Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Happy New Year.
[00:00:06] Happy New Year.
[00:00:09] To launch off the new year, we are starting a four week series called Masculinity and Femininity. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna spend the next four weeks and we're gonna open up the scriptures on this subject. How many of you are just so excited? You're not me right now. You're like, ha, ha. You got a little nervous. You're like, wait, this is a family service and I' moms and dads. What we did is we designed this introductory message to the series knowing that we have kids in the room, and so we are not going to introduce inappropriate ideas. And if there is a term that you're like, it's going to be said in a way that just flies so far above their head that they're not going to know what we're talking about. But you and I, we will know what's going on. All right. Sound good? All right.
[00:00:59] Three questions every follower of Jesus needs to be able to answer confidently. Question number one.
[00:01:07] Who am I?
[00:01:09] In other words, what? What is my identity?
[00:01:14] And. And here's the simple answer. First and foremost, I am who God says I am in his word, period. That's it. Like, I'm gonna start right there. I wanna open up God's Word, and I have a lot of notions who I am and who you are. And the world has a whole bunch of things it wants to tell me about myself and about you. But at the end of the day, first and foremost, I open up God's Word and I am who God says I am. And so, as moms and dads, we have this awesome privilege to be the first person in our children's life to tell them who they are with clarity. And so this is our delight and our joy. And here's the deal. If you will not tell our kids, I can guarantee you that there will be somebody else who will assign an identity for them and to them. And they do not love your children as much as you do. Question number two. What is the most important thing about me? In other words, what gives me value?
[00:02:18] And as believers in Jesus, we start with this premise. I am inherently valuable because I am an image bearer of God.
[00:02:28] And so many people are trying to assign competing values to myself or to you or to different people based on their age or their usefulness in society or their effectiveness to bring money into the home or their inconvenience to your family or life. And at the end of the day, no. As followers of Jesus, we step back and we fight for the value and the dignity of every human life, no matter where we find it, but because every human life is made in the image of God. Question number three.
[00:02:58] Why am I here?
[00:03:00] In other words, what is my purpose and big picture for every single one of us? My purpose is to bring God glory by stewarding whatever he gives me or whatever he calls me to do.
[00:03:16] This body, this soul, my friendships, my home, money, relationships, you name it, this church, whatever God gives me or calls me to. My job is to bring him glory by stewarding all of this. Okay, so part of growing up, it's not just learning the answer to these questions, but it's learning to believe the answer to these questions in our bones and to live them out passionately and confidently like moms and dads. Is this not what you want for your children? I want you to have explicit clarity on these questions. I want you to own it, I want you to believe it. And I want you to go out into this world confident of who you are, your value is, and what God has made you to do on this earth. Now let's pull back. Who alone has permission and authority to assign your identity? And who alone has permission and authority to assign value to your life? And who alone has permission and authority to assign purpose to your life? His name is, by the way, Jesus. We're in church again. I told. I'm not gonna trick you guys. The answer's gonna be the same almost every time I ask you a question. He made you, he designed you, he created you specifically. And he has a purpose for your life. So here's the funny thing about identity and value and purpose.
[00:04:48] Most people believe that I am the one who determines my identity, my value and my purpose. I get to pick who I am.
[00:05:00] I get to assign value to my life. I get to decide what I will do with my life. And then that person becomes a follower of Christ.
[00:05:11] And all of our ideas about this go out the window. When we become a Christian, we lay aside all of our self proclaimed identities that don't agree with what God's word says about us. It doesn't matter who I think I am. What matters is who God says I am.
[00:05:33] We lay aside our opinions on our self worth. Some of us think way too highly of ourselves than we ought to think. Some, some of us think way too lowly of ourselves than we ought to think. But what we do is we say, God, I want to know what is my value in your eyes according to your Word. And then here's the hardest part for Most people, we lay aside our self proclaimed vision for our lives and we come before Jesus and we say, lord, I had a plan that was probably for my glory and my delight.
[00:06:09] Why did you make me so? We trust in Christ and now we ask new questions. We ask, who do you say that I am?
[00:06:21] And what do you say is the most important thing about me? And why did you put me here? And I love this. As parents and grandparents, as teachers, as spiritual leaders, like we have this life giving privilege to look at those under our leadership and to cast vision over their life that God willing is in agreement with the word of God. Now, the first, very first thing we learned about our identity, the first indicator of purpose for every single human being is our biological sex, male or female, for every person. Your biological sex is God's first declaration of your identity.
[00:07:13] Biblically speaking, you are created and designed by God as male or female. Now on the front end of this, what I want to do is I want to share with you a principle that's going to guide the next three messages. And this morning, very simple, three words goes like this.
[00:07:32] Biology determines behavior.
[00:07:37] In other words, God calls males to some behaviors that he does not call females to. And God calls females to some behaviors he does not call males to. This is not novel. This is common sense. We all intuitively know this.
[00:07:57] But there are some contexts that if you say statements like this, they are not going to be happy. The goal here is actually to identify what do the scriptures simply and clearly teach. And so as the people of God, living under the joyful authority of the Word of God, we celebrate what the Word of God teaches. And so we celebrate that there are males and females, we celebrate that there are boys and there are girls. And that when God made the world, he made every aspect, particularly our biological sex, on purpose, with intent. And then I so love this. In the Word of God revealed to us the intention behind why he made things the way he did. So if you have your Bibles, open up with me to Genesis chapter one, I'll also have this on the screen. And who's gonna tell me? Who's gonna tell me and my son? What does it mean to be a man? And who's gonna tell my wife and my daughters? So what does it mean to actually be a woman? And so our privilege is that we get to submit our minds, our hearts and our lives under the authority of God's word. And we get to let God tell us, like what does it mean to be a man? And what does it mean to be a Woman. So look at Genesis, chapter 1, verse 26 says, Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. And so here the Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are speaking amongst themselves, and they are planning and coordinating the creation of humanity, specifically the creation of Adam and Eve. And they are gonna make Adam and Eve. They're gonna make them in their likeness. And whatever that's gonna mean. Everybody who sees Adam and Eve, they're gonna be like, that is clearly made in the image of God. So the Trinity goes to work. And in verse 27, it says, so God created man in his own image. And here this refers to mankind. Not male yet. We'll get there. But he made mankind in his own image, in the image of God. He created him.
[00:10:07] Male and female. He created them. Okay, two big questions. Number one, so what is God's. What is God's image? It's sort of a tricky question because the Father is Spirit, the Holy Spirit is Spirit, and how do you physically image a spirit? And I'm very grateful because the New Testament actually gives us clarity on the answer to this question. The Scriptures make this very easy. They teach that Jesus is the image of God. So look at Colossians 1:15, speaking of Jesus, He. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Or 2 Corinthians 4, 4. Christ who is the image of God. And so here's what this means. When Adam and Eve were made, they looked just like Jesus and not like any other created being.
[00:11:05] They did not look like angels. In fact, the Bible describes angels in a very different way. Sometimes angels are just made of fire. Sometimes they look like wheels. Sometimes they have animal features and human features. Angels are actually made not in the image of God. They're made imagely. Very, very different, right? But when you. If you could be there and you were to see Jesus making Adam and Eve, you'd be like, oh, they're clearly related. They are clearly in the same family.
[00:11:34] Which brings me to my second question.
[00:11:37] How specifically, like, what does this really mean? Because we're not God. Amen. Like, I don't have all the powers of God. I don't have all the powers of Jesus. So, like, how specifically am I made in the image of God? Now, this is a very, very big question. I'm going to boil it down to at least four things for the sake of our discussion. So, number one, how are we made in the image of Jesus? Number one is our body. And so you see this. Our body is distinct in creation. It sets us apart from all of the animals, we do not look like angels. Angels don't even have a body.
[00:12:12] The second way we share God's image and likeness is our spirit. And our spirit is unique in all of creation. It appears that our spirit is immortal and eternal, not like the animals. But unlike the angels, our spirit is made for a body. Angels are just made for spirit. But we're made to be with a body. So our body and our spirit looks a lot like Jesus looked.
[00:12:36] The third way we share God's image and likeness is our responsibility. And so we know this intuitively. God is a ruler. God rules over the entire world. God rules over the land. God rules over everything. But sometimes we forget that when God made Adam and Eve and humanity, he made us to co rule over all of creation with him. And so here's what most of us assume. We assume of course we're going to rule over the land. Well that also means all of the animals as well. And it doesn't stop at the animals. It actually the New Testament teaches that we were created to rule over angels, co rulers with God made in his image and likeness, body, soul, responsibility.
[00:13:14] And so the angels, they were created to serve God and to serve humanity. And so as we co ruled over the entire earth, the angels job was to support us. As we co ruled with Jesus over creation in the garden, we rule and everything else is ruled.
[00:13:36] And the fourth way Scripture teaches that we're made in the image and likeness of God is our biological sex.
[00:13:43] This is our maleness, our femaleness. And the scriptures are just so simple about it. God created one human race, male and female. He created them, each made in the image of God, distinct, compatible, and each imaging God's likeness in a unique and beautiful way. Equal in every way, but like so obviously different. We're different in our psychology and our sexuality and our roles and our biology. The list just goes on and on and on. So this morning we're gonna, what we're going to do is we're going to introduce some definitions around masculinity and femininity. And then here's what we're going to do. Next week this is going to be sort of an introduction. Next week we are going to focus on what is biblical masculinity. The whole message will be focused on that. The week after that we're going to look at what is biblical femininity. We're going to open up the scriptures and say what do the scriptures teach about this? We're doing an introductory here for two reasons. Number one, we have a Whole bunch of kids in the room. And so this is a really good introduction, but it's also a really good introduction for the many men and women who are new to the Bible, new to Christianity. Searching out. So like, what does the Bible teach on these different things? And so even the primer that we're going to give this morning is going to feel like a fire hydrant to those of you who have never thought through or been trained on what does biblical masculinity or biblical femininity. So know this, this is just an, an appetizer, but open again one chapter forward. Genesis, chapter two, verse 23. We're going to start there.
[00:15:23] Adam in this verse is seeing his wife for the very first time. God has made fashion and designed Eve, body, soul, given this woman to Adam as a gift. Needless to say, he is very thrilled. And these are the first, first words out of a human's mouth in the Bible. And I love it. It's almost like a spontaneous poem. So the first words are a love poem from Adam to his wife Eve, when they are meeting together for the very first time. Verse 23, he lays his eyes on her and he says, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
[00:16:07] She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
[00:16:17] Now Adam, what he does, he uses really special Hebrew words to describe him and his wife.
[00:16:28] And these Hebrew words, as you begin to unpack them, they begin to paint a picture of masculinity and femininity. We're going to do a little intro here and then we're going to look at next week, in the next two weeks, all the other things the scriptures has to say. But this is the foundation laying teaching of scripture on maleness, femaleness, masculinity and femininity.
[00:16:50] So the word that Adam uses to describe what is a man, what is masculine, he uses this really interesting Hebrew word and the word is this ish. I s h. Now when you say the word, you do have to say it in like a lower, like a deeper ish, right? It's meant to be like a manly word. What this word literally means is strong.
[00:17:15] And when you compared visibly biologically the man, Adam to his wife Eve, their biology, their physical appearance was so unmistakably different.
[00:17:28] And here's what Adam knew. Adam knew that this design, this intention was on purpose. He was made strong on purpose. Okay, so what is a man technically? A man is a biological male with XY chromosomes. That's technically what a man is.
[00:17:50] But what I want to know Is what is biblical masculinity?
[00:17:57] Why did God make men strong?
[00:18:00] Why did God design them differently? So there's obvious physical differences, but there are also spiritual and psychological differences as well.
[00:18:11] So what I want to do is I want to share with you a definition of masculinity that we've been using for a very long time here at Village Church. And personally, I love this because it has been a guide for me as I am raising a son to be masculine, to be a biblical man of God. And here's how it goes.
[00:18:31] Men thrive in their masculinity when given responsibility to be sacrificial leaders, fruitful providers, and loving protectors over someone of great value. Now, before I go any further, I have to say this because there's going to be. But what about. And I can hear it already. Okay, don't answer this question out loud. I'm going to give you the answer. Does God ask women to be sacrificial leaders? The answer is yes. Does God ask women to be fruitful providers? Is that okay? Yes. Does God ask women to be loving protectors? You ask every mama bear in the world. The answer is yes. That one you can say out loud. This is not a matter of only men can do these things.
[00:19:17] But God has designed men uniquely so that when we do not do these things, we begin to image God less and less.
[00:19:37] And this has devastating circumstances.
[00:19:42] The result is that spiritually, psychologically, relationally, we slowly stop flourishing.
[00:19:54] We then move to a season of stagnation, which ultimately results in deterioration.
[00:20:03] The man who stops imaging God becomes profoundly susceptible to the dominant cultural definition of masculinity in the culture that they live in. Let me illustrate.
[00:20:18] When a boy or a young man is not beginning to learn at age appropriate levels, of course, and we can talk strategies at different times, but when they are not learning to sacrificially lead someone or something of great value to faithfully provide for, to lovingly protect someone of great value.
[00:20:40] When a man does not know how to protect a woman's femininity, he will lack purpose, he will struggle with his identity, and he will be uniquely vulnerable to alternate identities. And when an adult man is not sacrificially leading, fruitfully, providing for or loving and protecting someone, this is going to be too close to home for some of you. But he will revert to childlike selfishness and obsession with hobbies.
[00:21:12] In the created order and still in the following world, men have the impulse deep in their bones to be this. Even if culture and loud voices in your life have tried to mute this voice. Your soul was made to come alive as you do these things. And this definition of manhood, it can't just be cast in a sermon. It needs to be trained in home after home after home. And it starts when boys are young, little boys. And some of you, you might be like, listen, I'm a dude. I came to Christ later. I have no idea what I'm doing and how to do this. Then you're probably gonna need to start listening to some sermons and be mentored by somebody who's willing to come alongside of you and say, we're gonna open up the word of God and we're gonna clarify explicitly what is biblical masculinity. And then we're gonna help you figure out how to live this.
[00:22:00] I've heard, I mean, not all the what ifs, but I think a ton of the what ifs. Like, what if. What if my wife is stronger than me? Okay, it doesn't matter if she's stronger than you. This is still the impulse inside of a man. Our current culture today, a man is supposed to be nice and domesticated, often a bit effeminate, culturally speaking.
[00:22:26] And let me just tell you that, okay, 98%. Again, Pastor Math. I'm sure there's an exception somewhere here. Okay? 98.5% of men do not want to look at the woman that they are tasked by God to protect.
[00:22:42] And for her to look at him and go, he's nice.
[00:22:47] Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be a jerk. And I know you don't want to be a jerk.
[00:22:52] What we want to hear is, you are capable, and I respect you. That's what the heart of a man uniquely wants. Now, I've already gone too deep into next week's message, and so I'm going to pause there, teaser for next week, come back, and we're going to talk about biblical masculinity. Let's shift gears. What is. What is a woman? What is feminine?
[00:23:14] Adam refers to himself as Ish, but then he gives her, I think, just one of the most beautiful descriptions. He calls her Isha.
[00:23:26] And the word actually means just like what it sounds like. It's. It's meant to be said with a softness, because literally the word means soft.
[00:23:36] And when you compare the man, physically and biologically Adam, to his wife, physically and biologically, there is a palpable, visible, unmistakable difference in the way that they are bodily made. One is stronger and one is much softer. And Adam knew right away. He looks at this woman and he knows the design wasn't an accident. It was on purpose with intention by your designer. There is a biology and there are behaviors that God has intended to follow that biology. Okay, so what is a woman? Apparently this is controversial, but let's bring clarity. Technically, a woman is a biological female with XX chromosomes. Okay?
[00:24:19] But what I want to know is what is biblical femininity?
[00:24:25] Why did God make women softer?
[00:24:28] Why did God design them differently? So there's obviously physical differences, but are there spiritual and psychological differences? 2. Here's the definition of femininity that we have used at village church for a long time. And again, I'll say this. It has been profoundly helpful and guiding is my wife and I raise two daughters goes like this.
[00:24:50] Women thrive in their femininity when given the responsibility to be visibly strong in heart. Some of you are like, prove that biblically done. We're going to do that next week or two weeks from now.
[00:25:02] Equal and respectful in collaboration and sacrificial and nurturing towards someone of great value. Okay, before I move on again, I have to say this. Does God ask men to be respectful and equal collaborators with women? The answer is yes. And does God ask men to be nurturing? The answer is yes. This is not a matter of only women can. But God has uniquely designed women so that if they are not growing in these things, they begin to image God less and less. And this has disastrous consequences.
[00:25:44] And the result is that spiritually and psychologically and relationally, they slowly stop flourishing and then move into a season of stagnation, which ultimately results in deterioration. The woman who stops imaging God becomes profoundly susceptible to the dominant cultural definition of femininity that they live in. And I want something way more than what this world says is feminine and beautiful for my daughters. And I know you want the same thing for yours. Let me illustrate this.
[00:26:21] When a girl or young woman does not learn her strength and power, which is mighty, ladies, if you unified, you could stop the world.
[00:26:35] When she does not learn how to use this power to collaborate with a man and his masculinity. When a young girl or young woman is not given the opportunity to nurture, she will lack purpose. She will struggle with her identity, and she will be uniquely vulnerable to alternate identities.
[00:27:00] And when an adult woman is not using the true source of her unbelievable strength and power for good, and if married biblically, collaborating with her husband and fostering his masculinity and nurturing someone or something of great value, she will eventually deteriorate spiritually.
[00:27:21] So in the created order, it's still in the fallen world, women have the impulse to be this. It's in your spiritual and physical DNA. And even if other voices and people and culture have tried to silence this and replace it with some other definition of femininity, this is what you were designed by your creator to do. And this vision of womanhood, it can't just be cast in a sermon. It has to be grown and developed and in our homes. And again, you might be here and you might, you might be like, listen, I didn't learn this. I became a Christian maybe later in life. And, and, and to be honest, I don't know what this means. Well, in two weeks, we're going to go deeper into this. But you, you might need an older godly woman to come alongside of you and say, here's what the word of God teaches on biblical femininity and here's how God made you and designed you and what the scriptures teach and to learn to lean into that, on the other end of that is the beginning of spiritual flourishing. So God made women uniquely, biologically, psychologically to be ishaha, soft but strong, more than capable if she's younger, respectful of her dad, if she's married, of her husband's masculinity, nurturing toward animals and children and anybody in a more vulnerable situation, by the way, in the feeling home, this is why we got a bunch of chickens and why we have animals. Because I'm literally just raising like trying to give opportunities for care and for nurture of vulnerable things. And I'd love to say that was my idea, but that was all my wife because she knew that we need to train these things. And you know what? My son needs to learn how to nurture and care too.
[00:28:59] I praise God that he designed half of our species to be uniquely nurturing and mothering.
[00:29:10] Because let's be honest, if we were raised by all men, half of us would be dead.
[00:29:19] Amen.
[00:29:24] And that's just a teaser for two Sundays from now. Let's go into. So what's number one? Your biological sex is a gift from God that is being sabotaged by culture and demons.
[00:29:38] So unfortunately, this entire subject, biblical as it is, has been hijacked by our culture. And one of the most effective ways to culturally confuse a ton of people is to create new words and to change the meaning of old words. So in the 1950s, the word gender was introduced for the very first time with a new intention to separate biology from behavior.
[00:30:07] This is a brand new concept in the history of humanity. And the word gender now Became this thing that would describe how we acted on a spectrum of masculine to feminine. And we were sold the disgusting lie that biological females, well, they can act like males and all they have to do is feel like it. Or biological males can act like females. If here's important, if you feel like it. And rather than in the God ordained method of this world biology determining behavior, feelings now determine behavior.
[00:30:48] Feelings are the new God. And let me be clear, feelings make a terrible God.
[00:30:57] Have you ever been with a friend or family member and the entire culture of their life is run by their emotions and feelings? It's devastating. My feelings make a terrible God and so do yours, which is why my feelings are liars.
[00:31:12] So much of the time. I have to lay down my emotions and say, okay, that's what I feel to be true. But what is true in your word? By the 1970s, feminist scholars adopted the vocabulary. And why do I say all this? Because I want you to know that these ideas are new. Historically, the terminology has continued to evolve.
[00:31:33] Now you can be masculine, you can be feminine, you can be anything you want, anywhere in between.
[00:31:39] Here's a statement that reflects the most, I would say, modern sentiment on gender.
[00:31:44] My gender is whatever I feel like it is today.
[00:31:52] So all of this, all of these assaults on biblical masculinity and biblical femininity, they're what we call purpose breakers. Here's what a purpose breaker is.
[00:32:04] They're mind viruses designed to kill God's assigned purpose in whomever it is planted.
[00:32:12] And the intention of the mind virus is to water down the definitions of masculine and feminine till eventually they mean nothing, so that they can break your soul, so that you do not become the man or the woman, the boy or the girl God made you to become.
[00:32:34] They are designed to deteriorate you and to destroy you. Because the thief, the devil, comes only to steal and to kill. And what's the last word? To destroy. And so what we understand is that this assault is designed to break your God ordained purpose. And as a pastor, as parents and grandparents, as leaders and youth leaders and kids ministry volunteers, we get to stand in the gap and say, no, what God made in you was not an accident. There was no confusion. He is good, he loves you, and he has assigned purpose. And the first thing you learn about your purpose and identity is I am male or female and we celebrate this. Now, I want to draw your attention to something striking that I'm kind of observing in the cultural ethos.
[00:33:23] It appears that something has broken over the past year in our cultural ethos.
[00:33:31] The demons who oversee the spirit of the age, I really believe, have overplayed their cards.
[00:33:41] And there is a growing rebellion. Catch this. Amongst non Christians against this nonsense and insanity.
[00:33:51] It's striking that we were led to believe the majority of America supports the cultural notion of gender and fluidity. And you know what? We're learning, they don't.
[00:34:05] We've actually been duped.
[00:34:08] And now this is so interesting. I can't wait to see how the next 10 years are going to pan out. This next generation of high school students is the most conservative we've seen in decades on this issue and many others.
[00:34:23] So here's. I mean, I'd love to have a conversation with the devil overseas. The demon oversees the American culture and be like, you messed up, bro. You overplayed your courage. And you asked us to deny what is so unbelievably obvious and simple and true. Kids are saying, no, that's not right. And kids are looking at adults and saying, nope, you can't ask me to deny what is so obviously simple and clear. So what? Number two, sin has broken everything and everyone but Jesus is rebuilding his people in his image and likeness.
[00:35:03] Christian and non Christian men alike, we are all struggling with our masculinity. I have never met a Christian man who's like, I have nailed down biblical masculinity. I am the best husband and father and man there ever was. Talk to my wife or any wife in this room and they're gonna be like, yeah, you got some areas to grow. And to be clear, Christian and non Christian women all over the world are all struggling with femininity. I've never met a Christian woman who's like, I am literally the epitome of femininity. And everybody should just model their lives off of. I've never seen it before, right? Many men will praise their wives, but no man will say, she is perfect in every way. It's just not the way it works.
[00:35:41] We have been bombarded with cultural lies and generational sins, and sorting through them is gut wrenching. It's challenging. Hence this series. Everyone is gonna have to wrestle through these issues in our own personal lives. Some of us are gonna have a much harder time wrestling than others.
[00:35:58] Here's what I know.
[00:36:00] Every single one of us in this room needs forgiveness for the way that we have marred the image of God in our body and our souls and our behavior. Christians and non Christians, every one of us, we need to know, as we go to 2025, if we're all going to live with a biblical Worldview and try to become more like Christ as a male or a female, as a boy or as a girl. Like, I need to know God, you're gonna be with me in this. Cause I'm gonna mess this thing up a whole bunch of times. I need to know that you are with me.
[00:36:34] And every one of us needs the power of God to help us. We've tried all the transformation ideas, behavior modification, and at the end of the day, we need something deeper that only the Lord can do in our life.
[00:36:49] Forgiveness. God's presence. God's power only ever come through faith in Jesus. And so if you are here and you have never trusted in Christ, the only way you will ever receive forever forgiveness. The indwelling presence of God and the power you need to be the man you know God made you to be, or the woman God made you to be. The only way you're ever gonna get all of those is if you first surrender and you come to God and you apologize and you tell him, I have marred your image. You made me for more than this. Will you forgive me? And you trust you believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for your sins in your place. Awesome news, by the way. You can do that today. You can do that now. One of the things I love about the good news of Jesus Christ is he does not look at us and say, if you're a good boy, if you accrue enough good works, then you can go to heaven. He's very clear. You'll never accrue enough good work to make right all the wrong we've done. But I can put that punishment on Jesus and I can forgive you now if you will ask and believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And so if you're here today and you're like, I know I need to do that, I would just encourage you now. Tell him I am sorry and I believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And then find someone and tell them so that we can come alongside of you and help you learn what it means. How do I follow Jesus as a male or as a female? As a boy or as a girl? Sound good? Let's pray together. Father, thank you just for the privilege to open up your word on this subject.
[00:38:16] Father. May 2025 be a year of spiritual transformation. By the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:38:26] May those struggling with questions of identity and value and purpose find with clarity their answers in Jesus and in your word.
[00:38:35] And would you continue to raise up a generation of kids and students and young adults who believe your word, who receive your identity and who live out your purpose with passion and confidence in you. These are huge prayers. But we pray all of these.
[00:38:51] And we do this in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Only you can do what we're asking. We pray this all in Jesus name, amen.
