God's Design for Gender Pt. 2: Genesis 2:18-25

Introduction

Prayer

Alright, 2nd—5th graders you guys are free to dismiss. And as a reminder, parents you can pick those children up at the Wetlands Building, and if you need any help finding where that is, don’t hesitate to ask someone with a lanyard.

For the rest of you, please turn with me to Genesis 2.

If you’re new with us my name is Andrew McClure, and this morning we are going to look at God’s Design for Gender, specifically regarding homosexuality.

And you thought last week’s topic came with some cultural landmines…

But we have to talk about it. And there are a couple of reasons why.

First off homosexuality is a very public issue today.

You can’t escape it, you can’t avoid it.

June has been deemed pride month,

social media and television is flooded with adovacy campaigns.

Companies and organizations push DEI initaitives, and on and on we could go.

It’s everywhere.

But it’s also public in christianity and the church.

Denominations are fracturing

Churches are splitting.

And both sides of the issue are claiming the authority of Scripture for thier positions.

Leading to a lot of confusion, ambiguity, animosity, and dare I even say eternal consequences.

It’s a very public issue today, in the world and the church, so we can’t avoid it.

But finally, and perhaps even most importantly this is a very personal issue today.

Many of you have friends who have come out as homosexual, and fully expect your affirmation.

Many of you will have family members, brothers or sisters, who are in homosexual marital relationships, and every holiday, or every family vacation will lead to the all too familiar stress of how to be faithful to your beliefs, yet also loving toward your family.

Many of you have teenage or adult children or are deeply confused sexually, and you feel the weight of your response.

Because how you respond to that conversation holds long-term relational consequences, not to mention eternal.

And many of you are simply parents trying to raise your kids in Christ, while simultaneously trying to protect them from the oversexualization of our secular society.

And probably, most painful of all, are those in the room who possess same-sex attraction.

Who for years, maybe even decades, have lived with the shameful questioning of “what’s wrong with me?”

Or wrestled with the thought, “Why would God make me this way?”

What a weight to carry… A personal one.

Very personal. And so we have to talk about it.

Not in a way that promotes truth without concern for a persons experience… nor in a way that elevates the care and empathy of a persons experience at the expense of the truth.

But hopefully, as you’ll see today, we can address it the Jesus Way—

A way that is always compassionate, yet never compromising in biblical convictions.

So let’s read our text in its entireity, and then we’ll begin to unpack it. Genesis 2:24-25

Genesis 2:24–25 ESV

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

There are 3 things I’d like for us to look at about Homosexuality.

First is the Design… What does the Bible really say about homosexuality? Is God’s Design truly heterosexual?

Secondly, we need to see the Deviation. Where did things go wrong, and why?

Thirdly, we need to see the Deliverance? Is there hope for things to get back on the right track again?

So design, deviation, and deliverance.

Design

Let’s begin with Design.

The question we must ask is “What does the Bible really say about homosexuality?”

And the reason we must start here is because a Christian, or Biblical worldview begins with God.

As secularism seeks to reject God, and places self at the center of all reality, a Christian, because of the saving grace of Jesus Christ is able to put God back at the center of their reality.

As Paul says to Timothy, 2 Timothy 1:9 “ not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,”

So a Christian worldview puts God in the center. God defines who we are, why we exist, and what is truth.

And God has inspired the author of Scriptures, for our profit.

It teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains us in what is right, so that we may be complete, and equipped for every good work.

The Bible is wholly reliable, trustworthy and true in all that it affirms.

The Bible is the primary way we know God who is our authority, and its from the Bible that we come to learn his intended designs. And its from the Bible we learn how to align oursvelves with God’s intended designs and find life.

So the question for us this morning, is “What does the Bible really say about homosexuality?”

And to answer that we start in the beginning.

Genesis 1 & 2

In Genesis 1:27-28, God made mankind in his image, and he made them male and female. 2 genders.

Adam as male, and Eve as female.

And in Genesis 2, we see they were made male and female for the institution of marriage in order to fulfill the cultural mandate and purposes of God.

Genesis 2:24–25 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

Here lies the picture of God’s Design.

What existed in the garden of eden, pre-fall and pre-sin, is the foundation of our understanding of God’s plans and designs for marriage.

Monogamous, heterosexual marriage was the divine norm from the outset of creation.

And God called it Very Good.

Because each of their genders was good (they possessed equal dignity)

And it was good, because with both genders they were able to reproduce to multiply.

Their marriage was good, because it reflects the union and love of God.

And sex was designed good, an outcome of intimacy and connection.

And what we find from Gensis 2 onward, after Genesis 3, is that everytime the Bible talks about sexual sin or immorality it is held to the backdrop of Genesis 1 & 2… why.

Because that’s the standard.

Becuase that was God’s good and perfect deesign of sex and marriage.

Sex in the context of marriage, between one man and one woman.

Jesus affirmed Genesis 1 & 2 as the standard for marriage, when he was pressed on the topic of divorce in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, and his answer to the Pharisees was, “Go back to the beginning, if you want to know the design for marriage go back Genesis 2:24-25.”

Jesus affirms that heterosexual marriage has always been God’s intention.

Paul also affirmed Genesis 1 & 2 as the standard.

In Ephesians 5 he quotes Genesis 1 & 2, affirms the creation account as God’s intended design for marriage and sex.

So God’s design is heterosexual marriage.

And any expression or fulfillment of sexuality outside of God’s design is illicit, immoral, and sinful.

After Genesis 3, adultery, polygamy, incest, rape, and yes homosexuality begin to appear, and they are all condemned consistently by scripture.

Genesis 19 is a shocking example.

Genesis 19 tells the story of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

God had let Abraham in on his plans to destroy those cities due to pervasive wickedness, but Abraham interceded, to no avail. There simply weren’t enough righteous people in Sodom and Gomorroah for God to spare.

But there was Lot and hsi family, abrahams nephew. So two angels go to Sodom to remove Lot and his family before God destorys the city, and as the angels are in the Lot’s home we read,

Genesis 19:4–5 “But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.””

To know here is a sexual reference. The wicked men of the city want to engage in homosexual activity.

Lot proceeds to offer them his virgin daughter instead, but they wouldn’t hear it.

So the angels finally stepped in, blinded the men of the city, and rescued Lot.

So throughout the Hebrew mind and literature, Sodom began to be associated with pervasive sexual immorality, especially the practice of homosexuality.

Now to be clear, the sins of Sodom were vast. Ezekiel discusses the sin of inhospitality, but to argue that their sin did not also include a deviation from God’s design for sexuality is to misread Scripture.

But what Genesis implies through the story of Sodom, the Mosaic legal code of Leviticus makes explicit— homosexuality is a distortion of God’s deisgn.

Leviticus

Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Leviticus 20:13 “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

In each of these chapters, there are a plethora of sins listed regarding sexual immorality, and Homosexuality is one of them, and the legal code calls it an abomination.

It means the Lord hates it. He destests it because it is a deviation from His intended design.

Now many of the gay affirming Christian camps would argue that Leviticus is irrelevant today.

That with the coming of Christ, the legal code has been replaced by the glory of grace.

And therfore, what is explicity stated here is unapplicable to us today.

Now, when it comes to the study and interpretation of Leviticus, I wholeheartedly agree that we must be cautious and exercise wisdom.

Because there are some wild things in Leviticus that we disregard don’t we.

I mean some of you, if not most of you don’t honor a sabbath--- why don’t we stone you publicly?

Or how many of you have ever played football!? — Id you know that Lev 11:7 says if you touch the skin of a dead pig you’re unclean!?

And how many of you are wearing clothing of two different threads?--- well according to leviticus you should be burned.

So the argument is that Christains are just guilty of picking and choosing, and have utilized leviticus as a means to demonize and persecute those in the homosexual community.

And on the surface, the desire to deem Leviticus irrelevant, and disregard it, looks like a strong argument,

but the Christian view and application of the Old Testament is a little more nuanced than this black and white approach.

That’s because there are 3 categories of Laws in Leviticus according to theologian John Calvin.

There are civil laws- given to govern the nation.

Ceremonial Laws- given to enforce worship and temple purity.

There are moral Laws- which declared what God deemed right and wrong in light of His Holiness.

Well as you read the New Testament, you learn that jesus came to fufill the OT Law (mt. 5:17). Which he successfully did.

Jesus fulfilled civil laws, creating a new Israel, a Spiritual Israel, the church.

So we’re no longer bound by the civil codes of Leviticus because God doesn’t have a nation state on earth anymore.

Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial laws by removing the sacrificial system, by becoming the perfect and sufficient sacrifice for us.

So we are no longer bound to the ceremonial laws.

Finally Jesus fufilled the moral law— he and he alone kept them all perfectly!

But… unlike the civil and ceremonial laws--- the moral lawas are timeless. We are still bound to them

They reflect God’s Holiness, and His Holiness never changes. And throughout the new testament you see the writers of Scripture reaffirming the moral laws.

The point here church, is that with the appearance of jesus the moral laws aren’t eradicated.

Instead they are fulfilled by Him, and through HIs Spirit we now have all we need to uphold them. We can be holy even as he is holy.

And laws regarding sexual immorality are not civil, nor are they ceremonial… they are moral becuase they are out of alignment from God’s intended design and misrepresnt His holiness.

So then if they still exist, haven’t been eradicated we should expect then to see God’s law regarding homosexuality reappear in the New Testament?

Right, if its timeless, it should be there.

And that’s exactly what we find.

Romans 1:27 “women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

Did you notice the repeated use of the word “natural” or nature.

Women having relations with other women is deemed “contrary to nature” same to men. And some seek to argue that to a heterosexual’s nature, yes that would be unnatural. But not to someone with a homosexual nature, what’s natural for them is same sex relations.

But Romans isn’t talking about individualistic natures… he’s talking about god’s natural order which is found where? Genesis 1 & 2.

1 Corinthians 6:9 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,”

1 Timothy 1:10 “the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,”

Jude 7 “just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

The two testaments are consistent-

God’s design for Marriage and Sexuality is between one man and one woman, and the Bible deems homosexuality as immoral and sinful.

It’s a Deviation from God’s Design.

And that’s point #2--- It’s a Deviation

Deviaiton

And this deviation is just another word for sin.

You see, since Genesis 3, when sin entered our reality, the outcome has been a deviation from God’s deisgn… in everything!

Our marriages, our work, our identity, our security, our relationship with God--- everything has deviated. Everything has been distorted.

Including our sexuality.

All of our sexuality. From pornography to affairs, to lust… every single one of us has fallen short of the glory of God, and all of our sexuality is deviated from the design of God.

So we must preach against all deviation, for the consequences of sin is death. The stakes are literally life or death.

But the reason we have to single-out homosexuality as a sin, is because today in our culture and in our churches we are being told that homosexuality is not a sin.

People are teaching and preaching that if you have a propensity to same-sex attraction, then God made you that way.

And there’s this new hermeneutic of love that says it’s reallly all about love.

And love has been promoted as the same thing as acceptance and tolerance, and unfortunately this wrong interpretation has convinced entire churches to sin, and is well on its way of impacting an entire generation in sin.

Just as Romans 1:32 says,“ they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”

But church it is clear from Scripture that homosexuality is sin. It’s a deviation from his divine design.

And if you simply choose the parts of the Bible you like and reject the parts that you don’t like, then you don’t believe the Bible; you believe yourself.

Turn with me to Romans 1 if you would, so that we can see this progression of deviation. Becuase our cultures, and many churches, approach to homosexuality is simply Romans 1 palying out in real time.

Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

We don’t like the laws of God, and the designs of God don’t align with what I want or what I feel, so we consequently supres the truth. Or we re-interpret the truth.

And once we do that, we have kicked God out of the center of our lives, the position of authority, and replaced it with self.

And Romans 1:25 says we now worship and serve the creature rather than the creator.

So don’t misss this… SIN begins with a Deviation of our Worship.

Instead of worshiping God, we worship ourselves. We make ourselvs our own God.

Then Deviated Worship inevitably leads to deviated desires.

Romans 1:26 “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions...”

You want to be your own God, your truth be your truth, what you feel be your most authentic self, you want to be “true to yourself”

Then God actually gives us over to to deviated desires.

And those deviated desires inevitably lead to deviated behaviors.

Romans 1:26–27 “For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

An example of deviated behavior according to Romans 1 is homosexuality.

Now Paul goes on in vs. 29 and 30 to add a litany of other sinful behaviors, but he specifically singles out homosexuality.

So don’t miss this:

Homosexual behavior is sinful behavior. It’s deviated Behavior

but what Romans 1 is telling us is that this behavior is actually a consequence of deviated desires which at its core is rooted in deviated worship!

As someone who personally wrestles with same sex attraction and a former life of homosexuality, yet now pastor Sam ALberry says, “This isn’t just about what dwe do or don’t do with our sexuality, but is ultimately about who we give our hearts too.

And as we close, I want to point you to the right who… The Deliverer.

Deliverance

When the Apostle Paul was confonted with his own personal deviation from God’s Design, in a moment of despair he cried out, “WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM, who will deliver me from this body of death!?

Who will deliver me!? Who can set things back in order? Who can put me on the right tack? Reorder my desires, and reprioritize my worship!?

Well he answers, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

It is the Good News of Jesus Christ that can deliver us from our sin.

All of our sin, including the sin of homosexuality.

Now let me be clear, we have to make a disntiction between temptation and sin.

As David Platt says, “We often don’t choose our temptations, but we always choose our responses.”

So it isn’t sinful to be tempted with say Same-Sex Attraction, but it is sinful to embrace that as your identity and to act on it.

But when it comes to deliverance… let’s look at 1 Cor 6.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 ESV

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Those deviated will not inherit the kingdom of God. None. Nobody who is sexually immoral or idolatrous, or thieves or greedy or drunkards or the homosexual…

But he says, “and such were some of you.”

This means that some of the Corinthians, before they had been saved, lived homosexual lifestyles.

In fact, homosexuality was rampant and celebrated and affirmed in the Roman Empire.

It was claimed that Socrates and Plato were both homosexuals, along with 14 of the first 15 roman emperors.

Nero, the ruler who martyred the Apostle Paul, reportedly had a young boy as a sexual partner in addition to his wife.

It was rampant. It was normal. It was celebrated.

And many of the Corinthians lived in that deviation of sin.

But Something changed! This is Past Tense. Something happened!

They met the Deliverer.

Jesus Christ came and exchanged their identitification by sexuality with the identification of His Saving Power.

They had been washed… which means cleansed of all sin.

They had been sanctified… which means purified of al sin.

They had been justified… declared righteous.

This is what the Gospel does, its what jesus does.

It transforms. It heals. It restores.

It gives you a new identity.

Believe in the Gospel.

5. So, we have God’s Design, with obvious deviation in our sexuality, with ultimate Deliverance in the person of Jesus.

Conclusion

This is definitely a worldview issue; very public, and as I said earlier very personal.

And as we close this morning, that’s what I want to remind us all of a few important matters.

First, we must remember that these are personal issues, not simply doctrinal dogmatic stances to take!

And for far too long the church has waned too far toward fundamentalism, and forgotten the impact and implications that these doctrines have on personal people, who are souls made in the image of God.

Church, grow in your empathy and compassion.

You see the reality is there are many in our churches, many probably here this morning who have struggled with same sex attraction since their earliest memories, leading them to believe that I was born this way.

And listen, I don’t claim to know all the answers to a statement like this, but I can say that the Bible states we were all conceived and born in sin.

And if the outworking of your fallen nature leans toward homosexuality, you have such a unique weight to carry.

Because Church, a person wrestling with same sex attraction inevitably deals with real psychological confusion, and societal shame.

Many live their entire lives wonrdering “what’s wrong with me. why am I so differnet.”

Also, For many who struggle with same sex attraction,

a life of faithfulness to Jesus means a life of singleness which is often deeply contrary to their desire.

All people want companionship, to belong, to be loved, and to extend love, and this is a great cost.

And this weight can be so heavy, that many spend years, if not decades crying out to God to remove this temptation,

And yet the church, so given over to religious fundamentalism has berated them with doctrine at the expense of compassion.

the church should be a safe and supportive place for our brothers and sisters who have this cross to bear.

We should offer community, and friendship, and accountability free of all judgement and full of all grace as we encourage our brothers and sisters to cling to truth, pick up their cross, deny themselves, look to Jesus, and run this race of godliness with endurance.

So we have to avoid exalting conviction so far above compassion.

Yet, today the church seems to be swinging the pendulum. Overcorrecting.

Watching sons and daughters made in the image of God, cry out to God to remove this temptation only to experience that he doesn’t..

and many grow exhausted and weary simply conclude,“God must have made me this way. He’d never want to me endure such torment. He wants me to be happy.

And overcome with compassion, the church has affirmed it.

Becuase It’s personal.

We have family, we have friends, we have loved ones, and we love them.

Love them for more than their sexual temptations, or identifications.

And we have so much compassion for them, that we shy away from clear convictions.

But remember, LIving apart from God’s Intended Design will never lead to life and flourishing.

Which means, that your family, your friends, your loved ones… will not have the abundant life that Christ promises.

So you can’t let your compassion be exalted so far above conviction.

And standing for your conviction, driven by compassion may be your cross to bear Christian.

It may result in severed relationship, being caneled, and rejected, or called a bigot or on and on.

And for you, I encourage you to pick up your cross and follow Jesus.

Jesus the Deliverer--- who was always compassionate, yet never compromised HIs conviction.

Let’s pray.