Hello everyone and good morning to you all…It is so good to be here and reconnect with everyone. Now its time for the kiddos to get to go to your fantastic class, where tales of ancient times and awesome crafts await, and parents, fear not – we have some of the most skilled crew of teachers and they are ready to guide your kids with enough energy to rival a squirrel on a double espresso! And of course let’s not forget those of you that are joining un from the online world. Listen, grab your favorite cozy blanket and a cup of something yummy, and let God' Word bring us together as part of our extended spiritual family, both those of you that are afar, and those of us that are here. God can and will move in our lives as we get out of the way and allow God’s Word to transform us into the men and women that he has created us to be...

Hey, I want to thank you all for welcoming Pastor Randy last week.Man, he was really slaying it as he taught about what is “behind the curtain”. It is so good to remember what is awaiting for that believe, and encourage us all to rely on our faith in the midst of the chaos of this world. Now we have been in the middle of a series called I Believe where we have been looking at the doctrine of the church. I know that word doctrine can be a scary word for some people, and so I gave us a definition in order to help us understand what doctrine really is. Here is what we have said. Doctrine is a set of guiding principles (stop and allow church to finish) that helps us navigate the twists and turns of life. So that means that all of the crazy of life can be navigated as we know what we believe and why we believe it, right? You see, you can know what you believe, but if you don’t understand why you believe it, like you don’t actually know where that belief comes from, it is far easier to ignore that and respond in a way that is not pleasing to the Lord. I love what John Newton says,

"Doctrine is the sailing chart by which the Christian steers his course through the ocean of this world." - John Newton

In other words, doctrine is the map that gets you where you’re going… Of course thats not the only reason we have been in this study. We have also seen that this is something that God commands us to understand. Remember

1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

Have good theology, know why you have that theology so that you can answer any questions in a way that is kind and respectful. So that is what we have been doing through this series. I hope it has been encouraging to you, I know that it has been encouraging to me as we have gone through our churches doctrine to remember what we were founded on as a church.

Now the next couple of weeks are topics that are, or can be, a bit controversial. However, you will not hear me apologize for what the Scripture says, and I will encourage you not to apologize for what Scripture says as well. These next two topics are not topics that have been historically in churches doctrinal statements becuase they were always things that historically there was no question about However, we live in a time and in a culture where there are more and more things that the church must be very clear about. So these next couple of weeks we will be talking about topics that we, as a church, need to be clear about. Not just to protect ourselves from legal challenges, but to actually help you as you consider what the Bible says about various topics. Again, its easy to simply say, I believe something…its another thing to understand why you should believe that thing. That is what we are going to talk about today as we look at...

Marriage & Sexuality...

But, before we get into that let me ask you a question. I want to ask you to think about what you believe on this topic? Is marriage something that you have thought about…what about sexuality and even the more common gender question that kids are being faced with today in school. Listen, parents…I know that we live in a more conservative area, but make no mistake, these questions are all being introduced to your kids at younger and younger ages. Right here in Ogle County last year there was a teacher that was having a private lunch time with a large group of elementary kids where they were discussing sexuality and gender without their parents knowledge or consent. When I was in school that would have been considered grooming and it was have been a cause for immediate termination. Now, it’s considered healthy dialogue…or “health class”. These are questions that your kids are having, and if you are not answering their questions…someone else is, make no mistake. But how can you answer these questions if you don’t know yourself where your belief actually comes from. It’s easy to say, “The Bible says”, but if you don’t know where or the context of what the Bible says, then those are just words…So, this morning we are going to look at the longest statement in our statement of faith and I will very briefly discuss each point in this statement. Are you ready…Here we go...

A. We believe that the term “marriage” has only one meaning, and that is marriage sanctioned by God which joins one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture.(Genesis 1:27-28; Genesis 2:22-24; Ephesians 5:25-33; Matthew 19:4-9; Mark 10:2-12)

B. We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to only occur between a man and a woman who are married to each other. We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. (I Corinthians 6:9-20; I Corinthians 7:1-5; I Corinthians 7:8,9; Ephesians 5:25-33; Hebrews 13:4-5; I Thessalonians 4:1-8)

C. We believe that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography, or any attempt to change one’s gender, or disagreement with one’s biological gender is sinful and offensive to God. (Leviticus 18:16-30; Leviticus 20:13; I Corinthians 6:9-20; Deuteronomy 22:5; I Thessalonians 4:1-8)

D. We believe that God hates divorce and intends marriage to last until one of the spouses die. Divorce and remarriage is regarded as sin, except on the grounds of adultery or an unbelieving spouse leaving a believing spouse due to their faith in Christ. (I Corinthians 7:8-9; I Corinthians 7:10-16; Matthew 19:4-9; Mark 10:2-12; Malachi 2:16; I Corinthians 7:39)

E. Therefore, we prohibit our licensed and ordained ministers to perform homosexual marriages on or off the church’s property. We also prohibit the church property from being used for homosexual marriages, celebrations, receptions or any other type of gatherings.

F. Additionally, we will not recognize the license or ordination of ministers whose sexuality does not conform to the above-mentioned institution of marriage.

— LRBC Statement of Faith

Alright…that was alot wasn’t it…Now, becuase there is so much here, I think the easiest thing for us to do is simply look at each point one at a time. So, first of all, let’s look at

Marriage:

Here is what we said...

A. We believe that the term “marriage” has only one meaning, and that is marriage sanctioned by God which joins one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture.(Genesis 1:27-28; Genesis 2:22-24; Ephesians 5:25-33; Matthew 19:4-9; Mark 10:2-12)

Marriage is something that has become increasingly political, but that is not the way it has always been. Marriage is an institution that was created by God , not government and it was created for a very specific purpose...Do you know what that purpose is? Let’s take a look together...

Genesis 1:27–28 (ESV)

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Did you see the purpose that was given to man? Man and woman were created and given a purpose, to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the Earth. That was the purpose of Adam and Eve. Then after that, when man and woman are joined, this was said

Genesis 2:24 (ESV)

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

This right here is the institution of marriage being created for the good of man and woman and for the purposes of Gods glory as we are able to see that the companion God created for man, is his wife…In other words, Marriage is defined as a God ordained covenant relationship between 1 man and 1 woman. Today that statement right there will get you taken off of social media platforms as hate speech and get you canceled…but it is also true and Biblical. You see, marriage is a gospel issue.  That is why clarity about its definition matters to Christians.  If we depart from, or fail to stand up for, the biblical view of marriage, we are taking a step away from the gospel itself. This is an important step that many Christians have long sense given up on. I was in a meeting of pastors 10 years ago where the discussion was how to respond to the topic of gay marriage. It was actually stated that this is a ship that has sailed and we needed to be looking at the next cultural fight. Listen, Christian…marriage should matter to you, becuase it matters to God. Marriage is designed to reflect our relationship with Jesus. Let’s be clear...the “marriage ship” hasn’t sailed until Jesus comes back…until then, as another pastor says, the church doesn’t pick the fight…but we will have the fight. Are you ready for those open and respectful conversations, not denying the Word of God, but encouraging others to faithfulness?

Christian, this is likely the most important topic of our day because it leads to everything else that we are dealing with as a culture. Marriage is the bedrock of any civilized society because God created us that way.

So that’s marriage, let’s take a look at

Sexual Intimacy:

You see, this is a topic that as of late has begun running wild in our culture. There are sex positive teachings that are happening in schools as young as elementary. Remember what I told you about the secret lunches that were happening right here in Ogle County. There are things that are part of your kids curriculum that are mandated by the state of Illinois, and some of that stuff is simply put…disgusting. However, it isn’t new information. So what should we believe about that? What should we teach our kids when they come with their inevitable questions at younger and younger ages? Well, here is what we believe as a church about this particular topic.

B. We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to only occur between a man and a woman who are married to each other. We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. (I Corinthians 6:9-20; I Corinthians 7:1-5; I Corinthians 7:8,9; Ephesians 5:25-33; Hebrews 13:4-5; I Thessalonians 4:1-8)

Sexual intimacy is being pushed more and more in our culture. There is a show on NBC called, Love Island…that show has absolutely nothing to do with love or intimacy, but simply sexual degeneracy. Then you have Gen Z, that is the current generation of kids between 10 and 25 years old. This is a generation that prides itself on “body counts”. As a matter of fact, I have watched a few interviews and there are young ladies saying that they wouldn’t even consider a relationship with anyone that has a body count of less than 100. Now, to be clear, a body count is the amount of different sexual partners. Of course I would hope that this person was an anomaly, however, all evidence of this generation speaks to this being kind of the norm.

This is part of the enemy’s plan, to continue to break up the family and therefore break the commitment to God that was once held so dear. Remember, marriage is designed to reflect our relationship with Jesus. Listen, let me be clear for a moment. Sexual intimacy is designed for the marriage bed and nothing more.

Of course the discussion of sexual intimacy leads us to the next point of

Sexual Immorality:

Yeah, pretty much, anything that is outside of the confines of your marriage, is immorality.

C. We believe that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography, or any attempt to change one’s gender, or disagreement with one’s biological gender is sinful and offensive to God. (Leviticus 18:16-30; Leviticus 20:13; I Corinthians 6:9-20; Deuteronomy 22:5; I Thessalonians 4:1-8)

Now this point covers a wide range of issues doesn’t it? We have adultery, which is any sexual relationship outside of marriage. We have fornication which is another word for adultery. Then we see homosexuality, which is same sex sexual relationships, as well as bisexual relationships. We see bestiality, which is sexual activity with animals, and incest which is sexual activity with your family. Finally we see pornography and transgender ideologies. You see, all of these are on the same level of sexual immorality. Now we can sit here and go through each concept, but let me just quickly give you some information about these. You will want to write these down...

Adultery and fornication we see are sinful in the 10 Commandments found in Ex. 20.

Homosexuality and bisexuality (which really are the same thing) we see as sinful in Lev.18 and in case you want to argue the OT then we can look in Jude1

We continue by seeing that bestiality is condemned to death in Ex.22 and incest is condemned all through Lev.18 then

transgenderism is condemned in Duet. 22 where we see that wearing clothes like the opposite gender that God created you is sinful. This includes you acknowledging someone as a gender different from how God created them.

Finally,Jesus tells us that pornography is adultery in your heart and we see that is sinful in Matt 5

Listen, that means that those of you that are looking at pornography, you are defiling your marriage bed. Those that are involved in active sexual relationships, outside of marriage…you are defiling your marriage bed. Marriage is designed to reflect our relationship with Jesus…so don’t defile that relationship with your personal desires that you cannot keep in check. Turn to the Lord instead of someone, or something else…If this is something you struggle with, reach out and let’s see how Scripture can actually give you the strength to defeat this temptation that you are experiencing. That goes for men and women…Women, Beth is fully capable of helping you work through these struggles, just as I am with you men. Listen, just like everything we have discussed her so far is sinful…so is sending nudes, or having explicit sexual conversations with others that are not your spouse. Sending compromising pictures of yourself, or asking for compromising pictures from others is not ok just becuase you didn’t have sex. It’s not ok just because…well everyone else is doing that. Folks, that action falls into the same category as pornography, and to be clear, if you are under 18 years of age, is the felony of distributing child pornography, which has fines in the thousands and at least 4 years in jail…is that where you want to be? Parents…are you checking on the phones your kids are using and those conversations and apps? I wanna hear about how every teenager in this place is mad at me later because mom and dad suddenly decided to check their phones and invaded their “privacy”…Hey, there’s no privacy if mom and dad are paying the bills…that’s their phone, they’re just nice enough to let you use it.

You see sexual immorality is running rampant in our culture and that means that it’s time for the church to backup mom and dad in this fight for your kids future.

Lastly we must address

Divorce:

Yeah, this one is even less fun since it is something that has long been a part of the culture. Not just our culture, but all the way back to Moses this is something that was practiced pretty regularly. So, as a church…here is what we believe

D. We believe that God hates divorce and intends marriage to last until one of the spouses die. Divorce and remarriage is regarded as sin, except on the grounds of adultery or an unbelieving spouse leaving a believing spouse due to their faith in Christ. (I Corinthians 7:8-9; I Corinthians 7:10-16; Matthew 19:4-9; Mark 10:2-12; Malachi 2:16; I Corinthians 7:39)

Hey, this is where it gets really hard doesn’t it…I mean, how do we deal with this topic in a kind way that doesn’t offend our friends or our families? How do we deal with this topic when we see that a large portion of marriages actually end in divorce, and maybe you have personally experienced that in some way. Well…Im just gonna be honest y’all…God hates divorce! It really is that simple. But why would God hate divorce? Well, do you remember what I said earlier about marriage being designed to reflect our relationship with Jesus. Our relationship with Jesus is unbreakable, so of course the reflection of that relationship should be unbreakable also.

Listen…and this is gonna be hard, but divorce is linked to the sexual immorality of adultery. Look at

Matthew 5:32 (ESV)

But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

You can’t get away from the idea that marriage and sexuality are linked and sexuality is designed by God to be a gift, within the perfect boundaries of marriage. But…you must be willing to stand on those boundaries and teach your kids those boundaries, and protect your kids from those who desire to break those boundaries. That takes us to our last thought here...

Boundaries:

You see, as a church we not only talk about what we believe…but we back it up with action. We read this in James,

James 1:22 (ESV)

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

In other words, don’t just talk about it…do it!

E. Therefore, we prohibit our licensed and ordained ministers to perform homosexual marriages on or off the church’s property. We also prohibit the church property from being used for homosexual marriages, celebrations, receptions or any other type of gatherings.

F. Additionally, we will not recognize the license or ordination of ministers whose sexuality does not conform to the above-mentioned institution of marriage.

This place is God’s house and we are God’s people, and therefore we will not participate in anything that crosses the boundaries that God has put into place when it comes to marriage and sexuality. Marriage is designed to reflect our relationship with Jesus and we want the world to know all about that relationship…so we put the action behind it…do you? Parents, students, husbands, wives, Christian…is it up to you, no one else, for you to make the commitment to hold a Biblical view of marriage and sexuality…but not just to hold that view…to live it…so are you willing to make that commitment?

This morning this is our focus…our focus as a body is to affirm or deny God’s design for marriage and sexuality and this morning Im putting you on the spot to either make that commitment to the Lord…or admit that you’re just playing games. Let me encourage you this morning to make that commitment…even if you don’t have it all figured out yet…make that commitment to a Biblical view, then reach out and let Beth or I help you understand what Scripture really says and how to live with a Biblical worldview and the boundaries that were created for our good…Im gonna pray, and during this prayer I will have a short time where I don’t say anything…that is the time for you to talk to God...

Let’s Pray