HOLY SEXUALITY: Design Over Desire

Chris McCurley: Good morning. How many of you have ever seen the game show one hundred thousand dollar pyramid? Know what I'm talking about? Actually started many moons ago with Dick Clark as he hosted the twenty five thousand dollar pyramid, but I guess Inflation, things of that nature, we are now up to one hundred thousand dollar pyramid. It's hosted by Michael Strahan. If you've ever seen the show, you know that the basic premise is to get a B list celebrity teamed up with a normal human being like myself. One gives clues and the other one has to figure out what they're talking about based on the clues. So for instance, if the if the topic is things in a restaurant, the clue giver would say things like food. waiter or waitress table and they would have to guess. You get the idea, right? So I want to do that for just one moment this morning. Play a quick game of $100,000 Pyramid. I'm not a B list celebrity. You're not going to get $100,000, but humor me nonetheless. Here's the clues. Sour. Sweet. Bread and butter. Gherkin. Kosher Deal, are we there yet? Yeah, just types of pickles. Very good. So let's move from the game show world to the culinary realm. And when you look at Pickles, you notice that they are actually cucumbers that have been changed or tweaked. How do you make cucumbers? Well you soak them in a brine that usually includes vinegar and spices and water and after soaking for period of time you get pickles. And you're thinking to yourself right now, Chris, I thought we were starting a series this morning on sexuality. What's the talk about game shows and pickles? Because, very simply put, our culture is pickling people. Everything in our culture, even sometimes in the church, has become pickled. The world is a brine and we are soaking in it. Absorbing its values and its virtues, and as a result, our way of thinking and acting and reacting are flavored by the brine. Even Christians are being pickled, believing and acting like everyone else. Maybe they're pickled by the world, but the world is influencing them to react like the world. Which is pretty unchrist-like, and as you've heard me say before, it's never Christian to be unchristian. Either you are being pickled by the world, or you're being pickled by the Lord. Those are the two options. Either you're soaking in the brine of worldliness, or you're soaking in the brine of godliness. Either you're being discipled by culture, or you're being discipled by Christ. And at the forefront of this pickling. Is sexuality. For the next few weeks, we're going to be discussing how we as Christians should respond to the pickling process as it pertains to sexuality. And this will all lead up to our weekend seminar workshop with Guy Hammond, who'll be here from Toronto, Canada, to talk about biblical sexual ethics. And so all of this is priming the pump, if you will. And you may say to yourself, well, Chris, why are we even talking about this? Why talk about sex and sexuality? Here's why, because everybody else is talking about it. Everybody in the world is talking about sexuality. Why are we not talking about it? When everyone else in the world is talking about this topic and we enact our right to remain silent, that's just dumb. That is foolish. When everybody else is talking about it, we need to be talking about it as well. As Howard Hendrick stated, we should not be ashamed to discuss. What God was not ashamed to create. So it's time that we join the conversation. But before we go any further, I want to lay some ground rules for this lesson, for this series. First, this is not one of those sermons that they need to hear. This is not a politically charged sermon. I don't care what your politics are, that's not influencing this lesson. This is not a Soapbox sermon. This is not one of those you tell them preacher kind of sermons, so no angry amens. This is not a sermon that they need to hear. We're not talking about them. We're talking about us. Secondly, this sermon, this series, is going to be rooted in love. We talk about love often here. Talking must be followed by doing. Love is our identifying mark. I know we like to say truth is our identifying mark, but people don't care about truth until they know that you care about them. And so we lead with love. Believing the Bible is absolutely important, but it means nothing if we don't live it. They will know we are Christians by our love. So again, no angry amens. The goal here is not to take a stand or put people in their place. The goal is conviction and compassion. And we have no shot at that if we don't lead with love. Along those same lines, it is my desire to be gentle and gracious, not angry and anxious. One thing that you will notice about this pickled society that we live in is everybody's mad at something. Everyone's angry about something. And so we have got to cut through the vitriol and lead with love and recognize that not everyone thinks the way we do. Not everyone will agree. But as my friend Paul likes to say, you gotta stay in the conversation. Don't slam a door. When you slam a door, you have no opportunity going forward. So you stay in the conversation and you understand that not everybody is going to agree with you, but it's never Christian to be unchristian. Quit with the hot takes and be gentle and gracious. You may you might be angry and you can be angry. Paul says, be angry yet do not sin. You may be angry, but don't sin. And that's difficult, right? Some people say, Well, Jesus flipped over tables. Yeah, you're not Jesus. Most of the time, when we get angry, it causes us to sin. It causes us to act in ways that are unrighteous. And so the goal is not to win an argument, the goal is to win a soul. Guardrails have been put up by God. Not to oppress us, but to protect us, and so we preach the truth in love in the hope that it leads to healing and freedom. We should always, always be truth tellers with tears. And finally, let me say this: this series will be based on God's definition of sexuality. There are a lot of definitions of sexuality out there. I'm sure you've noticed. This series is going to be based on God's definition of sexuality. God created sex to be a gift. Sex isn't shameful, it isn't dirty, it isn't gross, it isn't taboo. Like a lot of things, man took this good gift and perverted it, but God designed sex and sexuality, and therefore we will look to the designer and we will follow the manufacturer's guidelines. Our culture has framed the fight like this: biology versus theology. And that is a false dichotomy. Both biology versus versus And theology are rooted in God, which means that the two are not diametrically opposed to one another. Quite the contrary, they go hand in hand. Remember these words from the Apostle Paul? Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed. To this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Paul is saying, don't be pickled by the world. Remember that you are a living sacrifice. The culture of Rome at this time was not unlike that of America. You do a little history behind. Rome during the first century, especially if you study the book of Revelation, and you will find that Rome and the United States they match up pretty good right now. The Bible insists, though, that our bodies and what we do with them are important to God. We've talked about this before, but there there is this idea in the church that your body's just a shell, that it doesn't it doesn't mean anything. It's like Tupperware. It's just the You know, it's the container. What really matters is what's on the inside, and that is not a biblical concept at all. I don't know where we got that. I many people think we were influenced by Plato and the Greeks, because that's how they thought. The Bible presents body and soul as one. In fact, in the Hebrew it's Nefesh. Your body's important. And God cares about what you do with your body. And so we will talk about the body. We'll talk about how we use the body. The creation story is a sacred, intimate union of theology and sexuality. Our human sexuality is rooted in being created with a body and with a God-given desire for relationships where we can know and be known. Now we also know that sin distorts God's beautiful design. It twists and it contorts the divine design like one of those fun house mirrors. We look all funny. The result is brokenness rather than intimacy. But in Jesus Christ we come full circle. In him we see what, who, and how God designed us to be. In a culture so preoccupied with sex and where sexual freedom and all its forms are celebrated and defended even as a human right, Romans 12, 1 and 2 reminds us that we are called. To show and tell the good news of Jesus, which includes God's design for sexuality. Here's where I want to begin this morning. Genesis one one. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Do you believe this? I do too. All of it boils down to this right here. This is where it all comes together. This is where it all finds meaning and purpose. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Do you believe that in the beginning there was an act or there was an accident? That's the only two options. If you believe that everything that is in creation, that you observe, that you see, all came about because of an accident, then you're going to live your life differently. Doesn't mean that you're not gonna focus on morality and being good. There are many atheists who even think that you should do right because it's the right thing to do. But you're gonna live your life differently if you believe that all of this just came about as an accident, that there is no God, or that that life has no meaning or purpose. But of course, if you believe like we do, that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, then it changes perspective. It it shows that you are living life through a spiritual lens. It does have meaning and it does have purpose only because God gives it and therefore you live your life in accordance with His will. But, as I said a moment ago, it shouldn't surprise us that there are folks who don't agree with this. And we get all worked up into a lather. Why? I mean, do we not understand that some people don't believe this? And therefore, we're reading two different books, we're running two different races, right? And so rather than getting all worked up, maybe we should pause and and consider that our hearts should be softened so that maybe we can reach those who don't agree with us. What lens are you looking through? That's really the question. Do you believe in a divine design? If you do, then it shapes everything else you believe. The Bible informs your beliefs and behaviors, and it starts right here in Genesis 1:1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Do you believe this? And if so. Then, what's true for creation in general is true for sexuality specifically. The question focuses on design, not desire. It's purpose, not pleasure. It's about truth over feelings. If you skip down to verse 27 of Genesis 1, we see another pivotal verse in this conversation. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. This verse. Tells us two very profound things about humans. Number one, God made us in his image, which means that everyone has value. And this is huge and has huge implications for sexuality. Secondly, God made us male and female, and what he made was very good. So all questions about sex and sexuality and gender identity point back to Genesis 1. And 27. Sexuality is a constituted part of human nature and human experience shaped by God's will for creation. It is not, however, the single defining aspect of human identity. That is how our culture presents sexuality. That it says everything about you. You are defined by the color of your skin. You are defined by by your political preference, you are defined by your sexuality. It says everything about you, and I'm gonna cry foul on that because at your core you are not your race, your political preference, or your sexuality. At your core, you are a child of God created in his image. And we have to recognize that, and we have to understand that lest we get pickled by our culture. Your sexuality is a component part of who you are. It's important. But it's not all that we are. It's important, but it's not everything. Everything is Jesus. My identity is found in Him. So everything I am, everything I believe, everything I say, everything I do is a reflection of the one who lives in me. I take my cues from him, which means that how I view everything, including sexuality, is through a spiritual lens. Now, let's walk through the creation account. Step by step. Here here are the implications. First of all, God created our understanding of gender and sexuality begins with the foundational truth that God created everything. Our God is a God of order, not chaos. He is not random. God brings reality into existence. Reality and human experience are not self-creating or self-constituting. God orders all Of reality, including sexuality and gender. Gender and sexuality are not evolutionary quirks, they both find their origin in the God who designed them. Then it says, God created us. God, of course, is the creator of humanity. How's that for being painfully obvious? He has the right to call the shots, to speak authoritatively over our lives. This means that sexuality and gender are not flexible, they're not plastic, they're not bendable to human preference. If we want to flourish in holiness, then we must align our lives with God's creative will. Then God created us in His image. Can't we not assume that sexuality and gender contribute to the entirety of what it means to bear God's image? Humanity existing in male and female versions implies that sexuality and gender contribute to our overall image and purpose for which we were created. To be made in God's image means that no part of our existence is purposeless or irrelevant. God had intent for everything that He created. And God created us male and female. Gender and gender identity are embodied realities. Feelings don't override truth. Feelings are important. And we should recognize that. And we shouldn't bash feelings. We shouldn't abandon feelings altogether. We certainly shouldn't condemn feelings. But feelings are not truth. Feelings are just that. They may be a good red light or yellow light, they're a terrible green light. When we talk about feelings, we're talking about what we would prefer, and and that's not always what God would prefer. There is a substantive differentiation between the biblical portrait and maybe what we feel. This differentiation can be seen in God's intricate design when He when He talks about our creation and Right down to the chromosomal, anatomical, reproductive, psychological, emotional levels. The one primary reason for this differentiation between male and female is to make procreation possible. And we'll talk more about that later. God created us male and female for one another. God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. In other words, go have sex and fill the earth with little image bearers like you two are. Fill the earth with the other image bearers. We talked about this a few weeks ago in the Psalms, is that when God created woman as a helper suitable for Adam, she was his Azore. Azor means basically salvation. She was his salvation. He couldn't do it on his own. He needed woman. We were designed for a particular person. And males and females were designed for a particular purpose. And a purpose that was meant to be fulfilled in a permanent, monogamous, exclusive covenant relationship. You know, one of the hardest things that I had to do as a coach was to cut players. I didn't want to do that, but at some point you run out of uniforms, you don't have enough space on the bus. Plus the longer you coach, the more you realize if I have a young man that's sitting on the bench and never gets to play because there's too many kids ahead of him, mom and dad aren't gonna happy about that. And so maybe it's best just to kind of have that conversation in the beginning instead of several times throughout the year. Anyway, I didn't like to cut players, but I was forced to. And anytime you sit down with a player and have to tell them that they didn't make the team That's hard. And of course, I didn't say, hey, you don't have a place on this team. I was very delicate and very kind, but that's what they're thinking, right? They're walking away from this going, Well, I'm just not good enough. And I hate that. And it just reiterates something that I think we all know. Sometimes there are things that are hard to say, and there are things that are hard to hear. That's just how life is. We've all heard some things that cut us deeply. We needed to hear them, but we didn't want to hear them. And maybe you've been in a position where you've had to say some things that are hard to say, but you knew you needed to say them. Sexuality has nuance to it. And we have to understand that. Please hear me on this. Jesus always upheld the ideal, but always stooped down to the real. You see, here's how so many Christians get worked up, they turn on the TV and they see a pride parade where there are naked men and women marching down the street. And listen folks, my gay friends would tell you, I don't agree with that either. That's an extreme. And they would tell you, We we don't agree with that. And at the same time, on the other end of the spectrum, there are Christians heard about a group of Christians not long ago who filled water guns with urine and were spraying the participants at the Pride Parade. I don't agree with that. You don't either. But don't live on the extremes. Quit allowing the extremes to shape your thoughts. Because while we know what the Bible says about sexual ethics and sexuality, There's ideal in that. There's a point in life where the ideal and real intersect. Sandwiched between these extremes are stories that will break your heart. And just slamming the door saying, Well, it's gonna be hot where you're going, that doesn't work, folks. That's terrible, terrible evangelism and counseling and therapy. It's the mother and father who who come to me and say, Our our son or our daughter just told us they were gay and we we don't know what to do. What what should we do? It's the young lady in my youth group when I was a youth minister. Who knew she was born female but didn't feel female. She felt like she was in the wrong body. She she wasn't comfortable in her own skin. and eventually committed suicide because she couldn't come to grips with her identity. These are real stories, folks. And it's easy to pass them off if you watch the news and you allow that to work you all up. It's easy to pass these off. And be condemning and unloving. How do we enter these conversations? Rather than slam a door. Because discipleship is messy. Jesus always upheld the ideal, but he always stooped down to the real because he understood that there's ideal and then there's real life. Remember the woman at the well? That's a prime example of this. There's ideal and then there's real. Yeah, you've been married five times and now the person you're living with is. Is not your husband. He understood. And he sought to help. And if we're gonna be Jesus' followers, then we've got to do the same thing. God wants the people that you disagree with in heaven just as much as He wants you there. Here are three truths that we need to live first and teach second. Three truths that might be hard to say and maybe hard to hear, but three truths that I think must be accompanied by compassion and conviction. Number one, Sexuality cannot be separated from spirituality. This is precisely what our culture has done, and the results are traumatic. I would tell those who believe that this is good practice to look around you. Is it working? Because it's not, and you've noticed that too. Happiness quotients are on the decline. It has not made our world better. People are unhappy. It's not changing until something changes, despite what proponents may say. Quite the opposite. There's brokenness at every turn. We have a warning from the manufacturer, and listen to this. Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled. For fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. Here's the basic gist of that passage. God has a design. That's it. God God has a design. Anything outside of that design is going to bring dysfunction. The word undefiled here comes from the Greek word amniatos. And it means free from unlawful sexual intercourse. Fornicators is the Greek word pornea, and it means illicit sexual intercourse. Adulterers is from the Greek word moikos, which denotes one who has unlawful intercourse with the spouse of another. So what does all this mean? Simply put, it means that God has a design and he expects sex to function the way he designed it. Number two, sex is not casual, it's purposeful. I realize that this is completely counter to what our culture teaches in terms of sex. But there is a design and there is a purpose. Again, God is not random. If God designed it, then there is a reason for it, and casual sex causes casualties. When we disconnect sex from its purpose, it brings brokenness. Sex has become disconnected from childbearing and family. Sex has become disconnected from emotion and relationship. Sex has been disconnected from people. What was meant to be a bonding experience between a man and a woman who are married has now been replaced with a screen many a times. Sex has been reduced to an act of pleasure when it was designed to be so much more. We'll talk more about that later. And number three, sexuality and gender are not in house arguments. The Bible cast a vision for sexuality and gender that is universal. Not merely Christian. The design for gender and sexuality that we find in Scripture is a design for all human beings created in the image of God. And even if the guardrails that God has set forth are not the easiest or most natural to live by, we are obligated to live by them nonetheless. Because the Bible sees sexuality and gender as creational truths and realities that determine the success of the home. And society. So this is not an exclusively Christian epistemology. Sin is viral and is fatal, and therefore we cannot live by the axiom, you do what you want to do, you believe what you want to believe, I'm gonna do what I want to do, and I'm gonna believe what I want to believe. The gospel is the cure for the virus. While there is mass confusion, even widespread rebellion against the designer's authority, that doesn't mean that we change our message or our mission. We started in Genesis one. Go to Genesis three with me. Starting in verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Gid God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, You will surely not die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and she ate. Or he ate. Satan's basic lie is this God is withholding something from you. God doesn't want what's best for you. And nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever you land when it comes to sexual ethics, sexuality, understand that God has put guardrails in place, not to withhold something from you, but to protect you. God's plan of redemption was set in motion through these two people who messed up. Biblical ethics in all areas areas of our lives are preferable because God does indeed desire for your life both here and for eternity to be meaningful, stable, and joyful. But please understand this the Christian view of sexuality is not simply a set of rules, it is a unique understanding of what the human body is, what it is used for. How it is defiled by sin, how it is redeemed by God's love, how it becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, how it is used in God's service, and how it will be raised to live forever. There is a much bigger picture here that we have to see and buy into, lest we fall in the trap of just living in the moment and having our desires overrule design. As a teenager, I was convinced that my mother was withholding something from me. I was convinced that it was her job to ruin my joy. I would beg her to let me go to parties with my friends, to hang out with my friends, and she would say no, even in when I told her everybody's gonna be there, she'd say, Not everybody, you're not. And and I would go to my room sulking, I would be angry. And as I've grown, I realize that she wasn't trying to withhold me from anything. She wasn't trying to keep me from having fun. She was trying to protect me. God has placed guardrails in our lives to protect us because he knows what's best for us, because he loves us, and because he wants us to have a relationship with both with him both now and eternity. God's not trying to keep you from something. He's trying to move you towards something. So we delight in him now so that we can be in his presence later. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for your love and grace and mercy. We thank you for believing in us, for loving us, and may we go and show that love to other people. May we be Jesus to those around us, even those who don't agree with us. Thank you for loving us, God. And to your son's precious name we pray. Amen. You know, despite what we may believe, there is nothing biblical that says you have to walk down this aisle and come to the front and confess your sins to me so that we can confess them to everybody else, or that you have to do that as well. That is a practice and a tradition that we have, and I certainly think the invitation can be a a great tradition that we should buy into and and perpetuate, but it there are some things that you just don't feel comfortable sharing, and there are some things in your life that You might need help working through, and maybe you don't feel comfortable walking down here, but just know that myself, our other ministers, our shepherds are here to help you. And you say, Well, I don't know who the other ministers and shepherds are. Please stand up. If you're a shepherd or another minister here, would you just stand up so that we can see you and know who look around you. These are our shepherds and ministers. There's several upstairs too, so you can look around. We have twelve wonderful shepherds that serve this congregation, mysterial staff that would love to talk with you and and help you in any way that we can. Don't struggle by yourself. And understand that this family is a loving family that only wants what's best for you. And we are not going to slam a door. We are going to stay in the conversation and we are going to do our best to help you in any way that we can. This family is saturated with love and compassion. For all people. And we want you to know that. But if we can help you this morning, if you have a need, why don't you come as we stand?

Genesis 1:1