In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When God made the heavens and the earth, He did it in a very orderly way. He didn’t just speak all of creation into existence at once. No, over the course of six literal days, step by step, part by part, He created one thing after another, and put everything into its proper place. When Jesus, who is God in the flesh, multiplied the fish and the loaves and fed four thousand people at once, He did that in a very orderly way too. Jesus didn’t just cause a meal to appear in front of the crowd or zap away their hunger in a moment. No, He made them sit down together in groups on the grass, and then with the help of His disciples, He distributed the food to them and made sure that there was more than enough for everyone.

While these two texts that we have in front of us today from Genesis chapter 2, where we hear more about creation, and Mark chapter 8, where Jesus feeds the four-thousand, both have many unique things to teach us, such as the providence of God, and the divinity of Christ, they are also excellent texts to remind us of the simple but often neglected point that our God is a God of order. As Saint Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, “For our God is not a God of confusion but of peace.”

So, in this morning’s sermon, as we consider this simple but essential truth found in both of our readings, that our God is a God of order, let us unpack it together by answering the following questions: What is the order of creation, and why is upholding that order so vitally important for us to do?

We’ll start by explaining a little bit more about what the order of creation actually is. Again, the order of the creation is simply the teaching from God’s Word that our Father in heaven has designed His creation to work in a very specific way, where each part of it has its own unique role and purpose. While we see this being taught all over the place in the Scriptures, it is especially obvious when we read Genesis chapters 1 and 2. As we heard in our Old Testament lesson today, God carefully and deliberately made a mature and livable world, and then when He was done with that, He formed the first man, Adam, and put him in the middle of the garden of Eden in order to take care of it. The garden, we learn, wasn’t haphazardly thrown together, but carefully designed. It had a river which flowed through the center of it to water the ground, and it had multiple trees placed at different locations, some of which were for eating food, and one of which was so that Adam could exercise his faith in God by being obedient to His Word and staying away from it. If we continued on in Genesis chapter 2, we would also hear about the creation of Eve, and how God eventually made a helper for Adam, because there was no one in the world that was capable of complimenting him as a suitable spouse.

From these little details, God intends to remind us that everything in creation, including us, has its own purpose and function which Him Himself has assigned. Besides there being order in the world in general, where the stars stay in the sky, the water collects in the oceans, and the plants produce their own kinds of fruit, there is also order among God’s most important creation too. There is order within humanity. Not only did God create men and women separately and uniquely, literally giving them different body parts and abilities, but even among men and women, God makes even more distinctions. If you remember from Confirmation class, this is what we learn about in that often-forgotten part of the Catechism called the “Table of Duties.” That’s the place where Martin Luther just lists off all the Bible passages that deal with who should do what depending on what their vocation is. As Luther reminds us, there are three separate estates in which all people exist at once. There is the nation, the church, and the home. All of us live under a government. All of us belong to a family. And all of us through faith in Christ are part of the Church. And within these three separate estates, everybody has something different to do and to contribute.

For example, in the state God tells rulers and bosses to carry out their oversight with justice and fairness, and He tells those under their authority to be obedient to them and respect them. That’s Romans chapter 13, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.” Likewise, in the home God tells parents to raise up their children in the faith, and kids to honor their mom and dad and do what they say. That’s the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.” God also tells husbands to protect and provide for their wives and families, and for wives to be submissive to their husbands and let them do the leading. That’s Ephesians chapter 5, “Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the Church, and wives submit to your husbands.” And finally, in the Church, God tells pastors to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments, and for those in the congregation to listen to them and support them while they do it. That’s Galatians chapter 6, “Anyone who receives instruction in the Word must share all good things with his instructor.”

It's impossible to read the Bible as the literal Word of God, which it is, and not recognize that God always does things in an orderly way. From the very beginning of creation, even to how His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ carried out His miracles, there is order and intentionality to everything. That’s what the Biblical doctrine of the order of creation is all about. It about recognizing that God has designed people and things in certain ways, for certain purposes, and that we all have our own unique responsibilities and duties.

So, in the next place then, why is upholding this particular truth so vitally important for us to do? The first and most obvious reason why it’s so important for us to uphold God’s created order, and be intentional about trying to live according to His design for the world, is because God’s created order is under attack. Of all the teachings in the Bible that people in our time do not want to listen to, what God’s Word says about the order of creation has to be at the very top of the list.

And to prove that point I’m simply going to read some passages from the Bible that are about the order of creation and I want you to think about how they make you feel when you hear them. Here’s one is from Ephesians chapters 6, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, as if you were serving the Lord, not people.” Or how about this one from 1 Timothy chapter 2, “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” Or what about this one from Titus chapter 2, “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, submissive to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be reviled.”

These are just a few of the passages from God’s Word where the Holy Spirit gives us very clear instructions about how we are to live within God’s created order. Some of these verses are literally in the Small Catechism. And yet, how are many of these verses often received by those who hear them? We know how they are received by those in the world around us, but how are they received by you? Does what the Bible says in these places make you angry? Does it embarrass you or make you feel ashamed? Before you make up your mind, remember what Jesus in Luke chapter 9. He says, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My Words, of Him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His glory.” God’s Word should never embarrass us. It should never make us ashamed. And if it does, then we should repent. We should ask God to forgive us for caring more about what the world thinks than what He thinks, and we should ask for His help to do better at honoring His ways in the future.

Besides the fact that God’s created order is under attack, another reason why it’s so vitally important for us to defend it is because whenever we disregard it, it never leads to anything good. Whenever we ignore it, people always get hurt. Just look at what happened with Adam and Eve. When Adam stepped outside of God’s created order and relinquished his role as the teacher of the home to Eve by listening to her voice instead of God’s, he brought sin into the world, and plunged all of creation into ruin and destruction. That’s what happened the first time that God’s order was rejected, and that’s what happens every time God’s order is rejected today too. The sin keeps on going.

You can’t disrupt the way that God made the world to work and expect it not to lead to suffering. Just like you can’t take a fish out of the water and put in on the land, and expect it not to die, or throw an elephant in the middle of the ocean, and expect it not to drown, you can’t confuse the roles of men and women, husbands and wives, children and parents, pastors and parishioners without it having negative consequences. You can’t take a mother away from her new born baby on purpose without it harming the baby. You can’t put a woman in the pulpit, where the Word of God is authoritatively taught, or in the lectern, where the Word of God is authoritatively read, without it hurting the faith of those who hear God’s Word. You can’t have men refuse to lead and provide for their families without it destroying a civilization. Even unbelievers can sometimes recognize that confusing God’s created order, can have disastrous effects on society. When a man pretends to be a girl so that he can enter into a boxing match against a young lady with half his strength and speed, what do you think is going to happen? Be we shouldn’t just care about our precious sports. We should care about our families, our country, and our congregations. We should care about people’s souls. 

Do you what the statistics say happens when a father abandons his God given role as the head of the household and refuses to take his kids to church? When only mom goes to church with her kids, and thanks be to God when she does that, still, the likelihood of the children remaining in the pew when they are adults goes down to 15 percent. But when dads bring the family, it goes up to 85. There are studies upon studies that show us that little children in their formative years are far better off being taken care of by their mothers at home than being pawed off to someone else so that they can immediately go back to work and climb the corporate ladder. Think about what has taken place in every one of those church bodies that have disregarded God’s clear Word and embraced such things as women’s ordination. Now all of them openly support all kinds of activities and lifestyles that the Bible calls sinful. That is because there is an intimate connection between each and every doctrine taught in the Scriptures and none of them stand in isolation to one another.

In the end, the ultimate reason why we should strive to uphold God’s created order and defend every passage that teaches us how men and women, husbands and wives, parents, children, and workers are supposed to live is because everything in God’s Word points us to Christ. That’s what the order is all about. The order of creation serves the order of redemption. It reminds us of the saving work of Jesus, and it gives us a picture of the Gospel. Remember, for example, what Saint Paul tells us about marriage and why husbands should love their wives and wives should submit to their husbands. He says in Ephesians chapter 5, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.” And what about our Epistle reading today from Roman chapter 6? There the Holy Spirit reminds us how not even being a slave is something to despair over because we are first and foremost salves to God. No matter who we serve in this life, we already have a kind and good master who always takes care of us and always give us exactly what we need. We know that because He has given us the free gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In John chapter 5, Jesus tells us, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have enteral life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” That’s what the Bible does. That’s what every text of sacred Scripture in some way or another is intended to do. God gave it to us to lead us to Jesus. God made the world the way that He did, and explained it for us in the Bible, so that we when our eyes are opened by the Holy Spirit through faith, we can see the love of Jesus and His work everywhere that we look. 

Defending what God’s Word says about government, marriage, family, and the roles of men and women, is not just about defending those things, it is about defending the main thing too. When what the Bible says about creation is rejected, eventually what it says about salvation will be rejected too. When people learn, for example, that being submissive is a bad thing, and that you should never submit yourself to anyone, eventually they won’t even want to submit themselves to Jesus either. But submitting to Jesus is the most wonderful thing that there is. Submitting to Him means receiving from Him the forgiveness of your sins.

The reason why we don’t have women pastors in our Church is not because men are better than women. It’s because Jesus is not a woman. Jesus is a man. And when the called and ordained servant of Christ speaks on His behalf to the congregation, when He represents Christ in the Office of the Ministry, God doesn’t want us to be thinking about anyone but Christ. He wants us to be thinking about the Head of the Church, the Bridegroom of the Bride, who laid down His life to redeem us.

Dear brother and sisters in Christ, our God is a God of order. He designed the world to work in a very orderly way. Just like he put the stars in the sky, the fish in the sea, and the birds in air, he has set all of us in different places too. Some of us are fathers. Some of us are mothers. Some of us are children. Some of us are husbands, wives, workers, pastors, and parishioners. Jesus gives us our different stations in life not in order to serve ourselves, but in order to serve our neighbor. He calls upon us to embrace our God-given roles so that the Word of God itself would not be despised, but so that others, including ourselves, would be led all the more to Him. Just like Jesus had the crowds sit down on the grass and wait their turn to eat the bread and fish that only He could give, our Lord promises to bless us, take care of us, and forgiven us whenever we wait upon Him and His Word.

So, let us pray: “Order my footsteps by Thy Word and make my heart sincere; let sin have no dominion, Lord. But keep my conscience clear.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.