The Creation of Marriage and Sexual Knowing

Father, we give you thanks and praise for your word.

We give you thanks and praise that your word is true.

We give you thanks and praise that even when your word is very hard to us

and seems to confront things in our lives that are close to our heart,

we thank you, Father, that you speak not because you take delight in the death of a sinner,

but you speak because your heart's desire is that we will turn from our wickedness and live.

That you desire, Father, to redeem and restore us in the person and work of your Son.

So, Father, turn our hearts to Jesus.

Grip us with what he did for us upon the cross as we listen to your word.

And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

Please be seated.

So, as many of you know, I have several coffee places where I'm a regular.

And in these places where I'm a regular, people eventually, the baristas in particular,

but also some of the other regulars eventually learn that I'm a pastor.

And we often have conversations.

And many of the different baristas in the coffee shops that I go to,

I eventually invite them to come to my church.

I mean, they'll ask me where I'm the pastor.

And I was thinking about this a lot yesterday as I was working on my sermon some more.

And this morning as I was driving in, what it would be like,

and I don't know, I have no idea whether one of the baristas that I've invited have come this morning.

I can't really see you very well.

The combination of the lights in my glasses, which are for reading, not for seeing in distance.

But as you probably know, many people who work in the coffee shops that I frequent are gay or lesbian.

And identify very closely with that, the LGBTQ and other letters community.

And I was thinking, especially as I was driving in this morning,

what would it be like if this is the Sunday that they come?

Because whether you realize it or not, the text which Emily read,

which we're going to look at right now,

is a text which speaks very directly to the biblical understanding of marriage

and of sexual knowing and of sexual identity.

But that's what we're going to look at.

And so it's really important to keep a particular thing in mind.

And by God's providence, it happened to me on Monday this week.

There's these two really lovely older men who come into one of the coffee shops.

There's one particular coffee shop where I do most of my sermon prep.

And there's these two older men, lovely guys from out in the country.

And they come in, you know, once or twice a week.

They've gotten to know me.

We chat.

They know I'm a pastor.

They never ask anything at all about spiritual things.

Just once we've had a conversation about something.

But they're just very, very, very friendly.

And so this past Monday, one of them came and tapped me on the shoulder.

I was, you know, focused.

My first crack at Genesis 2, 18 to 25.

And one of them tapped me on the shoulder and said,

George, does that book have me in it?

And this is one of those times.

Somebody must have been praying for me Monday morning.

Because I said, without any hesitation, I said,

well, actually, it does talk about you in here.

And he was surprised.

He said, well, what does it say?

And it says, you're in far greater danger than you can possibly imagine.

And you have far greater hope than you've ever dreamed of.

And I wish I could say that we then had a spiritual conversation.

But he just laughed and went and sat down with his buddy.

But you never know what seeds are planted.

And that's true.

This text and the Bible as a whole warns us that we're in far greater danger than we can ever really, really, really understand.

But also that we're far more loved and have a far greater hope than even our most outrageous dreams have never even come close to it.

So it would be a great help to me if you open your Bible.

And we're going to look at this text.

Genesis chapter 2, verses 18 to 25.

Genesis 2:18–25

And it's the second creation story.

And it begins, the whole second creation story begins in verse 4.

But we're sort of skipping that early part.

We looked at that a couple of weeks ago at church.

By the way, if you need Bibles, there's some Bibles over here.

You should just feel free to get up and get a copy of a Bible so that you can follow along.

And what's happened is that this is the second creation story.

It's focusing more on the creation of Adam and Eve.

And in the first part, Adam is created, but not the woman.

And, you know, other things are sort of said about how Adam is created.

But then in verse 18, the story continues.

Then the Lord God said,

It is not good that the man should be alone.

I will make him a helper fit for him.

And just sort of pause.

That little three-word, four-word, helper fit for him, is an important idea.

It's going to be repeated in another verse or so,

which shows that it's an important idea to try to get our minds around.

So just the man has been created.

That's how the story goes.

But it's not good that the man is alone.

In fact, there's a little bit of a tension.

If you've been reading from the beginning, Genesis 1, and then you read this,

you'll see in Genesis 1 that time after time and time it says,

It is good.

It was good.

It was good.

It was good.

It was very good.

And now we see this sort of second look, like from a second perspective about how God has created,

that the man has been created, but there's a not good.

The work of creation hasn't been completed because the man's alone.

And in particular, there is a helper fit for him.

I'll talk about that more in a moment.

That still has to happen.

Verse 19.

Now, out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens

and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.

But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.

And so just sort of pause there for a second.

There's some details here in the story, which are all like, this is a text to really be meditated upon.

One of the reasons I'm preaching through the book of the first 11 chapters is that I think,

and I talked about this more in my first three sermons in the series,

that we're so afraid of looking at this because we're afraid of getting caught up with controversies

around evolution and young earth and all of that,

that Christians increasingly are afraid to look at these early chapters,

but they're really central.

Like, if we don't understand these first chapters, it's hard to understand the rest of the Bible.

And we're afraid to look at them, to memorize them, to meditate upon them, to ponder them.

And that's one of the reasons.

Like, we're just facing our fears, folks.

And we're looking at these texts.

They're not scary texts.

They're very, very wise.

And they're very, very helpful.

And they're very true.

And it's a very, very interesting little dynamic here.

The animals come out of the ground.

That's how God creates them.

That's the language which is used.

And God has this Adam.

And there's a not good because he's alone.

And there's a helper fit for him that has to happen.

But God doesn't just create it right away.

He has this, the naming of the animals first as part of Adam's awareness as well.

That in a sense, he surveyed living beasts.

And there's nothing fit for him.

A helper fit for him is not found.

So then the story continues in verse 21.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.

And while he slept, that is not God but the man, while the man slept, God took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

And just sort of pause there for a second.

This is sort of, I mean, it's worth lots and lots of meditation upon.

Obviously, it's both a true text, historically true.

But obviously, it's weighted with symbolism to try to communicate in a very, very simple picture language to us really, really deep truths.

See, one of the things which is very interesting here is that the animals have all been created out of the ground.

But woman is not created out of the ground.

It's really actually very, very important.

The text is trying to communicate to us that it's not that women and men are of a different nature.

As you know, there's many religious systems which denigrate women.

And Christians, to our shame, have often denigrated women.

And there's many, many systems of political and social and theological and religious and spiritual talk that make it almost as if women are a lesser creature.

That they're almost like our chattel.

That we can almost treat them like animals.

That we can cover them up.

That we can just boss them around in a way which is deeply denigrating to them.

But what the text is showing is that woman and man are of the exact same nature.

It makes it very, very clear.

This funny image, which for many of us, it's very easy to make jokes about it as if the Bible is really, really stupid and foolish.

But the Bible here is saying something very, very, very profound.

This idea that men and women have the exact same nature.

That there's a fundamental equality in their nature.

And this is a type of dynamite idea.

I mean, the church, we Christians, because we want to keep slipping back into religion.

We want to keep slipping back into accommodating to our culture, whatever our culture is.

And it's easy for us to keep getting unbalanced because we want to keep slipping into our culture.

But this is one of these healthy viruses that's constantly there challenging us to understand the fundamental equality,

the fundamental same source as man and woman.

And so when it first seems like an odd thing, like even mentioning the animals coming out of the ground,

it's an important thing to meditate upon.

And the other thing, though, that's very important is this whole idea of that helper fit for him

is also going to be very important, as we see in a moment when it's going to talk about marriage.

Because if Genesis 1, the first story of creation, I mean, both stories tell us different things about God.

And they both stories tell us different things about what it means to be human.

And last week, when we looked at human beings being made in the image and likeness of God,

there's a lot of really important teaching here.

And now there's an unpacking of that, which is going to be connected to sexual knowing and marriage and sexual identity.

It's going to be talked about here in this story.

But, well, okay, when I was younger, when I had to move, or when Louise and I and the kids had to move,

we couldn't afford buying boxes.

I mean, I don't even know if moving companies sold boxes to mere mortals back then.

So you'd go and you'd try to get a banana box, LCBO boxes.

I don't know if any of you have ever moved with a whole pile of different boxes.

You know, banana boxes, Apple boxes, LCBO boxes.

And they don't fit together very well.

You know, that's one of the reasons why moving companies, it's so wonderful when you discover,

whoa, you can buy boxes that all fit together.

And it's such a great thing, you know, but boxes are all just boxes.

They don't say, here we're going to give you a diamond shape, a star shape, a star of David shape, a round one.

They're all, they fit together.

But what this text is trying to communicate, and it'd be more like an entire separate sermon with this idea of help or fit for him.

It's talking about the man and the woman, they fit, but there's an angularity and pointedness about each of them.

I mean, those of you who've been married or have dated, you understand your spouse has pointy bits.

It's that my pointy bits can irritate Louise and her pointy bits can irritate me.

And that's part of learning how to stay married.

But it's not as if God just took two blobs of jello and squished them together.

It's not as if he had two identical cubes and laid them side to side.

But that every human being, but man in a sense have a particular type of male, mannish, angular, non-symmetric shape, as does woman.

But God somehow in the mystery of his created order has made it so that the man and woman can fit together.

So there's something equal, something complementary, and something different about the way that God has made the man and the woman.

And that's all communicated in this very simple picture language.

Very simple, easy to remember, but very, very profound and powerful.

And then the text goes on, and we see here, verse 23, and this is really cool.

If you're like me and you're a Christian and you believe that this is God's word written, and ultimately God is the ultimate author of this,

what you see in the next verse in poetry are the only words spoken by a human being before evil came into the world.

Isn't that cool?

The only recorded human words before evil comes into the world.

Not quite entirely true, because there's a few little, you see some words with Eve, with the serpent,

as part of the beginning of evil coming into the world.

But just this pure with no evil, no shadow of evil, just an unfallen creation where everything is good.

And what are these words in poetic form?

The man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,

completely equal, and fit for him and him for her.

She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife,

and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

And that little image is an image of what, at the end of the day, we all long for, not to stand naked.

I definitely do not long for that.

But what we long for is a type of complete transparency and being of ourselves,

and being transparent and being unashamed and with no evil.

And there is a great human longing for that.

A great human longing to be transparent, to be open, to be yourself, without shame and without sin.

And every human being has it, and I think only ultimately the scriptures explain,

why that longing is present in human hearts.

It was woven into us at the moment of creation,

that we should relate to each other and relate to the created order

and relate to God in such a way that there's just this complete openness, transparency,

and ourselvesness without sin and shame.

But here's the really big thing, though.

I don't know if you noticed it.

Look again at verse 24.

So verse 23, we've had Eve is created.

God brings Eve to Adam.

In a sense, if you want to use an old-fashioned traditional marriage analogy,

it's God who walks Eve down the aisle.

to meet Adam at the front.

And we have the bone of the bone and the flesh of the flesh.

So male and female have been created.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife.

And if you're like me, you go, one moment, that doesn't follow.

Like in our day and age, the existence of male and female,

people don't say,

therefore, because there's male and there's female,

because there's man and the woman,

therefore, heterosexual monogamous marriage happens.

That's not a therefore to us, is it?

Not even close.

Like in our day and age, what we say is,

you know, listen, George,

I don't know what all this big fuss is with you Christians.

There's this thing called sexual pleasure.

There's other types of pleasure as well.

There's pleasure around food.

There's pleasure of,

there's aesthetic pleasure,

in terms of looking at a nice piece of art.

There's pleasure in terms of nature.

There's physical pleasure,

just sort of just being alive.

And there's sexual pleasure.

And there's all sorts,

the only limit to the way you can experience sexual pleasure

is the limit of your imagination and your taste.

And, you know, as long as you can just,

that's the therefore,

there's men, there's women, there's pleasure.

And therefore, whatever allows you to experience pleasure,

as long as it doesn't hurt the other person,

well, go for it.

It's, the therefore is actually a shocking thing.

So I want to just say a couple of things.

These, I mean, one of the reasons I,

by the way, just as an aside,

if you read books on preaching,

the way I do points is not the way you're supposed to do it,

just so you know.

I'd get an F in sermon points.

And, but one of the reasons I write these points

is I know that some people were,

they, hearing words,

if they see it,

it also helps them to understand,

and that's why I write these points,

even though I fail at sermon points.

If you could put it up,

this is an important thing for us to remember now,

because some of us are maybe feeling a little bit uncomfortable.

One man, one woman,

heterosexual, monogamous marriage,

and we're feeling very uncomfortable

uncomfortable because it doesn't describe us.

On Friday, I had the great privilege to speak on Parliament Hill

to some of the staff workers who are Christians on Parliament Hill.

And, of course, Parliament Hill,

I'm speaking to staff workers for political parties.

And one of the things I said as I was going into this,

as I said,

this is not a political talk.

This is not an us versus them.

This is not looking for Twitter bits

that we can use to get people,

because all of us struggle with different sexual issues.

This is not about people out there

who are bad or are demonized

versus us who are pure.

We're talking about deeply personal human issues.

And one of the things we have to understand,

even though at first this Bible passage

is going to seem to hurt some of us,

we have to understand that beginning and the end

is going to be the same point.

What is it that the whole Bible...

The Bible is aware that it's only in the first two chapters

that it talks about the world before evil comes in.

Next week, we're going to look at the introduction of evil

into the created order.

And most of the Bible, then, from Genesis 3

right to the end of the book of Revelation,

is all about God's dealing with the presence of evil.

And what we need to know

is that even when God's word seems to be hard to us,

that Jesus seeks, redeems, and restores

lost and ruined masterpieces.

Jesus seeks, redeems, and restores

lost and ruined masterpieces.

And if you're here and you're same-sex attracted,

if you're here and you're transgendered,

you should not understand me to say that,

okay, now he's saying I'm ruined.

No, no, no, no, no.

Well, actually, I am.

I am.

But I'm saying it about myself, too.

And I'm saying it about every single person here.

If you're a guest here,

you are sitting amongst lost and ruined masterpieces,

with no exception,

some of whom,

hopefully most of whom,

I pray all of whom,

Jesus has not only sought you,

but he has redeemed you

and is working at restoring you.

Some of us feel like the type of masterpiece we are

is one of those great old Dutch masters

that just look so unbelievably lush and lavish and beautiful.

Some of us are more like a Picasso,

all weird angles that don't really seem to fit together

and not really one dimension, you know, two-dimensional.

And some of us are more like Van Gogh's.

We're not all the same masterpiece,

but the way to understand what Jesus is all about,

what the Bible is all about,

is that Jesus comes and seeks us.

What is that phrase of the church's one foundation by Luther?

From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride.

With his own love he bought her.

Is that how it goes?

And for her life he died.

That very beautifully captures this idea.

Every one of us is a masterpiece,

is how God has created us.

We are now bent and marred and broken by sin.

We are lost and ruined.

But Jesus seeks us.

He redeems us.

And when we are his,

he begins the process of restoring the masterpiece,

just as if some horrible Nazi had stolen some artwork

and finally somebody discovers it now in an attic.

And, you know, maybe it's a priceless Picasso

and there's water damage and all sorts of other damage

and it's found, it's restored,

redeemed to its original owner

and the work of beginning to restore it,

to bring out the beauty begins.

That's what grace is.

So, some of you might say,

I've had this said to me,

it was a couple of years ago,

it wasn't recently.

Somebody said to me,

George, you know, it's really,

you know, all those texts in Genesis

and, you know, in the Bible,

but, you know, especially, George,

those texts in Genesis,

they just, they come from an age

when they didn't understand same-sex attraction,

they didn't understand healthy same-sex desire,

they didn't understand the capability

of forming sustained relationships,

they didn't understand the creativity

and the beauty that comes from within that community,

and it was just a prop,

to prop up the social order,

and that's all that it was.

You just have to understand

that the Bible is limited to a time

where it didn't understand the range of things,

it's propping up a social order,

and it's just out of date.

It just has to be brought up to speed.

It has to,

the social order and social understanding

is just different.

And when I say that,

it's a very compelling argument.

In fact, some of us might even be getting

a little bit anxious

as to whether,

that I even would say that in public in a church.

But here's the interesting thing,

it's very, very compelling,

but it's completely wrong.

Andrew, could you put up the next point?

Biblical teaching on marriage,

sexual identity,

and sexual knowing

is perennially,

I can hardly say that,

countercultural,

and perennially good news.

Let's take for a moment

that this text,

which I just read,

was written either

in around the year 1500

or around the year 1300.

In either one of those years,

BC,

either one of those years,

what did all the smart people think?

What are all the people

who are the best educated?

If you went to the best educated places

in Cairo,

what we now call Cairo,

in Alexandria,

in Babylon,

if you went to the places

where the powerful,

the rich,

the best educated,

if you went to them

and asked them advice,

what would they tell you?

They would say that

Genesis chapter 2

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

is complete rubbish.

Why?

Well, because, George,

obviously the smart thing

is polygamy.

The entire world,

every culture,

was polygamous.

George,

they'd say,

it's just very,

very natural.

A man should try

to be a real man.

And real men

who are successful

and powerful

and almost like a god,

they deserve many wives.

And it's just obvious,

George,

that you have wives

to guarantee

that there's legal

passing on of property,

but a man like myself,

a powerful man,

I also need other sexual outlets,

which is why I have concubines.

And George,

it's just very obvious

from the way

that the world works,

all of the smart people

understand it,

that part of worship

is appeasing

and dealing with the gods.

And sometimes that means

sacrificing an animal.

And George,

sometimes that means

you go to the temple

and you have sex

with the priestess.

That's what all

of the smart people understood.

And in fact,

if you read the Old Testament,

you'll see constantly

that the Old Testament

people of Israel

were constantly struggling

with going back

to follow

what the smart people understood.

See,

the fact of the matter is,

is that when the Bible said,

then the man said,

this at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman

because she was taken out of man.

Therefore,

a man shall leave

his father and his mother

and hold fast to his wife

and they shall become one flesh.

This teaching

is perennially countercultural.

In every culture,

at every time,

and it is always good news.

Now,

do you notice

that verse 24,

it sounds like a funny verse,

but it's actually really important.

If you could put up

the next slide,

please.

This next,

this verse 24

tells us

three

essential

steps

in an

essential order.

I can hardly say it.

I'm having speech

problems this morning.

I leave forever.

I hold fast forever.

I know sexually.

Look at verse 24 again.

Therefore,

a man shall leave

his father and his mother.

Very interesting, eh?

It's one of the things

about

all of the biblical teaching

on sexual relations,

like in marriage,

all of the teaching

about marriage.

It shows that

there's both

always a fundamental equality

between the man

and the woman,

but it also shows,

sorry for a big word,

time out,

big word moment.

I'm not showing off.

An asymmetric relationship,

not a symmetric relationship.

Like if you look

at Ephesians 5,

one of the tasks

given to the wife,

believe it or not,

is not to love her husband.

One of the tasks

given to the wife

is to respect her husband.

There's several

in Ephesians 5.

And it's that

the husband,

one of the tasks

given to the husband

is to love his wife.

And there's other language

there of the husband

being willing to die

for his wife

that's describing

what loving is.

But it's an asymmetric

relationship.

It's not

husband,

respect your wife,

wife,

respect your husband,

you know,

husband,

love your wife,

wife,

love your husband.

No,

I mean,

it's not saying

that obviously

women shouldn't

love their husbands,

but there's

this constant

asymmetric aspect

to it,

not the same.

And it's very interesting

in this text

that it talks

about the man leaving.

Now,

it doesn't mean

that the woman

doesn't leave her family,

but this is

three steps,

an essential step.

And what it's talking

about is that

for the men here,

I mean,

this is something

that you can just

meditate upon.

This verse

is well worth

meditating upon

because it's marriage

is,

it's describing

not only marriage,

but the place

of sex

within marriage,

sexual knowing

within marriage

and in life,

is that the first step

of an essential three

is the leaving

forever.

And in particular,

it's a primary task

of the male.

And I think,

and we're going to have

an interesting conversation

around this

over coffee

and other places,

I think it's because

in an age

where chauvinism,

and if we're going

to see this

after the fall,

that part of the problem

constantly for men

is violence against women

and a desire

to lord it over women.

And so the task

is for a man

to abandon

all of his other

sources of comfort

and power

to be only

for his wife.

A complete

abandonment

of power

and prestige

and any other

source of comfort

or influence

or importance

because in those times,

these times,

the livelihood

would have been

connected to the family.

So there's this idea

of complete abandonment

of power

to give yourself

to your wife

as the primary relationship.

And, you know,

it can be extrapolated.

In the New Testament,

it's extrapolated

and developed

and it's part of

the marriage vows.

if you go to

a Christian marriage

and forsaking

all others

is,

but it's a special

task given to the man.

The second

is that they both

hold fast forever

and hold fast

is covenant language.

It's the language

of,

of being close,

of committing

yourself to the other.

Not only do you,

you leave

the other sources

of power,

the other sources

that will give you

direction,

so to speak,

the other sources

that will be

of your power

and your influence

and you're learning

because now

we're fallen human beings

where evil

has come into the world.

It's not describing

how marriages

actually work,

it's describing

how God created

marriages to work.

And so the thrust now

is on the holding fast.

It's covenant language,

it's language

of holding fast

till death

do us part.

It's the language

of commitment,

it's the language

also implied

within this whole fast

of something public

and communal.

and marked.

In other words,

it's not describing

two people

living together

and then at some point

in time

they sort of realize

that they've been

stuck together

for a long time

and maybe they'll

continue for a while

and there's nothing

formal,

there's nothing

to mark it.

But this whole fast,

this whole idea

of a covenant

of something

which goes on

which has some degree

of formality

of public,

of yes,

I will to it.

And so first

there's the leaving,

second there's

this commitment

and of holding fast

and then

the third thing

is the sexual knowing,

sexual knowing.

Look again

at verse 24,

therefore a man

shall leave his father

and his mother

and hold fast

to his wife

and they shall

become one flesh.

In this particular context

it's a very polite way

of talking about

sexual knowing.

and this is a very

hard thing for us,

isn't it?

This is a very

hard thing for us.

So just to help,

before I sort of talk

a little bit about

how this is good news

for us,

if you could put up

the next slide,

I just want to make sure

we understand

what the Bible

is saying here.

In the beginning,

the good God

created a good creation

with faithful,

monogamous,

heterosexual marriage

as an essential,

natural feature.

That's what the Bible

is claiming.

Remember the Bible

is making a very big claim

that things don't just

happen completely

by chance

and by accident

and purely by cause

and effect,

that there's actually,

that the universe

in a sense is designed,

that it's created

with a plan

and a design feature

to it

which scientists

can understand

and begin to understand

more and more and more.

And you talk to

physicists and scientists

in the room

and they'll tell you

the more they know,

the more they know,

they don't know.

But that's another thing.

But what this text is saying

is making a very,

very big claim.

It's saying that

in the beginning,

the good God

created a good creation

with faithful,

monogamous,

heterosexual marriage

as an essential,

natural feature.

Listen again

to verse 23 and 24.

Then the man said,

this at last

is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman

because she was taken

out of man.

Therefore,

a man shall leave

his father and his mother.

The therefore,

right?

A man shall leave

his father and his mother

and hold fast to his wife

and they shall become

one flesh.

If you could put up

the next slide,

Andrew,

just to make sure

we understand it.

And some of you

don't understand

this language

of social construct,

but some of you

work more in arts

or social science

or legal environment.

And so you maybe

have a bit of an understanding

of what it is.

But I want to make sure

I'm nailing it here

that I'm making it clear

to us what the Bible's saying.

When it says,

this at last

is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman

because she was taken

out of man,

the helper fit for him.

Therefore,

a man shall leave

his father and his mother

and hold fast to his wife

and they shall become

one flesh.

What the text is saying here

is that monogamous

heterosexual marriage

is not

a social construct.

It is woven

into creation

by God

from the beginning.

What's a social construct?

Social construct is,

you know what,

George?

You know,

once again,

it's all just about pleasure

and not hurting people

and so,

George,

since it's about pleasure

and not hurting people,

like why isn't it

that,

you know,

that you can have

like whatever marriage is,

it's just a contract,

George.

That's all it is.

It's just a contract

and so why can't

completely willing people

as long as they're of age

and nobody's being hurt

just have contracts?

Contracts that express love.

Why can't,

it's just a,

George,

George,

that's just something

which developed

in the 50s

or the 30s

or whatever,

this concept of marriage.

It's just a social construct

and,

you know,

obviously,

if I was having

a discussion about this,

you know,

at a university faculty

that don't believe the Bible,

I would talk about this

in a different way

but before we talk about it

in different ways,

we have to understand

what the Bible itself teaches

and what the Bible here

is making very clear

is that monogamous,

heterosexual marriage

is not a social construct.

That's because of the word

therefore.

But that,

in fact,

it is woven into creation

by God

from the beginning.

If you could put up

the next one.

So what this text

is in a sense saying,

now that we understand

how it is that God

has created men and women

and God has created

a place

within creation,

created order

for marriage

that it's somehow natural

to God's original

creational intentions

and that therefore

even sexual identity

is to be understood

within this text

just as it was last week

when we talked about

the image of God

and that therefore

out of the way

that God created

human beings

and originally

before evil

that therefore

the place of sexual knowing

comes after

I have left

and after

I have held fast

and then

with the one woman

there is sexual knowing.

And so what the Bible

is teaching here

and this helps us

to understand

all of the rest

of the biblical teaching

because of course

evil has come

into the world.

Brokenness

has come into the world

and temptation

has come into the world

and cheating

and

of all sorts

of different types

has come into the world.

So you see

from this text

follows something

that all sexual stimulation

or sexual knowing

outside

a faithful

monogamous

heterosexual marriage

is both a sin

and

a violation

of how God

created us.

You see

that's the whole point

of this therefore.

therefore.

It's a big therefore.

Like it's a really,

really,

really,

really big therefore.

And you know

within this whole text

I didn't mention this

but if you go back

to verse 18

when it talks

about the man

being alone

and the helper

fit for him

that's an extremely

highly emphatic.

In other words

if we were to try

to write that

in a

print that

in a way

that brings out

what

the original language

is trying to do

those first

you know

it is not good

that the man

should be alone

I will make him

a helper fit for him

not only should it be

bolded

but the font

should be twice as big.

It should jump out

at us

this idea

of the helper

fit for him

and the complementarity

which leads

to the creation

of the woman

the helper

fit for him

equal

but somehow

complementary

and different

and the man

shall leave

his father

and his mother

all sources

of power

and identity

separate from his wife

and hold fast

both hold fast

to each other

and then comes

the sexual knowing

that

what is not

from that

is not only a sin

but is a violation

of how God

created us

which is a hard

teaching

isn't it folks?

See that's why

I began

by giving

the end

how

Jesus Christ

seeks

redeems

and restores

lost

and ruined

masterpieces

that's what's

going on

you know

last week

I gave

a

I got a little

bit of pushback

about

trying to describe

aliens

and me sitting

on a toilet

and brown stuff

as to whether

it was appropriate

in a church service

but another way

to put it

is let's say

after this service

I'm you know

some of you

all left

and I'm up

my son's

visiting you know

from out of town

and my son Jesse

and I

and Tommy

and Emma

we're just

the four of us

are out there

chatting

and all of a sudden

an alien spaceship

lands at the

intersection of

Besserer

and King Edward

and out comes

something that's

obviously an alien

and whatever

sort of vaguely

looks like arms

it starts

pointing them

and starts

knocking out

parts of the

Ottawa Little

Theater

and parts of

the buildings

around there

and people

go running

and screaming

but Jesse

Tommy

and Emma

and I

not wanting

to see people

hurt

rather than

running away

we run

at the alien

tackle the alien

do our Will Smith

from the original

Independence Day

and knock that

alien down

and hold it

down

and we somehow

cover it

so it can't

fire

ray gun

things

killing people

and the police

eventually come

and people of course

are taking things

for YouTube videos

which will go viral

and get a couple

of billion hits

and all that

and then eventually

because it's an alien

the police don't

come any closer

say you got to

cover it

yeah we got to

cover it

eventually people

hazmat suits

come and take

the alien away

and put them

in an enclosed

thing so it

can't have

its terrible

alien germs

infect people

and meanwhile

they would take

the four of us

Jesse

Emma

Tommy

and myself

off

and they would

also put us

in isolation

and here's the type

of thing

we have no idea

what a healthy

alien is like

so they'd have

no idea

whether

somehow or another

when Jesse

punched the alien

in the nose

whether he in fact

it wasn't a nose

it was its life

center

and he was

killing it

and it's dying

before their eyes

because they have

no idea

how an alien

is to function

but they know

that when I

start to turn

a very very

bright red

and part of me

is turning black

and part of me

is turning yellow

and part of me

is having skin

peeling off

they'd say

that's not good

George has

an alien

virus

infection

and they might

not know

exactly how

to treat me

but they know

what health

looks like

they know

what health

looks like

and you see

that's why

Genesis 1 and 2

is so important

and it's really

really wonderful

that Genesis 1 and 2

go together here

because you see

if we only had

Genesis 2

if we only had

Genesis 2

then we would think

that health

means you're married

and if you're not

married

you're not healthy

if you're single

you're second class

but that's why

the two stories

are so important

because what we see

when we look at

the two stories

together

what we see

is that on one

hand marriage

is somehow

between a man

and a woman

is woven

into the created

order

but because

of Genesis 1

it's very clear

that it's not

necessarily the case

that a man

and a woman

need to be married

to a member

of the opposite

sex

to be fulfilled

to have

dignity

to have integrity

and to have worth

that in fact

if you go back

and listen

last week

and if you look

at that first part

you see that

every human being

by the very very

nature that we bear

the image of God

have an inherent

integrity

dignity

value

and worth

that's not connected

to whether or not

we're married

it's not connected

to whether or not

God blesses us

with children

it's explaining

sexual desire

and it's explaining

the place of marriage

and using

sexual desire

in service

to the common

good of humanity

and to the glory

of God

but it's definitely

not saying

when you look

at the two stories

together

that unless

you're married

you are an

incomplete person

it's a very

very powerful

and very very wise

it's why

when we

Christians

because of

cultural pressure

are afraid

to think through

and read

and meditate

upon Genesis 1

and 2

it is to our

hurt

and to our

detriment

it's 42 minutes

I need to

could you just

put up

the next

point please

and then

try to wrap it up

you know

it's very very

interesting

where's the gospel

in all of this

you know

because the gospel

is

you know

it's very very

interesting

look at the test

again

therefore man

shall leave

his father

and his mother

and hold fast

to his wife

and they shall

become one flesh

in some way

this relationship

of leaving

of holding fast

of being one flesh

in some ways

it's going to end up

becoming a picture

of all of God's

covenants

with his people

that are going to

happen

after the fall

I mean even now

it describes

not obviously

in the exact same way

because God the Father

the Son and the Holy Spirit

don't have to leave each other

but it pictures

we'll see it next week

of this connection

and this oneness

between human beings

and God

and then after the fall

when we can no longer

be naked and unashamed

and all of the different ways

the covenant

that God makes

with Seth

the covenant

that God

you know

with Adam and Eve

in terms of how

he's going to redeem

the covenant

with Noah

the covenant

with Abraham

the covenant

with Moses

the covenant

with David

and most importantly

the new covenant

with Jesus

there's all this aspect

of this holding fast

or covenant

and this desire

to somehow be one

but it's most completely

and perfectly fulfilled

in the person of Jesus

who on the same night

that he was betrayed

took a cup

and after he had taken a cup

he took the bread

and he described

how that what he was inaugurating

was a new covenant

and the disciples

were going to be filled

with all sorts of confusion

because of Jesus' capture

his betrayal

his horrific death

their complete

and utter refusal

to believe

that he would rise

from the dead

all of that

they're going to be

completely and utterly

puzzled by it

they're going to be

heartbroken

they're going to be destroyed

and then Jesus

is vindicated

in his resurrection

what is it that Jesus said

he doesn't leave

his father and mother

but he leaves heaven

he leaves God the Father

and God the Holy Spirit

and he leaves to seek

and just as in Ephesians

it's going to talk about

how the man's love

for his wife

is to be

as if he is willing

to die for her

we see that

because Jesus

not only leaves

but he holds fast to us

in such a way

that when he dies

upon the cross

it's my sin

that he's holding fast

and he's not only

holding fast my sin

so that he dies

for my sin

he's holding fast

so that his perfect

obedience to the Father

is being held against me

and the result

of his death

upon the cross

when we receive it

by faith

is that

not that we are

one flesh with God

but that we are

at one with God

from heaven

he came to sought her

to be his holy bride

with his own blood

he bought her

and so we see

that Jesus

to restore us

he

could you put up

the final point

Andrew please

that he seeks us

we didn't seek him

he seeks us

that he redeems us

and that once he

comes in

and takes us

he's going to restore us

that are lost

and ruined masterpieces

and I don't know

if that means

that I'm going to be married

or not married

I don't know if that

I don't know what

that's going to mean

I mean I know

what it is for me

because I'm married

but I mean for us

listening to this

we don't know what it means

but we know that as

as we cleave to Jesus

and as he begins

to work in our lives

I mean for those of us

who are same-sex attracted

maybe there'll be a change

in our desire

maybe there won't be

but the Bible's teaching

is not saying

that if you're not

in a marriage relationship

you're second class

it's not saying

that at all

but that every person

is a masterpiece

lost and ruined

and Jesus comes

and seeks

and finds you

and redeems you

and as you cleave

to him

and come to him

and submit to him

and listen to his word

he restores you

in the direction

of Genesis 2

and Genesis 1

he will restore you

so that the masterpiece

becomes more

and more

and more

clear

as we trust

him

to restore us

please stand

just bow our heads

in prayer

Father

you know the different ways

that we violate

your creational intent

in Genesis 1 and 2

Father you know the men

amongst us

or the women as well

who struggle with pornography

Father you know

those of us

who struggle

with different types

of same sex desire

and acting out on it

you know Father

those of us

who

we're not sure

what our gender is

and who we're attracted to

you know those of us

Father

who are just struggling

with any type of attraction

Father you know

there are so many

different ways

that we are sexually broken

and we come before you

Father

not as the pure

and as the holy

but acknowledging

before you

that

every single one of us

was

or is

a lost and ruined

masterpiece

a masterpiece

because we are made

in your image

and we thank

and praise you Jesus

that you sought us

that you redeem us

that as

you hold fast

to us

and we submit to you

and walk with the Holy Spirit

that you will work

to restore

the masterpiece

that is us

we ask Father

that you help us

to be willing

to repent

that you would help us

Father

to be willing

to submit to you

and to learn

to walk with you

so that you will

work your work

of restoration

and healing

in our lives

Father bless those

who are married

here

bless them

in their marriage

and for those of us

who are single

Father bless us

in our singleness

that in whatever state

you have called us

that we will live

to bring you glory

and all this we ask

in the name of Jesus

your Son

and our Savior

Amen