Otterbein United Methodist Church                                              

February 3, 2008                                   

Scripture: 1 Peter 3:1-7    

Sermon: “Living Happily Ever-after” – “Differences between the Sexes” – (Part 3 of a 5 part series)       

I wasn’t very big when I first noticed there was a very distinct physical difference between the sexes. Anyone could take a quick glance and know whether a person was a man or a woman. How could you not tell them apart when all the women had long hair, and all the men had short hair! (Remember I was a kid in the fifties). As I got older, I began to discern some other things… men grew facial hair! They could grow it as moustaches, goatees, sideburns, or a full blown beard. My dad called them whiskers and shaved them every day… it would be years later before I’d figure out that women grew leg and armpit hair, but for some reason, still unknown to me, they opt to shave it off!

            During elementary school I also learned that men, not always but on average, are taller than women, have lower voices than women, and are physically stronger than women. Because I have a brother 7 years younger than me, I also knew that women nursed babies, and at least at our house, changed more diapers than men. Despite secretly liking a girl in my class named Beverly (about whom I wrote a limerick that I still remember – which I will only tell to those who ask), my primary thought about girls was “Ewww!”

            But then things began to change for me. We ended 6^th grade with an end of school trip to Washington D.C. I had heard that one of the girls in my class, Donna, liked me. She managed to be talking to me as we were walking toward the bus to come home and asked if we could sit together. We did, but we never got within six inches of one another, I decided afterward I had found the perfect girl and someday she’d be my wife.

            That decision lasted less than a month! A couple weeks into the summer I went to church camp. There was an older girl there who was a Junior Counselor. She was really nice to me (truth be told she was really nice to everybody). And though she never knew it… during that week I developed a huge crush on her. But I also for the first time noticed another very distinct difference between the sexes. Older girls and women had curves in places men didn’t.

            While I was slightly embarrassed about words like estrogen, testosterone, and puberty, I was becoming more and more aware of the physical difference between men and women.

            I also learned there were other significant differences between the sexes. Girls cried over things guys didn’t; and they use that as a weapon when necessary to get their own way.

            Some years ago a book came out that talked about the emotional differences between men and women. It was titled, Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus. But for those of you who want to live in the real world… MEN ARE FROM EARTH AND WOMEN ARE FROM EARTH… So learn to deal with it!

The Manufacturer’s handbook give us God’s plan and design not just for a man and woman to get along, but for them to thrive and flourish in their relationship with each other. Everything in the scriptures is designed for our benefit… not just those passages we like… but even those we don’t. Today’s scriptures (and the parallel passages in Ephesians 5) are not designed to lift or elevate one sex as superior to another, but to teach us how husband and wife are to complement each other and meet the basic needs of one another.  

Just like men and women are different physically, they are different emotionally. They have different perspectives and expectations. When we read Genesis 1 we discover that God created them male and female. Note he didn’t create them male and male, or female and female, so they’d be the same… he created them differently and gave them different names: Man and Woman. There are differences, some huge!

We need to not only learn to expect the differences, BUT EMBRACE THEM!  

God knows that since we complement one another, complete one another, we need one another! Since we are wired differently, men and women have different needs out of their relationship with each other. Ephesians 5:22-33 and 1 Peter 3:1-7 are passages of scripture that women have bulked at for many years. Back in the 60’s and 70’s Women’s Liberation became the cry! Women cast off the restraints of oppression, bondage and servitude that they thought the Bible subjected them to. Women felt they neither needed nor wanted the traditional role of marriage. They demanded equal rights in every way. But their problem really wasn’t with a correct understanding of these passages, but the cultural misinterpretation that had developed that being subject to your husband makes women inferior, servants to their husbands demands, and serfs in the castle in which the husband sat as King!

            Jesus, who was and is the eternal king of heaven and earth, came into our time-space world as God in the flesh. He, who had every right to demand others to serve him, took up the basin and towel and served them.

In Mark 10:45 Jesus said, “The son of man came not to be served but to serve.” Jesus came to serve.

            Serving is the role of any person who is a fully committed follower of Jesus Christ. The closer you grow in your relationship to him, the more serving becomes a part of your Spiritual DNA. Serving is the activity of every man or woman who wants to walk with God.

            BUT, what does that mean? What is serving? Serving is any person, “the server,” meeting the basic and important needs of “the servee.” Plain and simple, serving is meeting needs!

            If, as followers of Christ, we are to live out all our relationships as servants, wouldn’t it make sense that God would want this apply to marriage? And if we fail to make it work there, how can we expect it to work anywhere else?  

            I’m a man. God designed me with a primary need of significance. I not only want my opinion to matter, but I want to check out of planet earth knowing that I have positively impacted my world and especially that one who is closest to me… my wife, Chris. With all that as a background, I think I’m ready for the first time in this message to use the “S-word!” Chris “submitting” to my leadership doesn’t make her inferior. She is meeting one of my primary needs. She is following the model of Christ’s servanthood. Wives are to submit to husbands "in the same way" that Christ submitted. That submissive spirit in Christ, far from being degrading, was his glory. 1 Peter 3. (Story: Visiting Teacher at State Line).

            Unfortunately, for centuries men had a problem reading the rest of the story! Just 3 verses later we discover the husband’s “Christ-like servant” role: “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and GAVE himself for her.” (Ephesians 5:25). Christ loved the church; and he still does! (So powerful is that love that nothing can remove us from it…. “Neither tribulation or famine, or nakedness or peril…” Romans 8). I believe God has given us a free will, but I also believe there is nothing that can separate me from the love of Christ. In that regard I am eternally secure in his love. He loves me. What freedom that gives me and every believer! Freedom to risk! Freedom to spread our wings and trusting him!  

            My wife is a woman. God designed her with a primary need of security. She will function best when she knows that I love her, that I value her above myself; that I’d be willing to die for her… to take a bullet for her figuratively or even literally. When I love her as Christ loved the Church, I am powerfully and wonderfully serving her, for I am meeting her primary need for security. There is great freedom in that.

            At Mike DeVeny’s “Celebration of Life Service” on Wednesday night, Dee was on the schedule to share at the end of our moments of remembrance. She would give me a nod to let me know if she felt she could go. She nodded “yes” and I called on her and it was great. Had she shaken her head, “No,” I had jotted down something I would say on her behalf… it was short, it was profound! It was, and is, powerfully applicable to every marriage… Quote: “I was the bane of Mike’s life - as well as his delight and joy. But Mike loved me, and I knew it. There was a confidence about my life because I knew I was loved… that’s a precious gift!”

            Men, we are called to serve our wives through love!

            But how does this play out in practical ways in marriage? Let’s suppose I want a new “boy-toy.” I want a big screen TV on which I can watch the super bowl. She knows our finances; I can tell that every time I bring it up, she deflects my questions or we change the subject. But I see it for sale, the very model I want $800 off.

In seeking to meet my need for significance she wants to let me make the decision. She says, “Well, it may seem like a good price, but, well, I’m not sure we can afford it, but the decision is up to you.” I think, “Wow, I she’s giving me the OK from her side.” BUT… you want to serve her; you want to meet her needs. As you are still inhaling that breath of satisfaction, you remember that her need is security. If you buy that barely affordable “want,” that is certainly not a genuine “need,” you will be undermining your wife’s security. “No, you’re right! – No you’re right!” Remember it’s not a matter of right and wrong… it’s a matter of serving one another… of meeting one another’s needs. You are now ready to ask what God wants! (See Eph. 5:21)

Conclusion: (visual illustration)…We meet each other’s needs like a cut Styrofoam cup! Though perfectly fitted together, we’d still leak, unless we’re surrounded by “God’s Cup.” Perhaps you’re feeling guilt over messing up God’s design and image for marriage. The Lord doesn’t condemn you; he seeks to forgive you.

Questions for consideration: Where aren’t you meeting your spouses’ needs? How you can be a better servant to them? How Christ like is my love, my submission?