Controversial Jesus: Jesus and Sexuality | Part 3

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Today we're talking about Jesus and sexuality.

And it is a big subject, a lot way more than what we can cover in one sermon.

And so I want to go ahead and point you to a great resource.

Rich Velotis did an eight-part series called God in Our Bodies.

He's a pastor in New York City.

And if you're wanting to dive in more, I'd highly encourage you.

It's a great, I already said it's a great series, but I'll say it again, it's a great series, and you should listen to it.

And so as we dive in there together.

To begin our conversation today, I want to start with just an observation about Jesus and who Jesus is and things and the way he behaved while he was on this planet.

One of the things, if you read the gospels, that you'll notice when you look at the life of Jesus is that people who were nothing like Jesus were drawn to Jesus.

Like people who were nothing like him in any way, shape, or form were absolutely drawn to him.

In fact, the religious leaders hated this about Jesus.

Jesus broke all sorts of societal norms.

In fact, we're studying the book of Matthew, his account of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the life of Jesus Christ.

Now, Matthew, if you don't know who Matthew is, his original name was Levi the tax collector.

Now, Levi the tax collector, he was not just ostracized from his community.

He was excommunicated from the temple because of his profession.

He was not allowed even to worship because he was a corroborator with Rome and exploiting his own people.

And he sat down at this tax table.

That's where Jesus saw him, by the way.

He is in the middle of his profession, and Jesus looks at him and says, Come follow me.

Not come fix up your life.

Come follow me.

And what's amazing is in that moment, and Levi says, Really?

Even me?

And he throws a huge party.

He throws a huge party.

Jesus attends the party.

Now here's what's so controversial about that.

In the ancient day, to sit at a table, a meal, to break bread, to share a meal, was a sign of acceptance of that person.

An enemy is someone you would not share a meal with.

That was the like dividing line.

So Jesus sat with these people, and to the Pharisees and the religious leaders, they looked at him and said, What are you doing?

How could you?

And he said this: it's not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick.

Now, what was fascinating if you follow the order of Jesus and the way he engaged with people, there was a progression.

And we'll talk a little bit more about it further on in the sermon, but but something that was so profound was with Jesus, you belonged first.

Like you belonged.

He sat with them.

You belonged.

You were accepted.

You were loved.

And as you felt your belongingness and space and acceptance, then you believed in him.

In fact, you'll find in parts of the gospel where people were following him, but they had not yet believed in him.

And in belonging, and following him, they started to believe in him.

And as you follow, you belong, you believe, then all of a sudden you become who you are made to be.

Now, religious leaders, and this is where I think we do this as the church as well, religious people, we we invert the order.

And I say, we, because I've done this before.

You believe first, and you have to get everything right, and then you behave.

And if you believe the right things, behave the right way, then you belong.

The way of Jesus is acceptance.

The way of Jesus is deep transformation.

The way of religion, believing, behaving, and then you belong, not only is prideful elitism and creates deep hypocrisy, and we all go into hiding.

I want to set up our time, not only in the way of Jesus, but then I want to I want to give you it's a provocative question.

It's a friend of mine who leads a church in San Diego.

They're doing incredible work, and they do house these house of learnings, and it's like our school of faith.

And and one of them they just did was called uh How Our Church Cares About Sexuality.

And in their description, they had this question, and I know it's for some uh, regardless of where you're coming in from, it may be a provocative question.

I just want to set it up that way.

And I asked that you would just listen the entire sermon.

Or you can get up and leave.

That's fine too.

Um it's not really fine.

Okay, here we go.

What would it look like to be a church that supports and encourages gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other same-sex attracted Christians, as well as those who love them, so that all in our church might be empowered to live in gospel unity while observing the historic Christian doctrine of marriage and sexuality?

That is a great question and one that we want to wrestle with.

And today we want to ask the question: what does Jesus have to say about sexuality?

If you got your Bibles, would you open up to Matthew chapter 5?

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

We've been journeying through the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus' manifesto for what life in the kingdom of heaven is like.

It's Jesus outlining to us, if you really want to flourish, this is the flourishing life.

And he now turns his attention to our desires and our sexuality, and he bless you.

And he begins this way.

Matthew 5, verse 23 and 27.

Matthew 5:23

You've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery.

That's the seventh of the big ten commandments in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament.

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Now, something that's really profound here is two things.

Um, Jesus is getting down to the heart issue.

He's like, it's not just about behavior modification, it's about life transformation, it's about the heart right here, but also he's doing something that in their day didn't happen a whole lot, actually, ever.

He's calling men to account.

This he's talking predominantly to men, it's for all of us, but he's like, you've heard that adultery is bad.

The minute that you look lustfully, you objectify, you you make someone a commodity to be used for your own gratification in your mind.

It's the same thing as committing adultery.

Well, seriously?

How how Jesus, how how serious are you?

Well, let me tell you, if your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out, throw it away.

It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, throw it away.

It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Whew! Jesus is serious about this.

Now, he's clearly using hyperbole to make a point, and there are some Christians who have taken him literally as well.

We don't have the time to go into that.

But here's the interesting part, and we'll get to this.

We have this tendency to make certain things really bad and other things just okay.

And we build it upon our own natural tendencies and proclivities, and we okay the things that we struggle with while we demonize the things that someone else struggles with that feels worse than us.

And if we see someone that was a home wrecker that tore apart a family, like, yeah, how could you?

See someone struggling with lust, oh, poor person.

Now, where does Jesus get this idea from?

Where does he begin to build this idea that it's not just your actions?

Think about this, it's not just your actions, it's your desires and your thoughts that are just as important.

I want to help us in our time together to build a theology of sexuality for us to understand, okay, what is the big framing for us of what sexuality and gender is for us as followers of Jesus?

And to do that, uh, we're gonna go all the way back to the beginning, to Genesis chapter one.

And as we build a theology of sexuality, the first thing I want you to notice is that every single person is made in God's image.

Every single person is an image-bearer of God.

Genesis 127, the creation account, said, So God created mankind in his own image.

In the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky over every living creature that moves on the ground.

First thing I just want you to see is God created.

Like he created you and every single person, which means you have intention, you have purpose, you have design.

And as the one who created you, he knows how you are best to be functioning and designed and operating.

He created you, you have design and purpose and meaning.

Secondly, he created you in his image, different than every other creature on the planet, like imprinted into your DNA and my DNA is the very image of God.

The Latin for that is Imago Day.

You have the Imago Day on you, which means you have intrinsic worth and value and dignity.

Like when Jesus says, when you lust after someone, you're objectifying my creation that carries the imago day.

And how you treat his creation reflects on how you feel about the creator.

This is where the roots of all that Jesus is teaching is coming from.

And then notice this that you not only that you're created, that you have meaning and purpose, and that you have dignity and value, that he says that they're male and female and be fruitful, male, female, and fruitful.

And so out of one God came two bodies that you are sexual long before you were ever sinful.

In fact, you are sexual and spiritual at the same time.

He created your gender and your sexuality.

By the way, God invented sex.

We kind of forget that.

It was his idea.

He's like, this is gonna be fun.

And yet at the same time, you're more than your sexuality.

In an identity dysphoric society, we have attached ultimate value, meaning personhood to our gender and sexuality.

And the gospel says that your sexuality and gender gender is an important part of you, but it's not the most important.

Your identity in Christ, your image-bearer identity is the most important thing about you.

Deborah Hirsch wrote an incredible book uh called Redeeming Sexuality.

Uh, and she uh just I please read it.

Great book.

She writes if we are created in the image of God, then our sexuality reflects something of who God is.

How we understand and live out our sexuality is profoundly important because we'll either reflect our creator or not.

One of the things that I love that Jesus does, and he does this through this section of the Sermon on the Mountain.

He did it with anger, and he does it uh here with adultery, and then he does it later on.

He says, You have heard it said, but I say to you.

You have heard it said, here's the framing, but I say to you.

What have you been hearing it said?

See, you have heard it said, live your truth.

You have heard it said, you know, self-actualization and self-fulfillment, and do whatever feels good.

You have heard it said to limit or hinder your desires is the ultimate evil.

You have heard it said over and over.

What have you heard it said?

Do what feels good, define your reality, hook up, shack up, if it makes you have it.

You have heard it said, and Jesus says, but I tell you, there's lots of things that you have heard, but have you heard the voice of Jesus?

The question is, who are you listening to?

Who's defining reality?

Who gets the final say of your personhood and who you are?

Jackie Hill Perry, in her book, Gay Girl, Good God, great book, another one you should read, she wrote this.

I need someone smarter and not created to tell me who I was, for he would be the one who'd know best.

As we're building a theology of sexuality, the first thing is that every single person is made in the image of God.

The second is every person is marred by the fall.

Now, the fall is a theological term, and let me unpack it for you.

Genesis 1, God created all that we know, uh, man and woman, the creation account, and it's all good.

It's all really good, a perfect world.

And he places Adam and Eve in the center of this garden with incredible plants and trees.

And he says, everything around here is for you.

Enjoy.

Everything's good and amazing and abundant.

Enjoy.

But there's one tree, the knowledge of good and evil.

Do not eat from that one, everything else.

See, Adam and Eve understood good, but they had no concept of evil.

What a beautiful reality, by the way.

He says, Don't eat of that.

And then the serpent comes.

Crafty, and and he's always casting doubt on the character and the goodness of God.

That's fundamental.

His role in your life is I don't want you to believe that God's ways are good and that his character, like that he actually is good.

The serpent said, Did God really say you must not eat?

Did God really say?

And then notice what it says.

When the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

By the way, Eve tends to get a bad rap here.

Where was Adam?

Right next to her.

Okay, back to then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

And this is where shame entered the story of humanity.

We are relational creatures, and by nature that means we must then be vulnerable.

And they were able to be naked and unashamed, completely vulnerable.

And all of a sudden, then shame entered the story, and humanity went again to hiding.

This is what we call the fall of humanity.

And every person is made in the image of God, yes, and every person, every single one of us has been marred, has been marked.

Live under the destructive power and force of sin and brokenness.

And so as a result, we all are sexually broken.

Not some of us.

We all have disordered desires.

All of our orientations are disoriented.

They are marked by the fall.

In fact, um, Eve, notice this because this is what happens.

This is what we do.

Um God said, This is gonna cause harm.

This tree is gonna kill you.

Eve saw, and she looked at it, and she said, No, it looks good.

Eve saw what God said would kill her, and she saw and said, It looks good.

And that's what we've been doing ever since, defining good on our own terms.

And God says, No, no, no.

Listen, friends, I'm not doing this because I'm down on you.

I'm not saying this because I hate you.

In fact, I love you so much, and yet we keep looking like it looks kind of fun, it looks good.

We're all sexually broken.

In fact, in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, there's a word, specific word for sin.

It's called iniquity.

It's such a helpful word.

It's to grow crooked or twisted.

It's the picture of a tree, and if you ever you know see a tree that's you know, we naturally put up some sticks and rope to hold it so it grows straight, it's the tree that grows crooked.

It's our natural bent away from God.

And all of us.

Every single one of us has a natural bent away from God.

Now, the way this has worked in the church in America and the way is the same way it worked in Jesus' day with the religious types.

And all too often, here's what happens: religious people create a hierarchy of sin to excuse hypocrisy.

We create a hierarchy, there's big sin, and then there's little sin.

There's bad sin and then there's my sin.

Notice what Jesus did here.

But I tell you, anyone, so I wasn't, I maybe, should we all raise our hand if we've ever lusted?

No, that's probably a bad idea.

Uh next slide.

Uh anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery.

There's big sin, there's adultery, yeah, that's bad.

There's murder, yeah, that's bad.

There's all these things, and then he's going back here.

Anger, lust.

He's like, no, no, no.

There isn't a hierarchy of sin.

Where we just begin to go, Jesus, you know what he called it?

Sin.

And it had all has the same consequences.

We as the church would regain our voice when we stop trying to hold the world accountable, hold ourselves responsible, and begin to live winsome lives and own our own junk and say, you know what, here's my sin.

Because the church was never intended to be this place with perfect people putting on smiley, shining faces is meant to be broken people like me and you.

That are simply falling to this rabbi who radically accepted us and brought us in and is transforming us.

But I tell you, anyone who commits adultery lust.

When I was um eight years old, I was first exposed to nudity.

My brothers were watching a movie, and I've shared this story before, in the basement of my uh uncle's house, and I can still tell you to this day the name of the movie, I can recall the picture.

My natural bent away from God and my own disorientation is in the area of what Jesus is talking about, lust and pornography.

Uh the internet was just coming around in my high school years, and trying to learn how this newfangled technology worked.

Um, and so it began to type and look.

Thank God it was the AOL days, right?

Many of you have no idea, but let me explain.

There was a day where it took 10 minutes to upload one video.

No, no, no.

Sorry, there was no videos.

One um picture.

Now, today we have VR, virtual reality, AI, with where our minds are spammed with this stuff in an instance.

Where I had to go do and then it was like downloading.

That began my addiction, my stuckness.

I was thankful that I got caught like my senior year of high school, but it didn't bring the healing I needed.

And honestly, I it created this identity of shame.

Remember taking it into Bible college with me.

Struggling even with suicidal thoughts because I just felt like I'm just such a bad person.

Why can't I break this?

God, I really want to follow you, and you must hate me.

And I just keep going back and keep going back.

And I even then brought it into a marriage which brought so much pain and heartache.

And God's grown me a ton, but I don't ever want to say I still lust to this day.

It's not like, oh, Ryan the pastor, he's like, he doesn't struggle.

I remember the day that healing, though, did begin.

Not perfection, but healing of my heart.

It was a um it was a dream I had.

God speaks to us sometimes in dreams.

Uh and I was in my dorm room, and um I remember in my dream, I'm coming into the door of my room, it's completely black, and there's that eight-year-old blonde boy sitting at my desk, the computer laptops up, and all you can see is the blue hue on his face.

And my heart broke, and I remember going, no, please don't.

You have no idea the pain and the consequences that, and all of a sudden I began for the very first time to see myself the way God actually saw me.

Not as broken, damaged.

Just, who are you?

What could you do?

No.

As a father looks and says, No, I love you.

I I'm not down on you.

My heart breaks for you.

Like, like I understand why you're going down that path, and I just want to protect you.

I'm so sorry that you're experiencing that and you're experiencing the pain and the devastation, and I want to bring you in.

You don't have a father who's angry at you or down on you or abusive at you.

You have a father who loves you so very much and whose arms are open wide.

Which brings us to the third theology of sexuality.

Is that every single person is being lovingly pursued by God.

It doesn't matter where you are, what you've done, where you've been, what's been done to you.

It doesn't matter whether you're single or married.

It doesn't matter whether you're in the LGBTQ, heterodel, heterosexual.

Every single person on the planet is being lovingly pursued by God right now at this moment.

Many of us know the most famous verse in all of Scripture, John 3.16, for God so loved the help me out.

In the ancient Near East, that was a scandalous thought because God didn't love the world.

You had a God that loved your nation.

You had a God that loved your city, a God that loved your people group, and your God would protect you from all the other people groups and all the other nations.

And so gods didn't love entire worlds.

They loved themselves, yeah, and they loved you or protected you, or you appeased them to, you know, love you.

And God, Jesus says, and and the gospel says that God so loved every single person on the planet that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him begins to say, I place my full trust in you, Jesus.

I long for you to be my Lord and Savior.

I long for a new life that only you can give, shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Now, eternal life is a technical term in John's gospel.

It's not just like life one day, someday.

It's not heaven later, it's not paying for fire insurance.

Eternal life is this technical term that is life now in the kingdom of heaven through the power of the Holy Spirit and forevermore.

Like the minute you place your faith in Jesus, you have stepped into the eternal kind of life that is being worked out through this process of growing to become more and more like Jesus.

That's called sanctification.

That's eternal life.

It's now starting now and forevermore.

Now, here's what's interesting is that's the most famous verse, John 3.17 might be the forgotten verse.

It says, for God did not send his son into the world to what?

Condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

The Apostle Paul would pick up the same theme in Romans chapter 2, verse 4, where he'd say, It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance.

Romans 2:4

It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance.

Remember, I talked about the Pharisee way, the Jesus way, you belong, you believe, and then you become.

That's the Jesus way.

The Pharisee way was, and the way of religious people is believe, behave, and then belong in this exclusivity and this hypocrisy.

And the gospel is no matter where you've been, what you've done, what's been done to you, the shame you carry, the pain you're holding, the anger that has a hold of you, Jesus loves you.

I know we're not a talking church yet, but that was a really good place for an amen.

And I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't mind us becoming a talking church because that would help me out a lot.

Tim Ross said this.

No one is safe until they know how to sit with people and their humanity and extend true grace.

Philip Yancey says, rather than judging them, Jesus loved and honored them and in the process brought them to, brought to the surface a thirst that only he could satisfy.

I believe the church should be the safest place in the world to wrestle with all of life's questions.

Theology of sexuality, every person's made in the image of God.

Every person has been marred by the fall of sin and brokenness.

We are all sexually broken.

Every single person is being lovingly pursued by God, and every person can experience sexual wholeness in Jesus.

Every single person, whether single, married, divorced, heterosexual, homosexual, LGBTQ plus a victim of abuse, or have caused abuse.

Jesus said it this way The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy.

I have come that you might have life and life to the full.

Life to the full is including your sexuality.

The thief comes to kill and distill and destroy.

I gotta explain that one.

My son has a poise AEU.

He had a tournament in Vegas and went there with him.

I use it as a little bit of a writing retreat.

I'd never been there before, and and I went on the strip.

That that's an experience.

And then I went through some of these casinos.

I don't know if you've been there, but if you haven't, let me tell you about them.

They're big.

Like I can't tell you, they're big, big.

Not like little big.

They're they're they're yeah, thank you.

They're huge.

They are cities in and of themselves.

The the scope, I can't even explain.

I mean, they're like uh one, you know, the Venetian, you're walking through, these gondolas and this whole mountain or night sky, and I mean there's there's 30 some odd restaurants, there's 50 shops, there's a circus.

I can't even say it, you know, in there.

Like you don't ever have to leave.

And everything is screaming.

This is for you.

We created it for you.

We want you to have the best time, it is for your happiness.

But we all know that's not true.

Casinos don't build casinos to make you happy.

They build them to make themselves wealthy.

And the reason they build them in such a way that you have every restaurant you could want, you have every shopping you so desire, you can see any show you want, bowling, no problem, which was awesome.

Um so that you will not have to leave there, and they know if you don't leave there, you will lose your money while you're there.

See, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but everything, the packaging around it is this is for you.

This is for your good.

This is like like this is fun.

But but as long as you stay here, it is just draining the account and causing devastation and pain.

You're getting sucked into it.

Jesus says, I've come.

My purpose and my way of life is for life to the full.

Even to the extent, yes, of saying, not even just the external acts, but dealing with the heart issues of lust is the prayerful integration of our spirituality and sexuality, resulting in deep, satisfying relationships with others that roots out shame, cultivates vulnerability, and leads to healthy bonding.

Let me read that again.

Sexual wholeness is the prayerful integration of our spirituality and sexuality, resulting in deep, satisfying relationships with others that roots out shame, cultivates vulnerability, and leads to healthy bonding.

Sexual wholeness is not moral perfection.

It's this idea of realizing I have a disordered desire, but all my desires are actually pointing to the ultimate one who fulfills them, Jesus.

And only he will fulfill the deep longings of your soul.

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves.

Take up their cross daily and follow me.

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it.

Whoever loses their life from me will save it.

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves.

Like there's there's there's something you go that recognizing I have a disordered desire, and I have to say no to that, to say yes to you, and I'm just gonna begin to follow the one who right now fully accepts me and loves me and wants to transform my heart into the kind of person that responds the way he would to others.

See, what Jesus is inviting is every person to submit their secondary identities to him and to receive from him their new primary identity of uh of love child of God.

That would take whatever identity, and we have so many of these, and we all attach, they they they are idols in our lives.

You say, whatever that identity is, and I'm gonna simply submit it.

And my new primary identity is beloved child of God.

Deborah Hirsch again says, repentance involves accepting our broken condition, looking to the Savior, Jesus, to fill our gaps.

We can't have it on our own terms.

We have to accept God's perspective on the human condition.

Sam Alberry, who's a Christian, he's gay, he is honoring God and his sexuality, writes this.

We need to recognize the cost for discipleship for everyone.

For many in our churches, the cost of discipleship for the LGBTQ plus background people looks cruel and unusual.

I suspect in most cases that's because we're not counting the cost of discipleship in other areas of life.

Jesus says all of us have to say a profound no to some of our deepest longings and intuitions.

That is discipleship.

Jesus says it up front.

He doesn't bury it in small prints.

The wonderful paradox of the Christian faith is as we deny self, we become our real self.

Jesus says my invitation and my offer for every single person, I want to bring wholeness to every part of your life.

That includes your sexuality.

And the thing we have to do, and I'm just going to invite you to do this, and as the band comes up and as we close and worship, is we got to take the things, the identities, the secrets, the shame that we're holding tight to.

And just begin to lay them at the foot of Jesus.

And say a profound yes to Jesus.

You know what, Jesus, I I'm going to follow you.

I don't fully understand all of it.

I'm going, I, but I'm going to begin to follow you and follow your ways.

I've heard a lot of things said, but I want to begin to follow what you say.

And all of us need to respond this way.

And so as we close, would you just simply do this?

Would you take your hands, tight fist, and begin to examine what are the areas that you are holding tight to?

The areas that are identities for you.

The areas that are secrets that have kept you stuck.

And where you would then begin to go, Jesus, I'm going to bring this to you.

The most safe person who ever walked this planet.

I just open your hands and begin to give it to you.

Jesus, I pray for our friends, my friends here.

As we wrestle with deep waters.

And the call is a profound no to some of the disordered desires that we have.

But the invitation is a profound yes to life, life to the full.

Your life.

In that tension, in that struggle, would you meet us?

In the safety of your love and grace, would you draw us out into the open to bring the real us to you.

To let you bring healing and wholeness.

In Jesus' name.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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