Sexuality & Gender Is What You Make It... ?

The guiding principle in our culture today is “if it makes you feel good, do it”. This falls short.

The thing about discussing these topics, and many other topics, with non-Christians is that it doesn’t matter to them that the Bible says to do one thing and not another. But if the thinking of Scripture makes more sense, that will make them think more about it!

Sex

The message that we get in music, TV, movies, writing, social media, magazines, etc. is that sex is nothing more than a physical act. It can be whatever we want it to be outside of that. Just for pleasure, for love, for having kids, whatever. God says it’s more than that, and really, so does physiology.

“Sex is just a physical urge, just to make you feel good. It’s fine for two consenting people to engage in recreational sex to make each other feel good.”

The lyrics to Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You help explain the culture’s idea of how sex works.

And last night you were in my room And now my bedsheets smell like you

...

One week in we let the story begin We're going out on our first date

In the Tinder/hookup culture that we live in, we’re told sex isn’t really part of the emotional aspect of things unless you want it to be.

At one of the churches I served in before coming here, I told a teenage couple that I had only had sex with one person and their jaws hit the floor. It was like I had said something crazy like… Like I had a hole in my head!

You’re being told that sex comes first, if that’s good then the relationship follows, and you should be engaging in sexual activity to simply satisfy a physical desire. You’re being lied to!

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.

Hebrews 13:4 ESV

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

There’s more to sex than just a physical desire that needs to be met like being hungry.

Scientific research backs that up.

depression in promiscuous people

chemicals released in the brain

Most people hope to be married one day.

participating in the hook up culture takes away from your marriage culture. It cheapens how special intimacy is with a spouse, which is one of the things God made sex for.

God promises to be satisfying, fulfilling, and to tell you who you really are and that you belong. God promises to love you better than any sexual partner – real or digital – ever will. And he will do that for free. You won’t have to “put out” in order to get that love. You don’t’ have to be the “best he’s ever had” in order to keep it. God promises a pleasure so real (on earth as it is in heaven) that it’s worth never having sex again. But God promises that if you do have sex according to his plans – it will be better sex than you can experience anywhere else. –Seth Stewart

This is what we respond to the culture with. That God has a more fulfilling way. And we respond in love, not hate! The goal is not to make people feel bad, but better in Jesus!

What we have to remember is that God wants something better for us than what the world is offering, then we have to make the decision to trust Him. Even if it means denying yourself, which is a big part of the next thing we’re going to look at.

Sexuality

Here’s what I’m talking about when I say sexuality, being heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and whatever other sexuals there are now!

“Love is love. Do whatever your feelings are leading you to.”

The culture says that whoever you’re attracted to at the moment, go for it. That’s ok, nothing wrong. You’re born that way.

Also by the way, if you disagree with this belief then you’re a bigot and you hate people.

Here’s the new song from Taylor Swift

You are somebody that we don't know But you're comin' at my friends like a missile Why are you mad? When you could be GLAAD? (You could be GLAAD) Sunshine on the street at the parade But you would rather be in the dark age Just makin' that sign must've taken all night

You just need to take several seats and then try to restore the peace And control your urges to scream about all the people you hate 'Cause shade never made anybody less gay

So oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh You need to calm down You're being too loud And I'm just like oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh (oh) You need to just stop Like can you just not step on his gown? You need to calm down

And we see you over there on the internet Comparing all the girls who are killing it But we figured you out We all know now we all got crowns (video has drag queens here) You need to calm down

Explain a little at these points.

Before moving on from this, let’s acknowledge though that there are people out there acting from hate rather than love. There are people who should calm down!

But back to what we’re really discussing, the “born this way” idea. This is very dangerous. If we follow the idea that whatever “way” you’re born you should pursue, is there a line to that?

This is very dangerous and it goes against God’s Word.

If any natural desire that you’re born with is ok, what do we do with ones that are universally accepted as dangerous?

We’re all born with sinful desires.

Some argue that we see some animals that are homosexual and that means it’s an acceptable and natural desire. That’s a really dangerous argument...

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Rather than looking to ourselves for how to live, we must live according to how we were created to live.

Genesis 2:18 ESV

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Genesis

Genesis 2:22–25 ESV

And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 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.

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If there is no God and humanity’s purpose is to advance our species, how does this help?

But there is one God and He made us and He made sexuality a certain way, and for humans to get the most out of it, to flourish, we must live according to the way we were made to live.

And it , it plainly says that homosexuality is sin.

We engage our culture by telling them, and showing them, that we don’t hate gay people, but we do stand on God’s design in love for everyone, believing God’s design is best for everyone!

We also need to remember that homosexuality is not on another level of sin. There can be Christians who struggle with homosexual attraction.

We’re going to talk about one more issue tonight.

Gender

“Gender is different than your biological sex and it is fluid.”

Our culture is telling us that gender is fluid, the way you feel in your head can be different from your biology. It can be something you totally make up even!

The same ideas about going with your feelings and being “born this way” that we just talking about with sexuality are used by the culture to explain transgenderism.

The Bible does not directly address or mention transgenderism, but it does say this

Genesis 1:27 ESV

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

When we engage with our culture in this discussion, when we engage with a person dealing with this, we come from the same place we’ve said all night; God’s good design for humanity being better than ours.

There are obviously people confused about their gender, but we have to remember that sin has affected everything in creation and this confusion is a result of that sin in creation.

Let’s not pretend this is an easy thing to deal with that can just quickly be fixed, but let’s not short change God’s powerful grace either.

God made us fully and wholly one of two genders.

Before closing, we need to be reminded of two things.

To Christians…

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.

To those of you who have made mistakes in regard to sexual activity or who may experience same sex desires or feel like your mind is different than your body,

1 John 2:1–2 ESV

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

We have to remember that the answer to sin is placing faith in Jesus for forgiveness and righteousness and admitting that God designed the world and his design is better than the ideas we have about how things should work.

If you need to talk more about any of what we’ve discussed tonight, these adults are here because they love you and want to help you.