BIBLICAL MANHOOD & WOMANHOOD
WOMEN AND MEN SERVING FOR THE GLORY OF CHRIST IN THE CONTEXT OF MALE LEADERSHIP
1 Peter 4: 7-11 & 5: 1-4
INTRODUCTION
This morning is the final sermon in the series we have been studying
for about the past 10 weeks, "Biblical Manhood and Womanhood". We have
looked at a variety of passages that explore what it means to be a man,
what it means to be a woman and what difference it makes. Originally I
planned to use this morning’s sermon to tackle another one of the difficult
passages related to maleness and femaleness, 1 Corinthians 11: 1-16. However,
I’ve increasingly felt the need to try to talk about some of the practical
implications in the life of our church and to give you an opportunity
to ask questions. So what I want to do this morning is give a brief summary
of the basic principles we have looked at. Then I want to look at 1 Peter
4: 7-11 to give us a vision of what our church ought to look like. Finally
I want to answer questions you may have. I have been given three questions
already. There are 3x5 cards in all the programs you can write questions
on now or as I proceed. Just pass them up to the front.
I have sought to examine what it means that we as humans are made in
God’s image, male and female. The fact that human beings are either male
or female is due in part to the fact that God exists as a Trinity. The
one God has eternally existed as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Each person in the Godhead is fully God but yet there is only one God.
The three persons of the Godhead have lived in perfect love and fellowship
in the enjoyment of one another forever. Yet, the Son has always submitted
to the Father, the Father has always had authority over the Son and the
Holy Spirit has always submitted to the will of the Father and the Son.
In other words, while each is fully God, they differ from one another
in authority, role and function. In the same way, there is only one human
race but it exists as male and female. Each of us is made in the image
of God. Each one is fully human and equal in value, importance and access
to God. However, men and women are different from each other in significant
ways that reflect the differences that exist in role and function.
Ray Ortlund, based on Genesis 1-3 defines the relationship between men
and women in this way, "In the partnership of two spiritually equal human
beings, man and woman, the man bears the primary responsibility to lead
the partnership in a God-glorifying direction." John Piper, in his article,
"What’s the Difference?" defines maleness and femaleness in this way.
"At the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility
to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man’s
differing relationships. At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing
disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from
worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman’s differing relationships."
Two weeks ago we looked at one of the most controversial passages in
the Bible, 1 Timothy 2: 11-15. "Women should learn in silence and full
submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over
a man, she must be silent. For Adam was formed first and then Eve. And
the man was not deceived but the woman, after being deceived, became a
sinner." We saw in that passage that there are some roles and functions
in the church reserved for men. The reason that Paul says this is
because of what happened at creation and at the fall. Paul does not limit
this command to the church at Ephesus or to his own culture. This means
that the office of pastor/elder/overseer in the church is reserved for
men. The function of teaching the church when it is gathered together
as men and women, in whole or in part, is reserved for men. This is not
because men are better or more important than women. It is because of
what God made masculinity and femininity to be.
Let me emphasize that the only limitation that the Scriptures place on
the ministry of women in the church is this limitation. The silence that
Paul is enjoining on women is not absolute. The only words women cannot
speak are words of doctrinal instruction and authoritative spiritual direction
in the church when it is gathered together in whole or in part as men
and women. This means that women can and must engage in a wide range of
ministry in the church if the church is going to reveal the glory of Christ.
This is why I want us to now take a few minutes and look at 1 Peter 4:
7-11 (read it). We are not going to do a detailed examination of this
passage. Rather we are going to answer three questions. What does Peter
mean by "the end of all things is near?" How should we live in light of
the fact that all things are near? What will happen if we live this way?
What does the phrase, "The end of all things is near", mean?
The "all things" refers to the entire created universe. Now that Jesus
has come and died and rose again and is now sitting at God’s right hand,
everything is ready for God to end the world and create a new heavens
and a new earth. The end of this whole created universe could come at
any time. Notice that immediately following this statement of fact there
is a "therefore". As always we need to ask, what is it there for? The
answer is quite simply that Peter gives us 4 commands about how we are
to live and then a summary statement regarding our motivation for living.
What he says is this: God is about to end the universe as we know it therefore,
here is how you should live.
If you knew for certain that the world was going to end this afternoon,
what would you do? If you knew without a doubt that this afternoon you
would see Jesus Christ return and destroy this whole world and rescue
out of the destruction all those who believed in him, what would you do?
Peter is going to tell us what God thinks your answer ought to be. All
of us ought to be able to say that we would not do anything different
from what we are doing right now. You should not have to change anything
about how you are living because he could come today.
If you are paying attention you will immediately have a problem. Peter
said "the end of all things is near" close to 2000 years ago and yet Jesus
has still not come. Was he wrong? No, he was not wrong. The OT prophesied
repeatedly that when Messiah showed up then would begin the process of
God restoring his creation to its original condition. The question the
OT leaves unanswered is how long will it take once Messiah shows up for
him to complete the restoration of the world? When Jesus leaves, he leaves
that question unanswered as well, but because he, the Messiah, has come,
we know that the stage is set and the final act could begin at any moment.
"The end of all things is near."
Dr. D.A. Carson uses this analogy. It’s like we are walking along a cliff,
parallel to it. We can walk along that cliff for a long time but at every
moment we are very near to falling off. In the same way, we are very near
to the appearing of Christ, he could come at any time. Only God knows
when that time will be. As far as we are concerned it could be today.
The cliff, which is Christ’s return, is only a few feet away. So the Christian
must live with a conscious awareness that today this entire world, as
we know it, could cease to exist and a whole new world and way of living
could be instituted. Peter tells us in this passage how we should live
in light of the fact that the world as we know it could end today.
How should we live in light of the fact that the end of all things
is near?
There are four commands that Peter gives here. I am not going to deal
with each command in detail. Rather, I’m going to make a few comments
about the first three and then concentrate on the final command that is
in vv. 10-11. I want to make sure that you feel the force of Peter’s argument.
"To be clear-minded" literally means, "don’t think like a person who
is out of touch with reality", "think correctly about reality". The mother
of a friend of mine has been paranoid schizophrenic for as long as he
can remember. When she doesn’t take her medication she is convinced that
her husband, my friends father, is a Russian spy who is holding her captive.
She is not in touch with reality. If it’s true God can show up at any
time, don’t live like a mentally ill person and ignore that fact. Then
he tells us, not only to think sensibly about reality but also we must
not act like a drunk person who has no control over himself. We must carefully
control how we use our time and invest our resources. We are to think
correctly and control ourselves so that we can do the four things he commands.
It makes no sense to say you are a Christian and thereby confess that
you expect Jesus to show up at any minute and then to give little or no
attention to these four commands. What Peter says is that to be a prayerless
person is to be a person who is out of touch with reality, whose life
is out of control. You are like a person suffering from mental illness
if you hold grudges against others. You’re like a drunk person, stumbling
down the street if you don’t use all that God has given you to serve others.
If you aren’t praying, loving others and using your resources to meet
the needs of others then you’re like the law student who has to take the
bar exam but who never studies for it. Then, on the night before the 10-hour
test he stays up all night at a party. That is not a sensible way to live.
It is a life that is out of control. You’re like the person living in
South Carolina who knows a hurricane is going to hit the next day but
who does nothing to prepare and acts as if nothing is going to happen.
He spends his day planting flowers & mowing the lawn rather than boarding
the windows and packing the car. In both of these cases the person needs
to think correctly about the situation and then discipline themselves
to prepare for it.
I got to go deer hunting for the first time when I was 10 years old.
The month before that first hunt I couldn’t stop talking about going with
my dad and what it would be like. I dreamed about hunting. Every night
the week before, I helped pack and tried on clothes and went to the store
to buy food. But every day I had to go to school and though it seemed
to go so slow I worked extra hard to make sure all my homework was done
so I didn’t have to worry about it. Then the big day came and we packed
the car and my dad, grandpa and I climbed in and headed for the north
woods. I knew that day was coming and even though I had to keep living
my normal life, i.e. going to school, eating, sleeping, doing homework,
there were other things I did to prepare for the big day. Even when I
did my normal activities, the thought of hunting and the excitement of
going was right there and even motivated me to work harder. Jesus is coming
back again and while we need to keep living our "normal" lives, the fact
that he is coming back ought to affect everything about how we live.
God says that the only people who are in touch with reality are those
whose lives are characterized by prayer, loving others so much that you
don’t even notice when they do you wrong and using your gifts and resources
to meet the needs of others. In light of the fact that Christ can return
at any moment what do you need more of, TV or God? Money or God? Clothes
or God? A clean house or God? A perfectly manicured lawn or God? A promotion
or God?
I want to spend a few minutes thinking about what vv. 10-11 says. The
command in this verse is that we all are to serve one another. The NT
knows nothing of spectator Christianity. Every person who calls himself
or herself a Christian is to be engaged in serving others. But notice
that the way we are to serve is through using the gift that each of us
has been given. Everything you have and are was given by God and so anything
you have that God uses to strengthen the faith of another person is a
spiritual gift. That is the NT definition of a spiritual gift: An ability
a Christian has that God uses to strengthen the faith of another. There
are three things that make an ability a spiritual gift: First, the person
who possesses the ability is a Christian. Second, the Christian uses that
ability for the express purpose of building up the faith of another person.
Third, God causes the use of that ability to actually meet the need of
the person served.
The end of v. 10 literally says, "like a faithful steward of the diverse
grace of God." What this means is this. Every ability you possess as a
Christian is loaned to you by God. God has given you these abilities for
the purpose of helping others to experience the love of God and grow in
their love for God. You are a steward of that gift. In other words, one
day you will stand before God, who owns you and the gift he gave you and
you will have to give an account of your stewardship. Did you use the
gifts he gave you to serve others or not? This is why it is insane for
you to not be pouring yourself out in love for others by using the gifts
God has given you to build the faith of others. So as I look at other
people I am asking, how can I help this person know the love of God in
deeper ways and trust God in greater ways? My basic attitude, as a Christian,
towards other people, especially other Christians, is how can I use my
gifts, my time, my resources to help this person? If this is not the orientation
of your life, then you are acting like an insane or drunk person. You
are living completely out of touch with reality.
Every Christian, both male and female, has been given gifts that he or
she is to be using in the service of others. Any woman who feels as if
she has no part in the significant work of the church because she cannot
be an elder or because she cannot teach or exercise spiritual authority
over men in the gathered congregation is not thinking straight. The teaching
and spiritual authority of the male elders and teachers of the church
are necessary for the health of the church but are not more significant
than the work of any other member of the body of Christ. Each of us has
a critical role to play that is different from the role of any other member
and we must faithfully fulfill our role. I spend many hours every week
talking with individuals about their relationship with Christ. I can tell
you that the forces that are arrayed against us for the purpose of destroying
our faith in Christ are many and they are fierce. I am delighted to pour
myself out for you in prayer and study and teaching and counseling. But
I’m only one person and my gifts are very limited. What people need in
order to persist in faith is far beyond my ability to provide. We are
in a war and we desperately need each other. There are women who need
other women to pray with them and mentor them. There are married people
who need other married people to strengthen their commitment to one another.
There are single moms and young moms who need help I cannot give. There
are depressed people and angry people and greedy people and poor people
and sick people and fearful people and overwhelmed people who are on the
edge of abandoning Christ that need your help. There is a certain amount
of organization that we can do but most of this has got to take place
through our relationships with one another. It takes personal initiative.
We need to be in a community that knows one another well enough to know
about the needs that exist. You need to be in a small group not just for
what you will get out of it but because there are others who need your
gifts if they are going to make it.
Next Peter tells us how we are to exercise our gifts in the service
of others. If your gift is a speaking gift (like teaching, evangelism,
prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, singing, comforting
people in their grief, confronting people in their sin, discernment, a
parent sharing wisdom with a child, leading a small group, etc.) then
you need to make sure that you are saying what God wants said. There are
two things that "as one speaking the very words of God" means. First,
whenever you speak as a Christian for the purpose of building others,
you need to treat what you say with utmost seriousness. Every time you
teach or encourage, what you say will be used by God either to save the
other person or to damn the other person. So take it very serious. Second,
it means that you had better make sure that what you are saying lines
up with God’s word. My words only have authority and can only build faith
as they accurately communicate "the Word." When you take upon yourself
the mantle of speaking on behalf of God, which is what you do whenever
you speak as an act of service aimed at encouraging another’s faith, you
are going to be held accountable by God for the accuracy of your speech.
If your gift is an action oriented gift (Like making meals for the sick,
running the sound board, giving money to the poor, healing, performing
miracles, inviting people over for supper, fixing cars, remodeling homes,
serving food to the hungry, setting up chairs, designing a web page, etc.)
you need to make sure that you are performing the service in the strength
that God gives, not in your own, human energy. How do you serve "as if
serving out of the strength which God supplies"? We are to perform the
act of service as if God is right there supervising and giving us everything
we need to serve with excellence. We need to perform our work prayerfully,
depending upon God for the wisdom, skill and strength to do the work.
What will happen if we live this way?
The second half of v. 11 tells us to do all these things for this one
purpose: so that God will be glorified. In other words, our motivation
for praying, loving intensely, being hospitable and serving one another
is so that God will be seen to be a great and gracious God and others
will join with us in loving him. This brings us back to where Peter started.
God is about to show up and if you are a Christian this makes you totally
excited because you love God supremely. You delight in him so much and
you cannot wait to be with him and you yearn to have more and more people
know and love and appreciate him. This is what motivates you to pray,
love and serve. This is Christian living. Christianity isn’t about duty
and morality. It is about having a heart that is madly in love with God
and so loves to love others so they will be madly in love with God.
Permit me to use my love of deer hunting to show how this works. I love
our annual trip to northern WI with my dad and brothers to pursue the
wily whitetail. I want my sons to enjoy it as well. So since they were
little I have told them stories of the glory of hunting. When I’m with
my brothers and have my sons around we love to talk about past hunts and
plan for future ones. I made sure that my sons went through hunter safety
classes and learned how to respect and handle guns. I’ve read stories
of deer hunting to them. When they turn 10 I take them with me to go along
while I hunt. Then, when they turn 12, they get to carry a gun for the
first time. I love hunting and I love it when my sons love hunting and
so I love to do things that help them enjoy hunting.
This is exactly what Peter is saying here. If you are a Christian, then
you rejoice in God. You know that he is about to show up in all his glory
and power. You want as many people as possible to know the happiness that
God gives because you love it when others are delighted with God. So,
you pray, you love, you forgive, you don’t gossip, you provide practically
for others and you use your gifts to serve others so that as many as possible
will join you in glorifying Jesus when he comes.
QUESTIONS
Before I deal with these questions let me make sure you are aware of
several resources we have in relation to these issues. There are 25 copies
of an article by Dr. Grudem on the information table entitled, "What should
women do in the church?" Also, there are three booklets, "50 questions",
"What’s the Difference?" and "For Single Men and Women".
1. If we are created in the image of God and God is a Trinity, why are
we a duality and not a trinity... or is there an analogous being in mankind
that corresponds to the Holy Spirit?
Answer: Children are expressive of the third member of the trinity.
As the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, so children proceed
from their father and mother.
2. Is there going to be manhood/womanhood when we are with the Lord and
when we get our new bodies? Will we retain our unique male/female distinctiveness?
Answer: We aren’t explicitly given an answer to this question.
We do know that there will be no marriage in heaven and therefore no sexual
relations or procreation (Matt. 22: 23-33). 1 John 3: 2 says, "Dear friends,
now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made
known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him for we shall
see him as he is." When Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection,
he had the same body, though glorified that he had while on earth. In
other words, he was male. If we are going to be like him then it would
seem that we are going to be male and female as well.
3. What do you think about the saying, "Men use love to get sex and women
use sex to get love?"
Answer: I would say that this is a generally accurate way of describing
how husbands and wives sin and how sexually immoral single people add
to the sin of their immorality. Whenever you speak in generalities there
are always going to be exceptions. There are many ways that spouses and
men and women in general sin against one another. Some people use anger
to get what they want. Some people use crying to get what they want. Some
people use service to get what they want. The problem is with both what
people want and with the methods they use to get what they want. What
Christians want is God to be glorified in them and by them. They want
to so delight in the love of God for them that they delight to pour out
love on others. The goal of Christian husbands is to display the greatness
of Christ’s love by loving their wives as Christ has loved the church
when he died for her. The goal of Christian women is to display the greatness
of Christ’s love by submitting to the leadership of their husband as the
church submits to Christ. So whenever a husband has the goal of having
sex with his wife and seeks to manipulate her to give him what he wants
by using affection or whatever he is sinning against God. Whenever a wife
engages in sexual relations with her husband in order to get him to "love"
her the way she wants she is sinning. What Christian spouses love to do
is love the other person as God directs because love is the overflow of
joy in God that delights to meet the needs of others. So, the Christian
wife, when she discovers that her husband desires to have sexual relations
delights to have sexual relations because she is so happy to be loved
by Jesus. The Christian husband, when he learns that his wife needs his
affection or attention in conversation loves to sit with her and talk
without expecting anything else because he is so delighted that he belongs
to God.
© Copyright
2001 John Swanson.
You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material
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If you would like to post this material to the web, or if your intended
use is other than outlined above, please contact River Hills Community
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