Every human being is an embodied soul—not a spirit accidentally housed in matter, but a composite of body and soul so unified that sex goes all the way down to the cellular level and all the way forward into eternity. In this session, Michael Clary will explore what it means that God crafted men and women with distinct bodies and distinct natures, and why recovering that vision is both theologically essential and humanly glorious.

Thank you, Scott. You said a lot of really powerful and moving things just now. And of all the things you said just now that really touched me deeply, speaking about the next generation of pastors coming up, you used the word young. I'm 51 years old and I don't get I don't get lumped in with the young guys anymore but I want to cling to the last moments that I could say. So I'll take it.

Well Scott got us fired up. You all fired up? Got me fired up. He kind of threw a truth nuke on us, didn't he? That was Great.

I want to know who I'm talking to here. If you are 30 years old and younger, would you raise your hand? Let's go. Yes, that's exciting. There's one thing that he said, and I hope you heard this, especially those of you in that 30 and below, he's talking about spiritual warfare, spiritual oppression, darkness in the world, feminism, androgyny, these evil, wicked forces that are tearing our society apart.

And he said the one thing that terrifies the devil is a well-ordered home and a well-ordered church. That is something you have direct control over. You may not have direct control over who's in Washington DC or who's in your state house. You have direct control over what you do with your home. And many of your pastors, and you have great influence, and as church members, you have great influence over what happens in your church.

And a well-ordered home and a well-ordered church is a terror to the gates of hell. And so I hope that you took that message to heart because I sure did. Thank you for that brother. What I'm here to talk about tonight is written in the flesh. That's the title, written in the flesh, why your body tells the truth about who you are.

I wrote about this in God's good design. And the idea is that our biological sex is not incidental to our identity as human beings. And so my thesis is simply this. Human beings are embodied souls, and our bodies tell us a story. Our bodies speak the truth because God wrote it into our bodies.

His design is written into our bodies and it tells us who we are and what is our purpose. There's an old heresy that has found new life in our day. Scott mentioned some of these things, but I wanna take us another lap around the track of some of the things that Scott mentioned in his message. That old heresy that I'm referring to is called Gnosticism. Gnosticism, and It's never really gone away, but it morphs, it's a shapeshifter.

It changes from one generation to the next. And here's the kind of the core idea of Gnosticism, and when I describe it to you, if that sounds like a big theological word that you would learn in seminary, you'll recognize it when I describe it to you. Okay. Gnosticism is the idea that there is a strict separation between body and spirit. And the body is bad and corrupt, but the spirit on the inside is pure and good.

Does that sound familiar? So the physical body is not really who you are. In fact, the physical body is mostly incidental. It's kind of irrelevant to who you are. What you feel on the inside, that's who you really are.

You Ever heard that before? But in the olden days, there was one thing that they couldn't overcome. They could not overcome basic biological reality. And the basic biological reality is that women get pregnant. And they couldn't overcome that.

Whenever man and woman have sex, women get pregnant and biology matters then. So they could not deny it entirely. But in our day, Gnosticism has gained a new lease on life through a few ideas that I'll mention to you. Various isms and ideologies that you've heard of, one of them as we've already heard, is feminism. And feminism basically is the, it suppresses the unique beauty of God's design for womanhood.

And it tries to make women more like men. Another ideology is androgyny, Androgyny, which is, you know, two roots, androgynos, androgyny, which is man-woman. It is the blending of man and woman. And androgyny is fast becoming the sexual ideal of the modern world as people are fascinated with gender bending. So whenever I was a kid, big pop artists in my day were Michael Jackson, who was, I watched in real time a guy go from being a black man to at least appearing like a white woman.

Michael Jackson. And another big musical artist in my day was Prince. And so Prince, you know, he had a dispute with his recording company. And so he stopped going by the name Prince and he started just using this symbol. And so they called the artist formerly known as Prince.

And that was because he did not want his name Prince being used in this record contract. And so he would just use the symbol. But the symbol was a blending of the historic like man and woman symbols to represent those and it kind of blended them together. And if you've seen Prince, he's kind of a slight build, he's kind of an effeminate man, he would wear frilly lace and pink and purple colors, and so he was he's kind of a dude but it's kind of a woman at the same time. And of course that I'm dating myself, I'm talking about Michael Jackson and Prince, but you all have it, you kids, you have it in your day too.

You all know Harry Styles, you know this guy? Harry Styles, he's doing the same old game. He's a guy, but he kind of dresses like a girl. He'll wear dresses. A lot of pop stars are doing this now.

They'll wear dresses and things like this. Just to be edgy, there's another guy, Sam Smith, and he's just gone full on. That guy's lost his mind. And if you don't know who these names are, God bless you. But androgyny is becoming the ideal.

It is the blending of man and woman, and it has made its way down street level. It's in high schools, it's in elementary schools, junior high schools, it's in Christian schools where girls are dressing in a more masculine way or boys are dressing in a more feminine way and this blending of the genders is all over the place. That's androgyny. Nevertheless, biological realities cannot be ultimately denied. Women are still the ones that make the babies unless there is some way to artificially suppress her fertility, such that women no longer make babies when they have sex.

Enter the birth control pill. The birth control pill created the illusion of consequence-free sex for women. Reproductive technologies are all aimed at liberating women from the burdens of their fertility. Birth control pill, IUDs, abortion, I could go on and on. All of these are aimed at allowing women to have sex without reproductive consequences, which is to suppress what God made woman to do.

And of course, once you have this reproductive technology to where men and women are basically interchangeable at every level, technology has enabled this, then you enter into what we are now in in this transgender moment, which thank God it's running out of steam and there's a backlash that is happening because these people are nuts and it is plain to see and the more that it is seen, the more people are like, whoa, I didn't realize we signed up for that. And there's a backlash. Nevertheless, you can't put that toothpaste back in the tube. It's out. Transgenderism is everywhere now.

And it is the attempt to eliminate the distinction between male and female altogether. So it is modern-day Gnosticism which assumes the real you is whoever you feel you are on the inside and your body has nothing to do with it. That's that is the biological like the full expression of Gnosticism is is transgenderism but it's it's all over the place in just the way we live. Feminism is one version of it. There's all these different versions of it, of thinking like, well, if you're a woman, I don't, a lot of women these days, like I don't wanna stay home and have babies and serve a husband.

I wanna have a career or I wanna be a police officer or I wanna be a soldier or I wanna whatever, I wanna be an executive in a C-suite. And it's like, well, these things have to be manufactured and sustained through technology. But the main difference between ancient Gnosticism and modern-day Gnosticism is that our self-worship is now aided by powerful biological technology. Christianity has said the opposite from the beginning. Your body is not a cage.

Your body is not incidental. Your body is you. Your body is not just this skin suit, this thing that you inhabit, but the real you is the one that's on the inside. No, your body is you. And we're going to look at that means.

God made us embodied souls and this is wonderful. This is glorious. It is not a burden from which you need to be liberated. This is a gift. It's a calling and it is beautiful if you will submit to God's design.

Scripture, Genesis chapter two, verse seven. I wanna read you a few texts from Genesis, but this first one I'll read from the King James, the others I'll read from the ESV. But this first one from the King James, I want you to listen to the last word of this verse, okay? It says this, and the Lord God formed the man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Man became a living soul.

The word for soul is nephesh, Hebrew word. Notice man did not receive a soul, man became a soul. So God formed Adam's body from the ground and then God breathed into Adam's nostrils, the breath of life, and then his spirit and his body became something. Both body and his spirit became a soul. He became a living soul.

And nephesh refers to a psychosomatic unity, meaning it's both body and spirit. The inner and outer man brought together and it's a composite of Spirit and flesh, which means that your body is a sacred space. Your body, we know from New Testament theology that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. We are temples of the Holy Spirit where the life of God lives within us for God's glory. But we see this going all the way back in Genesis.

God made us that way. C.S. Lewis, he wrote this. I'll read your quote. C.S.

Lewis says, Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body, which believes that matter is good, that God himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us in heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness and our beauty and our energy. Christianity does not divide soul and body. Pagans do that. If you have a religion that separates soul and body, that's paganism. Christianity teaches that the beauty and the glory of man is that he is a soul and a body.

He is a unity. He is a nephesh. God created him this way. And this is how God made you. And in eternity, you will have a body.

Just as our Lord Jesus Christ inhabited a human body, He was crucified in a body, He was raised again on the third day in a body, and He was raised and ascended to the Father, and He will forever intercede for us in a glorified human body. Christianity is pro flesh, pro body. It is good. What do we call it whenever a person's soul and a body is separated from one another? Death.

That's when you die. And then what do we await whenever Christ returns? We await the resurrection, whenever our bodies will be raised. And this is New Testament fundamental Christianity, 101 basic theology. And so, the most fundamental thing that the body speaks the truth about is sex.

Sex tells a story. So, let's look at Genesis chapter 1 verse 27. Genesis chapter 1, 27, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. What do you see there?

We see there's a man, but there's two kinds of man. There's a male kind and a female kind. Both of them are man, but they come in two forms. And so, sex tells a story and God wrote it into our bodies. Do you know how many cells are in the human body?

I was surprised when I learned this. On average, the human body, nobody's counted this, let me just be clear, but the estimated 37 trillion cells in the human body, you know that? And guess what? Every single cell in your body is sexed, male or female. And let's say you're transgender, and like I don't identify as a man, I identify as a woman, and I wear dresses and put on lipstick.

Great. A hundred years from now, some archaeologists can dig up your dead old bones and they can tell you were a man. Not because of what you identified as, but because every cell in your body declares who you are, and that is you are male or female. And there are some people are honest enough to acknowledge this. There's this feminist scholar her name is Camille Pagala and she's one of the few that'll that'll tell the truth even though she's lesbian.

I mean she's not a born-again Christian that would agree with us on much, but this is one point that I think that she's at least honest about. She says this, the cold biological truth is that sex changes are impossible. Every single cell of the human body remains coded with one's birth gender for life." Now some people might grant that, right? They might grant that point, they might, okay, I'll grant that men and women are different, But the differences only matter for purposes of reproduction. But all the other differences are, all the other things were basically, men were basically the same.

But there's some plumbing differences when it comes to making babies and that sort of thing. But that is not true. We are fundamentally different. We have different brains. We have different connectivity between our brain hemispheres.

We have different hormonal systems. The architectural and neurological difference between men's and women's brains are marked, consistent, pervasive. And the theological point is that God made it this way. That's not an accident. That's not something that's wrong.

The things that make men and women different, that's what's cool about people. That's what makes it fun when people get together and we talk about each other, they're like, you're different, but you're the same. And it's interesting, it's fascinating, and it's filled with wonder and beauty and mystery, and it's awesome. And we've lost so much beauty in this world because we've killed the very thing that God gave us that makes us wonderful and unique. This thing that separates us from the animal kingdom and we're trying to destroy it.

How stupid are we for doing that? This is wonderful. It's a gift. And societies on the whole have always acknowledged this. It's why we go to weddings and it's fun.

The men do one thing, the women have another thing, the girls they go off and there's something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and they've got their own traditions that girls do, and guys do their thing, and they like hanging out, and they do a bachelor party, and they have fun, and they make fun of the guy. And then it's like you've got all these traditions and stuff that come together, and it's like this is a celebration of sex, not in a creepy way, not in a perverse way, but in a God-honoring way, at least the way God made it. And we're losing it. Marriage rates are in the tank. Divorce rates are through the roof.

Homosexuality is off the charts. And in each one of those examples, what is lost, among so many other things, what's lost is beauty. Our world is an uglier place because of it. Just like an artist signing his name, he signs his name, male and female, on every human being like it's a masterpiece. Men and women are not interchangeable carbon units with minor variations and our differences are not accidental variations for the purposes of evolution or artifacts of culture.

Our differences are all intended by God. God made us that way. This means the body speaks. The body tells us something. It communicates.

It tells us the truth of who we are and God designed it to do that. Having a male or female body characterizes who you are. It determines your whole mode of being. So you might ask, well, what do our bodies tell us? What is the story?

What is the instruction that our bodies have for us? I will tell you. Among many things, I'll give you three things that our bodies tell us. And the first thing is that the dominion mandate, otherwise known as the creation mandate, is written in the flesh. Whenever we talk about the image of God, what is the most common way whenever people refer to the image of God, what are they trying to communicate?

When I hear it, it's usually as a value marker. If you're talking about somebody being harmed, like that person was created in the image of God. So if we talk, if we're talking about abortion, we say human beings created in the image of God are being aborted in the womb. And we use the phrase image of God as a value marker, and that's true, but there's more to it. It's not merely a value marker.

The image of God indicates a role, it's a function. The image of God, There's things that we do to image God, and that is we exercise dominion. Men and women image God together, and when they do, they are taking dominion. So back to Genesis 1. I'll just back up a couple verses.

Verse 26, God said, let us make man in our image, there's the image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion. Image is linked to dominion. Dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Then verse 27, so God created man in his own image and the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. The image of God is the two bookends and dominion is sandwiched in between. Image dominion.

The image of God indicates that God created you, man and woman, he created you to rule this earth. You know that? And as I said a moment ago, the way that he created you to rule the earth is not as complicated as you might think. It is well-ordered families and well-ordered churches. We'll get to that.

But God created men and women to rule because image, being created in God's image, is not merely a value marker. It is linked to dominion. God made man and woman to subdue this earth to domesticate this earth to civilize it to take the uncharted wild that was outside the borders of the Garden of Eden and to subdue it and to make something wonderful to build a global planet as civilization garden paradise for the glory of God that was his original his original intent. Herman Boving he said this dominion over the earth is an unfolding of the image of God in humanity. Dominion is inseparable from the image of God, according to which people were created.

Sin did indeed introduce an immense change in the image of God, but in so far as human beings still display the image of God, they also retain the calling and the power to subdue the earth. Men and women, God created you, all of you. God created you to rule this earth, to have dominion over this earth. Sin corrupted that, but it did not destroy it ultimately. What does dominion look like?

Does that mean that you got to run for Congress? Does that mean that you have to be a despot, a tyrannical dictator, some leader? No. The way that we exercise dominion is by filling the earth and subduing it. We populate the earth with more image-bearers and we blanket the earth with God's image.

Genesis 1, 28, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion. Getting married, having a well-ordered home, making some babies, teaching them to obey Jesus, that's dominion. That is expanding the rule of Jesus Christ. Man and woman think of this. Husbands and wives think of this.

There's two of you and you're Christian. And then you have a baby. You've brought a new image into the world. You teach that child to know Jesus. You've exercised dominion by expanding the rule of God with another human being.

And then you have another and another and another and however many the Lord gives you. And now you've trained them all to know the Lord. You gather into churches and you all worship God together. And you build up this community. And now this conference has been going on for 20 years and people that came here as babies are now meeting each other and getting married and having children of their own and it's expanding.

That's dominion. The family is the engine of dominion in the earth and that's what you got to do. That's our calling. Your body though tells you what your job is. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Okay. Man and woman, we image God together by starting families and populating the earth and building civilization. We do things, we create things. I'll read your quote from God's Good Design. We rule by expanding God's household together.

The man expands it by subduing the wild earth and making it into a suitable place to live. The woman expands it by making that place into a home and filling it with people. The man and woman were created to be creators just like God. Think of this. The one thing that human beings can do that is perhaps where we are most like God, so we can create life.

God created Adam and Eve, and guess what? Every single person that has come into existence since then, God did not create them directly the way he did Adam and Eve. They all came about because a man and a woman came together, they imaged God, and they brought a new image into the world. I want as many of them to be Christian as possible so that God's glory and God's dominion can be manifest on the earth. So that's the first one.

The dominion mandate, creation mandate is written in the flesh. Second one, our duties of the creation mandate are written in the flesh. Our duties in the creation mandate are written in the flesh. So men and women correspond to and complement one another, right? Each of us are impoverished without the contributions of the other.

Think of this, when women act like men and men act like women and our distinctions are blurred and we don't really know what's different, then the uniquely male things and the uniquely female things that God created us to do, we lose that because we're in each other's lane. We don't have a clear division of labor. We're in each other's way. But whenever we have clarity, there's interdependence, and that interdependence is the sweet spot of where families can thrive, because a man knows what he's supposed to do, and a woman knows what she's supposed to do, and they can rely on one another and depend on one another, and they can build something together. So Genesis 2, 18, God, this is before he created Eve now, we're backing up.

God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. How have you heard that taught before? It is not good that the man should be alone. Man's lonely.

Isn't that how you heard it? Poor guy. There's Adam hanging out in the garden. He's looking at the animals. There's a giraffe, there's a zebra, there's a yak, a monkey up in a tree, but there's nobody like me.

I'm kind of lonely. I don't have anybody to talk to, Lord. And God felt sorry for him. He said, it's not good for man to be alone. He needs a buddy.

But I'll Tell you what, I'll make him a buddy that he can be married to. And so God created Eve. Now I'm sure the companionship, Adam enjoys a companionship with his wife. But what do we establish is the image of God for. It is for taking dominion, which is we, a man and woman, image God together and God gave him a mandate.

You must fill the earth and subdue it. Man cannot do that by himself. So God gave him a command and the man cannot obey the command by himself. He needs a helper to help him obey the mandate. He needs somebody that can make babies because he can't do that.

If God wanted to create a world where people could multiply like trees and don't need procreation, he could have done it. But no, God created a world where the only human beings that will come into the world is because a man and a woman came together and they gave, she got pregnant and they gave birth. Man needed a helper that can help him fill the world with more image bearers. God did not create them to merely coexist but to have a kind of relationship that is fruitful And childbearing is part of how they image God. So Adam, what he needed from her was he needed her life giving potential.

And whenever a woman is pregnant, whenever a woman is taking care of children, she is vulnerable. And 1 Peter tells us the woman is the weaker vessel. She needed his protection. She needed his headship, his leadership. But whenever they know they're laying, whenever she's like, he is my protector, he is my head, and I want to lead, and whenever he knows that she is the one that brings life into the world, then they have clarity about what God has called them to do.

Their bodies tell them that story. Think of it this way. Men tend to be proto-logical, which means men have to do with the beginning of things. Men tend to be proto-logical, which means men have to do with the beginning of things. Men tend to be...

I'll repeat that, I was a little static here. Men tend to be... Maybe I should just shout real loud. All right. Men tend to be protological.

Are we back? All right, I think we're back. That means men have to do with the beginning of things. Men are initiators. Men are outwardly oriented towards the world.

Men are, I was thinking about this driving through 40, driving on 40 through here, you know, we're seeing that where the flood kind of wiped out the roads and, and I'm kind of looking at these big trucks and the, you know, the machinery and stuff. And I was thinking about this driving through there because my wife is a woman. And so she's more oriented to people. She's thinking about people and relationships. She's thinking about safety.

She's thinking about what are our kids doing back home? And I'm thinking, man, these trucks look really fun. Because men are into things, women are into people, and that's good, but men are initiators Men tend to bring structure and order Men are oriented towards hierarchy and conquest So well ordered home needs a man to lead it and needs a man whose authority can enforce it. I don't want to get graphic here, but I want you to hear this point. The male sex organ is designed for initiative.

The woman's sex organ is designed for response. All right. By God's design, their union is fruitful. The man plants his seed in her garden, and what does she do? She takes that seed, she receives it, and her body does the miracle that God made her body to do, and she takes that one seed and she constructs an entire life out of it.

It's fruit, fruitful. God made her to do that And that's because of the man's initiative towards her. Now what if men are protological, you could say women are eschatological. Women have to do with the end of things. Women tend to complete things and bring them to their fulfillment.

Women are generally more inwardly oriented towards equality and inclusion, nurturing and care and domestication. And whenever we honor both, And the thing is we need to honor both. And we need to, one, they can interplay with one another. And in our feminized society, it is all the feminine virtues that are dominant and even men, they traffic in feminine virtues and we've forsaken the masculine virtues of hierarchy and order and conquest. But whenever we honor both, they can build incredible things together.

You can build homes, you can fill the world with people. And to build a household and to build a civilization, we each need to image God in our own ways. And men and women, we do need each other. So think of it this way, like a wise father knows that to love, you need to be strong. A wise mother knows to be strong need love.

They both bring their different virtues, they're both perspectives to the table, and together there's complementarity, the good kind. There's harmony, there's unity, there's interdependence. And that's beautiful. Just think of, I remember the jokes that I used to hear whenever I was in school as a kid, and there were jokes about the way men are, the way women are. And they were funny because they were real.

And we knew like the differences are real. And we could kind of tease each other and there was a good natured ribbing. And all that's gone now because we don't know what a man is and we don't know what a woman is. Everything's become so bland and vanilla and dull and interchangeable and ugly and gross that we don't even know how to have friendly jokes about what men are like because we've lost the idea. We don't know what a woman is anymore.

Two different kinds of glory that can work together for a shared purpose which is written in our flesh. All right, The third one is our pursuit of virtue is written in the flesh. Our pursuit of virtue is written in the flesh. So men and women pursue virtue according to our different potentialities. Now I want to talk about something here and I don't want us to get hung up on a technicality.

I know in a fallen world that is fractured by sin, there is every man and woman has the potential to be a father or mother, but not every man or woman will actually become a father or mother. So I'm talking about God's design which is in the realm of potentiality and I'm just going to set aside and expect you to be grown-ups and know that not every potential is an actuality. Our pursuit of Christian virtue is written in the flesh to a degree because men and women have different potentialities. Now some Christians believe that virtue is identical for men and women. I've heard this said to me before.

I've heard people say, well, the fruit of the spirit doesn't have a man list and a woman list. They're just nine fruit of the spirit. And so love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There's not a man list and a woman list. So therefore, men and women display virtue the same.

That is foolish. No, we do not. Because the differences are written into our flesh. God has given us different bodies which have different natures, which have different potentialities that we're aimed at. And then those find expression, the fruit of the spirit find expression through those different potentialities.

A man's love is different than a woman's love. And we need both. You can't take two dudes and say, you two gay men, you raise a baby. I don't care how nurturing you are, that's cruelty to that child. That child needs a mother's love and a father's love.

And we can't just say, well, they're interchangeable, it's the same. No, that's transgenderism. When Christians say that sort of thing, you have just bought into the transgender argument and you're a fool for doing so. No, a child needs a father's love and a mother's love because men and women love differently and a child needs both. And it's Gnostic too.

The fruit of the spirit is not divided, but humanity itself is divided two kinds, male and female. And so since fatherhood, you know the word telos? Telos is like the Latin word just meant the end, the purpose for which something exists. What is the telos of masculine and feminine? Whenever a little baby is born, you say, it's a boy or it's a girl, that you're not just saying something about an organ that you can observe.

You're saying, what is the full potentiality that that human being can become? Why did God make that child a boy or girl? It is not merely so that they can, you know, have some few personality differences, but it's like, what is the full telos of that? Every boy, the full potential is for him to become a father. Fatherhood is the telos of masculinity.

Motherhood is the telos of femininity. That doesn't mean that every man or woman will have an actual child, but that is the purpose for which God created masculine and feminine. And for that reason, virtue is going to be oriented towards the end for which God made you. So let me put this down at street level. What is the most godly and virtuous version of yourself?

Now, you might say, well, I want to pray and I want to read my Bible and I want to be a godly person. All that is true, but as a man or as a woman. What is the most godly version of you as a man or the most godly version of you as a woman? The most godly man and most godly woman will be fatherly or motherly. Think of the most godly man you know, somebody that you really respect.

I guarantee you what you respect most about him is he's got a fatherly way about him. He's a man of strength. He's a man that has authority, that knows how to carry himself, a man who can be a protector. If you think of a woman, what is the most godly woman? You think most likely she's very nurturing and tender and sweet.

There's something, you feel warmth from her. And that warmth is her godliness. And that strength is his godliness. Because fatherhood and motherhood is the telos for which God created man and woman. So you can have somebody that never has a child.

There's a couple in my church that they never had children but they started a ministry for doing evangelism to Chinese students at the University of Cincinnati campus. And so they became the father and mother to dozens of people that they led to Christ over the years. And he is fatherly towards them and she is motherly even though they did not have biological children because they were pursuing virtue in the way that God made them to And the most virtuous version most virtuous version of yourself is going to be fatherly or motherly So if you're a 15 year old boy, 15 year old girl, teenager, and you're like, I want to be a godly man, I want to be a godly woman, pursue the virtues of fatherhood or pursue the virtues of motherhood. Find the godliest woman that you know, the godliest father that you know, and pattern your life after him. And that demystifies the fruit of the spirit, and that brings it down to street level where you can do something with it, because virtue is shaped by our masculinity and femininity.

We'll wrap it up here. Last thing I wanna say is that sexuality is eternal. So Whenever we are in the new heavens and the new earth, we're forever with Jesus, male and female will persist. We know this because Jesus will transform our bodies to be like His glorious body. And what was Jesus's body like when He came out of the grave on the third day?

He did not become an androgynous man or androgynous person. He was still a man. And whenever Jesus ascended to be with the Father, he ascended as a man. And we know from all the creeds that he will come back in the way that he ascended and he he went up as a man and he will come back as a man and he forever lives to underseat for us as a man that means our sexuality does not end in heaven but that for all eternity we will glorify God as glorified men and women and glorified bodies. Philippians 3.20 says, our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

And that is the promise of the Bible. We will receive glorified bodies just like the resurrected body of our Lord Jesus Christ. The maleness of his body is eternal. And since Christ intercedes for us eternally as a human man, we will not be disembodied, floating spirits on clouds, will be flesh. Because flesh is good, because You are your body.

The distinctions we bear now are not temporary accommodations to a fallen earthly life, part of God's design. And our sexual distinctions are permanent features even of redeemed humanity, and they'll go on forever in glory. So the mystery of male and female, that's not a problem to be solved. It is a beauty and a glory to be received. So the modern world will tell you your body is incidental.

It's a cage, it's a mistake, something to be hacked. And the Christian answer is to receive the body that you have as a gift, to thank God for it, to be grateful with all its mystery and wonder, and to submit to God's design for it. If you're a woman, God gave you a female body, and there are duties that God calls you to because you're a woman, and those duties are wonderful and beautiful and glorious. Pursue them with all your might. Don't despise them.

Women these days despise the femininity that God gave them. And that does include bearing children and caring for homes. That is not a demeaning calling. That is a beautiful and glorious calling. The world needs it and you are subduing the earth and you are terrifying hell when you do so.

Same thing with the men. Men, you can't be weak. You're not a woman. Woman is the weaker vessel. You must be strong.

God gave you a body that is stronger than the average woman's body for a reason. Because you have to have the strength and the courage and the fortitude and the diligence to be the kind of man that is a fierce father, that will look out for his children, that will look out for his children, that will look out for his wife, that will lead with direction, will lead with purpose. You gotta do that, guys. You can't be this weak man following, yes dear, what do you want me to do, yes honey, I'll do whatever you say. You can't be that, that's a weak man.

That does not honor God. You cannot be that man. You have to be a strong man that can lead your wife and when you do, you free up your wife to become the glorious potential she is made to be because she's not trying to do your job for you. Give her that freedom and lead her to that. Whenever Adam met his bride, he was overwhelmed and he sang that song.

We don't know the tune. But he said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And that's the first song, first poem of the Bible, because he knew this was a wonderful thing. She's different than me, and yet she's the same as me.

And that's really cool. So rejoice in your maleness and femaleness and all its wonder. Take dominion. Find a godly husband or wife if you're single. Get married, raise beautiful children, take them to church, teach them the Bible, catechize them, have as many as the Lord would give you.

Be the most fatherly and motherly man and woman that you can possibly be and do it all for the glory of God. Amen. Our Father bless these men and women bless their children bless their families. Father I pray that you will terrify hell with their faithfulness. I ask this in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.