Isaiah, Chapter 3 again

So we're starting off our study of Isaiah by reading a passage from Genesis. How about that? Before we move along here, I just wanted to note, in two weeks we'll be having a baptism here at the end of the Sunday service. If you have not been baptized and would like to, feel free to speak to myself or one of the other elders, and I suppose not Hal quite yet, but anyway, go ahead and talk to any of the rest of us and we'll see that that gets arranged.

Okay, to go through this passage, I guess one thing you've got to look at here is, wait a minute, weren't we just covering chapters 15 and 16? Why are we going back to chapter 3? What's going on here? Here's what's going on. When we studied chapter 3 before, we focused on three verses, so verses 13 through 15, and those verses spoke about God's judgment of the leaders of Judah because they were treating the poor people and the underprivileged among them abusively. And we addressed that. We did a quick summary on the rest of it. We're going to revisit the passages, because as I looked at it, I said, no, this is some good stuff we need to take a look at. It's extremely relevant.

In view of some of the political decisions this last week, it's even more relevant. Verses 1 through 12 present, in general and in summary, the pervasive decline of the male leadership among the Jews in Judah. 16 through 26 show the end of skin-deep beauty for the women of Judah. Now, so why is this relevant? It's relevant because in our own culture, male and female, real blurred.

We've got... and unisex is just the start. distinctions that have been blurred, distinctions of appearance, distinctions of role, distinctions of perception. There's a lot of media involvement in this as well. And I would say, and to a great extent, that's beginning to grab the steering wheel of the culture. We get the media's mindset projected into our living rooms, and it's definitely got people's thinking. Our culture has frequently conveyed a basis for the value of maleness or femaleness that has put a lot of pressure on people. It has made some people feel like, am I of any value? It has made other people feel like they've got to go in this or that direction in order to gain value.

And that's one, I would say, substantial, really a crisis problem that we have in our culture, and that's why we need to take a look at the Word of God, to find out what did God have in mind, because the consequences of not doing so are serious. I've got some pictures here that portray some of the instances, but I could fill many pages with pictures portraying the instances where individuals, families are in crisis over this issue. We have culture wars. There are those who want all kinds of laws to settle this thing, demonstrations of all kinds, pro and con, there are those who are fighting against the laws.

And so we have that in place. As of this last week, we've got a ballot issue coming on dealing with some of these gender issues as well. The present state of the culture and technology, sociologists, now brace yourself, have said that they've figured out that there are now 11 genders. Okay? I won't go into the details. I'm not sure I could explain it myself.

They now figured out there are 11 genders when you put them all together. Some of those have been aided with medical technology, so they have additional gender choices there. We've got to come back to the question, what did God have in mind? Of course, as Christians, we're thinking along those lines. What did God have in mind?

And just as we read this morning together, God created the male and female from the very beginning. and Jesus himself made reference to this, Genesis 1.27. You might have noticed when we brought this up last summer that men and women are indeed different, okay? And of course, some would contest this. Some would say that, no, this is not really the case, or it's just culturally defined. We won't argue with them. I don't know that I explained all those knobs and switches anyway.

Okay, but even before God chose excuse me, even before Adam chose to sin against God, God designed marriage between a man and a woman. He created them, male and female, and the first male and the first female that he put together, that was his first marriage ceremony, done before there was sin in the world. God extended marriage to be valid for the Gentiles and for Israel and for the Church.

It is valid for all of humanity, no matter which people group we're referring to here. God designed maleness and femaleness, and I will use those terms instead of masculinity and femininity because they have a kind of a different sense. The maleness comes out of being fundamentally male. The femaleness comes out of being fundamentally female. male-ness and female-ness for human beings, and he directed some instruction on that to the church. We'll be looking at that here this morning.

The salvation and position of believers, and by that I mean church-age believers, those who put their trust in Christ and who are a part of the church as a result, does not vary by gender. You are saved by faith, whether you're male or female. The position that you have in Christ is the same whether you're male or female. The life of Christ offered to each believer is the life of Christ. It does not vary by gender. The expression of it is different, as we'll see here. The energizing of God, the working of God in believers, is the same for each, not varying by gender.

Now, there are two areas where scripture gives some instruction. The New Testament epistles describe the roles of men and women differently in these two realms. One is in the relationship of husband and wife. There is a distinction made. Secondly, among believers within the church. We'll take a look at both of those in more detail.

Further, these roles aren't given as enforceable by law. The law is not brought into this as we see the apostles giving instruction in this area. There isn't, you must do this or otherwise you'll be sentenced to stoning or we will put you in the dunking chair or anything of the sort.

These are given as the expression of the life of Christ. They are given as the energizing, the working of God in the life of the believer. It's God's doing in you and the life of Christ in and through you as a believer that carries these out, not force of law. Now, let's compare it.

What was it like during the culture of the New Testament era? That's where we'll be getting our instruction. In the Roman Empire, Women were generally given a more limited role than the man, less latitude. The man was given more latitude except in Macedonia and in Galatia, a couple areas where we have recordings from the Book of Acts, as well as a number of New Testament letters going to these areas. Women in these areas had basically equivalent freedom and latitude to what the men had in politics, business, and so there was a mixture.

So the teaching that we're getting from the New Testament is not based on just matching some particular culture, but is in fact, this is God's direction. Because we don't find just one leaning of the culture and Paul just accommodating that, or any of the other apostles. They didn't just accommodate it, they said, no, this is what God has in mind. The other thing to keep in mind is while we look at more and more bizarre things going on in our own culture, there were bizarre things going on in the cultures to which Paul and Peter and John were living and were writing and were ministering to the churches. Most of the bizarre and odd choices were available for the men in great part.

It was biased in that direction. But the Lord didn't ask the world how to live. how we ought to be living. We're not to look to the culture for guidance. We're looking to the Lord here this morning. Now, this is, and fortunately you have it in kind of a larger font there on your handout.

This is the passage where Isaiah addressed the men first. The first verse and the eighth through the twelfth verses are cause and consequence. That is, here is why you're headed for trouble, and here's the trouble you're headed for. And so these are the first parts of that passage, verse 1 and verses 8 through 12, are largely cause and consequence. Here's the cause for the trouble, and here's why you're in trouble, and here's what's going to happen.

Here's what the Lord's going to do. And it's in this middle section here where we see Isaiah addresses the men. Here is what's going on with you men. Here's what's happening. And so we want to take a look at that section, 2 through 7 particularly. What is he saying here? The men of Isaiah, Isaiah's time, were shirking their leadership roles, various responsibilities, judicial, political, military, spiritual, occupational realms.

It is not correct for us to simply say, well, whatever Israel is doing is what we ought to be doing. Even whatever God told Israel to do, that's what we ought to do. But it is a matter of saying, what were they assigned to do? Were they taking on the responsibility that they were supposed to take?

And the answer is no. The men were shirking the responsibility that God had given them as the people of Israel. And it didn't matter, it wasn't just in one respect. It was in all the different respects. Military, occupational, judicial, political, military. What were they doing? They were forcing boys, and we even see in this passage an expression of the boys saying, I don't want to do it. But they're forcing boys into these leadership roles. They say, I don't want it. You take it.

Really bizarre. If this was just an isolated problem, it would be one thing. But the truth is, the whole culture was impacted, and this was just the symptom. It was just the surface. Here's the root problem. He identifies it in verses 8 and 9. For Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen, because their speech and their actions are against the Lord, to rebel against His glorious presence. The problem isn't just that the men were shirking their duty. The problem started from the people had turned from the Lord, and the men themselves had done it. That's the problem. That's the root problem.

Keep that in mind because it'll be important for us to take a look at here. There's also this Hebrew poetry pattern. If you're visiting here this morning, you'll have to have somebody explain to you all these funny things we have here. But at any rate, the idea is we identify in Jewish and Hebrew writing, they rhyme not with sounds but with meanings. Restate or fill out the meaning with parallel ideas. So that's what we have in that verse is three sets of parallel ideas that are put forth.

Now, this is why we see Judah's men shutting the leadership. It wasn't that all of a sudden everything was fine, but they just shunned the leadership. The problem was that they'd really turned from the Lord. And that is why they were shunning the leadership. The leadership lost. The leadership decay was the symptom. It was the sign.

The problem was they had turned from the Lord. They had become, let me add to that, spiritual wimps. Spiritual wimps. That's the problem. It wasn't just that they had lost their leadership. It wasn't just that they were abandoning it. It was because they were spiritual wimps and this was the symptom. And so here he gets at the root cause. Something else here is they display their sin like Sodom. Last week we brought up Sodom and Gomorrah as a part of our presentation on the passage we were looking at.

And I handed out and apparently ran out. So there's some more of these slides here. Notice there with an S, that's a special handout. It's not on your handout. So there's more at the cabinet to the right as you exit, if you'd like to avail yourself of that.

And this is another part of the excavation that we showed last week and is available on a printout on the handout. Here at the excavation at Gomorrah, which is the neighboring city to Sodom, that's mentioned here. They point out the skeletons, and we also point out the burnt material. This is from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that's described in Genesis.

There's another unseen reason for them shunning the leadership. You might be asking, why are they not stepping up to leadership? Basically, it's fear. I want to save my hide. When foreign nations like Assyria would come in to attack, and as Isaiah was writing this, he was seeing on the horizon an attack about to come. As foreign nations would come in, if they were victorious, they would take the leaders of the country and torture them, kill them, kill their families. And so if you look at the future and you said, it's not looking so good when Assyria comes in here, I think I'm going to get out of this leadership position because I'm going to get impaled and worse. So what would they do? is they would say, hey, I have an idea.

Let's put a boy in here. They'll take him out and that's not going to be anything off of my skin. So we'll put him in leadership there and that way I'll save my hide. Basically, they were faithless cowards. They were cowards because they were putting boys in to take the hard threat that they saw against them. They were faithless because they weren't trusting the Lord to protect them. You can't lead without it.

A bold leader among the people of Israel had to trust that the Lord would protect them. The Lord said that he would if they would but trust and obey him. Deuteronomy 28, 1-14 says if Israel would trust and obey God, God would fight for Israel. He made that very clear. You have this on page 3 of your handout here. And now it shall be if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. He goes on there in verses 7 and 10 to underscore the same idea. You don't have to worry if you obey Me, I'll fight for you. The issue is not military, the issue is spiritual. You got it?

But they had lost that spiritual perspective. They had lost the sense And so because they lacked faith, they were cowards, they were gutless. That was the problem. It wasn't that they weren't brave men. It's that they lacked faith to depend on God during those times. That was the problem. And that's why they were faithless cowards. Based on that trust in the Lord and the Lord's promises, a leader among all the people of Israel could count on the Lord to follow through.

It didn't matter how bad it looked from a human standpoint. It didn't matter what the odds looked like, as human beings might describe the odds. The Lord was going to protect them. The Jews had plenty of history. For centuries, they could see examples of when the Lord had done so. Here's Joshua at Jericho. How'd the walls fall down? It wasn't because they whacked at them. How the walls fall down? The Lord intervened and made the walls fall down.

Here's Gideon. He's had thousands and thousands of soldiers and the Lord said, no, that's too many. If you have that many soldiers, it will depend on yourself. Whittle it down some more. No, that's still too many. Three hundred, that's all I need. Then it's clearly the Lord winning the battle. Just trust me, not your military might. Who are you going to pick? If you're the odds maker, let's say you're working for one of these casinos and you're making odds, who are you going to pick? Goliath.

Boy, he's got it. Was that the way it worked out? No. It didn't matter what the odds are. David's got the Lord on his side. They could have counted on all those things and more. We've just touched on a few. But no, we don't want to trust the Lord. I'm scared. Put a boy in there so he can take the hit, not me. Remember this slide we pointed out here. Let's take a look at this first one.

The relationship of husband and wife. What does scripture have to say? Among those whose God has placed in the church, God has called men, particularly, to step boldly into leadership roles in the local church and in their families. Boldly. Stepping into those roles. Is it scary? Yeah, it might be.

By the way, what I'm doing now, speaking in front of people, there are some people who would rather choose death than what I'm doing here this morning. But you can step boldly in it, not because I'm a great speaker, but because, no, the Lord's got to pull this off. The Lord's got to pull this off. When you see the job description, you will come to see why it requires total trust in the Lord and not trust in ourselves. The Lord is trustworthy. He is worthy of our trust entirely.

Last summer when we looked at this passage here in Ephesians 5, we saw that there were four places in this Ephesians 5 passage where the husband was told to love. The first and the last of those are imperatives in the Greek. That is, you must love your wife unconditionally. And the second of those is effectively an imperative because the word ought is added to it. The principle that we see repeated throughout that passage is the husband is to the wife as Christ is to the church.

So, that being the example of love, the love of a husband for his wife in God's design is not, oh good, the ogre's home. It is not the husband, alright, I've got my place and I'm home and I'm here and I run this castle. No. Not the picture. W stands for wimp. And now the wimp is home. No, it's not that either. It's neither one of the above.

It says, Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. We call that sacrificial love and the love is example by Christ like this. You ready? It's that kind of love. It's love that is nailed. It's love that's crucified. That kind of love. And that's the first place where it says you must love your wives.

It's not optional. It's not, oh, that doesn't apply to me. Or, I don't feel like that today. No, this is sacrificial love. This is love like the Lord had. Did he feel like getting crucified that day? Did it float his boat? No. It's sacrificial love. A sanctifying love. It's a love that has a continuing passion for the spiritual growth of the wife. It's not, honey, what can you do for me today? Honey, how are you doing in the Lord today? It's thinking about, what does my wife need next to grow? Where is she on this path of growing? What does she need next?

Notice also, in the end of verse 26, washing of water with the Word. By the way, that doesn't mean hand her a Bible and then you're done. This word, Word, is rhema. It means the spoken word. Oh heavens, I've got to talk to her. Okay? Yes. Talk to her. That's what it's talking about. You're working in her life by the energizing of God, by the life of Christ, will look like talking to her about it. I know that's frightening for a lot of you, but that's exactly what he says.

A caring love. This is a love that extends the circle of the husband's care to include the wife and the children that come from that marriage. Husbands ought to love their wife. And finally, a bonded love, a love that joins. One of the things that we said before in looking at this word for join, if you could translate it with some modern terminology, you could say it super-glued. You're glued intensively, is the idea in that Greek word. A sacrificial love, a love that says, I'll be sacrificed for you, a love that looks at, and where is she going to grow next, and how is that going to happen, and how does God want me to be involved in that, including talking to her about it. It's not a surprise you're going to grow. A caring love, a love that cares for her. It is a bold love. It's neither the ogre nor the wimp. And finally, a bonded love, a love that is super glued to her alone.

If a man thinks that he can do it all by himself, that shows he clearly doesn't understand. If somebody comes up to me and they said, well, I'm ready to take it on, I said, you're in trouble. Because he clearly doesn't understand. For a man to constantly and unconditionally, now get this, express a sacrificial, sanctifying, caring, and bonded love towards his wife was never intended for a man to do on his own strength. I don't care what kind of steroids you take. Not going to happen. It is not intended to be done on man's strength. No matter how much you've been lifting.

Before Paul wrote these words that we see in Ephesians 5, he wrote these at the end of chapter 3. Now, to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all we ask and think... By the way, who's doing the doing? Him. And is he doing just a little bit? Just a little smidgen? No. Far more abundantly, all that we ask or think, beyond whatever came into our head.

According to the power that works, this is energeo, we get our word energy from the same family of words, that works within us, you, me. When it comes to this passage, that's us, guys. Within the church, God has called for men to take on a variety of roles, a number of different roles, including those of leadership. Those roles are intended by God to require the strength of the Lord. They call for courage based on the Lord's own character and promises, Maybe even especially.

Colossians 1, 28 and 29, Paul says, here's how he carries out the ministry. Notice what he says, for this purpose I also labor. By the way, that word labor means I labor to the point of exhaustion, striving, and this is the word agonizomai, it's the word used for Olympic and athletic activities. By his power, his enabling, which mightily works, It is God's energizing within me. He told the church at Colossae the same thing. It is God's energizing that gets this done, not mine. It's not my best effort. It's not my trying real hard and saying, okay, God, I tried real hard. Are you pleased? Are you happy? The Lord's saying, nope, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm not even looking to supplement your strength. He says, I'm the whole thing. Here is Paul.

He's talking to the elders from Ephesus. He's going to see them for the last time. He has been spending a total, accumulated together, of three years with them. First, he starts and ends this particular passage. He says, I declared to you the whole purpose of God, and he finishes it by commending you to the word of His grace. Secondly, he's got this passage from 28 there to 31, A focus on that shepherding analogy.

Be on guard, be on alert. For what? Savage wolves will come in among you. Again, he's sticking with the shepherding analogy. He's saying, these guys are going to come in among you. Now, is he speaking literally? We have wolves running up and down the aisle here? I hope not. He's saying, these guys are going to come in among you. No, but what he is saying is the spiritual equivalent of these are going to come at you. Are you ready? Are you ready to take it on? Is that something you've got courage for? Not in your own strength. The Lord is the one who will do it, do it through you.

Now, how about the deacons? The first instance we find of deacons, Acts chapter 6, verses 5 and 6, they chose Stephen and then they list the others. They were brought before the apostles and the apostles approved them, prayed for them, laid hands on them. But by the end of the next chapter, guess what? Stephen, speaking boldly before the Jews who radically and violently opposed him, decided to pick up stones and end Stephen's life, the first martyr that we have record of in the church.

They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Gee, who had said that not too many chapters before? The Lord said to the Father, receive my spirit. Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. Hmm, who else said that?

Now isn't that boldness? To continue to speak while these people are getting more and more enraged, but it's the truth and you've got to say it? That's boldness. That's Stephen. Isaiah next addresses the women. This is verses 16-26, and it's real interesting in this passage here.

The forehead's bare. Well, hopefully your forehead isn't furry. My forehead's more bare than most, but the point here is not just that your forehead isn't furry. The idea is that what they would do with someone who was a slave, and anyone they wanted to shame but still keep alive, they would shave the front half of their head. And so the idea is you have a really tall forehead, more like mine. That's what that's talking about.

Headbands. Checking these things out, looking at more detail, the headbands would have a disc in the front for the sun god. So it was a part of pagan worship. It wasn't that there was a problem among the Jews having the headband, but it was focused on pagan worship, the sun god. Here's the crescent ornaments. There's the moon god.

Here's another one, the amulets, those were for good luck. Today we have a rabbit's foot or whatever. Those were for good luck or to be able to call upon the power that's in that amulet. Finally, instead of a belt, a rope. A belt to hold clothes together, no, a rope. Why? Because you're tied up for slavery.

Now, they weren't quite like this, but Isaiah gives a pretty detailed description of the things that they had. Here is an ancient comb, a little bit broken, but really in fairly decent shape considering it's several thousand years old. And here's an ancient comb that would be one like what the ladies would use.

Here was a pendant with Astarte, and the derived names would be Ishtar, or our name Esther, that's carried over into the Bible and into the English use. Here is Astarte on a pendant. This would be something that would be used as part of the jewelry. Here were crescent, in this case crescent earrings that were ancient crescent earrings. And here is a replica of an anklet. So they'd have things like this.

We have examples of some of the things that Isaiah actually listed in kind of surprising detail in this passage. Now, think about it here. Even today, beauticians do some amazing things. They really do some wonders. And see if you can figure out, for example, do you recognize this celebrity? Amazed? Okay. How about this one? Figure out who that is? Okay. Ready? Amazing distinction, huh? Okay. How about this one? You got that? Or maybe you'd like to try this one. Okay. Yeah.

Amazing. that the outside makeup makes to the same person, and all it is is just skin deep. What we see here is Isaiah's description of the woman, just like we see today in a lot of our culture, focuses on the external. We have a significant segment of our culture, and especially among the females, where there are all sorts of rather huge stresses. because, gee, I'm too thin, or I'm not the right whatever dimension, or my hair isn't the right color, or I have too few or too many, or all sorts of different things like that. Same problem here. Everything is focused on the external attraction and allure, how they look, how they smell. Interesting in here, he says, instead of perfume, putrefaction, stench. Everything appeals to the senses.

He says that's not going to hold. He says, things are going to come apart. You are not going to be able to depend on those things. Isaiah makes clear that even this surface beauty will fade and change into ugliness or worse. The pride of a woman's purely superficial appeal will end up degrading into despair and depression. So, what are we to do with this? Are we supposed to look at this and say, You know, women shouldn't adorn themselves attractively.

Is that what he's saying? Is that his point? Is that what he's trying to get at? Do we need to come up with some rules here, what you're supposed to wear and not wear? Is that what he means? Is he saying we need to get a women's dress code in place, a Holly Hills dress code, get the elders to adopt it? Is that what he means? Do you think that's what he's talking about?

Probably not. Even the Mosaic Law didn't prohibit these things, and I have to say one exception to that, and that is where they had pagan reference, the crescent that met the sun, the disc on the headband that met the sun god, or the moon, rather, and the crescent. Isaiah's drawing actually had a far deeper issue, more than just the jewelry.

The culture of Judah had delivered a message that the woman's central value was all in the externals. How do you look? How do you walk? What do you look like on the outside? That's all that counts. Has not our culture done the same? Every time you go to buy groceries, are you not getting that message? Have they not spent millions airbrushing the pictures? Make sure they're just right when you see them at the checkstand?

Women in Judah had learned to make their sexuality a public thing, and we've done a lot of the same. In our culture, it's frequently spoken of, people talking about, this or that sexy. Or they'll even have the 100 most sexiest men, things of that sort.

Truth is, sexuality is like a fire. It's a great thing to have personally and privately at the right place in the fireplace at home between a husband and wife. But it's not really designed to have the whole house be inflamed. out in the public for everybody else to see. Scripture makes it clear that God has designed sexuality to be something that is used between a husband and wife and means something between a husband and wife. That some other gal is sexy really doesn't matter to me. Sexuality between the husband and wife is the place where it's to be and to remain.

Beauty is more than the pervasive message of sensualism, external attractiveness, and all the false spirituality that went along with it. Notice that one of the things that was conveyed in a lot of the things that they wore, they would wear pagan symbols to say, I'm deeper.

Yeah, all the stuff's on the surface, but I'm deep, and implying spirituality with all the symbols. this pendant here to Astarte, or the crescent, referring to the moon. Even today, religious symbols are a common jewelry theme. You may have noticed that. It's interesting, one fellow has proposed that Christians go up and talk to people who have a cross on, because that's a starting point for a conversation. But many, I've found, are surprised if you bring it up, because it really doesn't mean anything to them, they just put it on. It's just an external symbol. First Peter 3, 3 and 4 puts the focus where it belongs here. Your adornment must not be merely external, braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, putting on dresses.

Let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. God's intent is that a woman be gorgeous from the inside out. Matter of fact, let me put it this way, and I hope you'll pardon my figure of speech, God's intent is that every believing woman be conformed to the life of Christ so that she is drop-dead gorgeous from the inside out. That's God's intent. God's intent is that they be conformed to Jesus Christ in such a way that they are dazzlingly beautiful if one will look beyond just the outside.

Gender roles are not a matter of which one has power, which one's got control. It is God's design that both men and women live by, it's not who has power, both are to have power. Both men and women are to have His power empowering them, the Lord's power. Power struggle between a man and a woman is not God's design.

Who's in charge here? That's not the issue. The source of the power, that's the issue. That's the issue. The world really has nothing to add to this, no insight to give us, nothing to enhance it. God's power as the source for each believer every day, that's his design. So where's the value? What happens is our society gives mixed messages and sometimes no message at all as to how people are to be valued.

Am I valuable because I earn a lot of money? Am I valuable because I've got an education? Because I look this way? Because I look that way? The world gives a very mixed message and sometimes an unattainable message. If it says, you've got to look really good, matter of fact, you've got to look as good as those gals on the front of the magazine covers and even they don't look that good because they've been airbrushed, right? If that's the standard, who can match up with that? Who can ever stand up to that level?

Parallel to that is what aspect of a person makes that person a value. Human cultures can place the measure of a person's value, whether it's a male or a female, in outward appearance, what's prestige, how much money you got, what's in the bank, how much money do you make, where do you live, all these things that change and fade.

Whether a man or a woman are of value, in the Lord's eyes, is never a question. regardless of whether you're male or female, or what standing you have, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus. Our standing in the Lord is regardless of any of those external distinctions.

Treasure vessels, that's what the Lord has designed us to be, 2 Corinthians 4, 7, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power Notice where the power comes from? You don't fight over the power because the Lord's power is the same source, available male or female, not the issue. So the surpassing greatness of the power will be from God and not from ourselves. It's not our efforts plus God supplementing it. It's His entirely.

What will matter is not who has the power in this life, but do you have God's power for life? Maleness and femaleness have a purpose, yeah, for here, for now, for time. Fulfillment of God's eternal purpose is what counts and will last forever. That's what will really count.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you. As we look at these truths here, what great comfort we can take. We're not left with the world's scrambling and scratching and struggling for power. We're not left with the world's assessment of why am I of value. But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels. What a marvelous privilege we have. And all we did was believe. What a tremendous thing. We give you thanks in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.