The Wide Path of Sexual sin

If you have your Bible with you, and I hope you do, we're in the book of Jude this morning. We're
doing an ongoing study through the book of Jude. Jude is the second to last book in the Bible. You
can go to the book of Revelation and go back one book, and you're in Jude, and there's just one
chapter in Jude. We're continuing what is an ongoing study related to false teaching and false
teachers and how... teaching can find its way into a local church or into the church as a whole and
how we need to be on guard against false teachers so that we aren't deceived or led astray or wind
up on a path that leads to destruction because that's where false teaching leads. That's where
false teachers lead to destruction. And so we need to be alert and aware and on guard against false
teachers. The women who are in the weekly Bible study going through the book of Hebrews, I don't
know ladies if you noticed this verse when you got to chapter 2, but it says, therefore we must pay
much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it. I think sometimes we are
too casual in the attention we pay to God's word. We need to pay much closer attention to it
because we are prone to wander. Away. So it's important for us to be saturated with truth,
to understand the truth, so that we don't drift from God and from his word.
Let me show you another verse that I think fits in with this. This is Paul talking to Timothy,
giving him pastoral advice. He says, keep a close watch, look, on yourself and your teaching.
Persist in this, for by doing so you will save both yourself and your hearers. Guard your life and
your teaching. Your orthodoxy and your orthopraxy. You know those words? Orthodoxy means to believe
the right thing. Orthopraxy means to live the right way. Guard what you teach and how you live.
And those two are connected. By the way, how you live and what you believe are not two separate
things. They are connected. How you live flows out of what you really believe. Behavior follows
belief. Now, it's possible. to believe one thing and behave in a different way.
I know that. I've done it, okay? But in general, our beliefs shape our behavior.
And a false teacher can derail you in one of two ways. He can derail you by teaching you things
about God, about Jesus, about salvation that are not true. and get you derailed by believing things
that aren't true, or he can convince you, a false teacher can convince you, that you can live
however you want. You can make your own choices. Things don't matter. How you live doesn't really
matter. Like Jude says, these false teachers pervert the grace of God and turn it into sensuality.
So you follow your emotions, your feelings, your senses, your... than following what God's Word
says. So you can break false teaching into these two parts. There's false teaching about God and
Jesus and salvation and the Bible, and there's false teaching about what it looks like to be a
follower of Christ and to live a life that is glorifying to God. And let me just say here,
and this is important, there's a difference between a deceived believer and a false teacher.
There's a difference between a child of God who may be naive,
or shallow, or new in the faith. They don't have a full understanding of what the Bible teaches
about these things. They may believe things that aren't true. I did, as a new believer, believe
things that aren't true or biblical. I was naive. I was shallow. I just didn't know any better.
So that's one category. There's another category of people who study,
investigate. They come to a fully formed belief. that is out of sync with what the Bible teaches,
and then they tell others to follow them. That's a false teacher. So not everybody whose beliefs
are incorrect is a false teacher. They may be naive or shallow or stumbling.
A false teacher is that category of somebody who looks at something and comes to a conclusion that
is out of sync with what the Bible teaches and then tells others, this is what's right and true.
So there's a difference between somebody who holds a view and somebody who tries to teach others.
You can be a false believer without being a false teacher if you're keeping your false beliefs to
yourself. But as soon as you start trying to get others to follow you, then you're a false teacher.
And some false teachers and some false religions are actively promoting things about God and Jesus
and salvation that are not what the Bible teaches. So we see that if you look at...
Non-Christian cults, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, all of these are teaching things that are not
what the Bible teaches about who God is, what the Bible teaches,
what salvation looks like. That's one category of false teaching. Jude here is talking about how
false teaching has metastasized in the church into influencing people to behave and live in ways
that are ungodly. Again, back in Jude 4, ungodly people who pervert the grace of God into
sensuality, that is endorsing a lifestyle that is out of sync with what the scriptures teach,
especially as it relates to sexuality, as we'll see. And then they deny our only master and Lord,
Jesus Christ. So that's theological error. So Jude's addressing both, people who are promoting
ungodly living and people who are promoting wrong doctrine.
Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are both under attack from false teachers. Now we saw last week in Jude 5
that the sin of unbelief can lead people on a path to destruction. False teachers come along and
say you can't trust God to take care of you. You can come under judgment for that kind of unbelief.
And the verses we're going to look at this morning show examples from the Old Testament about false
teachers, false...
false followers of God, apostates, who openly reject God's design for their lives,
refuse to follow his design specifically as it relates to the issues of gender and sexuality.
And I'm going to say this this morning. I think the greatest threat internally in the church today
in America is along these issues of gender and sexuality and false teaching in these areas.
If you said, where is false teaching happening in the American church,
I would say the point of the spear is people who are promoting and teaching unbiblical,
ungodly ideas about gender and sexuality. There are creeping into churches a growing number of
people who profess faith in Christ, but who believe and teach that what...
The church has understood for centuries about what the Bible says about gender and sexuality is
wrong, and we need a new approach to this. Here's one example of where we are. This is from an
article this week in World Magazine. Evangelical support for same-sex marriage is on the rise.
Among white evangelical Protestants, support for same-sex marriage rose from 11% in 2004 to 29%
in 2019, according to a Pew survey. Four in ten of those who attend religious services once a week
now favor same-sex marriage.
Among white evangelicals, it's one out of every five people who support same-sex marriage.
They have come under the spell of a false teacher who has said,
this is okay. with God. I mentioned a few weeks ago Andy Stanley, the pastor in suburban Atlanta,
who was the one who told us we need to unhitch the gospel from the Old Testament. You remember we
talked about that? Well, last week, week before last, at his church in Atlanta,
Andy hosted a conference for LGBTQ parents and kids called Unconditional.
The conference included messages from, among others, two gay men who are married to one another,
who profess faith in Christ, and who are explaining why this is okay.
And last Sunday, Andy preached a message at his church where he explained what their church
believes about LGBTQ issues. And there was a pastor from Austin who is,
the word that gets used is affirming. This is a pastor who believes that LGBTQ...
A lifestyle is fine within the local church, that it's not a violation of God's word.
He was at the conference. He heard Andy preach, and here's what he said. He said Andy spent 48
minutes advocating full inclusion for LGBTQ folks in the church. He said it's an issue where
they're not going to draw lines that exclude, but circles that fully include everyone, married gay
folks, trans folks, everyone else. It's a large evangelical church in Atlanta,
and it's not the first one. It won't be the last one. Now my point in bringing all of this up this
morning is to say it's a very real issue inside the American church. I don't want to parse and
dissect and get into counter arguments. I just want you to know the pressure for people in the
church and for local churches is going to be increasing for us to capitulate, to turn away from
what God's word has to say. The pressure is going to grow. You're feeling it already as you
encounter people. In the culture, you're thinking, I don't want to say too much because I don't
want to get canceled. And it's true for churches as well. In fact, there's no telling what some of
the repercussions may be for local churches who won't compromise on this going forward. We've
already seen nibbling happen when the government is starting to look and say, well, wait, are you
going to be able to maintain tax-exempt status if you hold on to a non-inclusive view?
Now, I want us to look at our text this morning, which gives us insight into the connection between
false teachers and sexual sin. And I want us to talk about how we are to think rightly and act
rightly in ways that glorify God when it comes to the issue of sex and sexual sin and what's being
promoted in our world today. So that's the introduction. I want to look at the verses we're going
to look at in Jude. Let me pray for our time in God's Word. Father, we are grateful that you have
given us your word and your spirit, that we are not helpless to try to figure out on our own what
will be pleasing and glorifying to you, you have told us. So give us ears to hear,
sharpen our thinking this morning,
give us wisdom as we approach these issues, and soften our hearts that we might be inclined toward
you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Jude, beginning at verse 5, this is the word of God for the people of God. Jude says, now I want to
remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of
Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels,
who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling,
he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness. until the judgment of the great day.
Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality
and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
We're going to stop there. May God bless this reading of his word. The grass withers and the flower
fades, but the word of God will stand forever. Here's what I want us to do this morning. I want us
to review these historical examples from biblical history found in Jude 6 and 7 about the angels
and about Sodom and Gomorrah and see what God wants us to see from those verses. Then I want us to
pull back a bit and I want us to look at the bigger picture of what the Bible has to say about
God's good gift of gender and sexuality and why rebelling against God's gift is a big deal.
And then I'll wrap up with some pastoral observations about how we are to contend for the faith as
false teaching about gender and sexuality continues to seep into the church going forward.
So let's talk first about verse 6, the angels who left their proper dwelling.
Now let me reset the context for this verse 6. Back in verse 4 of Jude. Jude tells his readers,
false teachers have crept into the church unnoticed and their condemnation is from long ago.
And in verses 5, 6, and 7, Jude is saying, here are examples of God bringing condemnation on false
teachers. This is God's pattern. He will judge and condemn false teachers. If you're on this path,
you can expect judgment and condemnation. He's saying we've seen it in history. And we looked last
week at verse 5. where God had promised to the Jewish people when they were at the border of
Canaan, he said, cross over and I'm going to give you the land and you'll have victory over the
Canaanites. And they sent spies into the land as God had directed them. The spies came back and
said, oh, they're big and they're strong. We're like grasshoppers. We don't think we can win. And
they held back in unbelief. And God judged them with 40 years of wandering in the wilderness for
their unbelief. So Jude is saying there's an example of how following a false teacher brings the
condemnation of God. That's one example. Unbelief leads to condemnation. Verse 6 gives us a second
example of God bringing judgment against those who follow false teaching.
And in this case, it's angels who are being judged. And Jude doesn't give us a whole lot of
information in this verse. He assumes his readers will understand the story that he's referencing.
That's why in verse 5 he says, I'm reminding you of things you already know. Most scholars agree
that what Jude is reminding them of is something that happened back in Genesis chapter 6.
So I want you to turn to Genesis chapter 6 and follow this with me.
Genesis 6, obviously we're early in the history of humanity.
The flood hasn't happened yet. Abraham hasn't shown up yet. We're not that far removed from Adam
and Eve, but generations have started to populate and fill the earth. Genesis 6-1 begins,
When man began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them,
the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive,
and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said,
My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years.
Then the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came
into the daughters of men and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of
old. the men of renown. We'll stop there. Okay, that's clear, right? You got all of that?
You don't need any explanation on any of that? This is a tricky passage and it's open to a lot of
various interpretation. We're not going to go through all of the varieties of interpretations this
morning. We have to be careful not to be dogmatic in how we interpret these verses because there's
a lot of space here where you can go, let's just admit some of this is confusing. But I'll tell you
what most scholars think and what I think is true. This makes the most sense to me in trying to
understand these verses. In my Bible, the heading at the beginning of this chapter says,
Increasing Corruption on Earth. Now that's not in the text, but that's giving you a summary of
what's coming. This picture in Genesis 6 is corruption among men is increasing on the earth.
In fact, after talking about the angels who came and took wives among the daughters of men,
Genesis 6.5 says, The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth. Every intention of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continuously.
There's wickedness increasing on the earth. So while there's a lot of unanswered questions in these
first four verses of Genesis 6,
angels who are called here the sons of God. Again, there's some dispute about whether it's
referring to angels. I think it is. I won't explain why. Just trust me on this. But these angels
come and come to the daughters of men, and the Bible makes it clear what's happening here is
increasing wickedness on the face of the earth. This is not a good thing. The fact that these were
called men of renown does not mean that they were good. This is wickedness happening.
This is evil. As best we can tell, here's what was happening in Genesis 6.
Angels, angelic beings, spiritual beings who are all around,
who are present throughout the universe, angels have always been observing what God is doing with
human beings. In fact, when the angels rebelled against God,
when Lucifer led the angelic rebellion, God... them and kicked them out of heaven and pronounced
judgment on them. When the man and the woman rebelled against God, God kicked them out of Eden,
but he provided a way of redemption for them. And the angels have always looked and said, God must
really love these humans. There's something special about them. He did for them what he didn't do
for the angels who rebelled. So they've always been watching the interaction between God and human
beings, marveling at it. What is it with God and these humans? So they're noticing what's going on
on the earth with humans. The Bible says that they noticed that the daughters of men were
attractive. Now keep in mind, angels in the Bible are spiritual beings. They do not have gender.
They do not procreate. They're always referred to using male designations.
So anytime you see an angel, he's called a he or a him. He's given a male name.
But there's no... specificity among the angels. They are non-gendered beings who do not procreate.
There's no passage of scripture that refers to an angel with feminine characteristics,
names, or terms. And we learned something interesting about the nature of angels from a statement
that Jesus makes in Matthew 22. Jesus was being asked in this passage about a woman who had been
married multiple times, and they said, so in heaven, whose wife will this woman be? And Jesus in
Matthew 22 says, you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
For in the resurrection, they will neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but are like angels in heaven. So angels in heaven don't marry,
don't procreate, don't have sex and gender. So they're spirit beings without gender who do not
procreate. Now you go back to Genesis 6 and the angels look down and go, those daughters of men are
pretty. And God has given to human beings a special gift of sexuality that they can come together
and experience something wonderful in the sexual union. And the angels go,
why didn't we get that gift? Why is God keeping this good gift from us? And some of these angels
said, we want what the humans have. And so the angels who are able to take on human bodies,
and come and dwell among us. We see that many times in scriptures where there are angelic
appearances and they are humans who eat and who sleep and who function like humans.
In fact, the book of Hebrews says you may have entertained angels without knowing it because they
can look like human beings. So these angels decide that they're going to take on human male bodies
so that they can go have sex with women on earth. They take on human bodies.
Genesis says they came into the daughters of men and bore children to them. These were apparently
the Nephilim, these daughters of men and the sons of angels. Again,
we don't know a lot about that. So when Jude says they left their own position of authority,
left their proper dwelling, that's what they did. They left where God had assigned them.
They left the state to which God had assigned them. They took on human.
Now, again, this appears to be what Genesis 6 is referencing, and Jude assumes his readers will
make this connection. And the question is, why did God allow this? He has control over the angels.
Why did he allow them to do this horrible thing? And here's the answer. Nobody knows.
We don't know. But God, for whatever purposes by his design, allowed this to happen.
The angels were annoyed that they couldn't have sex. They saw a good gift God had given men.
They rejected God's authority. They left their proper dwelling so they could experience what God
did not create for them to experience. And as a result of their rebellion against God's purpose,
Jude says, they have been consigned to be kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the
judgment of the great day.
Now, this is a subset of rebellious angels. There are demons who are fallen angels who populate the
world, who are not in chains, who are not bound. They are active. But this subset of rebellious
angels who committed this sexual sin are locked in a dark dungeon until the day when God will
pronounce final judgment on the world.
So that's what verse 6 in Jude is all about. Angels who left their estate and have been judged as a
result. Now, some people might notice that verse 6 says nothing about the sexual sin of these
angels. It just says they left their estate and left the proper authority.
Why do we think it's about their sexual encounters with... the answer is because in verse 7,
where it talks about Sodom and Gomorrah, it says that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah likewise
indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire. So what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah
is likewise in some way connected to what went on with the angels. There was sexual sin in Sodom
and Gomorrah, so that's why we reflect back and say that must be what Jude is talking about.
Likewise, this took place. So let's talk about verse 7 and about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah
who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire. This is a reference to what took
place in Genesis 19. So you can flip back now to Genesis 19, and let's see what it says.
Interesting to note that this passage, verse... 19 begins, two angels came to Sodom in the evening
and Lot was at the gate of Sodom. Two men, angels, appearing as men,
sent by God in this case to come as men. First they had been with Abraham,
sat around the fire with him, had a meal, said, your wife's going to have a baby this time next
year. Sarah laughed. They had that whole experience. And then they said, and by the way, God is
going to judge Sodom and Gomorrah because there's wickedness present there. And Abraham then goes
to God and says, if there are 50 righteous, will you spare the city? And God says, yes. He says,
what about 20? What about 10? They get it down. And God says, if there are 10 righteous, I'll spare
the city. So there were not 10 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah. He rescues Lot and his
family, but the rest experienced destruction. So that's what's going on with these angels.
Look at verse 4 of Genesis 19. Before they lay down,
these are the angels who had come into Sodom and were staying as guests in Lot's house. Before they
lay down, went to sleep that night, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all
the people to the last man surrounded the house. And they called to Lot,
where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them.
That's a euphemism for that we may have sex with them. Lot went out to the men at the entrance.
and shut the door after him and said, I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold,
I have two daughters who have not yet known a man. Let me bring them out to you and do to them as
you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof. But they
said, stand back. And they said, this fellow came to sojourn. They're talking about Lot. This
fellow came to sojourn. He's become the judge. Now we will deal worse with you.
It's a horrible
story.
A horrible story of depravity that had become the norm in Sodom and Gomorrah.
These were people who were living their lives with unrestrained sexual desire and sexual behavior.
Unnatural desire is what Jude says, which is the statement that to want to have sex with someone of
the same sex is an unnatural desire. It's a disordered desire.
Well, I'll talk more about that in a minute. But these men were so controlled by their sinful
passions, their sinful desires, that they were ready to destroy and to kill in order to get what
they wanted. That's how far gone they were in their progression into depravity.
Even Lot, who's not the hero in this, he says, I have two virgin daughters. What about them?
I mean, what is that?
And they say, no, we want sex with men.
And they intend to tear down the... of the house. In fact, a lot gets rescued.
And even when they're struck blind, they continue to grope for the door. That's how overcome with
sexual lust they are. Now you go back to Jude 7 where it says the judgment for this behavior,
this serves as an example that when you follow false teaching and follow your own passions and
desires, you will face a judgment of eternal hell. That's what's... Set aside for that eternal
fire.
Jude's making the point here that God is going to judge all who follow false teachers to
destruction. It is right for him to bring righteous judgment on those who follow false teaching.
It's his pattern to do that. And he's warning his readers there are serious consequences when it
comes to failing to contend for the faith and following false teaching and false teachers.
Now let me be clear here. The issue that invites God's judgment in each of these three historical
examples, what happened with the Jews in the wilderness wandering, what happened with the angels
who left their rightful place, and what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, the issue here is all three
groups heard what God said and said, we know better.
We're going to do what we think is right. That's the root issue. This is the root sin.
In one case, it manifests as unbelief. In two cases, it manifests as sexual sin.
But the same issue at its root is we know what God says. We know better.
We will do what we think is right regardless of what God says.
God says this, I think that. I'm going to go with what I think over what God says. Verse 5 in Jude,
God says, I'm going to give you the land. And the people say, The Canaanites are too big.
We'll never win this. God says the land is yours. The people say, no, we don't think we can do it.
Verse 6, God says to the angels, here's your status, your position. Here's the assignment I have
for you. They say, but we want to have sex with the daughters of men. God says, no, I didn't make
you to be sexual beings. They say, we don't care. We're going to do what we want to do. Verse 7,
God says to all people everywhere, including the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, I have a beautiful
gift for you. It's the gift of sex in a marriage between a husband and a wife. I've given it to you
to experience joy and companionship and a covenant commitment. And the people of Sodom and Gomorrah
say, we want to use this gift however we want to use it. We don't care what restrictions. We don't
care what boundaries you put around it. We want it unbound.
That's the core issue in all three cases. Rejecting God's right to rule and reign and his
authority. Rejecting his plan and putting your plan ahead of it. It's the root of all sin.
All sin is that.
All sin is when we say, I know better than God. God will not rule over me. I will rule over me.
And false teaching is anything that will lead you to reject God's truth or reject God or his
authority or his rule over your life. That's what's being addressed in these verses.
Now, how do we prepare ourselves so that we are not seduced by false teaching?
We're not pulled away from it. Well, you've heard this illustration before, no doubt, but it bears
repeating here. Federal law enforcement agents... who are trained to spot counterfeit money,
are trained not by looking at counterfeit money. They are trained by carefully examining the real
thing. When they know the real thing, they can spot the bogus. You don't have to study the false
teaching to know what's... a problem, you have to immerse yourself in the truth so the false
teaching will pop out. That illustration, interestingly enough, Tim Challies, who's a blogger who
lives in Canada, had heard that illustration so many times. He said, I wonder if that's just made
up. I wonder if that's true. So he called the National Bank of Canada and he said,
do you have an expert on counterfeits? They said, yes, we do. He said, could I make an appointment
with her? And he went down to her office and asked,
how do you train people to spot counterfeits? Turns out, It's exactly what she does. You study the
real thing to know how to spot counterfeits. When you know what the real looks like,
the counterfeit shows up easily. And so for us, if we're going to know how to spot error,
whatever it is, the way to know how to spot error is to immerse ourselves in what is true.
So I want us this morning to pull back because both of these examples in Jude...
six and seven, both of these deal with sexual sin, I want us to pull back and know what is true
about God's design for sexuality. I want us to see the goodness of the gift that God has given us
so that we can know what the wrong approach looks like, what the rebellion looks like,
and why it is a problem. Because there is increasing compromise happening inside the professing
church when it comes to matters of gender and sexuality, I think we need to take the time to talk
about what a great gift it is that God has given to his people. Human sexuality and gender.
I want us to see the real thing so we can see the glory of it to better understand what the
counterfeit is and why it's such a problem.
So let's start with some basics. Where's the first mention of gender in the Bible?
Do you know? Genesis 1, in the beginning.
So Genesis 1, 27. God created man in his own image.
In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.
This is chapter 1. This is foundational. And notice,
the writer is specific about mankind being created as male and female.
He didn't just say God created mankind and leave it blank. He said, no, he made males and females.
There are only two mentioned there.
Every human baby has either an XX chromosome package or an XY chromosome package.
If it's XX, you're a female. If it's XY, You're a male. And the doctor does not have to know your
chromosomes to determine your gender. What does every doctor do when he delivers a baby?
He looks at the baby and can tell by what he sees and then declares,
it's a girl. It's a boy. It's obvious to him what it is based on what he can see.
There is such a thing as intersex. Just need to acknowledge that there are children,
a chromosomal abnormality, it happens in about .0017% of births,
where this chromosomal abnormality shows up and there's an XXY gender pattern and the genitalia is
not clear. There's something misformed here.
This is not a third gender. This is a birth defect.
We shouldn't say God made male, female, and intersex. He made male and female, and sometimes that
system breaks down just as all medical systems break down. There are all kinds of birth defects or
human defects that come into a play. That doesn't mean that there's a new normal. It means that
there's something that's out of line with normality. So Genesis 1 says, God made us male and
female. And to drive the significance of this point home, the writer says,
there's a connection between our humanity and our gender. The connection between these gender
distinctions is connected to how we bear the image of God.
Male and female gender being made male and female is somehow connected to what the image of God
looks like. There is a more full projection of the image of God as we see two genders created in
man and woman. This is not insignificant. This is not just one of those things you look at and go,
well, okay, so he made two genders. So what? So what? The image of God is revealed in unique ways
through these two genders. And we don't have time this morning to unpack all that means. We can go
into that, how you see the uniqueness of the image of God in all of this, but I want you to
recognize that God's decision to create us male and female, two genders, is not some insignificant
detail or some little theological quirk. This is foundational, and it's connected to the image of
God. It's also foundational to what he has called us to be and to do.
So the first mention of gender is in Genesis chapter 1. Where is the first mention of sex in the
Bible?
Genesis chapter 1. Right after he says, male and female he created them,
in the next verse, and God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the earth and subdue it. And it goes on, dominion over the fish of the sea.
Be fruitful and multiply. Now that's delicate, but you know what he's saying there.
I have a gift for you. And this is interesting. This is where God gives us the first indication of
his purpose for human sexuality. He's just finished creating everything,
and he says to the man and woman, you are going to be co-regents with me. You are going to rule
and reign over creation together with me, and we are going to collaborate in the act of ongoing
creation.
God gives human sexuality so that the man and the woman can come together and partner with God in
ongoing creation. Think about that.
God is welcoming the man and the woman into an exalted role, a partnership with him in the creating
of humanity. The first man's made out of dust. The first woman is made out of the rib from the side
of the man. But from then on, God says, we're going to work together to create human beings. No
more dust, no more ribs. I have something better than all of that.
So the fundamental purpose, Let me say a fundamental purpose for human sexuality is procreation,
which doesn't mean that it's the only purpose or the only time that you're to be involved with as a
husband and wife sexually is for the purpose of procreation, but it's an integral purpose for God's
design for sexuality. Now, the second mention of sex is the next chapter over,
Genesis chapter 2. Let me back up. Genesis 2. 18 is where we'll start. The Lord God said,
it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.
By God's design, the suitable helper means these two fit together.
I don't want to get too graphic here, but Legos are designed to fit together a particular way.
And so are human beings. There's a design purpose here. I have made them to fit.
It's not good for man to be alone. I'm going to make a helper who will fit with him.
Now, out of the ground, the Lord had formed every beast of the field. The bird of the heaven
brought them to the man to see what he would call them. This is very interesting. God gives man the
assignment to name the animals.
Whatever the man called the living creature, that was its name. By the way, when you have the
authority to name something, that means that you have authority over that which you've named. So
God is giving the man authority, but he also has an object lesson for him because Adam is standing
there naming animals, and every time he sees the animals, he goes, Those two look alike, but not
exactly. That's a buck. I'm going to call that a doe. They're similar, but they're not exactly
alike. I'm going to call this a sow, and I'm going to call this a boar.
They're kind of alike, but they're not exactly the same. After doing this all day,
Adam goes, hmm, seem to be pairs here alike but different.
The man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the heaven, the beasts of the field, but Adam
saw there was not a helper fit for him. All these animals have partners. I don't have one.
So Lord, God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man. This, by the way, is why men just can sleep so
soundly, right? The remnant of this.
He does surgery. He takes a rib, closes up the flesh with the rib the Lord had taken from the man.
He made a woman and brought her to the man. The man saw the woman and he said, this is now flesh of
my flesh, bone of my bone. The animals had, I didn't have, this is flesh of my flesh,
bone of my bone. She shall be called woman. He names her, for she was taken out of man.
Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,
that is cleave, and they shall become one flesh.
The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. This is the second mention of sex. Be
fruitful and multiply in Genesis 1. Two becoming one, naked and not ashamed, it's right there.
Now this tells us a couple of things. First, by God's design, when a man and woman come together
sexually, there is something deep and profound and spiritual that takes place in that sexual union.
The man and the woman... are becoming vulnerable with one another. They're opening themselves up.
They are naked before one another, not just physically naked, but we are opening ourselves up. And
in the very act of sexual union, God binds together the two partners in a unique spiritual way.
You give part of yourself to one another in the act of sex. One of God's purposes for sex is to
unite or bond together. the two partners in a sexual union. That's why he says this should happen
inside the bounds of a covenant commitment because this giving to one another and this binding
together of one another is such a significant spiritual, emotional activity that you need the
protection of a covenant to protect that vulnerable giving that's taking place,
that uniting that's taking place. When sex happens outside of marriage,
outside of the covenant commitment, there is still a giving that's happening.
There's a gluing that's taking place, but there's no permanence to it. So when that relationship
dissolves, there's a fracturing, there's a scarring, there's a wounding that takes place because
you gave something to someone outside of the bond of that commitment, and it's been torn away.
Let me just say, Parenthetically here, it is by God's good design that husbands and wives should
embrace and enjoy this bonding activity, not simply because it brings pleasure,
but because it brings bonding. You are drawn together in oneness through your sexual encounters
with one another, and you are... You are absent of that. There is an absence of that oneness if you
do not do this. This is why 1 Corinthians 7 says, don't deprive one another except for prayer.
God is doing something marvelous when you come together sexually to unite the two of you. When
you're not coming together sexually, that uniting is not happening as it should by God's design.
So all of this to say, God has purposes for sex,
procreation,
bonding, and pleasure. But here's what's happened in our day. We have moved away any restrictions.
So it's taken outside of marriage. There's no restrictions. You can have sex with whoever you want,
and it's all about the pleasure. Forget the bonding. Forget the procreation. We got pills that'll
take care of the procreation. We can just dismiss that. And don't worry about bonding. Today,
the approach is often, you know, it's like a tennis partner.
Just find somebody you want to play tennis with. That's the way a lot of people approach this.
It's just like finding a recreational partner for a recreational activity. But by God's design,
you're ignoring the fact that God's doing something unique and bonding and spiritual here.
It's a common view for a lot of hip, progressive parents as they teach their children about sex to
say, I just want the first time to be special. I want it to be with somebody you love. And what
they're ignoring there is that God is doing something to bind you together that will either stay
forever or will rip apart and will leave a scar on your soul. It's not just as long as it's
somebody you love, at least for now, for the moment.
Even love has become optional. The point in all of this, anytime we decide we're going to go with
our own ideas about gender or about sexuality, make our own choices about this, We're going to get
rid of the restrictions of the culture or the sexual mores of religion. Anytime we uncouple sex
from God's plan for it, we are doing what the angels did in Jude 6. We are doing what the people in
Sodom and Gomorrah did in Jude 7. We are saying, we're going to do it our way. We know better.
It's the same root issue.
Of course, in the church, no one would say, well, I'm just going to do it my own way.
I'm just going to... get out from under God's authority. Instead, here's what's happening in the
church today. We have people saying things like, who are you to say that people who have sexual
desire have to be married? Who are you to judge?
You can't expect people to wait until marriage. It's just not possible. In fact, it might be
psychologically harmful. I've seen these arguments made by people in the church that it might be
psychologically harmful for people to wait. to get to have sex until marriage.
Or human beings aren't meant to be monogamous. I've seen this in the church.
You're not supposed to be monogamous for a lifetime. There's the idea of serial monogamy. You're
monogamous with one person, then you break it off. You're monogamous with somebody else, and you
have a series of monogamous relationships. Or who are you to say that if I'm attracted to somebody,
I shouldn't be able to have sex with that person just because they're of the same gender?
How dare you misgender me by calling me a gender designation that's not my preferred one?
You're being hurtful or harmful or hateful. You're putting me at risk when you do that. You're
killing me. These are the arguments that are present in our day. I could go on. The list is long.
But the thing is, these ideas are starting to seep into the church. Christopher Yuan is somebody...
understands why this is making its way into the church. Christopher is a single man who had to deal
with same-sex attraction in his own life, lived as an openly gay man for many years before he
became a Christian. He wrote about that in a book called Out of a Far Country, which is a great
memoir of his story. of how his mom prayed for him, how God brought him to deliverance.
Remarkable story. He's also gone on to write a book called Holy Sexuality. It's a very good book
related to God's design for sexuality. But he says evangelical drift always begins with the desire
to be compassionate and loving. Why do we drift away from what the Bible teaches about sex?
Because we want to be kind and compassionate and loving. to people around us. We don't want to be
harsh or judgmental or say you're wrong. He says that's not a bad thing. The issue comes when we're
busier listening to the marginalized and letting their stories be filtered and not letting their
stories be filtered through the lens of Scripture.
We do need to be compassionate and kind, but we can't make your story the authority.
The Bible has to be the authority.
This is where we have to be people like Jesus, full of grace and truth. Grace and truth,
full of both. One reason false teachers in this area are making inroads into the church is because
for a long time in the church, we have been full of truth and absent of grace when it comes to
these issues. We have declared this is what God's word says, and we have been harsh with people who
have wrestled with these things. We've been unkind or unloving. We've not demonstrated compassion
or mercy. So along comes a false teacher and says, this is not like Jesus. You need to be kind and
compassionate. And they throw out the truth and make it all about the grace.
The absence of kindness and compassion, grace and love has created this opening for false teachers
to come in, to minimize or dismiss or find a way to reinterpret what the Bible says.
That's their strategy.
and they're not representing Jesus well in how this comes about. That's why we sometimes feel the
need to pull back or soften what the Bible says, because we want to be known as people who are full
of grace and kindness and truth, and we should be. But truth's got to be a part of that.
And hear me on this. You can't let other people set the rules for you about what it means for you
to be loving. Somebody will say, well, if you don't affirm my gender as I see it,
then you're not loving. No, they don't get to decide what is loving. To be loving is to speak the
truth in love. It's to care about that person and not simply let them be led astray.
You've got to speak the truth in love. And the thing is, we've got a great story to tell. God gave
us a great gift and gave us the boundaries for that great gift, and we need to embrace that. But
when we say we'll do it our way, we find ourselves experiencing either we are his children who will
experience his loving heart. discipline, which is sometimes painful, or we are not his children and
we're on a path that leads to condemnation and destruction.
The Bible talks about the fleeting pleasures of sin. We saw that in Hebrews 11 this summer. There
is pleasure in sin for a season, but it will destroy you.
Choosing your own way with regard to the issues of gender and human sexuality will leave a scar on
your soul. In fact, follow me here.
Every sin we commit is worthy of punishment, but some sins,
are darker and are worse than others.
To commit adultery is worse than to have lust in your heart. To commit murder is worse than to
think angrily toward another person. So every sin is worthy of punishment,
but not every sin is equal when it comes to the level of degradation,
the level of depravity. The Bible teaches this. That's why in 1 Corinthians 6 it says,
do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and
make them members of a prostitute? No, never. Do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute
becomes one body with her? For as it is written, the two will become one flesh.
It's talking about, don't you know that you're mingling together with a prostitute, what God never
designed to be mingled, but he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee sexual
immorality. Watch this. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but sexual
immorality... A sexually immoral person sins against his own body. There's something deeper going
on with sexual immorality than there is with other sins. You violate God's design for gender and
sexuality, declare your independence from him at this foundational level, there's profound depth to
that sin. Sexual sin will wound you deeply, scar you deeply, because it's sin at a deep level.
It's not unpardonable.
God can forgive and heal and bring beauty from ashes. You need to know that.
But it leaves deep scars on your soul.
I'm going to wrap this up. We've talked a lot here. I've got five pastoral observations for you
here just to guide how we think about this. Here's the first one. Don't expect the culture to
embrace God's plan for gender and sexuality.
Most of us grew up in a world where God's design for gender and sexuality was affirmed as good even
by people who weren't Christians. Back in the day when I was a kid,
most people thought sex outside of marriage is not a good thing. Most people thought homosexuality
is wrong. These were things that non-believers believed.
That started to change in the 60s, and it's been on a downward slide. ever since.
And by the way, we should note that the cultural values around sex in our day are pretty close to
what they were in first century when the first church was emerging. Roman sexuality in the time of
the early church was just as debased as sexuality in our culture is today. And the Bible writers
did not say, we need to go fix the world and their view on sex.
He said, we need to live as holy and righteous and godly people in the church.
We're told to take the gospel to the pagans, and the gospel will do the work of changing their
heart when it comes to issues like sexuality. Our job is not to clean up and make more moral a
nation of people who are on their way to hell. You don't want your neighbor to be more moral and go
to hell. You want them to know Jesus.
Now that doesn't mean that you can't advocate for a more moral culture to live in. You can vote,
we can vote, we can express. our views and our opinions on what we should be as a culture. But real
change happens in the human heart. It doesn't happen in the laws. It happens in the heart.
Oftentimes what we see in the law just reflects what's going on already in our heart. If you want
real change, you address the hearts of men and women. That's the first thing. Second thing, we need
to fully embrace the goodness of God's plan for gender and sexuality. You need to see God's design
as a good gift, a blessing. You need to embrace it personally inside of marriage.
choose to live according to his plan. And when your desires and your appetites and your passions
start to pull you away from God's design, you need to learn how to not allow your desires and
passions to master you, but how to master them in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And that, by the way, is a community project. Doing it on your own will be hard.
Doing it allied with one another where we're pledging ourselves to one another and we're dealing
with this in community will make it easier. I've had lots of conversations. I've had conversations
with some of you in this church about struggles with sexual sin.
Some of you have courageously shared with me about struggles with same-sex attraction, about
gender dysphoria, about lust issues.
And sharing that together and being able to think and talk about it together has been a part of
what God has used to lessen the power of these desires in hearts. I've seen it happen. Say,
well, I'm not going to tell anybody. I'm just going to battle it on my own. That's exactly the
strategy Satan wants you to follow.
As a community project, we need to be able to be honest and transparent and say, here's where I've
struggled with this. Get help and deal with it. If you're struggling, To live according to God's
design for gender and sexuality. Get an ally. Get some help. Bring it out in the open. But commit
yourself to living according to the design of God's good gift. And see it as a good gift.
Don't see it as God is keeping something from me that's good for me. See it as God saying,
no, I have something good for you in the right setting.
And if singleness is his call for you, there's grace for that.
Third, you need to recognize that everybody's a sexual sinner.
We have a tendency to look at... Some levels of perversion and think, well, those terrible,
horrible people. Well, guess what? Your level of perversion may not reach theirs,
but you've got the same issues. I'm pretty sure if I said anybody here who's never struggled with
sexual sin in your life, you've never given over to lust, you've never, anybody, I don't think we'd
see many hands raised. We're all in the same boat. We all need grace. We all need the gospel.
We all need our sin to be forgiven. We all need to be allies. Your sin may be different than mine,
but we both need grace. We come together at the foot of the cross here.
There's no self-righteousness in any of this.
And make sure you hear me on this. Whatever your past, whatever you're dealing with right now,
there's forgiveness for your sin and there's transformation for what you're dealing with. That's
the promise of the gospel.
God has forgiven the sin. Of all who are in Christ, there's no condemnation for those who are in
Christ. And he has the power. If he has the power to raise somebody from the dead,
do you think he can deal with your sexual issues? Yeah.
I was doing an interview years ago with John MacArthur on the radio. He'd just written his book,
The Gospel According to Jesus. We had a phone caller who called in that day on the talk show. And
this guy said, I have a question about somebody who has a besetting sin. Something that...
keeps plaguing them and they try to deal with it, but it just keeps coming back. Can a person who
has a besetting sin be saved? And John said, yes, if he's battling against his besetting sin,
that person gives evidence that they are a child of God. Then John said, let me ask you a question
to the caller. He said, do you have a besetting sin?
And the caller said, I do. And John said, is it homosexuality?
And the guy said, it is.
And John went on to minister the gospel to that man in that situation, struggling with that,
without condemnation, but to say there's hope, there's power in the gospel,
and the fact that that man was confessing to this was a good sign.
Last thing I'll say, we've got to be people who abound in love and grace and kindness and
compassion and mercy for everybody. We've got to be. Hold fast to the truth. Hold fast with grace.
Guard your heart against self-righteousness.
I'll wrap up with two things and then we'll go to the Lord's table. The first, I'm going to share a
story and then I'm going to share a scripture to wrap up. Here's the story.
Back when I was doing this call-in talk show back in San Antonio in the late 80s, I decided to
have as a guest on my talk show one day the pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church in San
Antonio. At that time, it was the only church we knew of. where they were gay affirming,
where they believed that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. The pastor was gay,
and they invited everybody to come. Today, that's spread to all kinds of denominations.
But back in the 80s, if you were gay and wanted to go to church, you went to the Metropolitan
Community Church. They were the only game in town. So I invited this pastor to come on my call-in
show to talk about this issue. And in the middle of the interview,
I said to him, I asked him a question. I said, I know you don't think that the Bible teaches that
homosexuality is a sin.
I said, if you were reading your Bible and you came to the conclusion that your view was wrong and
that homosexuality is in fact a sin, would you forsake it and turn away from it?
And he thought for a minute and he said, that's a great question.
And then he never answered it.
But that's the question.
The question is, if we believe what the Bible says about this being sin,
are we going to live according to what the Bible says is true, even if it goes against our
passions, desires, and appetites? Or are we going to live as if our passions, desires,
and appetites are what are true and try to make the Bible conform to that? That's the crux of the
issue here.
In the midst of the cultural swirl we're facing, I want to close with this passage from Jeremiah 6.
It's a passage where Jeremiah has been explaining to God's people why God has rejected them.
And he's rejected them because they rejected him and his ways. You reject God and his ways, God is
going to reject you. And here's what he says they need to do. Thus says the Lord, stand by the
roads and look and ask for the ancient paths. where the good way is,
and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said,
we will not walk in it. I set a watchman over you, saying, pay attention to the sound of the
trumpet. But they said, we will not pay attention.
Therefore, hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. Hear,
O earth. Behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices,
because they have not... to my words, and as for my law, they have rejected it. What use to me is
frankincense that comes from Sheba. Now, just what he's saying there is,
you can bring your most expensive offering. Don't think that's going to be any good for me,
that somehow you can buy your way out of your, you can pay for your sin that way. What good,
what used to me as frankincense from Sheba or sweet cane from a distant land, your burnt authorings
are not acceptable, nor your sacrifice is pleasing to me. Therefore, thus says the Lord,
behold, I will lay before this people stumbling blocks against which they shall stumble, fathers
and sons together, neighbor and friend shall perish. It's a sober warning. God says,
pay attention to my word, follow in my ways. And we say, I will not do that. And God says,
There is a consequence. Destruction will come.
Pray with me. Father,
these are hard things for us to talk about and to consider. We thank you for your good gift to us
of human sexuality and of gender. We affirm today that your ways are right and good and perfect.
Lord, help us to walk in your ways, to commit our lives to your ways. Help us to be full of grace
and compassion. for those who struggle,
and help us to be full of both grace and truth as we wrestle with this issue in our day,
in our churches. Keep us alert to the counterfeits, that we would not fall prey to them.
Help us to guard our soul. And Lord, I want to pray for brothers and sisters here this morning who,
as we've been talking about this, are convicted about their own sexual sin. Some who have struggled
with same-sex desires. Some who are... struggling with lust, some who have experienced gender
dysphoria.
Lord, help them know that there is hope for them, there's help for them, there's power for them in
the gospel, that there is joy in following your path, even when it's hard.
Help them to find their hope and help in you.
And for any who are here who don't know you, Lord, I pray that they would come to understand the
truth of the gospel, to believe the gospel, to surrender their lives to you.
and to find the strength and power that they're missing.
I ask these things in Jesus' name.