be a source of great love,
encouragement, affection, devotion, generosity,
so that they might flourish.
And so Paul starts out in Ephesians 5:21,
by way of preface.
He says to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
And then he's going to go on, and he's going to unpack this
concept, and he's going to say, "Husbands," what, "your wives"?
"Love them, like Christ loved the church."
Was Christ a bully?
No.
Was Christ selfish?
No.
Was Christ arrogant?
No.
"Husbands, love your wives like Christ loved the church."
How many men know that's an impossible task?
Men, you and I, for the rest of our lives,
if we are graced of God to be husbands,
we're going to be working, by the grace of God,
for the rest of our lives to even try and get close
to that call that God has for us.
I tell you what, I love my wife.
I really do.
I don't yet love her as Christ loves the church.
Sometimes, some days, some ways, I feel like I'm getting close,
and then I realize how much more work I have to do
by the grace of God.
And it says, "Wives," you're supposed to what,
"your husbands"?
"Respect them."
So men, let's give them a shortcut and be respectable.
Through humility, through repentance,
through taking responsibility, it makes it easier for our
wives, and women in general, to respect us.
And when he says to submit to one another out of reverence
for Christ, and he goes on to talk about men loving
and women respecting, that means that he gets
to be the umpire as to whether or not he's respected;
she gets to be the umpire as to whether or not she's loved.
And this is like two pedals on a bike.
This is how a couple makes progress.
He loves, she respects.
He takes responsibility, and she helps him glorify God.
They work together, and that's exactly where Paul is going
here in 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, of which he is the Savior."
It doesn't say that men should be the head of their home.
It says that men are the head of the home.
It doesn't say that Christ should be the head
of the church.
It says that Christ is the head of the church!
So men, here's the truth.
The question is not-- whether or not you are the leader.
The question is are you a good or bad leader?
That's the only question.
Some of you say, "No, no, no, I don't lead."
Yes, you do.
You lead like Adam led.
You led through passivity and cowardness and cowardice.
The question is not, "Are you the head?"
The question is, "Are you a good head or a bad head?
"Is your wife flourishing?
Are your children flourishing?"
Some of you guys say, "I'm glad I don't have
to worry about that. I'm single."
Yes, you do.
You're supposed to start loving right now,
before you even perhaps meet the woman that God
would have you to marry.
This is not a time for you single men to extend your
adolescence, to just be irresponsible,
to abuse women, to take advantage of women,
to be a consumer, not a producer,
to act like a boy, even though you're just a man
who really needs to grow up.
We call them boys who can shave.
Boys who can shave, right?
And here's what happens.
Men are waiting longer than ever to marry:
late 20s, early 30s,
and they're acting like boys the whole time.
And let me tell you the truth.
When it comes to getting older, single women are like wine.
They get better with age.
Single men are like milk.
[congregation laughing]
It's true.
And any single guy who denies that is proving my point.
[congregation laughing]
"No, I'm not. I disagree."
We know.
So at Mars Hill, we want men--
and I know you won't all marry,
and you can live a fully God-glorifying life
like Jesus did, as a single virgin,
but most of us are going to marry
and most of us are going to have kids.
And most of you men who are single, are not ready,
and many of you men got married
and you weren't ready, either.
So what do we do?
How many of you, in hearing this,
how many of you women feel like, "I'm a sinner.
"Boy, "respect"? I just--I laughed at that submissive word.
I thought that was cute, you know?"
The Holy Spirit was like,
"I can change people, but I also want to heal you."
And submitting to him as my first love and trusting him with my heart,
trusting him with being able to protect me and to lead me and to grow me
and looking to him for that first before looking to Shawn,
that's where it had to start.
It had to start with my heart, seeing my identity as a child of God.
When you see yourself in light of Christ, then you see yourself
as worthy and then when he brings someone to lead you,
you can trust that, you know?
How many of you men, in reading this, you're like,
"I'm a sinner. If that's the job description,
I fall short"?
See, this is to show us our sin,
not to destroy us, but to invite us to Jesus for help.
And here's what I'm not saying.
I'm not saying that a man is an ultimate authority, right,
because if a man breaks the law,
the wife could call the cops.
If a man's out of line, she can call the elders.
Over everybody and everything is Jesus.
We're not saying that men are in charge.
We're saying that men are to lovingly love, serve, lead
their families like Christ does the church.
Number two, we're not saying that men are smarter,
more gifted or competent.
We know that.
Right?
We're not saying that at all.
Number three, we're not saying that women should submit to men.
Like, I would never look at my 14-year-old daughter,
"Sweetheart, just submit to men."
Ha ha, I would never say that!
What we're talking about is not men, ladies, one man.
Right?
You shouldn't marry any man you can't trust.
You marry a man you trust, and you help him to glorify God
because if he's a Christian that should be his deepest desire.
This is to protect women from all kinds of horrible men,
and this is so that women and men,
in the context of marriage, would have that kind of loving
friendship where they learn to really trust one another,
rather than hide in shame from one another.
I know a lot of testimonies sound like,
"Okay, I was horrible, Jesus yay, everything's fine."
We were horrible, Jesus, and not everything's fine.
Like it hasn't been like, "I'm totally different now, yay."
I think one of the biggest things is when someone at work
came up to me just recently, it was like a month ago,
and they're like, "Why aren't you a [bleep] anymore?"
And I just asked them, "What do you mean?
What does that mean?"
They're like, "Well, you don't seem to boss people around,
"like you aren't here as often as you used to be.
Are you working full time?" I was just like God is awesome.
I want you to enjoy the grace of God individually.
I want you to enjoy the grace of God in your marriage.
I want you to enjoy the grace of God in your family,
and I want that river of God's grace to flow to your kids,
your grandkids, your great-grandkids,
your great- great-great-grandkids.
And it all starts right now with some of you really
getting serious about Jesus.
Some of you borrowed the faith of your parents,
or you have been borrowing the faith of others,
maybe even some of you men, you've been borrowing the faith
of your wife, which often happens.
Today you need to come to your own faith.
You need to decide for yourself,
"Yes, I'm going to trust in Jesus.
"Yes, I may have walked in here as someone who didn't know God
"in Christ, but I'm going to walk out of here
by the grace of God, as someone who knows God in Christ."
And some of you, you're trying to deal
with the sin of your past from your family.
And let me say, you can unpack your family baggage
all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
And the hope for them, and the hope for you is the same.
Jesus came.
Jesus forgives sin.
Jesus takes away shame.
Jesus makes people new.
Jesus pours the Holy Spirit in them.
Jesus gives them new desires.
Jesus gives them a new identity.
Jesus gives them a new eternity.
Jesus gives them a new power to live out of this new identity
as a new person.
And Ephesians 5 says he took responsibility for us.
And this is what I'm asking you men to do, like Jesus;
not as Jesus, but like Jesus.
Jesus took what was not his fault, our sin,
and he made it his responsibility.
That's how Christ loved the church.
He went to the cross, and he poured himself out,
and he died in our place for our sins,
and he rose as our Savior.
And as you give your sin to Jesus,
as you give your shame to Jesus, he says, quote,
"It is finished," and he takes care of everything
that needs to be taken care of.
He takes your sin away.
He gives you his righteousness.
He takes your death away.
He gives you his life.
He takes your condemnation away.
He gives you his salvation.
He takes you from Adam as your father,
to God as your Father,
and he raises you up as matriarchs and patriarchs,
women and men of faith, belonging to God,
filled with the Holy Spirit,
sent to the earth with a mission that begins with marriage
and children and a legacy, so that after you,
your grandkids, your great-grandkids,
your great-great-great- grandkids look back on this day.
And when the question is asked, "What made a difference,
"where did it all change, how did that legacy
"of sin and death that had plagued our family
for generations, where did it end?"
they will tell the story of this day.
"There was a day when my great-great-grandmother,
"my great-great-grandfather, they met Jesus.
"They were filled with the Holy Spirit.
"They became a new person, and the legacy of faith that comes
"from them has now been echoing and ringing for generations,
"and I am part of their legacy of faith.
"I am fruit hanging on that branch of our family tree,
by the grace of God."
And what I'm begging you to do today,
is to give yourself to Jesus, to give your sin to Jesus,
to give your shame to Jesus, to give your children to Jesus,
to give your grandchildren to Jesus,
to give your great- grandchildren to Jesus!
And that's why we're here!
[congregation applauding]
A total 180.
We just love the idea of starting a family, like building a legacy,
like over the course of a couple of weeks I think we were thinking about it
and then we had a conversation when we went on vacation
and we're like, "I think I want kids. I think I want kids too."
Yeah I was like, "Is that okay?
'Cause I know that's kinda changing things."
God has been redeeming us just issue by issue,
making our hearts new.
Kelly makes it easy to lead her.
She's kind, patient, she's loving.
Conviction, that's what leads to that.
She is the biggest help I have ever had.
God shows his love for me through her and it makes it
a joy and an honor to lead her.
I'm really excited!
[congregation laughing]
You don't know what God has for you,
but it's wonderful, and it's for a whole lot
of people who have your same last name.
Father God, thank you that you're a Father.
Thank you that the Bible doesn't end in Genesis 3.
"Sin and death came, the end."
God, thank you for sending your Son.
Jesus, thank you for coming.
Thank you for giving your life in our place for our sins,
as our substitute and Savior.
Jesus, I pray for those right now who come from
Christian families, that they would continue
that legacy of faith.
I pray, Lord God, for those who have been borrowing the faith
of their families, that they would stop borrowing the faith
of their families, and they would come to their own faith.
I pray for those women who are here, Lord God,
and their hearts are devastated and broken
because the men in their life have sinned against them,
and harmed them, and damaged them,
and I pray like the woman's testimony we started with,
that if they start with trusting one man,
we pray that his name would be Jesus.
Pray for those men, Lord God, who, in hearing this,
are devastated.
They have failed miserably.
But God, you redeem gloriously.
I pray that even on this day they would repent to their wife,
their children, to the women in their lives,
to the women they've slept with, to the women they've taken
advantage of, that God, they would ask for forgiveness,
and that they would change by the grace of God.
And, Holy Spirit, I'm inviting you to change people,
to bring them from death to life,
to bring them from the death that they inherit in Adam
to the born-again, eternal life they receive in Jesus Christ.
God, please save people right here,
right now, this day, and save their children,
and save their grandchildren,
and save their children's children's children.
And God, I pray for these people,
that one day in the glorious resurrected kingdom of God,
there would be an enormous family reunion,
where people would tell the story that God
got a hold of them, and it made a difference forever.
In Jesus' name, amen.