Well, here we are, week six of
an eight-week series. Seven-week series. I can't remember
what else I've got left. And I'll tell you, these things
are difficult. I actually had someone ask me
last week, was there a part two for this week from last week?
And I'm like, I don't think so. There should have been. But I
guess my message sort of seemed up in the air at the end of last
Sunday, as though there was going to be a continuation. And so
in some sense, maybe this is a continuation of that. We talked
last week about the issue of homosexuality, the subjectivity
of what the gay lifestyle and homosexuality looks like in the
context and in light of God's holiness and his call and his
command. And friends, today we deal with a taboo topic that
is not preached very profitably from most pulpits, and that is
the issue of sexuality, sex, marriage, sex, pornography, adultery,
I even thought about doing maybe a topic on divorce, but that
will be another day. Friends, sexuality seems like
an unlikely topic for Sunday morning. You may think, what
does this have to do with the gospel? Well, I will suggest
to you today and when I'm done, hopefully my argument will make
sense. I trimmed this down to about four pages. It was 11. And so, about 3.30 this morning,
I trimmed it down to about four pages because the last few weeks,
the 72-minute mark has been about when I give out and y'all look
like y'all zone out. So, we'll try to keep it under
the 55 to 60-minute mark today. But friends, sexual sin is rampant
in the world. Sexuality has become something
that we feel like it is just for us. It is for our pleasure.
It is for our design. It is so that we could experience
something great we have taken. We see I used to when I was in
student ministry, used to talk to young people. And when Abercrombie
and Fitch, the clothing store, began to market clothes without
clothes, it was a little strange to me. And as someone who enjoys
thinking about what makes people think about what they think about,
if you can follow that. I was very intrigued as I walked
through the mall and I saw nude people and nude mannequins and
nude posters selling clothes. I just didn't grasp that. And
so I thought maybe subconsciously we see a person that has a very
nice body and we go, wow, that person needs clothes. Maybe I
need clothes. And we walk in and buy clothes.
Or maybe we see that person and maybe they're cold and we think
that person needs to cover up. Hey, I'm a little cold. I need
a new jacket. So we go and we buy clothes. But the bottom line
in that type of marketing is we see the body, the human body,
and it arouses in us feelings. Images create feelings which
create thoughts, which create actions. And so what we see there
in that type of marketing is that we've heard this over and
over again for decades and decades, that sex sales. And I believe
sex has been selling since the garden and it will continue to
sell until Christ returns. And Unfortunately, even in the
church, we have taken sex and we have turned it into this dirty
little word that we don't talk about. And so, friends, I'll
tell you that one of my first series that I ever did on sexuality
was in 2002. And I entitled that series, it
was a six-week series, I entitled that series Good Sex. And I did
that in six weeks with high school juniors and seniors. And we tripled
our attendance the very first week. just by promoting the fact
that we were going to preach that message. And someone thought
that it was on a Sunday morning, but it was actually a Wednesday
night, and the joke ran. And to this day, some of those
students who are now in their 20s are talking about it. Everybody showed up on a Sunday
morning, and it wasn't a Sunday morning series. It was a Wednesday
night series. And one of the students at the front row, he
spoke up. He says, Whoa, whoa, whoa, I thought this was sex
on Sundays. I said, No sex on Sundays, but sex on Wednesdays.
And that just sort of became the joke. And not only do we
talk about sex a lot, do we see it in our media, do we see it
in our lives, do we see it in every aspect of everything that
we almost do every single day, but it is in our hearts, it is
in our minds, it plagues us, it entraps us, it enslaves us.
So why is it that something that is so prominent in our culture,
how has it become so bad and so dirty? Well, I could sit here
and I could preach for 55 minutes about the negativity of sexual
sin. But friends, I want to give you
a clear argument about the purity and the blessedness and the giftedness
and the absolute picture of what sexuality is and how we as Christians
are to embrace it and discuss it. Having a conversation, I
won't call him out, but anyway, I had a conversation yesterday
and I really believe that by the time a child is 12 or 13
years of age, He or she should be having very open, intimate
conversations about sex, sexuality, and intercourse and marriage
with their parents. Young, long before they're 12
and 13. They should know and understand
God's principles of why He created man and wife. But then when they
become 15 and 16, and they're right in the throes of the hormonal
imbalance, and their bodies are desiring things that were meant
for its purpose, And then they have no context of which they
understand the significance and the holiness of what their bodies
are drawn to because of what God's purpose is for that. Then
we want to know why promiscuity and premarital sex is so rampant
among teenagers. Because we are idiots. We don't
breathe into them the gospel message of how God created man
and wife. We don't breathe into our homes
the beautiful picture of redemption and unity that sex represents
in the scripture. We don't teach this to our young
people. And so for you who have children, please talk to them.
If you don't know how, come see me. I'll tell you what we have
tried. Give you books that we have.
Tried to use, it is a difficult thing to discuss, it's uncomfortable
for some of us in the room today because we have hang ups about
sexuality. Some of us, we've always been told we don't talk
about that. We don't go there. We don't look
at that. That's not proper. Friends, it is most proper. It
is most proper for the saints to view the marriage and the
marriage bed as something great. And so my goal today is for us
to see in the Scriptures that sex is an image of redemption
and unity, that God, as He established marriage, to be the microscopic
picture of the macrocosmic reality of the cross and the redemption
of the church as the body, the bride with Christ, the groom,
the head. Such is everything in the marriage
supposed to reflect that image and that glory. And so for the
church, sex is a gift. And just like I talked about
alcohol and other things, we take what is good and we make
it ugly because of the desires of our flesh, because of the
passions and the lusts of our hearts, because of the desires
of our minds. We have a worldview of sexuality
that is debased and debauchery. And we have really made a mistake
by not teaching about it in our churches. Where did you get your
understanding of sexuality? Television? Friends? Sears and
Roebuck? Unmentionable section? I'll never
forget that, finding that magazine one time as a child at my grandmother's
home, or my great grandmother's home, a Sears and Roebuck magazine
from, I don't know when, many years ago. And they wouldn't
even call it underwear. It was Unmentionables was the
title above. And it was drawn pictures of
the brassiere. It wasn't even real photographs.
It was unmentionable to think that you would discuss anything
that had to do with the body or covering the unmentionables.
So we won't talk about that anymore. Here we go. There's about 16,000
points that I wanted to make. I think I broke it down to 14,
15. We'll see how that works. This is very cumbersome message
because as a text, I could not get my hand around a text. And
so this has become very topical. And so there's a lot of pretext
that I will want to expound upon. And I'm going to try to avoid
that because it is a it's going to it would just belabor it.
And so hopefully you follow my argument. And if it's weak, I
pray that God's word will do its work. We human beings are
adulterous people who, if left unchecked, will gravitate to
the vilest and the most fleshly desires imaginable. What does
that mean? In other words, if we take even
when we're given something good, you keep saying, well, sex is
a gift. Sexuality is a part of who we are made to be by God. Then how come it's so rampant?
How come sexual sin is probably one of the most vile sins that
we see in the world today? Because we are depraved. We are
eternally and hopelessly helpless when it comes to living morally
and living righteously. Even when we do good deeds, you
may think, well, that's not true. Friends, even when we do good
deeds out of the works of our own hearts and the benevolence
of our own minds, we do it so that we might feel esteemed about
doing good. Or that we might feel better
about the esteem of others. Others aren't terrible character
traits, sort of hedonistic in some sense. Honestly, the Christian
faith is hedonistic if you really look at it. And that we find
complete joy in the satisfaction of Christ alone as our sufficient
treasure. But friends, that's the formula for righteousness.
That's the formula for success. That's the formula for godly
living. And that God himself is the only one who can give
us the heart to truly not fall deeper and deeper into the desires
of the flesh. And so God created sex. God created
sex as a reflection of himself and his relationship with his
people. Now, this is not just my opinion on things. And finally,
you know, if you haven't learned this by now, don't listen to
my opinion. Listen to the Word of God. If the Word of God doesn't
say what I say it said, then you need to call me on it. This
isn't something that is new to your ears, but I felt like today
would be a good day to remind you of that. This is not a dictatorship
of where I am the boss and I know all that is best and wise. Friends,
we are in this together. I've been charged to shepherd,
and so therefore I will teach what I feel God has put on my
heart to teach as it relates to our congregation. However,
if you disagree with me, you must call me. You must talk with
me. You must ask me about these things
because it is part of your journey of growing in grace. And if I'm
wrong, I will recant and reconsider. But God created sex as a reflection
of himself and as a reflection of his relationship with his
people through the creation of humanity in Genesis. He said,
let us make man in our image. The Trinity being illustrated
there in numerous places, about 15 to 16 places in the first
three chapters of Genesis. We see Jesus. We see God the
Father. We see the Holy Spirit. And so
we see the triune God. And then it tells us in verse
27 of chapter 1, He made male and female. He created them. He created male and female. So
sexuality, the different sexes, has been created by God in the
design of the body. So God has reflected his image
and the idea of the compatibility of man and woman. You see that
you see that argument of our way off, I see the usage of the
Old Testament, not only do we see that in creation, but the
Old Testament, I had a lot of this is where I had to cut a
lot, but I had a lot of verses that walked us through the Old
Testament usage of sexual language. You think, what do you mean sexual
language? Well, I'm not talking about what
you may be thinking. I'm not even talking about Ecclesia,
or not Ecclesiastes, but Song of Solomon. That is sexual language.
Matter of fact, Solomon wrote these words as an understanding
of, well, for us to understand the greatness and the beauty
of his wife, the purity of the marriage bed, and then to shadow
the relationship and the purity of the church to Christ. And
so we see these things, and we think, well, why is this here?
You know, I've heard a few people preach on the Song of Solomon,
and I've heard some wonderful messages, and I've heard some
messages that probably shouldn't have been preached. I've never
been brave enough to preach it. I've never been called to preach
it. Maybe I should think about it. But the Old Testament, we
see the Scripture using the language that is sexual in its connotation. For instance, when God's people
Look to other ways of worship when we see the nation of Israel,
who was called out and redeemed by God as his beloved people. And we saw them taking for granted
the love of God and then going and serving other gods and serving
other ways of actually fulfilling themselves or becoming successful
or becoming another people with their own esteem. What happens
is that God in the Scripture uses sexual language to illustrate
the problem. For example, in Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16. He says, therefore,
talking about Israel, he says, O prostitute. What in the world
would he call them prostitutes? Why would he do that? Because
they had committed adultery against the relationship with God. They
had had another lover. Like John, in two weeks when
we get into our holiness series and we're looking at 1 John,
do not love the world or anything in the world. And when we love
the world or anything in the world, we are committing adultery
against God as God's people. And so there is sexual language
there and God's people, when they look at other ways, when
they look at another lover, God used this language with his prophets.
He says, oh, prostitute, hear the word of the Lord. Now, it
doesn't end there. It says, Thus says the Lord God,
because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered
in your whorings with your lovers. That's exactly what it says.
And the ESV uses the word whorings. And so we see him calling the
prostitutes. We say he says, because your lust was poured
out and your nakedness uncovered in your whorings with your lovers
and with your abominable idols and because the blood of your
children that you gave to them, therefore, behold, I will gather
all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you
loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you
from every side and want to uncover your nakedness to them, that
they may see your nakedness." That sounds like somebody getting
busted with an affair. I mean, that'd make some good
primetime TV, wouldn't it? Maybe a soap opera. Maybe on
the Latino channel we could have, you know. No matter what. Isn't that the way? It's always
sexy. in the Spanish television, no
matter what they're saying. It's sort of like French. This is a segway
why I said that. When I took French in high school,
you can say the most bizarre things and sound sexy. Oui, je
t'ai empapillé dans la cobaye. See, doesn't that just sound
great? I said, may I please throw that paper in the garbage can?
I mean, but it sounds beautiful. Sort of romantic. But so God
is using romantic language. He's using sexual language to
illustrate the debauchery of violating the covenant that he
made with us. And so sex is an issue that we
need to pay attention to as Christians. It's not just for copulation
and procreation. It's not just to seal the deal. It's not just to have kids. It's
an image of Christ's redemption and the unity of the body of
Christ with God forever. And honestly, it's a way to know
your spouse in a deep way, in an intimate way that you can't
do with verbal dialogue. You can't explain it either,
can you? And in some way, it's a reflection
of how one day we're going to be able to know Christ. Not in
a sexual way, but it's going to be greater than that. It's
going to be greater than that. The Old Testament, I had tons
of Scripture that could be used there. The Proverbs 5. May your fountain be blessed
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth, a loving doe,
a graceful deer, that her breasts satisfy you always. May you ever
be captivated by her love. Why be captivated, my son, by
an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another
man's wife? That's just pornography you're
spouting out up there. That's the Word of God. And we
have taken the beauty of a gift that is a reflection of the glory
of God. And we have put it through the
garbage disposal. And now we're eating out of the
pipes. Now we're wringing it out of the, what do they call
that? The pea catcher? Or that little
curve in the plumber? The pea trap. We're eating out
of the pea trap. We're eating the sludge from the bottom of
the barrel. And we've messed it up. So God
created sex as a reflection of himself and a reflection of his
relationship with his people. The Old Testament, he uses sexual
language to illustrate this. Also, God created marriage and
sexuality as a reflection of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I've
alluded to that numerous times in the last two years. The New
Testament usage, Paul, one of my most troublesome texts as
a husband, as a pastor, as a father. But Ephesians 5, 25 and 32, I
really could preach through this text today, but I couldn't. I
couldn't figure out what to do there. So you could turn there
and read with me and then I'll be in Hosea in a few minutes
and then I'll be in Thessalonians and I'll be in 2 Peter. I'm telling
you, it's going to be a horrible, horrible day for my mind. And
then I got to get John in my head before before 530. But when Paul describes the unity
and the partnership and mutual subjection in marriage, he uses
sexual language. from Genesis to describe the
gospel. And see, this is not Paul's opinion.
Understand that there are mysteries that were hidden from for ages
in the Old Testament that were revealed to Paul supernaturally
on the road to Damascus, just just like that poured into him.
He knew it instantly. God gave him, saved him while
he was going to kill the disciples, saved him and gave him illumination
and revelation of the gospel. And so Paul was able by all authority,
the authority of Jesus Christ, to say, that means this. Okay? Just a little bit of hermeneutics
there and exposition and exegesis is that you can't say this means
that unless the New Testament tells you that that's what it
means. Any pastor, teacher, preacher, prophet, prophetess, elder, bishop,
deacon, whoever they might be, that go into the Old Testament
and give you an illustration and say, you know what that means?
That means this. And they can't show you in the print, in the
Greek text from the New Testament? They have failed and they have
taught falsely. Now, it's one thing to say, you
know, that makes me think of this. Isn't that cool? What if
it is? We can't say it does, unless
the New Testament. That's why it's very important
that as Christians we get to a place where we are being taught
the Greek text or that we're studying the Greek text. Because
the English can't cut it for you. We cannot continue to just
walk through what we've always been taught and understand the
depth of the knowledge. If you've been coming on Sunday
nights or Wednesday nights, you know how that works, is that
the Greek sometimes can change the incredible meaning of what
the text is trying to say. But the New Testament usage in
Paul, Ephesians, Paul says, husbands, love your wives. All right, that
seems simple enough. Love your wives. I can love my
wife. I love my wife. I love her when she does that,
and I love her when she does that, and I love her when she does
that. But when she does this, nah. Isn't that easy? Isn't that the
way it works? No. He says, love your wives as Christ
loved the church. Well, how did Christ love the
church? Christ loved the church, he says it there, and gave himself
up for her. Now, I said this six months ago,
and I actually had people at the door and emailed and say,
I'm not quite sure you were right on with that. You know, Paul
is saying husbands must die for their wives. Well, I'm willing
to say, yes, he is. Not necessarily they're supposed
to take their lives to show their love for their wives. That's
like Romeo and Juliet. You saw the tragedy in that story. But
what it does mean is that it's not my life to live, but rather
my life to give. OK, so what is that? Why is it
in America that's not the story? Because we still treat women
as though they were subpar. And you'll look, well we won't
look there right now, I'll lose my mind. But he says, as Christ
loved the church, husbands love your wives in the same way that
He gave His life up for the church, for His bride, that He might
sanctify her, might keep her pure, might do for her what is
best for her at the cost of Himself. What? Listen, having cleansed
her by the washing of water with the Word, so that he might present
the church to himself in splendor. It didn't say haphazardly. It didn't say half done. It didn't say, you know, OK. It said in splendor. You know
what splendor is? Splendid, perfect, awesome, beautiful,
pure, holy, without fault. Splendor. He's going to present
the church himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any
such thing. That she, the church, might be
holy without blemish. Husbands, love your wife the
same way. So what it means is don't push
it. Don't decide that you are the
Lord because you're not. And especially when it comes
to the marriage bed. How we were taught, how I was
taught, just by observation, that you're obligated to give
your body to one another. Now, interestingly enough, I
don't see any obligatory principles being taught in the New Covenant. Giving, serving, teaching, nothing. But yet I see that when we worship,
what's that mean? That's not what we, yeah, part
we can worship through song. We are worshiping through the
hearing of the word, speaking of the word. God is the audience
this morning. And God is the messenger. But yet we worship when we adore
The object of our worship above everything else. Everything. We worship. The reason sexual
sin is so rampant, even in the church. 7 out of 10 marriages
in the church end in divorce. 7 out of 10. 7. 30% of online pornography on a weekly
basis is downloaded by women. Women. That blew my mind. That blew my mind. I thought
it was like 3%. The reason sexual sin exists
is because worship doesn't. And the reason sexual hang-ups
exist is because worship doesn't. The reason homosexuality exists
is because worship doesn't. The church doesn't worship Christ.
We whore around on Him. We say we love Him. We want what
He gives us. We want the package. We want Him to be home when we
get to heaven. We want to make sure that our husband's in the
bed where he needs to be, that's safe, and not running around
on us. But we run around on Him every day. And He gave His life
for my sin. And that's how we treat Him. If that doesn't break your heart,
you're heartless. You need to repent. We need to
repent from our idolatry, from our adultery. God uses it in the New Testament.
Without blemish. So as Christ loves the church,
husbands in the same way, verse 28, should love their wives as
their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself,
for no one hates his own flesh. He nourishes it and cherishes
it just as Christ does the church. Because we are members of His
body. And quoting Genesis 1, Therefore,
because of this great thing, therefore a man shall leave his
father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two
shall become one flesh. And then he says, this mystery
is profound. And I am saying, and I'm going
to impose some things here that are obvious in the text when
you read the epistles of Paul. I am saying by the authority
of the Lord God Jesus Himself who gave me this revelation,
that this mystery is revealed as Christ and the church. That
the husband and the wife is the picture of Christ and the church. And that sexuality in the marriage
bed is a picture of unity in the church. and that the family
as it works in glory and in the gospel is a picture of the eternal
family of all nations, all tribes, all tongues, forever given praise,
worthy is the Lamb, worthy is the Lamb, worthy is the Lamb
that was slain for the foundations of the world. We really mess it up, don't we? And God created sex and sexuality
to portray that image. And He created sex with a function
and a focus. A function, a purpose, and a
focus, boundaries, to show us the beauty of His redemption.
Sex within the marriage is a way to know each other in an intimate,
a deeper way that cannot be explained, as I've already said. And in
some fashion, it's a small expression or a hint of how we will know
Christ ultimately in eternity. But because of sin, our flesh,
our sexuality is prone to fall away from the glory of God. So,
God created marriage and sex and marriage so that our flesh
would also have boundaries and focus. How amazing God is He! To know
that we'll tear apart the great gift that He gives us, but then
yet He creates guidelines and borders and boundaries and walls,
so that even while we sin, we still are protected. That's a
great love, people. Sexual language is God's way
of describing our relationship with Him. In essence, when He
is our husband, our sexuality is in check. When we worship
Him, Our sexuality is in check. When we don't, even in our marriages,
our sexuality is a mess. God uses this language to describe
our relationship to Him. Not only a reflection of the
Gospel, not only a reflection of Himself with a focus and a
function, but God uses this language to describe our relationship
with Him. We see in Genesis where Adam knew his wife. And the context
in that term means that he had sex with his wife. Adam had sex
with his wife and bore forth a son named Cain. And in Matthew 1, chapter 1,
somewhere in there, Joseph, the text says, he knew not his wife,
or he did not know his wife until she had given birth a son named
Jesus. For she was a virgin and had
not known a man. She had not had sex. He did not
have sex. And so to know someone, the language
of Scripture, to know someone intimately is also paralleled
in the way of physically and sexually. It's parallel language. That doesn't mean that every
time you see the word no, it means sex in the Scripture, OK?
Some young people would go in there and say, yeah, I see this.
By the renewal of my mind, that's knowing something, right? It
means intercourse. That's what I'm all about. I
can deal with that. Thank you, Jesus. I can hear it. I can hear
those arguments. No, but we're very clear in the
context that they use that language. The prophet Hosea in chapter
two. And the restoration of Israel, listen to the words of the Lord,
therefore, behold, I will allure her. I will draw her into the
wilderness and speak tenderly to her. Who is he talking to? This is a prophet. That sounds
like a love story. That sounds like a pickup line. Sounds like a romance novel.
And I will give her her vineyards and make the valley of Achor
a door of hope. And there she shall answer as
in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out
of the land of Egypt. I'm looking for a lover, God
said, and I'm going to lure you out. I'm going to bring you into
my presence. I'm going to pull you into where
I am so that you may know me. And that's not just my thoughts.
Listen to what Hosea says in verse 16 of chapter 2. And in
that day, what day? The day that I bring you to where
I am and that I draw you and I speak tenderly to you. In that
day, you will call me my husband. My husband. What? When my grandmother Adams
passed away, my mom's mother, January 28, 2005. On her bedside
table for about three weeks before she died, she'd been writing.
She'd written a lot of journals. She'd been writing on a card.
And she'd been writing the names of God. And she'd been writing
who God was to her. And the last thing she wrote
on that was my husband. And it's like going through this,
every few months I understand what that means a little bit
more. And then looking at the prophet Hosea, it's the language
of Scripture. God was her sufficiency. And
if you knew her, she loved her husband more than anything except
her Savior. You will be called me, my husband.
And no longer will you call me, my Baal. And I will betroth you
forever to me. And I will betroth you to me.
How? In righteousness. and in justice, and in steadfast love and mercy. And I will betroth you to Me
in faithfulness, and you shall – listen to this word – know
the Lord. You shall know the Lord. So God
desires to be our Husband, a covenant eternal union that is illustrated
with sexual language in the scriptures. So we think of sexuality, Christian,
you must think about it in the terms of God's love and redemption
for sinners. See how messed up that is, see
how compare it to what we even I'm sure none of us have had
this gross, sinful view of sin, I mean, of sex. as our mainstay
as Christians. But compare what you thought
coming into the room this morning to what you're seeing now. And
even look at it. And when God is not our husband,
we look for other lovers in this world. We seek out a way to be
fulfilled in life. Not only sexual sin, but all
sorts of idolatry. The escape of this world. The
escape of pressure. The Prozacs. of this world. How can I get
away from the problems? How can I numb myself? I can
numb myself by eating. I can numb myself by sexual intercourse. I can numb myself by pornography.
I can numb myself by drugs. Intoxicants. I can numb myself. When Jesus is our sufficient
lover, we don't need it. And that's the purpose of the
church, is that we display, Ephesians 3, the manifold wisdom of God. Ephesians 1, 10. Fullness of
time. God will bring everything in
unity in Christ. The unity in Christ. This is
not a far stretch. It's an easy puzzle to see. Last
week I used Romans 1. Verse 28 out of Romans 1, And
since they did not see fit to know God, to acknowledge God,
God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to
be done. When we ignore the knowledge
of God, when we stop wanting to know God, we die. That's called
sin. It's called death. We die. The flesh kills us. It's disease. It's cancer. Sin is death. And it may be pleasurable,
but you're going to die from it. But such is the way for our
culture. That's going to kill me. I'll
do it anyway. So sexuality outside God's design
is always sin. Always. Always. Always. Always. Always. Always, did I
tell you? Always sin. It's always sin. Sexuality outside of God's design
is always sin, no matter what we think, no matter what our
situation is, no matter what our circumstances are, no matter
what the culture says, no matter what the law says. Sex outside of God's design is
always sin, any type of sex. Kissing, touching, feeling, rubbing,
loving, looking, hearing, listening, speaking, any type of sexual
activity is a violation of the marriage covenant. Well, I'm
not married. Well, you're violating the covenant
that you will make one day. But you're violating the marriage
covenant of the Lamb of God. See, it's so easy to preach that. Friends, I want you to understand the electron of sin atoms ought
to break your heart. The subatomic particles of sinfulness
in our DNA ought to break your heart. The smallest, most insignificant
dust of sin that you can barely see when the light's shining
through the window ought to break our hearts. If your sinfulness
isn't broken, if your heart isn't broken over your sinfulness,
friends, you can't have repentance. Godly sorrow leads to repentance.
But we're more worried about what people think about us and
our reputation and where it might take us or where it might not
allow us to go. We're more worried about what might happen in our
culture, our jobs, in our homes, or our work, our school. We're more worried about what
people may say about us if we stand for righteousness. Call
me something else. Call me gay. Call me stupid.
Call me a holy roller. Friends, if Christ is your lover,
you want to be like Him. Not to earn His approval, but
to show you gratitude. So what's the hope? Well, when
Christ reigns us, we're recreated. When the Spirit of God does His
work of regeneration, we're changed. We're made new. And the fruit
of newness is the fruit of the Spirit, not our fruit. And so
this is where we get legalism balled up into this ball of black
crack. And we've got to smoke it every
now and then so we think that we know that we're staying on
Staying on track. We've got to stay in that mix.
We've got to sip that drink of legalism. Well, I'm going to
do this. I'm going to do that. Friends, get over that. It's not about
us doing anything to appease God. It's about us being who
God says we are. Paul says in Galatians, it's
the Spirit's fruit, not James' fruit. And so, yeah, I can live
and I can do, But man, if I'm truly the child of God, then
the spirit of God will be evident in my life, not me. Because my
righteousness, what does Isaiah say, is like a filthy menstrual
rag. To a holy God. Filthy. If you know the Leviticus, you
know the laws, the consecration laws, the cleanliness laws, when
women were having their menstrual cycle, they had to actually almost,
they had to isolate themselves. They couldn't come out of, they
had to just really be like they had the plague or something. So that language meant a lot
to them, not necessarily as much to us. Filthy rags. Our righteousness. It's not us
doing it. But if you're a child of God,
God's spirit shines through you and His fruit is evident. Otherwise, we don't know Him.
And that's evident by the fruit of the flesh. Seeking other lovers. Seeking the world. Seeking sexual
desires. Looking at our lives from our
lens. Desiring what we want for our
hope, for our purpose, for our pleasure. The Lord God changes us. He makes
us alive because we were dead. He rebirths us when it's not
even our will to come back to life. He brings us back to life
and gives us the ability to live a sanctified life, not a perfect
life. But where we see the flesh fighting
against the spirit of God. See, when we hear the word spirit
in the New Testament, when the flesh battles against the spirit,
that's not our spirit. Although if our consciousness
is controlled by the spirit, Then it will battle our consciousness.
But the spirit of God battles against the flesh of man because
we are indwelt by the spirit. So when Christ. Is in our lives,
we can model this new relationship, we can model sexuality, we can
model marriage, we can model unity, we can model redemption,
and it will be beautiful. And it won't be sick. It'll be
the way God intended it to be. First Thessalonians four, for
this is the will of God. your sanctification, that you
abstain from sexual morality, that each one of you know how
to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passions
of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. First Peter, as obedient children,
do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but
as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your
conduct. Since it is written, you shall
be holy for I am whole. And if you back up just a little
bit in Ephesians, chapter four says you were to put off your
old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, which
is what? Dead. God killed it. And it is corrupt through what?
Deceitful desires. Now, think about that for a second.
And then to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put
on the new self created in the likeness of God. He made us in
his likeness in true righteousness and holiness. And I'm like, well,
that's that's it. OK, I can let me get that checklist
out and I'm going to write these down. So I put on the new self
and I renew my mind, ignore deceitful desires. And I'm going to look
like God. I'm going to be true, righteous
and holy. Let me work on that. And then
you realize I can't. See what a disaster that is. God gives us the ability to fulfill
these things in him. Not in us. Otherwise, it'd be
the fruit of us. Look at what I did, God. I was
able to be righteous. And then if we're philosophers
at all, we'll realize, hey, I got this. I don't need him. I don't need that husband. I
don't need the father. I don't need the spirit. I don't
need the lamb. I made it. I did it. But we can't. God has made us whole. God has
made us holy. And His Spirit will give us that
lightness. And we'll struggle, but we'll
never snuggle with sin in our lives. This lightness is possible
because of the knowledge of God. Knowing God. The opposite, as
we saw there in Ephesians, is deceitful desires. So we either
desire God and renew our mind to Him. We worship Him. We love
Him, we adore Him, we're satisfied in Him, or the desires of the
flesh continue to draw us into the pit of death. So knowing God is illustrated
with sexual language. So sexuality is a small picture
of the knowledge of God through Christ. Look at 2 Peter. This will sort of be the close
and a little bit of a meet here as I close. 2 Peter chapter 1
verses 3 through 8. I feel so confused right now.
It says His divine power. How are we going to accomplish
this? His divine power has granted
to us this. This should make you want to
break dance. If you don't like to break dance, whatever you enjoy doing when
your favorite team wins, this should make you want to do it.
Just keep your clothes on. His divine power has granted
us granted to us, listen, all things that pertain to life and
godliness. How through the knowledge of
him, through the knowing him who called us, who drew us, who
allured us and spoke tenderly to us, who drew us and called
us to his own glory, not to our glory, but to his glory and to
his excellence. By his divine power, he has granted
us and he was grant you cannot enter. OK, now you can. He has
allowed us access to this free of charge just by faith. We trust in it. We receive it
and we get it. Free. He's given us access to
all things that pertain to life and godliness, how through the
knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.
by which He has granted again to us His precious and very great
promises. I'll underline that. By His precious and very great
promises. This should solidify your worship
right here. You want to get your worship
in line? Then hear the Word of God right here, because this
is it. Where is my hope? I listened
to a song this morning that Derek Webb, if you're not familiar
with him, and he made the comment, I've got a bank full of faith
and a heart for money. Is that you? Have you taken that
little faith and you put it in a lockbox somewhere? Lockbox. You put it somewhere. You just
hold on to that. I think John Piper calls it the
bloody ticket. You got that bloody ticket in your pocket, the ticket
to heaven. And you know, you go in and you're OK, but your
heart desires what the flesh wants. I think we've forgotten what
God has given us. By which he has granted to us his precious
and very great promises, so that what are those promises here,
listen, is the result of the promise that through them Through
the promises, you may become partakers of the divine nature. Holy cow, sexual sin would not
be evident in the church if we really believed and trusted by
faith in the promises of God. Seven out of 10 will be seven
tenths out of a million. Three out of five pastors look
at pornography weekly. Three. Why? Because Jesus isn't their lover. They're looking for fulfillment
in their marriage, in their job, in their ministry. And the flesh
is just boiling over with desires. And they can't fulfill those
desires with the gospel. And I'll never forget the first
time I heard somebody laugh at the thought that Jesus is the
answer. And sadly, I used to laugh at that too. We may become partakers of the
divine nature. And what that means for us, the
very next line, is having escaped from the corruption that is in
the world But see, let's don't just blame the world because
it doesn't stop there, does it? We say all the world's bad. If
we could change the law and make homosexuality illegal, then it
would change the world a little bit. That's a bunch of bull. It's bull. And I'm an outcast in the pastoral
circles because I say those things. So what? The church would do
and be the glory of God. The world would go, what's wrong
with me? I want that. I'm sleeping around with all
these people. I've had five wives and many lovers. I love money.
I love power. And I've gone and I've gotten
it all. And it's worthless. I want that. But they see the
church and they go, I don't want that. I got what's better. I'm
doing that well. Well, we've escaped from the
corruption that is in the world and we blame the world. We look
at the world, we say, oh, look, the world, friends, the world
is this way. God created the world and it
is still good. Man is not. Listen to Peter's comment. You've escaped the corruption
that is in the world because of the sinful desire. Read James 1. It's not on your
notes, but James 1 says that we're tempted because we really
want what's dangling in front of us. And for this very reason, what
reason? That God has granted us the ability
to have divine nature, to have holiness, to walk in righteousness
because of Christ Because we are dead to sin and we have been
reborn. Because we don't have to go and
partake in the sinfulness of the world. Because we don't have
to dive head first into the pool of fleshliness. Because we have
been removed from the domain of darkness into the glorious,
marvelous light. Because of that, for this very
reason, Peter says, Make every effort. Now, here's where our
part comes. Make every effort to do what? To supplement your faith with
virtue. It's all about faith, but then
to your faith, supplement it with virtue. Veritas. Truth. And truth with knowledge. Gnosis. Epinosis. Full knowledge. in the Greek.
And knowledge with self-control. What's that mean? What am I about to do? I don't
have to do that. Because I'm not a slave to you
anymore, sin. I'm not a slave to you anymore, flesh. You're
dead to me. Because Christ bled and His flesh
was destroyed So I'm dead to sin. And I'm not going to be
ruled by it anymore. And knowledge with self-control,
and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,
and godliness with brotherly affection, phileo, and brotherly
affection with love, agape, Ephesians 5, Christ loved the church, agape,
and he gave himself up for her. Jesus defined that word. I believe
he created that word when he says there's no greater agape
than this, that a man would lay down his life for a brother. There's no greater love than
this. That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,
that Christ, he who had no sin, became sin and died. Our sin was nailed to the cross,
cancelling the record of debt that we could never pay. And
you can't file chapter 7 with your sins. You can't plead the
fifth. It doesn't work. And so godliness
with brotherhood and with love. Listen to this. For if, it's
a condition, if, if was a big word, it means great thing. Pay attention to tiny words in
English. And learn to read carefully and
slowly, especially when you read an English translation of the
Scripture. Write down things. If these qualities, what qualities? Shall I list them again? Faith,
virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, righteousness,
godliness, brotherly affection, brotherly affection with love,
If these qualities are yours, if they're yours and they are
increasing, then they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful
in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now. Oh, crud. If. Then. If this is you. You want me to paraphrase it,
then you have the knowledge of truth. But wait a minute. Sorry, it's a comedy guy coming
to my head. Wait a minute. I grew up on a
pepper farm. But wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're saying
you're saying that there's a condition that if I don't do these things
and I'm not saved. Yes, I'm saying that. Did you
hear what Peter just said? I'll get you saved, but if you're
saved, there'll be a part of your life. You got it? If you
mix the batter, it's mixed correctly, and you put it in the oven, it'll
bake what you've mixed. You put a cake batter in the
oven, it ain't gonna come out a watermelon. If it did, you'd
get on national television, I promise you. If you are saved by grace, And
the Holy Spirit is transforming your life. You will produce the
fruit of righteousness. You will see that you can run
and die to the flesh. You will fight for righteousness
and for holiness. And you will fight for joy. And
you will fight for the husband that died on the cross to save
you from your sin. You will. You will. You will. You will. You will. And so Peter
says, if these are yours and they are increasing, you can't
stay where you started. That's death. That's apathy. But it must grow. They keep you.
You know what that means is that this evidence is your assurance. You can be sure your confidence,
your knowledge of the truth, truly knowing Christ. with a
full understanding of trust by faith alone in Christ, that by
grace God saves you, you will see the fruit of your life and
you will be kept from the ineffective and unfruitful labor of death
and unbelief. I pray you come back tonight
at 5.30 for John. You see this John's gospel. This
is the reason it was written. That we may know what belief
really is, and John uses conditional love in John 3, 16, for God so
loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever
believes. Will not perish. But have eternal
life, how do we believe? His divine power has granted
to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through
the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence,
by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises,
so that through them you may become partakers of the divine
nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world
because of sinful desire." I'm going to tattoo that on my face.
If I ever get ink, I think that's going to be my text. In the Greek,
that's going to be a big tattoo, isn't it? That should be tattooed on our
hearts. Knowing Christ as our ultimate
Love and King is the remedy for sexual sin. And it's the revelation
for the function and focuses of what sexuality was really
supposed to be in the marriage bed. When we truly know Christ,
friends, our view of sexuality is strengthened and focused.
The truth is, our view of Christ and His supreme sovereignty as
God is blurred. damaged because of sin. The fruit of this view of Christ
is seen in our sexual sin, is seen in our view of marriage,
is seen in our view of Christianity, is seen in our view of the gospel.
It's seen. We have lost the focus of the
great vastness and the majesty and the heaviness and the glory
and the holiness of God. We've lost focus. Sexuality for
the Christian is pure, it's holy, it's a reflection of holiness
and unity. But to the world, it's lustful fulfillment and
debauchery. It's for me and mine. That's
what it's here for. Food made for the stomach and
stomach for the food. 1 Corinthians 6, Wednesday night, 7 o'clock. Hank Hanegraaff gave an example
of The ultimate. Because of sin, see, I believe
sex has become an ultimate in our culture. That's why we can
sell clothes with naked people. It's just the funniest thing.
I believe sex has become the ultimate when it's just a small
picture. Truly, it's just a small picture
of the truth. Of the righteousness of God. Hank Hanegraaff gave
the example. I don't even know when this was.
Hopefully it was him. Somebody like him. I think it was him.
He talks about husband and wife and they're laying in the bed
and they're talking and caressing one another. Obviously, an intimate
moment will happen soon. And one of their children walks
in. But it all halts to all kind of activity. And on the bedside
table is a Hershey's chocolate bar. Unopened. Uneaten. Nobody's touched it.
Well, this blows the mind of the child who sees the chocolate
and thinks, I'd like to have that chocolate. And then he looks at his parents
in dismay and goes, are you idiots? Do you see that chocolate bar
beside you and you're not eating it? How can you do that? How
can you not see the wonders of this great chocolate? The taste
of how it would taste going into your mouth and all the wonderful
feelings and the pictures of butterflies and bunnies that
will go through your mind as you close your eyes and taste
every single morsel. This is how my son eats. I guarantee
he has pictures. He closes his mouth and his eyes
and he eats. And they look at him and they
say, oh, son, your love for chocolate is great. And that's the most
important thing to you. It is ultimate. But one day you'll
grow up and you'll see that there are things much better than chocolate. Friends, I'm here to say that
there are things much better than sex. There are things much better
than money and there are things much better than power. There
are things much better than anything this world has to offer, even
the good things that God has brought. What's ultimate should be God's
glory and majesty. And honestly, nothing in comparison,
even sex, can hold a candle to it. So we look for joy in everything
but Christ and will not find it outside of Christ, even in
sex. In closing, I want you to see how marriage. And in turn,
sexuality is sort of the polishing in bookends of the gospel message
and that God opens his word in Genesis 2 with Adam saying, bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh. You are woman because you are
of man. Man will leave his father and
mother and they will cling to each other, cling to his wife
and the two shall become one flesh. God started his repository
of redemptive revelation, the Scriptures with marriage and
with unity in a physical way. And he's going to end it in Revelation
21, too. And I saw the holy city, New
Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as
a bride adorned for her husband. And if you read the 19th chapter,
you see the wedding supper of the Lamb. And so it begins and
ends in marriage. Marriage is significant. Sexuality
is a picture of that. We need to get it. We need to
get it right. And so the result of that is
that any sexual sin is a mockery, not only of God and his gift,
but a mockery of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When the end. Sex is a gift from
God to display his glory, and he is supreme over sex. God gave the gift of sex by creating
the body and designed the body for that purpose. And God said
that this was good. And God continued to show the
body's goodness by sending Christ in the flesh, just like us, born
of a virgin. And then God said that the two flesh becoming one
is good, but being by themselves is bad. It's not good for the
man to be alone. Let us make a helpmate, and the
two shall become one flesh. And God said that we are to be
united in Him, not in sex, but something much greater. And that
sexuality depicts this in a small, shadowy form. Through marriage and the marriage
bed, friends, we see, we learn, we grow to better understand
each other. We grow to better understand
grace. We grow to better understand the gospel of Christ. Marriage
and all that comes with it is a gift from God for his glory
alone. Let's pray. Father, my prayer today is, Lord,
that you will continue what you've done just in me preaching this
message, Father, in my life. Continue to see some things that
just seemingly are so small and insignificant. But in light of
the gospel there, the grave matters of mistakes and misguided ideals
and horrible theology. Father, as we leave today, may
we see You and our relationship with You
as the ultimate. May we love You. May we long
for You. May You give us the heart to adore You and worship
You. And Father, as we sit here today
and we see that we are not in that place, God, provoke us to cry out to
You that we might throw ourselves on Your mercy and by faith receive
the great promises. that you so freely give at the
cost of your son. And, Lord, it would be foolish
of me to consider the fact that no one in this room suffers with
sexual sin. So, Father, as we sit here together,
brothers and sisters, united under the bond of peace through
the gospel of Jesus Christ, Father, may we truly know what forgiveness
is, that we can walk away from this in the power of the Spirit. Lord, convict us that we might have a heart to
turn to You. And Father, that even if we are
okay, even if we have had a good view of what marriage and sexuality
is all about, God, that we would entrust this truth to others,
especially young people, children, that they're not waiting until
they're in the midst of becoming an adult before they begin to
learn the truth of sex and God's picture of it. And Father, that we as the church
would seriously take a hard look at our marriages and our relationships
first with You and then in light of You, in light of Your perfection,
of Your holiness, in light of Paul's teaching and the Scripture's
exhortation to be like You, How are our relationships on this
earth? How are our marriages, our engagements, our families,
our church body? Are we unified? Father, help
us to see that. But Lord, in it all, help us
to truly trust in You because You alone can give us righteousness. And Father, today may be that
day that someone here has not trusted in you by faith, God,
you are calling them. May they cry out to you. Subject
themselves to your righteousness, to your holiness, to your judgment,
and Lord, receive the gift of grace that comes through Christ
alone. That they might know you deeply through Christ. And Father, it is in the name
of Christ our King the lover of our souls, that we pray. Amen.