Untitled Sermon

· God’s Design for Marriage and Sex

o Genesis 2 tells us that God made man from the dust and breathed life into him. Then God gave Adam the Garden of Eden to maintain and enjoy – a job made for him to enjoy in God’s presence (Gen 2:1-17).

o But that wasn’t enough. God recognized that it was “not good” for Adam to be alone. He needed someone less like the animals and more like himself who complimented rather than conflicted with him. He needed someone that could help him accomplish God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply.”

o To accomplish this, God knew Adam needed someone very different from himself. Therefore, God created Eve, a “helper-companion,” not from the dust of the ground but from Adam’s own being. He took a rib from Adam’s side and fashioned Eve (perhaps symbolic of her sharing life with him at his side, intimately close to his heart).

o Man and woman are similar yet distinct, equal yet different. God designed masculinity and femininity not just as psychologically or socially constructed realities – but they are indelibly linked to biology. At the DNA level, God fitted together man and woman together. Their similar but distinct identities and characteristics beautifully display the unity, diversity, and equality intrinsic to God’s design for human sexuality.

o This tension is actually a reflection of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit are the same, yet distinct. Each person is fully and equally God, yet they are different. In the same way, masculine and feminine distinctiveness is designed by God to reflect His nature and characteristics and from the beginning determined to be “very good.”

o After Eve was created, he brought her to the man and joined them together in the very first wedding (Gen 2:24) as the two became “one flesh.” This joining was both physical and spiritual. Therefore, marriage is the most intimate of all human relationships as it symbolizes the union we are to have with God.

§ In this first union, God joined Adam and Eve spirit to spirit (covenant), and flesh to flesh (sex). Let’s address the later briefly as we have already discussed it together.

· The design of the marriage relationship includes sexual intercourse. Sex is intended for…

o Consummation – The physical expression of the union of marriage.

o Procreation – Being fruitful and multiplying through children, filling the earth with God’s glory through His image-bearers.

o Recreation – Sex is intended for joy, pleasure, and resting in one another’s presence. A sign of our intended relationship with God.

§ But marriage did not only join man and woman flesh to flesh, but also spirit to spirit. This was done through covenant. Let me explain…

· Contract vs. Covenant

o Marriage is a sacrificial commitment that supremely values the good of the relationship over each individual’s needs.

o This commitment is at the heart of covenant, a concept that is increasingly absent from our cultural framework for relationships. Today, marriage is commonly viewed as a contract built upon individual happiness and fulfillment, the quest for a compatible soul mate that will provide lasting satisfaction and passionate romance. In the Bible, marriage is not just a bilateral contract agreed upon between two human beings, but a sacred bond that is horizontal and vertical in nature, where vows are made with one another and with God. Covenant involves both intimate love and binding commitment, the necessary ingredients for a faithful, lasting marriage. In the garden of Eden, marriage was as it was intended to be – one man and one woman living in covenantal relationship with God and one another.

§ Genesis 1:26-31 & 2:7, 15-25 (Covenant Marriage) – Not simply a covenant between the man and woman, but between God and the couple.

o Contract vs. Covenant

§ What is the difference between a contract and a covenant?

Category

Contract

Covenant

Form/Literary Structure

1. Date

2. Parties

3. Transaction

4. Investiture

5. Guarantees

6. Scribe

7. List of Witnesses

1. Speaker Introduced

2. History of Relationship

3. General Command

4. Detailed Stipulations

5. Document Statement

6. Witnesses

7. Blessings and Curses

Occasion

Expected Benefit

Desire for Relationship

Initiative

Mutual Agreement

Stronger Party

Orientation

Negotiation

Thing-oriented

Gift

Person-oriented

Obligation

Performance

Loyalty

Termination

Specified

Indeterminate

Violation

Yes

Yes

§ Let’s take a look at how God views covenants…

o Genesis 12:1-3 – Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

o Genesis 15 – After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue[a] childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son[b] shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

7 And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give[c] this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

§ Suzerain-Vassal Treaty/Covenant (Ray Vander Laan)

o Genesis 17 & 21 (25 years before the promise was realized)

o Genesis 22 – Sacrifice of Isaac

o The covenant fully realized through the sacrifice of Jesus! (18 centuries, 1767 years later)

JEWISH TIME

ROMAN TIME

JESUS TIME

FIRST HOUR After a the chief priest prepares the altar (Lev 1:7; 6:1-6/8-13; Mishnah: Tamid 1:2), the first male lamb of the Tamid sacrifice is brought out and tied to the altar at dawn (Mishnah: Tamid 3:2-3:3)

DAWN-8AM The twice daily communal sacrifice of the Tamid is the focus of religious life for the covenant people (Ex 29:38-42; Num 28:4-8). It is the only sacrifice other than the Feast of Firstfruits or the Sabbath that requires a single male lamb for the liturgical service. The Sabbath requires a male lamb in addition to the Tamid lamb for each of the two Sabbath services (Num 28:9-10)

FIRST HOUR

And they led Jesus to the high priest….And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. (Mark 14:53; 15:1)

SECOND HOUR

8-9AM

THIRD HOUR The first Tamid lamb is sacrificed [Mishnah: Tamid 3:7; Edersheim, The Temple, chapter 7, p. 108]

9-10AM The Temple gates open for the communal "Shacharit" (morning) prayer service (Acts 2:15) at the start of the 3rd hour. Individual morning prayer may be recited until noon (Mishnah 4:1)

THIRD HOUR

And it was the third hour when they crucified him. (Mark 15:25)

FOURTH HOUR

10-11AM

FIFTH HOUR

11-12PM

SIXTH HOUR The second lamb is brought out and tied to the altar at high noon. [Mishnah: Tamid 4:1]

NOON -1PM The second Tamid lamb is given a drink from a gold cup and is tied to the altar until the time of sacrifice.

SIXTH HOUR

And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. (Mark 15:33)

SEVENTH HOUR

1-2PM

EIGHTH HOUR

2-3PM

NINTH HOUR The second Tamid lamb is sacrificed [Antiquities of the Jews 14.4.3 (14:65); Philo Special Laws I, XXXV (169)]

3-4PM 3PM is the second hour of prayer [Acts 3:1; 10:9] "Minchah" (gift-offering); also called the hour of confession.

NINTH HOUR

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”… And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last…. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:34, 37, 39)

§ Malachi 2:14-15 – “the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.”

· He goes on to say in verse 16 that God hates divorce for this reason: Faithlessness. Why? Because if we can give up so easily on our earthly covenant, then why wouldn’t we quit on our heavenly one.

· When Jesus was asked about the permission of divorce, He rebuked them for hardness of heart. It was not intended to be that way from the beginning. Instead, Matthew 19:4-6 says, “He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 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’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

§ Marriage was designed by God to be Covenantal (spirit to spirt…to Spirit) and Sexual (flesh to flesh). All for the glory of God through His created image-bearers.

o But sin entered the picture. What God made good and without shame, humankind distorted and shameful. This is something I will spend more time on next session, but for now we have to come to the realization that our struggles with sexuality lie not in God’s design, but in our distortion of it. So, what do we do? Is there any hope at all for us?

· Faithfulness vs. Perfection (there is hope!) –

o The answer is, “YES!” We simply must strive for the right thing.

o What is the difference between being perfect and being faithful?

o I think we can answer this by looking at a comparison of two kings. You might have heard of the first king. His name is David. David was known as what? Yes, a “man after God’s own heart.” (1 Samuel 13:14) But how can David be a “man after God’s own heart”?

§ Consider his sinful walk: Pride, Non-consensual sexual relations with a woman (rape) which was also adultery, Murder, deception, and on and on… David was in fact farther from perfection than most of us in this room.

o So, how could he be a “man after God’s own heart”? Acts 13:22 tells us, “I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.”

§ The answer is not being perfect but being FAITHFUL! Are we willing to allow the Holy Spirit to transform our lives because we are faithful and will let Him work on us? David was…

· 2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 18 records some of David’s final words on earth. One particular passage always catches my eye. Turn with me to 2 Samuel 22:21-25:

21 “The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. 22 For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. 23 For all his rules were before me, and from his statutes I did not turn aside. 24 I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. 25 And the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight.

· What??? At the end of his life, is David so arrogant to think that he earned his way to God by being righteous and blameless before God?

26 “With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; 27 with the purified you deal purely, and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous. 28 You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down. 29 For you are my lamp, O Lord, and my God lightens my darkness. 30 For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. 31 This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

32 “For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God? 33 This God is my strong refuge and has made my way blameless.

§ David didn’t consider himself righteous and blameless by his own merit. He humbly understood where it came from, GOD! Because he recognized God’s faithfulness to him, he wanted to remain faithful to God (even in his imperfection before him).

§ So, faithfulness, remaining true to God, keeping your eyes bent toward God rather than the world. These are Paul’s thoughts when he says to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7) At the end of David’s life and Paul’s life (two murders), they both claimed remaining true and faithful to God to the end. Not leading perfect lives, but faithful ones.

§ Too often, I believe we try to focus our lives too much on being perfect rather than being faithful. The Pharisees struggled with this too. They worked so very hard (in the love and zeal for God) to be right all the time and do exactly what God told them.

· But in seeking perfection, we often miss the perfect! Only God is perfect, and only He can perfect us in our faithfulness toward Him. I know that the message on my tombstone could never read “PERFECT”, but I would love it if it said, “FAITHFUL”!

o So, this sinful David ends up being used as the "golden standard" of being a king of Israel. Why not Solomon? Solomon was the wisest of the kings, the wealthiest, the most well-known in all the earth. Why wouldn’t he trump David as the golden standard? I think we know the answer: FAITHFULNESS!

§ Again, at the end of his life, David calls his son to him and says this, “I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn, that the Lord may establish his word that he spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’”

§ David is trying to pass on this characteristic of FAITHFULNESS to his son. And he does. You see Solomon’s faithfulness in what he asked God for. Take a look in 1 Kings 3:5-9, “At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, ‘Ask what I shall give you.’ And Solomon said, ‘You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?’”

o Solomon was humble before God and wanted to live in faithfulness to God and to lead God’s people. He knew he needed God’s wisdom to do it.

§ So, what happened?

· 1 Kings 11:4 – For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.

· Solomon allowed himself to get distracted…

o Distractions are the enemy to faithfulness! Satan knows that if he can just take our eyes off Jesus for a moment, then he might be able to lead us back toward ourselves and away from God. Scary thing is that all the while, we believe we are heading toward God. If he can just distract us with trying to be perfect, good, right; then we might lose sight of simply being faithful.

· Sex and our sexuality can become distractions. They did to David and to Solomon. They both found themselves in sin due to their sex drives, or predispositions.

o Solomon in particular allowed his relationships to pull his heart away from God and not be wholly devoted to him. His devotion went from God to another god. More on that next session…

· However, we are living in freedom. We are no longer slaves to sin but slaves of God, instruments of righteousness. As Paul told the Roman church (6:15-23)…

15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

· Like the song goes, “I’m no longer a slave to sin, I am a child of God!” So, our desire has changed us, transformed us. Our affections have shifted from self to God.

o THERE IS HOPE!