Why does God care about my sex life? (2)
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Why does God care about my sex life?
Why does God care about my sex life?
Augustine's Prayer, ““Lord, Give me chastity, but do not give it yet.”
When it comes to matters of sex and sexuality we are dealing with a topic that is an ethical issues, moral issue, a worldview issue, and theistic issue
Thinking men of every age and culture have been concerned with what kind of world this truly is.
Is it a material world running by itself, or is it a spiritual world and run by unseen powers?
Does this interlocking system which we live in explain itself, or does its secret lie in mystery?
Does the stream of existence begin and end in itself, Or is its source something greater and outside itself?
Christian Theology claims to have the answer to all these question and it begins with God the Creator
A.W. Tozer says, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The History of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshipper entertains high or low thoughts of God.”
Christian Theology begins with God’s design
Christian Theology begins with God’s design
Genesis 1 God establishes order out of chaos
Creation Order:
Location Inhabitants
1. Light and Dark 4. Lights of Day and Night
2. Sea and Sky 5. Fish and Birds
3. Fertile Earth 6. Land animals (including man )
7. Rest and Enjoyment
God is transcendent-
God is outside the limits of His Creation
time and space- don’t affect the creator of them
The limits we feel in this life, have no restrain on God
R.C. Sproul says, “When we speak of the transcendence of God, we are talking about that sense in which God is above and beyond us. Transcendence describes His surpreme and absolute greatness.
Transcendence is used to describe God’s relationship to the created world.
He is Higher than the world.
He has absolute power over the world
the world has no power over Him
Transcendence describes God in His consuming Majesty and points to to the infinite distance that separates Him from every creature
This is the God of Genesis 1 - An all powerful creator who is far beyond His creation.- So Holy
His love is a Holy Love
His Justice is a holy Justice
His Mercy is a Holy Mercy
His Spirit is a Holy Spirit
Genesis 2
A Closer look at the creation of Man, Where see God forming Man for the dust with own hands, and then to cap this amazingly intimate act, God breathes life into His creation.
and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
God is imminent to His creation
God is close to His creation
“Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.
This not to confused with pantheism, because God does Transcend His creation, but God is omnipresent in His universe.
Days 1-5 God establishes a world with order and all the means to sustain man
If you were to buy a fish you would buy all the things needed to sustain that fish
a bowl
the water
food
God established a world that would sustain mankind, and be maintained by mankind.
The last act in the creation narrative is God instituting Marriage
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
When it comes to matters of Sex and Sexuality there God’s way and no other way
Man cannot fulfill His call to be fruitful and multiply without union with His helper the woman.
There is a complimentary biologically, emotionally, and spiritually
Adam says “Bone of my Bone, and Flesh of my Flesh”
The women came out of the man, and when they are joined together in marriage the two complementary halves now become one
One man one woman
Not Adam and Steve
Not Adam, Evet, Ellen and Eve
Jesus affirms God’s original Design
Jesus affirms God’s original Design
Jesus the only savior and Lord, who shed the same blood for the heterosexual and the homosexual who came to seek and save the lost, and who went to the outcast, didn’t practice affirmation inclusion, but practiced transformational inclusion.
The Jews had caught this women in adultery and bring here before Jesus and demand that she be condemned for her sin by being stoned to death- Jesus in all wisdom says “you who are without sin throw the first stone. They slowly drop their stones and from the oldest to the youngest they walk away each returning their own way leaving Jesus and this women. Jesus looks at this women who was probably full of shame and fear, and simple asks her “where did they go? does no one condemn you?”
And he ends with this statement “Neither do I condemn you; go from now on sin no more
Jesus reaches out to where we are and transforms us by His love- This Jesus affirms God original Design
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
There is only one pattern for marriage and right relationship:
Suppose I made a cookbook call “Healthy desserts recipes.” I say at the very beginning “because I don’t believe in sugar, and i don’t think it is healthy you won’t find sugar in any of the recipes. in fact every recipe is sugar free.”
I used word sugar 4 times- would you conclude that sugar is not a big deal, No it is such a big deal it is excluded from every recipe in the book
Every recipe from marriage and family is one man and one woman- there is no other recipe given
“Children honor you father and mother”
“Husbands love your wives”
“Wives honor you husband”
The New Testament affirms Old Testament
The New Testament affirms Old Testament
Look at the Law:
Two types of Laws that we see
To Keep them separate (these were not enforce on everyone)
Dietary
Clothing/ garments
Universal Moral Laws
Don’t murder
dont commit adultary
Those that are universal are reinforced in the New Testament and apply to everyone- By Jesus, Paul and Other New Testament Writers.
The Cananite and all the others in the promise land were judge by God based on these universal moral laws-
God calls these sexual acts an Abomination
Dictionary of Bible Themes 6103 abomination
That which is utterly detestable in the sight of God, particularly sin and idolatry
That which God calls an abomination does change because I now do that act with someone I love
Whether that is Homosexuality, or adultery, or cohabitation- it doesn’t change God’s sacred order
Jesus Says “I did not come to abolish the law of the prophets”
What does Jesus Do when it comes to these Laws of Sex and Sexuality- He expands on them takes them to a higher level
No longer is adultery just an act, but it becomes adultery of the heart
The Bible hasn’t Changed, and it wasn’t till the sexual revolution and the decline of society that these beliefs about sex and sexuality have been challenge- 2000 years this has been the belief of bible believing Christians
And before that by Jewish tradition and Rabbinic teaching
Also the practice of Homosexuality and other Sexual sins aren’t new to this generation.
The Romans
The Greeks
many ancient civilizations practiced homosexuality
Whenever it comes to the Bible and the teaching found within it can be offensive, and hard, but if it is the truth then there needs to be a response.
Homosexual’s, transgender and any other groups like this interpret the bible through the lens fo their sexuality- that brings confusion-
They say “I am gay, I am Lesbian, I am bisexual”
Rather then interpreting their sexuality through the lens of scripture-we are all humans who fall and sin and all need salvation
If there is a God who created everything and established biological sex and ordained marriage between the man and the woman He created, and gave the parameters of marriage for sexual relationships, Then there is a response to be made by us.
Aldous Huxley famously confessed in his work Ends and Means that he didn’t want there to be a God and meaning because it interfered with his sexual freedom.
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.
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
If we are saved, then we can sin and go to heaven! 1 Cor 6:9-11
People who are truly born again will go to heaven in spite of their many failing; but new birth brings a New nature, and new nature means a new appetite.
Christians still have the ability to sin, but not the desire to continue in sin.
It is important to recognize that any teaching that makes it easy to sin is not Bible Doctrine
Paul says “Such were some of you! But you are washed…sanctified…justified!” Christinas are a New Creation ( 2 Cor 5:17) and it is proven by the breaking of the old life
We do not inherit the Kingdom of God by refraining for sin, but we certainly prove that we are going to heaven by living Godly lives
“All things are permitted for me”- this slogan is not to far off from what we say nowadays and that is- “This is my Body”
a slogan that is used as an excuse to mistreat and abuse our physical bodies. I can do what I want, this is my body.
Paul negatively quotes this same slogan in 1 Cor 10:23
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.
There is no liberty to sin- and to believe this is the worst kind of slavery
In Romans 6 Paul says we are dead to sin, here Paul is showing the true bondage that people are in:
We say “If God Gave us these physical appetites, certainly He was us to use them.”
That is right, they are to be used but not to be abused
C.S.Lewis says, “If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once. But, of course, when people say, 'Sex is nothing to be ashamed of,' they may mean 'the state into which the sexual instinct has now got is nothing to be ashamed of'. If they mean that, I think they are wrong. I think it is everything to be ashamed of. There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips.”
Our Bodies belong to God, and if we live in sin, that sin will destroy us and God will someday judge us.
Paul’s illustration- in Paul’s day a slave could set themselves free by saving his money and depositing it with a priest at the local heathen temple. When he had enough money for his freedom, he would bring his master to the temple and the priest would give the master the money and declare that the slave now belonged to whatever particular god was of that temple
Christ paid the price to set us free from sin, and now we use our bodies to bring Him glory.
it is because Christ paid the price for our freedom that our bodies are no longer ours, and when we sin we sin against Christ and the Holy Spirit who has made our body His temple.
Christians are called to glorify God with their bodies:
through our actions
Sexual immortally is against this temple where the Holy Spirit now abides
The attitude of the world is “Everybody’s doing it, so why be different?” How sad it is when Christians think they can violate God’s moral code and simply just get away with it. What a small view of a Holy GOd.
Sexual sins are sins against Christ (who purchased our bodies), against the Spirit (Who indwells our bodies) against the Father (Who created our bodies) and against ourselves
Illicit sex is an Idol in our generation and culture that cannot be ignored, but must be dethroned if the worship of the true God is going to fill the church. We live in sex crazed culture. From music to movies, even in the education system sex and sexuality infiltrates our minds and hearts. Slowly we become numb, and just accept what is around us. It becomes the new norm, and life goes on. But yet God’s decree to His people is “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
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.
It is because of the work of the cross that we can live a new creation life here and now.
It is because Jesus Christ bought us with a price that we are able to be free from the bondage of sin, and now have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, causing us to produce fruit.
It is because we have been wash and justified that we can now live a redeem life no longer “being conformed to the ways of this world, but being transformed by the renewing of minds.”
My Favorite Illustrations Christians Know the Difference
Christians Know the Difference
At the time of the 1937 flood in Louisville, Kentucky, I was pastor of a church on the outskirts of the city. Our community was the first stop to which the flood victims were brought. They came from all parts of the flooded area, and it was difficult to determine what kind of settings they had come from. Everyone was dirty from the ordeal, looking for a good meal and a place to sleep.
The next morning you could begin to distinguish some of the differences. Some of the people seemed content to remain dirty and unkept. Others were washing their hair and trying to spot clean their clothing.
I drew a spiritual lesson from this. People who do not know the better life that Christ gives are content to live in the dirt of the world. However, those who know what Christ gives seek to clean up their lives and live in accord with their new nature.