NOVEMBER 28, 2021 SUNDAY MESSAGE
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November 28, 2021: Bible & Sex 6
Transcription
Happy Thanksgiving!
As we finish this series, I want to circle back to the beginning and revisit our starting place. I mentioned that there were four specific moments that stuck out to me from my history which contributed to my view of sexuality and formative in my understanding of it.
These four moments were...
HBO (documentary report) in 3rd Grade:
Which was attempting to persuade me to normalize three things as a part of “healthy human sexuality”:
Casual Sexuality
Masterbation
Pornography
A H.S. Coach:
Who also normalized
casual sexuality
a teaching that women are “here for fun” but don’t let them derail your future
...it was discipleship into misogyny.
My mom giving me one of “the talks” when I was about 14-15
Then I went to church and learned for the very FIRST TIME that GOD HAD ANY OPINION ABOUT MY SEXUALITY!!
It was here that my Framework for sexuality and
Framework for ethics surrounding the topic, were challenged and I realized...
if I was going to consider following God,
it was going to cost me something,
I was going to have to surrender parts of me and these things did NOT exclude my views, my framework, my understanding of healthy, responsible sexuality.
But, even in that, God wasn’t just correcting me but healing me saying, “you have some things that need healing here, and brokenness that you picked up along the way and it needs redemption...so it wasn’t just “submit to me with this area of your life but, do you trust me with this area of your life?!” (Jump down to “in fact ”)
So my challenge at the beginning of this was to bring to the forefront of our awareness that we are all being formed by something. We are all being DISCIPLED to think a certain way about SEXUALITY:
What is morally permissive?
What ethical values do we bring to the table?
So I asked what has been the main influence on the formation of your heart, mind, and soul when it comes to sexuality?
Then we have these seasons wherein you have felt the church has
mishandled these topics or
avoided this topic allowing the culture to fill the void.
Perhaps you recognized that the church, in its attempt to guide us wasn’t any different than the culture around us and you recoiled from it...
...but all along this journey, what I’ve tried to maintain is that God has something to say, will you trust Him?!
Let’s deepen that understanding and recognize that “God wants to be the main voice in the formation of who you are in every single area of your life!”
Romans 12:1-2
12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
1 Cor 10
23 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. 24 No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.
At first listen, these seem like a generic use of a text that is likely familiar to you but I want to keep pointing us back to this idea that we are to
Receive God’s mercy
submit ourselves (including our desires, ambitions, and bodies) to God as a sacrifice in worship
We are to recognize there is a pattern in this world that we are to reject and
A transformative renewal that takes place in us over and over again
Then, we will be able to discern God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will...
We are all called to move into a direction of Christian Formation with our sexuality. I loved Jon Tyson commentary on this idea through formulas:
“morality + willpower” doesnt work&
“consent + desire” doesn’t work...
He give another formula “vision + the power of the Holy Spirit + Godly Practices that result in our restoration to the image of God”
He goes on to explain the new formula:
“We get this VISION of what sex is and what it’s designed to do, we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit which lives within us producing the fruit of the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit, walking with the Spirit, not grieving the Spirit acknowledging that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit and then we begin to pattern our bodies in ways that delight not greive and practices become boundaries where our love is channeled towards restoration.”
But it’s not easy...Tyson continues:
“Every choice we about sex involves suffering because at some point, we have to renounce desire. This is a part of taking up your cross but it has the potential for deep transformation.”
It’s hard. It involves...
Discipline is not an outdated part of following Jesus
There is breaking of generational patterns
There is healing of past hurts/wounds
There is grace that transforms
There is joy and delight in the victories
There is an invitation for community to enter in and hold us accountable
Over and over again, in this teaching, I’ve tried to make us all aware (through personal stories, through examples, through the admission of failures and repentance on behalf of the church) that
we all need Jesus to redeem our broken sexual frameworks, our broken histories,
and nobody, outside of delusional pride, can point out another person's sin and brokenness without first recognizing their need for grace before God (there are no superheroes at CGNE) and
the church needs to be a safe place to be honest before God and be renewed by Him.
So, we ask for a tangible need for grace and the authoritative word of God to guide us and be our FORMATION. PRAY
Over the last few weeks I’ve tried to establish a biblical foundation anchored in the creation narrative found in Genesis that is then fortified in the New Testament. God created the gift of Sexuality with 4 irrevocable purposes:
Illustration
It is connected to covenant marriage between two people who are alike in their humanity but different in their sexuality and this union becomes a walking, talking, living illustration of Christ as the groom and the church who is the bride.
Procreation
There is a mandate to be “fruitful and multiply” and while we may have differences in how we engage this, we cannot ignore it in the negotiation of our sexuality but, rather, seek to ask, “have I fulfilled this mandate?”
Love
Sexuality is a physical expression of love.
Love, as defined by God,
is led more by faithful, monogamous, commitment and accompanied by emotion.
Is more about sacrificial giving than receiving
Pleasure
Which I didn’t get to in the sermon but one reading of the Song of Solomon fortifies the natural makeup of the body including pleasure sensory organs and bio-physiological release that engages both procreation and hormones that aid in intimacy.
I didn’t want to give you a new framework but hand you these four materials to build with. With these biblical pillars we can create a Theology of Sexuality knowing that any sexual ethic or framework that tries to define sexuality or build an application of sexuality by:
Over-emphasizing one of these four things over the others or by
excluding any one of these four things altogether
has stepped OUTSIDE of a Biblical understanding of Sexuality.
Though it’s likely not a PERFECT grid, these four become our litmus test and allows us to view our real-life circumstances and look back at them to decide is my 21 Century framework (with sexual ideologies, topics, applications, desires, or circumstances) building and fortifying my sexual formation in the direction of these 4 things or is it going in a different direction than the purposes God designed for it?
Then, last weekend, I offered up to a paradigm to parse out your response of this theology through four different lenses:
Justice & Civic Engagement Response
Shepherding Response
Missional Response
Doctrinal Response
I used it in application to one area of this conversation but I think it’s helpful in lots of areas so let me define them again:
Justice & Civic Engagement Response
Involves the intersection of the church as it operates in the world around us - how you expect others to uphold christian ideals - who are not christians.
this often leads to marginalization and liberation. This could be a public and, often, civic engagement.
Public - how you expect others to uphold christian ideals.
Civic Engagement and the way you believe the government should speak into these topics and shape public mandates.
Shepherding Response
Love all people and care for them.
DON’T use the bible to “clobber”
Seek to understand before you jump to judgements
How do shepherding accommodations play a part in this?
Missional Response
Missional negotiation that takes place when someone begins to enter the Kingdom.
Doctrinal Response
Simply, “what does the bible say on this matter?”
Given what we have walked through over the last few weeks, I think there is a lot of flexibility in the first three but they are informed by, and not to compromise, what we think the bible actually says to us...especially where it seems not to be ambiguous.
This is where we trust God and decide will we submit - or not submit - in our formation to be moving in the direction that he has, in his divine wisdom, designed sexuality to be and do.
Will we trust Him and his directives to define human flourishing by the pattern that God designed for us?
How is what we are doing forming us?
I want to turn to the questions that were submitted.
How is “celibate” defined in regard to celibate gay Christians, singles, and even priests?
Does that allow for masturbation?
Or just mean not acting out sex with the same sex for those who are gay,
and no sex for single straight people?
MARRIAGE: We recognize that all persons are made in the image of God and are to reflect that image in the community of believers, in home and in society. We believe in the family, celibate singleness, and faithful heterosexual marriage as the patterns God designed for us. Gen. 1:26-28
What is allowed vs How is what I am doing forming me?
Question 1 —- I have friends who have “sexual fantasies” and think that there is nothing wrong with them if they don’t actually act upon them. From my conservative Christian background, i question whether it is right at all to have sexual fantasies even if just involving my spouse. Are Christians really free to have them if it doesn’t involve lust.
What is allowed vs How is what I am doing forming me?
Question 2 - I also have been hearing that lust has really been defined wrong by fundamental Christians…. They claim that the root words go back to meaning a taking always of a person from their spouse….. similar to David and Bathsheba. How does this compare to Jesus’ meaning that even thinking about it was like doing it?
What is allowed vs How is what I am doing forming me?
What about same-sex marriages - monogamous relationahips?
What is allowed vs How is what I am doing forming me?
I appreciate the 4 responses presented (doctrinal, missional, shepherding, justice/civic versus being just affirming or non-affirming) but what does this mean for those at Common Ground Northeast who believe otherwise regarding the doctrinal response?
Can they participate in leadership, teaching, and serving in other ways? AND
Is there a place for a married gay couple at our church to participate fully (leadership, teaching, serving)?
It is a part of our Statement of faith and involves a missional question of “where can I belong before I believe (or where don’t believe).”
This is still a matter of decision for the elders but for now, we allow most areas of service to be open but there are areas of leadership that I think are reserved for those who can affirm and uphold our statement of faith.
Elders
Teaching Leaders
Worship Leader
Shepherds in our HC’s
Final Things to consider:
I’ll make notes available online.
Dig deeper into the topics presented here, we will be offering our Sexual Ethics Class will be offered one more time in the Winter Jan-Feb.
Emotional - Journey USA -
“Journey USA is a community-based, Christ-centered discipleship ministry that exists to help people find hope and live life through experiencing Jesus in their relationships, sexuality and identity.”
If you have any further questions for us and want to discuss with a leader, elder, or pastor feel free to reach out, we would love to talk.
Finally, if there was anything offensive in this teaching that caused you to have questions about CGNE, please reach out. Give me, or US, the benefit of the doubt that we were not attempting to harm or hurt anyone and I would love to have a chance to explain or apologize if necessary.
Now...
May we take what we have learned and condition it by the love of Christ Jesus.
May we be formed into the likeness of Jesus Christ in all areas of our lives building with that which is useful and shedding that which is not!
May we love well as we lean into the grace we have freely received and now we freely give.
May you make us:
Truth tellers because we have been transformed by truth
Healers because we have been healed by the great physician
Reconcilers because we have been reconciled
COMMUNION:
(1 COR. 11:23B-26)
“The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
PRAYER REQUESTS:
We are hosting prayer team meetings for both the congregation at large and individuals to sign up for individual prayer.
SUGGESTIONS FOR WORSHIP:
“Praise & Worship” Spotify playlist and “Praise & Worship” YouTube playlist (slightly different from each other), both of diverse music that are being constantly updated!
Bethel Music :
Bethel Music’s hours of live music YouTube Playlist, also being constantly updated
Bethel provides chords to most (if not all) of their songs here (just have to register email, but free!)
Live worship moments from the Upper Room YouTube Playlist
Journal writing! (I’m a writer too, so sometimes creative writing and writing my thoughts to God is my form of worship.)
Declare and worship with truth by singing and praying scriptures.
WORSHIP NIGHT! Dedicate a night to worship with friends and family, your house church or neighbors, those who need prayer, love worship, or just enjoy music through a video chat platform like Zoom. You can have one person leading at a time (switching off to whoever else wants to lead) while others sing along, pray, or prophesy, etc.
Serving your community, both online, in person, or both, is a great way to worship God, from spreading encouragement and God’s Word online to physically serving food to others. If you are able to go out and serve, click here for opportunities.
COMMISSIONING:
As Jesus said in John 20:21,
"Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."
Go, be the Church!
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.