Male And Female

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Our relationships with one another as men and women, and our sexual lives are key issues that affect us very deeply. It's a sensitive subject so I'm not going to ask you to talk to your neighbour about it but I do want you to be honest with Jesus and talk to him. And I also want you to listen to what he has to say to you in his Word. We're looking at the letter to the Ephesians, and especially chapter 5.

Our culture flaunts sex in our faces. That creates all kinds of pressures. Men face the temptations of pornography, whether it's blatant or dressed up as art, in the cinema, on the TV, on the top shelves of the newsagents, in the papers, on the internet. Women get a constant hammering about how they look and dress, their shape and size. From the media we get a barrage of messages: virginity is a vice; normal people have sex with lots of other people; faithful marriage is boring; adultery is exciting and adds spice to a tedious life; our behaviour is controlled by feelings and our feelings just happen to us so we can't do anything but go with them; cutting and running is the way to sort out a stressful relationship; sex is just a recreational activity with no more emotional side effects than eating a Haagen Daas ice cream; if we don't almost immediately satisfy our sexual urges, whatever they may be, then we'll shrivel up and miss out on the full potential of our lives; being independent and not needing other people is a sign of maturity; you must put yourself and your own needs first. And so the river of lies flows on.

If we're not standing on firm ground, then it's all too easy to be dragged along in the torrent until we're swept over the waterfall and we painfully discover where it all leads us.

So let me ask you to do something. Dive underneath the raging sexual storm of our society, not to mention the turmoil of our own minds. And ask yourself: what is the deepest longing of your heart with regard to your relationships with the opposite sex, and your sexual life? Is it to establish and maintain wholesome, positive relationships with members of the opposite sex? Is it to find a husband or wife and build a strong family life – or alternatively to find contentment in a single lifestyle with healthy relationships with both sexes? Is it to find forgiveness from those you know you've hurt, and to restore broken trust? Is it to be able to forgive those who've hurt you, deal with your anger and pain, and start to trust again? Is it to restore and renew a relationship with someone that's gone wrong – maybe your husband or your wife? Is it to be free from a guilt that gnaws away inside you because of ways you've behaved? Is it to break patterns of sexual behaviour that have got a grip on your life, that you hate, that you know to be wrong and damaging, and that bring you shame? Is it to strengthen and maintain growth in an already reasonably good marriage? What is the deepest longing of your heart with regard to your relationships with the opposite sex, and your sexual life?

Tell Jesus. Because there's good news for all of us. And it is this: all of our deepest sexual and relationship needs will eventually be met if we have a right relationship – not with the fantasy man or woman of your dreams – but with Jesus. Our needs are met as we walk through life alongside him, relating to him in the way that is appropriate for who he is, telling him all that's going on in our minds with complete honesty, listening to what he teaches us about sex and relationships and putting it into practice.

Here are some of the things we have in Christ, according to this letter – all freely given, paid for by Jesus. Holiness and blamelessness. A family – which is God's household, and into which we're adopted. Forgiveness of everything we've ever done, or will ever do. Wisdom for life. Knowledge of how God wants us to live. A guarantee that all will be well in the end, whatever it looks like now. A power to change at work in our lives that's so strong it can raise the dead. Continuous experience of God's kindness. And true and lasting liberation – real freedom.

When we've got our relationship with Jesus right, then the tangle of our relationships with other people begins to unravel. We don't get everything sorted overnight – far from it. This side of heaven we never get it all sorted. But Jesus makes all the difference. That means it's crucial we know how to relate to him. Only when we've got that straight can we can we make sense of our relationships as men and women with one another, and of marriage.

So my three headings are three questions, and the first is this:


First, HOW SHOULD MEN AND WOMEN RELATE TO CHRIST?

Here are five ways.

First, with love – because he loves us. Ephesians 5.25:

Christ loved the church [that's just all believers together] and gave himself up for her…

Jesus put no ceiling on the sacrifice he was prepared to make for his people. That's why he ended up on a cross. Now if you want a key to transform your relationships with others, here it is: understand the almost unbelievably immense love of God for you in Jesus. Then love him back. Will you do that?

Secondly, men and women should relate to Christ with gratitude – because he saves us from sin. Sin is all that we do that grieves the Spirit of God and makes him angry with us. If it's not dealt with it brings disaster. But God has dealt with our sin – that's why Jesus died. Out of his love for us he became the lightning conductor for God's anger against us and it came down on his head instead of ours. So how do we respond? With a continual outpouring of thanksgiving. And how do we show that our gratitude is genuine? That's by the third way we relate to him – so:

Thirdly, men and women should relate to Jesus with submission – because he is our leader. Jesus is King. We are his subjects. He rules our lives. So how are we to respond? 5.24:

… the church submits to Christ…

What he says goes in our lives. How do we know his teaching? It's here in his Word. So, 5.10…

… find out what pleases the Lord…

and do it. Will you do that? Men and women should relate to Jesus with submission – because he is our leader.

Fourthly, we should relate to Christ by imitation – because he is our example. 5.1:

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…

Imitate Jesus. Then:

Fifthly, we should relate to Christ without distinction between men and women – because he made us equal, and we are equally sinners before him, saved by him and subject to him. There is no gender distinction in the way that we relate to Christ by faith. Men or women, we love him because he loved us; we are thankful because he saved us; we live in submission to him because he is our Lord; and we imitate him because he's the pattern we're to follow. If we don't get our relationship with Jesus right, then we won't get any other relationship right either. If we do relate to Jesus properly, then we'll begin to see how all our other relationships should work out too.

That brings me to my second main question:


Secondly, HOW SHOULD MEN AND WOMEN RELATE TO EACH OTHER?

Here are four ways.

First, how we should not relate. We should not relate to each other following the ways of the unbelieving world. 4.17-19:

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the hardness of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

Paul pulls no punches here. The unbelieving world, he says, has no connection with God, has no real understanding of how life should be lived and therefore how to handle relationships, and is characterised by a hardness of heart that means there's no proper sense of shame or guilt. The most dangerous place to be of all is to have a conscience that is so seared by unbelief that it no longer works properly at all. It's like having a body that no longer feels the warning pain when it's in a fire. These are hearts (v 19) that have 'lost all sensitivity'. The result of that is a vicious spiral of behaviour. It begins with a desire for sensual experience. That leads to impure actions which bring a temporary, partial and rapidly fading satisfaction. The loss of satisfaction just leads to a renewal of desire and so the cycle goes on except that each time it goes round it takes that bit more to achieve the same satisfaction, so there's what Paul calls here 'a continual lust for more' which is never sated. Impure thinking leads to impure behaviour which leads to worse thinking and then to worse behaviour. And he goes on:

You, however, did not come to know Christ that way.

Christ breaks that pattern and gives us a 'new self' – a new real me – that has new desires. In Christ we start to want purity and Godly relationships. The old self within us that used to operate according to that vicious downward spiral is finished. It is fatally wounded. But it is not yet dead. So there is a struggle within us between the old me and the new real me in Christ. The task for the believer is to ignore the old self – however loudly it screams at us for attention – and to think of Jesus and to act on his will, to please him. So we must understand that the Christian life is bound to be counter-cultural. We belong to Jesus. Our value system is now profoundly different from that of the world – pleasing Christ is our supreme concern. So we'll behave differently. That's what marks us out – the way we live. Or it should. We won't use each other. We'll love each other. So first, we shouldn't relate to each other following the ways of the unbelieving world.

Secondly, men and women should relate to each other as members of God's family. In 5.1 we're described as God's 'dearly loved children'. Believers are all family together – and that's how we should treat each other, as brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers in the largest extended family the world has ever known. So in 1 Timothy 5.1-2 Paul advises Timothy on how to treat those within the fellowship he leads. He says he should speak to older men as if they were his father. Then he says:

Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.

How should we treat someone in the generation above us? Like a father or a mother to us. What about the generation below us? Like a son or daughter. How should we behave towards our peers in our own generation? As if they're our brothers and sisters – with absolute purity. And what if someone is half a generation different to us? Well that just gets confusing – like having an uncle who's the same age as you, or something! We're members of our heavenly Father's family.

Thirdly, men and women should relate to each other with total purity. That's got to be the standard for our thoughts, words and deeds. Jesus calls us to total purity in our thought life, in the words we speak, and in the way we behave – the things we do. Ephesians 5.3-4:

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

Now maybe you think, "Surely total purity is completely impossible?" Yes and no. Being tempted is not sinful. Giving in is. Will we all sin? Yes. And forgiveness is available from God when we turn away from our sin. But whenever we're faced with a situation in which we are tempted to sin, we always have the option of taking the route of purity. We are never overpowered by temptation. It might feel like it. But that feeling is a lie. We have the choice. We can always turn away. The problem is not that we have to sin. The problem is we want to. We don't want the way out that's wide open before us. So it's our will that we have to work on. And that's changed by loving Christ above everything, and wanting to please him. Total purity must be the standard by which we live, in thought, word and deed.

So what's the implication of that for our sexual relationships? God's standard of total purity is clear and basically very simple: sex is for marriage between a man and a woman for life. It is not for any other relationship. Why does Jesus establish that as the rule for our sexual lives, despite all the hue and cry against him that seems to scream out 'Jesus, you can't be serious!'? Because he loves us. He knows what works for us, because he made us. He gets angry when we break the rule because breaking it damages us and it damages those involved with us. Jesus wants us whole, not in pieces. He wants us healthy not hurting. The devastating increase in sexually transmitted diseases over the last few years is visible evidence of even wider damage that ignoring God's instructions causes. So much drama from soap operas to novels is a reflection of the profound pain and conflict caused by ignoring God's instructions. God knows what he's talking about. So – 5.3 again …

… among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity…

Then fourthly, men and women should relate to each other with honesty and forgiveness. Our sin needs to be brought into the light of Christ. It needs to be exposed in order that it can be dealt with. Look at 5.11-14:

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible. This is why it is said: "Wake up O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Christians need to make clear what's going on in our society and the dire consequences of sin, not least of sexual immorality. But we need to begin with ourselves. Sexual sin hides in the darkness. While it is hidden it can survive. But it doesn't like the light. Jesus died to liberate us from the guilt and power of sin and there's nothing that's so bad or shameful that it is beyond the reach of his grace and forgiveness.

Sin has lasting consequences. We have to face that. But guilt before God is not one of them where there is a change of heart and mind. If you're being eaten away by guilt, then the way to freedom and forgiveness is to expose your sin to the light of Christ. Name it to yourself. Don't rationalise it or excuse yourself. That's the place to begin – bring it out into the open in your own mind. Then talk honestly to Christ about it. There are of course no surprises for him. He knows it all anyway. Confess it. Tell him about your change of heart about it and your desire now to please him. Accept his forgiveness. And you might find it helpful to take a further step. It isn't wise or necessary to broadcast our sins far and wide. But maybe you'd find it helpful also to find someone you trust, someone who understands God's grace to sinners, someone who can keep a confidence – and to tell them about it and pray with them. The knowledge that you're loved by someone who knows the worst about you can be a powerful help to grasping the reality of God's grace and forgiving love towards us. And then, as we're forgiven, so we must be ready to forgive others. How should men and women relate to each other? Not as the unbelieving world does; as members of God's family; with total purity; and with honesty and forgiveness. So to my third and last heading:


Thirdly, HOW SHOULD HUSBANDS AND WIVES RELATE TO EACH OTHER?

'As above' is one answer to that. If our hearts are on fire for Christ, and we've been humbled by his searching gaze and his grace and forgiveness, then that's the best basis for a marriage. But then there's the added dimension of what we might call the 'headship' of the husband and the 'helpership' of the wife, which Paul discusses here in 5.22-33. Verse 22:

Wives, submit to your husband as to the Lord.

Verse 25:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.

This helpership is expressed when a wife submits to the leadership of her husband. And the headship of the husband is expressed when he loves his wife. We've already seen how Christian living is decidely counter-cultural in relation to the values of the unbelieving world. Here is one area where the rubber hits the road.

Now this teaching cannot be evaded by saying that it's culturally bound to that first century situation and now doesn't apply. Elsewhere in the Bible this teaching is developed firstly out of the way God created us, and secondly out of the nature of the relationships within the Trinity. So 1 Corinthians 11.3 says: Now I want you to realise that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. So Christ is not only the model for headship. He is the model for submission. The head of Christ is God. The supreme example of that is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he died. He said to his Father (this is Luke 22.42):

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.

Is Jesus downtrodden? No. There's more dignity, freedom and strength of character expressed in that moment than in any other moment in human history. Does Jesus tell his Father plainly what he wants? Yes. Submission is not suffering in silence. Does Jesus submit his will to what he knows is the will of his Father? Yes. Why? Because it's almost as if Jesus' will is operating on two levels. He wants his Father's will more than he wants his own will. Why? Out of love. Love for the Father. And love for the world he's going to die for. Is it humiliating for a wife to take Jesus as her model? I don't think so.

There are at least three benefits of this Christ-like submission. One: Jesus is pleased, because he is being obeyed and imitated. Two: it creates unity in the marriage. If a wife isn't at certain points prepared to submit her will, then the alternatives are these: the victory of the strongest or stroppiest personality; continual conflict; or going off in different directions. All of them undermine the unity and health of the marriage. Three: it teaches Christlikeness by example – not least to the husband. But then the leadership of the husband is also patterned on the example of Christ. Verses 25-26:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy…

This is a headship of self-sacrificial care for the good of the wife. Just as total purity has to be the watchword for our relationships, so the good of his wife has to be the guiding principle for a husband, whatever the cost. And that puts all us husbands to shame.

How should husbands and wives relate to each other? In a Christ-like way that flows from a close relationship with Christ.

And that's the key for all our relationships with one another as men and women. Our deepest needs will ultimately be met as we walk close to Jesus. That won't happen overnight. It'll involve time and struggle and effort on our part, guided and helped by the Holy Spirit. But Jesus will lead us into healthy and wholesome family relationships in the church, across the gender divide. Through Jesus we'll find forgiveness when we fail again and again to get it right. And in the end, all the blessings of heaven will be ours. So will you make Jesus the model for your relationships?

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