Introduction
Main idea: Trust God’s good plan and Christ’s redeeming work to be faithful and flourish as male or female.
0:13
we've been going through the book of Genesis, and what we're what our approach is for the first three chapters is to make sure we cover some of the big cultural issues where God has said something and set a pattern in motion that really runs cross grain with our current culture. So we have paused at various places. We have lengthened out some of the teaching so that we can address cultural issues today is almost a sidebar. The Fancy word is an excursus where we're going to talk about the roles of male, female, gender, sexuality. Last week, Brian took us through God's original plan for marriage, and we're going to we're going to need to look at these issues on an ongoing way. I'm actually going to read from from two passages, one in Genesis and then one in Matthew and what I want you to notice is that we read from these two passages is that 1500 years after Moses wrote Genesis, Jesus quoted directly from this to Seth the to remind us of God's original intent and pattern. Let's stand with stand with me for the reading of God's word, and you can follow it along on the screen. If you're quick enough with your fingers for your electronic version or your paper version. You can jump from Genesis one to Matthew 19. I'm going to read Genesis 126, through 28 and then we'll jump over to Matthew 19. Then God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him, male and female. He created them, and God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Now Matthew 19, three through nine, and the Pharisees came up to Jesus and tested him by asking, Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? He answered, have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and he said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together? Let not man separate. They said to Him, Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce to send her away? He said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it was not so. And I say to you, Whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery, this is the word of the Lord, our great God. We thank You that You are good and wise and your creation is good and reflects your wisdom making gender male and female is part of your good and glorious and wise plan to fill the earth, and we, when we follow your plan that you have given in marriage, obey your calling and bring a blessing to the world, I pray is this message is going to seem out of date in our culture, but God, it is perpetually relevant. I pray that you would convict, that you would inform, that you would direct us, that you would keep us so that we could carry out your will in the world. There are many here who are feeling the weight of guilt, of sexual sin, and I pray that you would bring the grace of the Gospel, the comfort of forgiveness as they repent and turn I pray for some here who have family members that are not following your will, and they need help in their interacting family events are going to happen with Thanksgiving and Christmas, and people are going to be in rooms and at meal tables with people who are not obeying your will. And we want to be able to carry the gospel. I. With power and wisdom. Now, Father, help us understand this word. It is powerful. It is culturally relevant to our time. I pray that you would be at work with the various churches in our city, the churches around the country, where people we have sent out to preach are preaching. Pray that you'd help my son, Evan, who's preaching at Highlands this morning, and Jared gilchr, who's preaching in Texas this morning, and on it goes Chris Mullins in Oregon. Help these men be faithful to the gospel and what they teach, and help us as a church be faithful to be hearers who do what we hear in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated well today, what I want to do is help, help you by bringing the Gospel to bear on the issues of gender and sex. And I start with this assumption I might be miscorrect, incorrect, but probably not. Most have committed some kind of sexual sin in their mind or in their activity. Most have. Most have had or do have wrong ideas about sex and gender. I come from a family in which the divorces and remarriages were always intertwined with adultery. It was Jesus words about sexual sin in Matthew sermon on the mount that brought me to conviction of my sin, and in due time in college, I knew I was headed for hell, ripe for God's judgment, and I cried out for Jesus to save me, and He did, and he's transforming. The gospel has power. So with that assumption, I want to first help those of you who are new to the Bible, you're new to the Bible. Some have never heard what the Bible says about gender and sex. We're going to look at what God created and intended, and we're going to see where man corrupted it, where Christ redeems it. Every corrupted practice today has always been in the Bible. There's no new sinful sexual practices. There might be medical advancements to accelerate them, but there's nothing new in the practices themselves. For some of you, you're sitting here and you're you're hearing these new things, and you're thinking, this is this is a really old book. It's a really old book. How can an ancient book speak to a modern culture? And I want to talk to you about what's called the modern fallacy. The modern fallacy is because it's modern, therefore it's right, and what is old is therefore wrong. If that were the case, it'd be interesting to talk to Jesus, who was quoting a 1500 year old book when he quotes about marital faithfulness. I mean, if there was ever a culture that was free wheeling and given to all kinds of sexual expression. It was the Greco Roman culture. The temple that was about 15 miles from Jesus home in Nazareth Seth polis was a typical Greco Roman brothel city. And if Jesus could have addressed the modern audience, if he was progressive, that would have been a time to be progressive, but he was consistent, because God has created a wise and good plan for our sexuality. And I recognize, if you're new here, some of this might provoke some emotion, strong emotion, you might be lesbian or you might be gay, and you're here this morning, and honestly, I'm really grateful that you haven't walked up and left already and you're okay. I'm gonna hear it out. Some of you might have gay or lesbian parents. Some of you might be living with a boyfriend or girlfriend and you're having sex together against God's good plan. You're like, Oh, I didn't know that was a problem. You're new to the Bible. I just I want to tell you from the start, God is good and he has a good plan. God is wise and he has a. Wise plan. It may be a different plan than you thought. It may be a different plan than you thought was good and right,
10:10
but if God had a better plan, if your plan was wrong and God's plan was right, if your plan is bad and God's plan is best, wouldn't you want the best plan second? I want to help those of you who do know what the Bible says, And I Well, here's what I'm thinking. You know what the Bible says, but something in my life, or my family's life, when we think of these sexual sins, is so shameful that I've not opened up to talk to anybody about it, and you're not actually responding to the truth, you know, in a good and truthful way. There's so many of you that I wish would have opened up and talked to me. Another elder, your growth group leader, you're filled with shame or regret or uncertainty. You don't know what to do, but you're afraid of bringing light to this what you feel like might be an embarrassing situation. Does God, our good and wise creator, have anything to help us? Does He? He? Does. He does have something to help us. God, the king, created, defined, directed and redeems gender. Jesus came to save all kinds of sinners and help them flourish, all kinds. Here's the big idea, as we're taking this topic of gender and sexuality, we need to trust God's good plan, and God and Christ redeeming work to be faithful and flourish in your gender. You want to be able to trust God's good plan and Christ redeeming work, to be faithful and flourish in your gender, to make it easier to remember the message. Because already I can this. This is a hard topic in the culture, so we're trying to equip you with that. I want to make it easy to remember. You're going to spell the acronym. It's going to be trust, as in trust God's good plan for gender, T, R, U, S, T, and as we do that, hopefully it's going to give you quick recall, because you're going to be thrown into a conversation, you're going to enter a conversation, or you're going to have something in your own heart that you're dealing with, and you want to, I want to make it easy for you to draw from the well of God's Word. So let's start with this number one, trust your Creator. Trust your Creator, King's goodness and plan. Remember, God is good. God is wise. His plans and purposes for mankind are good and wise. We've seen that in Genesis one. Make sure you're there with Genesis one. And I know there's some kids here, and so just for the sake of kids to help them and the parents just kind of sneak it in. I want some audience participation. You're gonna I'm gonna ask you to say some things, and you're gonna get it really quickly. Look at Genesis one, just to let you know that this whole chapter is good. The whole chapter in Genesis. One four after he made the light, it says, God saw the light was where you got it. You're so quick. 110 after making the dry land and seas, God saw that it was after making all the vegetation, God saw that it was you're getting the point, aren't you just driving home after making the sun, moon and stars? God saw that it was after making the fish and birds. 121 God saw that it was after making the land animals. I mean, everything's been good so far, making the land animals. God saw that it was now look at 127, so God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him, male and female, He created them. And I want you to notice this, we have man as the representative name for mankind. God made man. He says it twice. God made man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him, referring to mankind. And pause there, because the next verse is going to talk about male and female. Your first identity is not male and female, although it's inseparable from who you are. Your first identity is not male and female. Your first identity is image bear. Error, image bearer. You're not first a man or first a woman. You are first an image bearer. Now it's going to be inescapable from gender. But the point I want to make is that something that's called like gender dysphoria, for instance, this overwhelming sadness or wish that I don't have the gender I want. Assumes that gender and gender preferences are the most essential part of you. It assumes that gender is what's most essential. It's not what's most essential. Image bearing is most essential. You do indeed have an identity as male or female. You can't escape it. But if we used New Testament language, being Christ like is the highest goal, that's the highest goal, not male or female Ness. So in a world that's telling you, if you feel bad, maybe it's your gender that's off, what it's doing is sending setting up this idol of gender as your ultimate source of happiness, your ultimate source of happiness and satisfaction is being made in the image of God to relate to God. Look at 131 back to our audience participation, after making man and woman in His image, giving them the mandate to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth, look what it says. God saw everything he had made, and behold it was very good, very good. Man could not fulfill the creation mandate alone. God made women. Man and women are very good. Male and female are very good. There's a really fun, helpful book. Linda loves to read it to our granddaughter, Marty machowski, God made boys and girls. God made them very good, very good. As a creator and King, he has the right and he has the authority to make things as he wants. God's the creator. He is the authority. And there is absolute clarity across the Bible about this. In fact, the Bible and nature both agree there is only male and female in mankind. Jump over to Genesis five, one and two. For instance, let's get let's talk about after sin. Genesis five, one through two. Says, this is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, He made Him in the likeness of God. There's the image bearing male and female. He created them, and he blessed them, and he named them man when they were created. Jesus affirms this. This is part of our scripture reading to open in Matthew 19 four. Jesus, quoting these verses, says, Have you not read that He who created them like have you not read. He's talking to the religious experts. Have you not read? I mean, do you guys read your Bibles? Of course, we read our Bibles. Come on. I don't know. Have you not read that? He who created them from the beginning made them male and female. Jesus was crystal clear, male and female. The apostle Paul, there's no trajectory change in the Bible. There's nothing open that suddenly gives us this opening in the Bible for a difference in gender or a difference in sexuality. First, Corinthians, 1111, and 12, the apostle Paul says, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor man of woman, for as woman was made from man. That's what happened in Genesis two. So man is now born of woman, and all things are from God. God made this. This is his system. So let's connect the dots. What God did in Genesis one was very good, because the only thing God can do is good. Listen to how the Psalms speak of this. It's just sitting there in your notes to make it easy, it says, Good and upright is the Lord. He's good. He's righteous. His goodness has a moral quality. It has a physical, practical quality. Psalm 119, 68, the Psalmist says, You are good and you do good. God is good in assigning you your gender. Ladies, God is good to make you female. Men, God is. Good to make you male. Each are equally very good. We can trust his good and wise plan,
20:11
T R, rely on God's definition of male and female. Rely on God's definition of male and female. God defines gender. He defines it biologically, functionally, sexually and relationally. Biologically, this is male, male and female. There's male and female anatomy, chromosomes, hormones. The chromosomes are assigned at conception. They give the instructions to develop the male and female anatomy. The different levels of testosterone and estrogen regulate male and female functions. Only women have a womb functionally in their in their created order. It says male and female are also defined by created function tied to the biology. Only females get pregnant and have children. They be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That's part of God's good design. Eventually, when we see it, even after sin and at the end of chapter three, after Adam and Eve, sin, Adam names woman another name. He calls her Eve because she's the mother of all the living she has a precious role. Jump over to 218, I mean, you could see this, this need. Then God said. Brian covered this last week. It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. Adam needed a mate. He needed a partner, a helper to fulfill the mandate to be fruitful and multiply. He not only can't bear children, he needed a Completer in his life. So there's companionship, cherishing. Yes, there's sexual intimacy. Jump down to verse 23 Brian laid out the story, put Adam to sleep, did a surgery, made Eve, woke Adam up, stood him up, and then brought the woman notice. What this says? This at last, which I find quite a bit of humor. Do you know how long Adam was alone? Six hours, maybe, I mean, animals are done by noon. Adam's made by one. He's named them by four o'clock. God puts him to sleep. By five, he gets Eve, and he wakes up and he goes, finally, finally, somebody for me. But I mean, it's just this expression of wonder, this, at last, this 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, and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Sex is limited to male and female within marriage between one man and one woman. It's defined a creation. It's approved and confirmed by Jesus. There is physical complementarity. The Bible speaks of sex between man and the Bible, there's physical complementarity in this. Remember, it goes for a creation design which is going to have the function of being fruitful and multiplying. So there's a physical complementarity this happens. So the Bible speaks of sex between man, men and men, women and women. It always speaks of it as sinful all sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman is all spoken of as sinful. We're going to get to that in a minute. We'll unpack that. But this is, this is the basis for gender and sexuality, along with physical size and strength, men are assigned to lead and protect. Adam was charged to work and keep the garden, which had an intrinsic meaning of protection. The word keep not only is to pay attention to, but there is a garden function which Adam, we're going to find out failed at. Women are assigned to nurture. Her, her younger children. We think of this relationally. We have the biological, the functional, the relational, only women are to be wives. Only men are to be husbands. It is the only way it's described in the Bible, only females are mothers. In the Bible, only males are fathers. In the Bible, there is a relational function. Now here's something crucial to notice, and I want to pause so that we would hit this many of the ideas about masculinity and femininity in our culture are cultural, not necessarily biblical. Every culture is going to flesh out masculinity and femininity. It's true. But the common ideas about man's work and women's work are far more often cultural than they are biblical. A wife might be better at finances, remodeling, car repair and yes, men, marksmanship I would suspect that if a woman cared to shoot and shoot a lot, she would probably out shoot her husband, probably better muscle control, all kinds of things that a softer touch would have a man may excel at sewing, flower arranging, interior design, doing dishes and laundry. Yes, you felt the elbows right there. Doing dishes and laundry are neither feminine nor masculine activities. They're just jobs that need to get done in a home. We recently watched Fiddler on the Roof. We saw the scene, you know, there's the mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, just this, really, and the girls are out in the field with the hose. You know, they're just, they're just laying into the plowing work and the cultivating work. My My grandmother, Jarms, you know, she was a farmer's wife, and she regularly helped my grandfather with the horses, the heavy machinery, the milking, feminine. Women in Bible times had leathery hands. I mean, you're gonna have, if you're running a hoe, you're gonna have leathery hands. That's not the definition of feminine. Soft. This, this idea, this picture of the 1950s housewife with multiple conveniences, wearing a dress ready to kiss her husband when her husband comes home from such a brutal
28:06
job in the office,
28:10
making fun of us office guys, I worked so hard on A keyboard, look at my fingertips. They're so soft. Besides, idea that she is ready, you know, with a kiss, dressed really nice. It's more cultural than it is biblical, I am sure, after a brutal day programming coding. You might like your wife to show up. You might like to show up to your wife with a dress and a kiss. Yeah, that might be nice. You might go for it. But those things are often more cultural than they are biblical. It's important to say because when somebody's not super excited about the cultural division of labor or the cultural expressions, they start to wonder if there's something wrong with the gender, there may be nothing wrong with the gender. Look back at 131 these definitions of masculinity femininity are what they're very good, very good. God made your biology Very good. He made your function very good. He made your sexual experience to be very good. He made your relationship very good. Now I know some of you are saying you're listening in and you're saying, Yeah, but I don't enjoy a lot of the aspects. I don't even feel attracted to somebody of the opposite sex, or I feel very unhappy with the sex I was born with. Ian. It. And if you're not here today feeling that, I bet you know somebody who is feeling those things, which leads us to the third we need to understand the corruption of sin. We need to trust God's good and wise purposes and plans. We need to rely on his definition of male and female. We need to then understand the corruption of sin. God made Adam, and he gave him one restriction again, keep your eyes in the in the text here, Genesis one, or Genesis 217 do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for in the day that you eat it, you will surely die the knowledge of good and evil. This tree that had the fruit of the knowledge Good, good and evil refers to the ability to decide for oneself what is right and wrong. The temptation that Satan is going to offer in chapter three to Eve is that she and Adam can step out under God's authority, onto equal a footing and decide for themselves what is right and wrong. That is the culture we live in today. It is the culture everybody has their own truth, so to speak. And that is the age old lie of getting to make your own rules. Every sin flows out of a desire to have what we want, regardless if it's right or wrong. Every sin flows out of that its core. It is the core of rebellion. If we follow even a cursory reading of the story, Eve and Adam, believe the serpents lie. They do they they believe that they're going to be like God. They eat from the tree the knowledge that they get, and the first thing that they experience is shame, not victory. It says they were naked and unashamed. At the end of chapter two, the first thing they experience when they decide they're going to make their own rules is sexual shame. They immediately make their own coverings to cover them up, selves up all of this. Are affected with this. We are born with the impulse to do our own thing and disobey God's good rules and plans. A feeling of shame is natural and never goes away. Never goes away. Most of us are like, Oh, my body. Oh, let's keep it covered. Look over to Romans, 118, through 32 or just notch it in your brain if you don't have time to flick over there. But sin, as it progresses, does some things. It suppresses shame and it even gets to the point where it outwardly calls sin good. This is the normal progression. It is not a societal progression. Versus society goes like this. Then they go like this, like this. This is just a normal progression of all sin for all time, if anybody was in an immoral time, it was Jesus, the Greco Roman culture. This is just the the natural order of things. This is just what happens Romans chapter one. I'll pick it up at 121. For all they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but there they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. They exchanged the glory of immortal god for images resembling mortal man, birds, animals and creeping things. They started idolatry. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts, to impurity, it's a sexual sin, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who was blessed forever. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. Verse 28 God gives them up to a debased mind. And look at the list. They are full of. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetous, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, God. They are gossip, slanders, haters of God. Insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil. Disobedient to parents. Yep, disobedient to parents is in the list, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless, the. Though they knew God's righteous decree that those who practice such things, they deserve to die, they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them.
35:16
God did not make you gay or lesbian. He did not make you that way. God didn't make you greedy. God didn't make you a gossip. If you're gonna say God made me a way, then you have to make that all the others, and you have to ascribe great evil to God. Because all of these when we know that it's not God who made these it's us suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. And because God is good, he will also be just in bringing sins to judgment. And I know some of you are here like I feel like I'm a man trapped in a woman's body, or I feel like a woman trapped in a man's body,
36:09
but what you're making is an idol of gender. I will finally be happy if I get that. People have been doing it for lust, for since the beginning, I'll be finally happy if I get this, if I could be a different gender, it won't. You were made for awe in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ. That's what you were made for. You were made to reflect back his image. And the awe is the is in the Creator King, not creatures and not gender. So you might be a girl who is surrounded by girls who like Barbies, boys the latest hair trends, but you don't like any of those things. It doesn't mean you're a boy trapped in a girl's body. It just means there are a few popular things that are annoying. Barbies wearing pink. I want to wear blue and red. Wear purple and gold, blue and red and gray for Gonzaga, purple and gold for you dub like I don't want to wear pink.
37:37
It just might mean you're awkward in your body. And you know what? That never goes away. Just after a while, there's this depressed resignation that it's going to be like this until you die. I feel awkward in my body. 57 awkward in my body. I've accepted it. Thank you, amen. Amen accepted it. First is grief, then is acceptance. But hear this same sex, attraction is not innocent or harmless, and you are not helpless. If you have it, it is not innocent or harmless, and you are not helpless. If you have it, have it, it is a corrupted desire, just like greed is a cup a corrupt desire, just like rage is a corrupted desire, you might be here and hate the reality that you're tempted sexually by people of the same gender. I try to repeat this often, no one chooses their temptations. You don't choose your temptation. I mean, like, why couldn't I choose the temptation of being really good with money and getting really rich? But I'm not. I'm not tempted by that, tempted by other things. You don't choose your attempt your temptations, but you do choose what you look at. You do choose what you behold. You do choose what you meditate on. You do choose the avenues. You do choose those things. You can't choose your temptation, but you can choose what to have your mind dwell on. The Temptations are Temptations to sin. If your loved one is sinning in the use of gender, I want you to know Christ is offering redemption from. Enslavement to sexual sin. So it means we've got to look at it. Trust God's good plan, rely on his definition, understand the corruption of sin. S seek Christ to redeem gender in a passage calling for discipline about a man's sexual relationship with his stepmother, which just about everybody in our culture would go, what Wait, what guys living with stepmom? That's not good. Just don't be surprised by any sexual sin in the church like Don't be surprised or shocked. Paul does say this, because these things have to be dealt with, because Christ has died for it first. Corinthians six nine says, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Who are the unrighteous? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, which is the blanket cover for all sexual sin. Consider thinking of lustful thoughts to in our day and age, pornography to cross dressing to homosexuality. That's it's the generic catch all of all things, fornication, adultery. This is neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Notice that they're all in there. You Ian, I think one of the most precious and powerful passages about sexual sin and the offering of redemption is in John chapter four, with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus and the disciples show up. Midday. They're hungry. The boys go off for lunch trying to get something. The Samaritan woman comes, and Jesus is standing there, and he enters a discussion with her about the water that leads to eternal life. Says, give me this water. He says, Well, why don't you go get your husband? Let's talk about it. I don't have a husband. Well, that's right, you have had four husbands, and the one you're with right now is not your husband. He just called her out on her sexual sin, and in the passage about the water of life is offering her something deep and soul satisfying above getting the next man. Some are like, if I just get him, if I get another man, this one's not very good. Maybe another one will finally do it. Maybe a different one will finally do it. Maybe this one will finally do it. This desperation and Jesus offers salvation in himself, forgiveness for her sins. She runs off to the city, telling everybody, the prophet is here. This is the Messiah. He has told me everything about he has told everything about me. He knows it all. There is forgiveness for sexual sin. There is satisfying well to draw from in Jesus Christ, in this first Corinthians, six passage, listen to verse 11. So he goes through all this, drunkards, revilers, swindler inherit, will not inherit the kingdom of God. And he says, And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of God, there is new life. You might have shame for your sexual sin, but there is a washing and a cleansing in Jesus Christ, if you're a gay couple or a lesbian couple, you're here today, you may feel very offended, or you might feel convicted. What do I do if I'm convicted? Well, part of repentance is turning away from sin, and it's going to involve we're going to have to have a conversation, because we can't live together. We're going to have to redefine this relationship. You might be a straight couple, so to speak, living together, having sex together, and you're realizing, oh, that's sin. I guess I didn't realize that. And I'm like, Well, we're going to have to have a talk about that, because you're going to turn from your sin to Jesus. And I want you to hear this back to point number one. God has your good in mind. God does not want your destruction. He wants your flourishing. He made you for something better than you know he did. He. Uh, if you're convicted of your sin, a step you're going to take soon is separating yourself from your partner physically. And there's actually a peace and arrest available if a family member or a friend comes to you, you know, we think about a different situation. A family member a friend comes to you and says you don't love me, if you don't affirm my new sexual identity, my preferred pronouns, or my marriage to a same sex partner, you can confidently and humbly say, actually, I love your eternal soul so much that I can't affirm that, but I will love you. I will love your partner as I would any family member or friend, but don't ask me to affirm that you're making the right decision. If you're at a workplace where the HR department is mandating that you use preferred gender pronouns and you know this person's transition and wants new gender pronouns, and they demand it of you. You're you have to say, I love them too much to go along with their new pronouns. I love them too much. I can't lie. I can't lie. I would usually recommend knowing what your HR department says about your religious liberties. It's pretty wise to get a heads up before you take a leap into that.
46:34
You want God's best. You need to trust God's good and wise plan for gender. Rely on his definition. Understand the corruption of sin. You need to seek the redemption that is in Christ. Five, you need to track God's direction for gender, God's direction. Simple couple statements as we wrap up, track God's direction. One passage sums it up very well. First, Thessalonians four, one through five says, finally. Then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, just as you receive from us, how to how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus? What's the induction through the Lord Jesus? For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is your holiness, or your set apart life and your sexuality, that you abstain from sexual immorality, big umbrella of all kinds, that you each that each one of you know how to control his own body and holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles, who do not know God. Three simple things I put down that are you're probably going to need follow up from a pastor or an elder. And when I said, I wish you would talk to me or wish you talk to an elder, these are the kinds of things I wish you talk about with somebody who is wise and knows how to battle one repent of sexual coveting. Sexual coveting. You need to occupy your heart and mind with exhilarating truths of Christ. You need to occupy your work, your service to the church and to the lost. You need to occupy it with Sublime, with awesome things. And if you're married, take on your role as a husband or wife like if you love adventure. Here's the adventure. You're going to learn how to love your wife in 10 better ways in the next month, you want an adventure. Ask her, What can I do to love you better and be more Christ like and you're up for an adventure? If you ask that question, I love adventure. I don't want that adventure. I want a rock climb. Falling is easier than asking my wife what ways I can be a better husband. Brian's challenged last week to learn something new about your spouse. I mean, I've loved doing that with my wife this week, repent of sexual coveting and then replace that I learned this early, early on as a middle school teacher, I could keep telling them no about bad behavior, or I could give them something more compelling to do. You need something more compelling to do to fight temptation. So fight temptation, pursue God an activity that's biblically wholesome. Remember, sexual pleasure is one of the easiest pleasures to find when you feel crummy, tired, stressed or conflicted, some are struggling with sexual contentment simply because they haven't found God honoring alternatives for dealing with life, the heart of life. In a fallen world, you're looking for rest or relief, and you turn to sexual fulfillment instead of fulfillment in other god given wholesome things and finally, flourishing, flourishing. How do you flourish? Here's a. Really helpful thing that's just been part of our life for years. Find somebody 10 years older and ask them what they do to win the battle. We do it for all things parenting, grandparenting, taking care of aging parents. We find somebody 10 years older, we ask them what they do to win the battle against temptation. This is where I come back. I wish you would have talked to me or talked to someone if you face this, whether it's with a child a spouse, there is no shame in needing help. There's no shame in needing help. What was the epithet thrown at Jesus, the slur the way they mocked him. What was the epithet for Jesus? About this, he was a friend of sinners, friend of tax collectors and sinners, and sinners in the Jewish culture, was just the euphemism for prostitutes. Jesus loved to restore sinners of all kinds. Let's pray. Take the Lord's Supper, Father, thank You for this word. It is so needed in our time and culture. For every one of us, we are aware of all of our propensities and temptations. We take heed, blessed we fall. This is not really a message for them out there, but for us in here, with the people that we love, with our own lives and the people we engage with in the gospel. So empower us to be able to speak this word of truth and hope, a call to repentance and faith. May you rescue the perishing, who are perishing in sexual sin, rescue many in our city, Christ's name. Amen.
Dr. Dan Jarms is teaching pastor and team leader at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
View Resources by Dan Jarms
