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NewCity Orlando Sermons
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NewCity Orlando Sermons
Leviticus Is For Lovers | Leviticus 18
Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt continues our fall series, Leviticus Is For Lovers, preaching from chapter 18. In it, he challenges prevalent cultural narratives and offers a deeply theological perspective on our sexuality. Pastor Ben shows how faith intersects with personal desires and cultural expectations, emphasizing the transformative power of grace. He discusses the church's critical role in offering healing and redemption to those grappling with society's conflicting sexual norms. Drawing inspiration from Christopher West's "Our Bodies Tell God's Story," he underscores the importance of embodying sexual wholeness and holiness to offer hope and light in a culture often perceived as morally decaying.
Pastor Ben also examines the theological symbolism of marriage and sexuality, weaving parallels between earthly relationships and the anticipated union between Jesus and the church. Through this lens, he unpacks the significance of gender roles, the impact of the sexual revolution, and the enduring sacredness of the family. He concludes by encouraging us to open our hearts to the gentle mercy of Jesus, encouraging His presence to illuminate and heal parts of our lives that yearn for divine touch.
Hello everyone, this is Pastor Daniel. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening. Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence. Let your word be our rule, your spirit, our teacher, and your greater glory our supreme concern. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.
Speaker 1:Today's scripture reading is taken from Leviticus 18, not Exodus. Leviticus 18, portions of it. Please stand through the whole reading, if you are able. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying speak to the people of Israel and say to them I am the Lord, your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them.
Speaker 1:I am the Lord, your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them. I am the Lord.
Speaker 1:None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the Lord. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness and you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech and so profane the name of your God.
Speaker 1:I am the Lord. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it. Neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it. It is perversion.
Speaker 1:Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these, the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean. And the land became unclean so that I punished its iniquity and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you, for the people of the land who were before you did all of these abominations so that the land became unclean. The land who were before you did all of these abominations so that the land became unclean. Lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean as it vomited out the nation that was before you For everyone who does any of these abominations. The persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you and never to make yourselves unclean by them. I am the Lord, your God. This is God's Word.
Speaker 2:Thanks be to God, you may be. Seated Leviticus is for lovers, right seated Leviticus is for lovers, right. Some of you have been looking around and you see that it's getting a little crowded in here and you've asked yourself will we go to two services sometime in the future? And the reality is we just decided, instead of that, to preach what we could call a space maker sermon series, and so, as Damien said, the next two weeks are on sex and sexuality. So no, I'm kidding, that's not true, but it is funny. So I said it In the immortal words of Salt and Peppa let's talk about sex. That's what happens when you grow up on 90s hip-hop Like. I can't apologize for that to you, but one of the things I want to point out to you is that we know that this is a sensitive topic. We understand, and so I'm not making light of it. I'm hopefully easing some of the tension in the room and also inviting you to look at the show notes on the podcast or the, in case you missed it, email or our app, because we compiled a list of resources that are applicable to everyone in this room. Some of you who are parents wondering how you're gonna have these conversations, and some of you are singles and wonder what that means for you, for pursuing dating and marriage and those kind of things, and so we compiled this list of resources on sexuality that we've mostly just curated from other churches, other ministries, things like that. The top recommendation on there, though, is this book. It's called Our Bodies Tell God's Story, by Christopher West.
Speaker 2:In my private practice, one of the primary populations I work with is men who are wrestling with their sexuality and their spirituality, and I've studied this topic significantly. So this is not a hot take today. This is a cold take, it's a meditated take, if you will, and I've not read a better book on the topic of a biblical vision of sexuality than this one right here. So I'm saying, right now, I would love for everybody in this room to buy this book and read it. It's on the resources list, but I have a copy For somebody in here. If you'll come up to me after worship and you'll say, hey, I will read that book in the next month and I will come back up to you and talk to you about the things that I took away from it. So that's the invitation Come up. Whoever gets it first gets it. If you're weirded out. You're like I don't want to be the guy that comes up and asks for the sex book. I'm telling everybody to read this book. So you're not weird, you're just frugal and you want it for free, and I identify with that. I totally get it.
Speaker 2:But one of the benefits of being a part of a worshiping congregation like New City that values preaching through books of the Bible is that you have to face difficult passages. That I can almost guarantee you. Damien and I wouldn't have scheduled a two-part series on sexuality right before Thanksgiving. I don't think we would have done that, but we're at Leviticus 18 and 20. And so that's what you do when you take on those texts. And so there's something about the authority of Scripture even shaping the sermons that we preach. That, I think, is actually really important.
Speaker 2:And so I like to say that I'm a connoisseur of good questions. I like to collect them, and one of my favorite questions to ask people is what is one unpopular opinion that you hold to? This sermon is basically going to be a lot of mine, so I'm going to tell you a lot of my unpopular opinions that I hold to, but I want to do it full of grace and truth, this is a sensitive topic. This is there's nobody that's not feeling something as we talk about the topic of sexuality, and so why I say that is is that I know that there's a lot of sexual brokenness that Jesus can redeem in this room this morning. And the reason why I know that is because that which is most sacred is often most profaned, and sexuality has a sacredness to it, and so, of course, the evil one attacks it and he distorts it and he desecrates it because he hates all that God created good.
Speaker 2:And so, as we look at the text together, what I want to see is a biblical vision of sexuality from Leviticus 18, okay, this isn't probably how. If I was just preaching a topical sermon, I probably wouldn't have done it like this, but the text is guiding this biblical vision of sexuality, and so we're going to look at that under three questions, which are what is the first principle? Where does the family fit, and what if the foundations are shaken? So let's look at what is the first principle of a biblical vision of sexuality. Now, this might be a little bit of a longer sermon, but for some of you if you're like me, who's still waiting to get the sex talk from your mom and dad. It can double as a sex talk for you. So give me at least that little extra bit of margin in the length of this sermon. No more jokes, I promise I'm done. Okay.
Speaker 2:Leviticus 18, verse 1. If you have a Bible or a device, go ahead and get that out in front of you, because we're going to look at the text very carefully together. Verse 1 says this and I, the Lord. Now, if your text has L-O-R-D. All caps, it's the personal name of God, which is Yahweh. That's important. So it says verse 1, and Yahweh spoke to Moses saying speak to the people of Israel and say to them I am Yahweh your God. That phrase right there, god, that phrase right there, I am Yahweh your God is the first principle of a biblical vision of sexuality. You have to get that why?
Speaker 2:Because in philosophy and in science, a first principle is a foundational idea that is assumed and not even argued for. It's axiomatic. Everything else builds on top of it. It's kind of like if you were building a tower out of blocks with, maybe, a young kid or something like that. In order to keep it steady from tumbling over, it has to have a strong, solid foundation. It has to have a solid base, because if the base is strong, everything else that builds on top of it is good. If the base is weak, the whole thing's topsy-turvy. Right, that's a first principle.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's how first principles work. They're the basic, foundational ideas in any kind of a theory or a system, and so in a biblical vision of sexuality, the first principle is I am Yahweh, your God. You have to start there. It's essential and in every worldview, whether you're a Christian or not, every single worldview has to answer this question as the first and fundamental question of their worldview, which is who is God? You might be an atheist, but your very name is defined by a theos. No, god, you're still answering the question, and the way that the text this morning six times in Leviticus 18, answers that question is I am Yahweh, your God. It's the first principle of a biblical vision of sexuality. Jesus asked it like this. He said to his disciples who do you say that I am? This is fundamental. This is the first principle, the building block.
Speaker 2:There's a woman named Barbara Boyd who worked for InterVarsity. She's actually the person who taught Tim Keller how to read the Bible. So thank you, barbara. And she had this saying that she used. She said imagine that the distance from the earth to the sun. Imagine that distance. It's about 93 million miles, and imagine it was the thickness of one sheet of paper. Okay, you got that in mind. Then the distance from the earth to the nearest star alone would be a stack of paper 70 feet high, pretty spacious. The diameter of just our galaxy would be a stack of paper 310 miles high. And our galaxy is just a single speck, one of an infinite number of galaxies, and it's just in the part of the universe that we can see from our privileged planet. That we can see from our privileged planet.
Speaker 2:And so if, as Hebrews 1, 3 says, that Jesus Christ holds all things together by a single word of his power, can you relate to him as merely a consultant, as an advisor? Can you relate to such a one as anything other than the Lord of all? There's a saying if Jesus is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all. He will not condescend to be your consultant. He's your king, or nothing else. I am the Lord. Your God is the first principle of a biblical sexuality, and it has to start here. And so let me ask you, when it comes to you, your sexuality, your thought life, your sex life. Is Jesus simply a consultant or is he king? What would that look like? What would it look like for him to be your king and not merely a consultant?
Speaker 2:Look at Leviticus 18, verse 4. It says this you shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord, your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them. I am the Lord.
Speaker 2:So here's a diagnostic question when was the last time you did something because Jesus told you to? Or when was the last time you did not do something because Jesus told you not to? It's a good diagnostic question, like think about a moment when everything in you your urges, your sensations, your desires, your thoughts were all pulling you in one direction and you said no. Because King Jesus says no Because in that moment you know that he is Lord of your life, not your feelings, because in that moment you know that he is Lord of your life, not your feelings. R Kelly said it like this my mind's telling me no, but my body's telling me yes. How did that work out for him? Jesus is only king. He will not be your consultant.
Speaker 2:That is a first principle of biblical sexuality. In our premarital training here at New City, the last and final session, my wife Alana and I separate and I get to sit with the groom, she sits with the bride. We have a conversation that I just affectionately call the great sexpectations talk and the passage of scripture, because I believeesus is lord over your sexuality if you're a christian. The passage of scripture we look at is first corinthians 6. This is the way that paul, who wrote first corinthians, affirms this first principle of biblical sexuality. He says this quote you are not your own. You are not your own. Why? Why is that? Why does that matter? Because he's demanding and demeaning? No, because any lover wants all of their beloved and nothing less. We know this. This is how it works. Leviticus is for lovers. Jesus is a good lover. He wants all of his beloved. He will settle for nothing less. As we come to this table, we're going to hear the words the body of Jesus, this is my body, given for you, and he's asking for the same thing in exchange. Give your body back to me, for you are not your own. You were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.
Speaker 2:Whenever I have conversations with friends from the LGBTQ plus community, they often think that God wants nothing to do with them because they're gay. Pete Buttigieg famously said if you had shown me exactly what it was inside me that made me gay, I would have cut it out with a knife. You see, tragically, the gay community has heard the church's message as God versus gay. That's the way that the LGBTQ plus community receives what we call the gospel, the good news, and in those conversations usually this is my reframe I said oh no, no, no, no, it's not that God wants less of you. It's that God wants more of you than you're willing to relinquish to him. You see, god has not put off this is true for all of us. God has not put off by your disordered sexuality. He's put off by your refusal to relinquish your disordered sexuality to him. That's what he's put off by. And so when I'm having these conversations, what I'm saying is that God wants your thoughts and desires. He wants your urges and sensations. He wants your time and your finances. He wants your influence and your service. He wants your whole self. Yes, including and even, maybe especially your sexuality. He wants that. Why? Including and even, maybe especially, your sexuality. He wants that why? Because a lover wants nothing less than all of their beloved. Nothing else will suffice, and so this matters, because when Jesus says this is my body given for you, he's asking for the same in return.
Speaker 2:There's a story in one of my favorite books, called the Hiding Place, about Corrie Ten Boom, who survived the Holocaust, and she tells this story about when she was a young girl and she was probably would have left this service because she was probably under 13. And she heard her aunt having a conversation about sex and she heard this word, sex sin. She thought it was one word sex sin. They were talking about sexual sin, but she heard sex sin, and so she was wondering what could this possibly be the way they were talking about it? She was so curious, and so, while she was on a train with her father, she turned to him and suddenly asked father, what is sex sin? She said quote he turned and looked at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing.
Speaker 2:Then he stood up, lifted his traveling case from the rack over our heads and he sat on the floor and he said will you carry this off the train, corey. I stood up and I tugged at it. It was crammed with watches and spare parts that he had purchased that morning and he said she said to her father it's too heavy for me. Yes, he said, and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little daughter to carry such a load. You see, some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now, you must trust me to carry it for you. What if total sexual autonomy is too heavy for you to carry? What if the authority over your sexuality could be carried by a good father? That's the invitation. That's the invitation to come under the authority of God over your sexuality.
Speaker 2:Now, what gets in the way? Look with me at Leviticus 18.3. It says this quote you shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived in the past, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I'm bringing you in the future. You shall not walk in their statutes. Yahweh is urging the Israelites not to imitate where they came from or where they're going, their cultural context. And I think this is because, ultimately, this is a little oversimplification, but ultimately you will submit to one of three authoritative guides in your life with everything, everything. Here's the three you ready Scripture, culture or self. Those are going to be your authoritative guides and in particular in this text. Those are going to be your authoritative guides and, in particular in this text, it's your culture being an authoritative guide over your life.
Speaker 2:Scripture, culture, self you choose, and he's concerned. God knows that you are a cultural being, that you have a cultural identity, that you were born in a specific place and time and among a specific people that have its own stories and habits and customs, and that that's one of the most profoundly influential things in your life is the fact that you are a cultural being that swims around in this cultural fishbowl we call the modern West. And so, just like the Lord is speaking to Israel, saying you came from Egypt, you're going to Canaan, there's cultural problems with both of those places. Do not be like them, don't walk in their statutes, don't walk in their ways, be different, be separate, be other than them in the way you obey me in your sexual ethics. He's saying that to them there. He's saying that to us now. And so what is our culture like in this area.
Speaker 2:Well, I genuinely wish I had time to trace out the effects of feminism and birth control. Roe v Wade, the Burgerfell decision, freud, kinsey all these different influences that have shaped our cultural moment. I don't have time, but I'll point you to the show notes. I value showing my work. You can find a lot of the resources that I'm drawing from there, but let me just summarize our cultural moment's view of sexuality under three principles here it is you ready? One you are your sexual inclinations. Two anyone who hinders you from discovering and developing your sexual inclinations is therefore attacking your dignity as a human being. Three, therefore every self must accept every other self and affirm his or her life projects, and so this cultural way of being that we live in. It's touted as though we live in an era of sexual liberty, but it's also profoundly legalistic. You know, you could step into conversations where you work among your neighbors and say some of the things I'm saying right now. At best you get canceled. We're a profoundly legalistic culture for those who pretend as if we're after sexual liberty.
Speaker 2:Why is this? Well, the text says it like this. If you look at verse three, it's because every cultural moment has its own customs. Quote do not do as they do, and commands or statutes. You don't get away from that. And so what God is saying is a biblical vision of sexuality is always gonna make you a counterculture, whether it's Egypt or Canaan, rome or Manhattan. He's saying do not walk in their ways, do not be like them. So how do we walk this out? Look with me at verse 3. Again, you shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes.
Speaker 2:Verse 4, this is the alternative. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am Yahweh, your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them. I am Yahweh. I know of a woman who has a ministry helping people who are exploring Christianity, from the gay community, and one of the first things she does in one of their first meetings is they sit down together and they read through the entirety of Psalm 119 together.
Speaker 2:Now, if you know Psalm 119, it's the longest chapter in the Bible and it's about the goodness, beauty and truth of God's statutes, his ways, his rules that are recorded in the Bible. Why start there? Well, because to be a Christian, as our confession says, is to submit, to quote, no other ultimate authority but the Holy Spirit speaking in the scripture. That's what it means to be a Christian. But listen, if you don't want that for yourself, if you don't wanna submit all of you to what the Bible says about your sexuality, we will not coerce you in any way. Just don't call yourself a follower of Jesus, because you're not.
Speaker 2:The text says in verse four what it means to be a quote follower or to walk in his ways is to obey here, in this area, like, if you like, the Bible in every place where it doesn't confront you. You've made the Bible your own book. Like Jefferson, who cut out all the things he didn't like, the Bible has to be able to both comfort and confront you in all kinds of different areas of your life. Otherwise you are standing over the Bible and you will never understand the Bible. And so I have a friend who's here, a part of New City, a brother, who would tell you that it was this, it was grasping the authority of Jesus in scripture that led him to come out of the gay community and into New City as a Jesus community.
Speaker 2:The story is beautiful, it's profound and he's felt the promise of Leviticus 18.5. Look at the text here. It says in 18.5,. It says if a person does that, does the rules of God, the laws of God, the commands of God. If a person does them, he shall live by them. In other words, walking in Jesus's way leads to life, flourishing. It might feel like death to say no to your desires, but it results in life, resurrection, life on the other side. That's the promise of this text. He would bear witness to feeling, knowing, experiencing the joy of that promise that he who does them, he who walks in them, will live by them. Proverbs 14, 12 says there is a way that seems right to man, but its end is the way to death.
Speaker 2:Our culture's sexual ethic, its vision, is essentially something like quote do whatever feels right to you as long as there's consent. That's about it, and we can see where it's led us. I think, I think you can see that. But if you can't consider, contrast is the mother of clarity.
Speaker 2:Sean McDowell wrote an article to help us imagine what a world would look like if everyone submitted to the authority of King Jesus in the matters of sex and gender. This is what a world would look like if everyone submitted to the authority of King Jesus in the matters of sex and gender. This is what a world would look like if everyone submitted to King Jesus, to what I'm calling a vision of a biblical sexuality. This is what he says there would be no sexually transmitted diseases, no abortions, no brokenness from divorce. Every child would have a mother and a father and experience the love and acceptance each parent uniquely offers. There would be no rape, no sexual abuse, no sex trafficking, no pornography and no need for a hashtag Me Too campaign. There would be no sexual exploitation, no sexual abuse, no AIDS, no chlamydia, herpes, hpv or syphilis, no unwanted pregnancies, no pain from divorce, no deadbeat dads, no men who leave their wives for other women. No child would have to grow up in a home where a mom or dad merely abandoned them. To quote do it my way Think of the healing and the wholeness for our battered bodies and shattered souls that would come from coming under and submitting ourselves to the beauty and the goodness and the truth of this sexual vision. This is the promise of Leviticus 18.5. If a person does them, he shall live by them Fully alive.
Speaker 2:So why did I spend so much time on Jesus' authority over our sexuality? Well, because there's a saying which is a problem well defined is half solved. Let me just define the problem who rules your life, specifically in the area of your sexuality? If you can define that problem and really get at it, it's half solved. It's not completely solved, but it really comes down to this we have a choice between two ways of being crazy in our cultural moment. The first way is by the foolishness of the gospel that we would let somebody named King Jesus, who's apparently enthroned in heaven, rule over your sex life. There's a foolishness to that, I understand. The second one is the nonsense of the values of our cultural moment. Those are your two options. So you're gonna be crazy one way or the other. My invitation is be crazy in Jesus's direction.
Speaker 2:Point number two where does the family fit in a biblical vision of sexuality? Look with me at verse six. None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am Yahweh. Verses six through 23 is a list of all kinds of people you should not have sex with. Most of them you're related to spoiler alert. I'm not skipping it, but I'm kind of getting at the rationale behind why. That is because I wanna ask the text what's going on here? Why put this here? Why spend so much time on incestuous family relationships?
Speaker 2:In her book Abolish the Family, the feminist Marxist Sophie Lewis says this the family is quote where most of the rape happens on this earth and most of the murder. No one is likelier to rob, bully, blackmail, manipulate or hit you or inflict unwanted touch than family. Wow, I know that lands for some people in this room differently. I know that I think Sophie Lewis could have gotten that statement from the prohibitions of Leviticus 18, though Do you see what God's trying to help us with? As I said earlier, that which is most sacred is often most desecrated. There's few things more gloriously central in God's plan for the world than the family. It makes sense why the evil one has destroyed and distorted and caused so much brokenness and harm through families. That's not God's sexual, that's not his vision for our sexuality, though, and so I believe and I really I actually have the stats for this I'm going to write an article on this one day, lord willing. I believe that a happy, healthy, holy family of origin is the greatest privilege any human being could ever have and I mean privilege in the cultural moments way of using that word. No greater privilege you could have than having a happy, healthy and holy family of origin. God knows that he designed it that way, which is why he's got a whole list of prohibitions to protect us from the ways evil wants to desecrate the sacredness of the family.
Speaker 2:In the 1960s, something called the sexual revolution kicked off and it did something to the family. It divided marriage, sex and family. So now, as a result of the 1960s and sexual revolution, this is what's true Now you can have sex without marriage, marriage without children, sex without children, children without sex and children without marriage. That's our cultural moment, that's where we live. And since the family is the fundamental cell of society, as the family goes, so goes the world. This is a biblical vision of society. As the family goes, so goes the world. This is a biblical vision of sexuality.
Speaker 2:And so 17 times in these verses, it commands us not, to quote, uncover the nakedness of anyone except your spouse. What's going on here? Let's start with creation. Genesis 1.27 says God created man in his own image, male and female. He created them In Genesis 2.23, when Adam sees Eve for the first time, the first recorded human words in history are love poetry of a husband beholding the naked body of his bride. That's the first recorded words in the Bible spoken by a human being.
Speaker 2:So let me ask this question when Adam saw the naked body of his wife, eve, what did he see? Well, a man's body makes no sense by itself. Some of you are like that's true, I actually know that, but listen, a woman's body makes no sense by itself. Some of you are like that's true, I actually know that, but listen, a woman's body makes no sense by itself either. A woman's body is complete in all of its systems but one. A man's body is complete in all of its systems but one your circulatory, respiratory, digestive and nervous systems. They are all self-contained. The reproductive system alone functions only in union with the opposite sex. The sexual difference of our nakedness reveals the plan of God that man and woman are meant to be gift to one another in marital love. This is what Adam's seeing in the nakedness of his bride. The self-giving love of sexual difference is seen even at the cellular level. Every cell in a man's body has 46 chromosomes, except for one. Every cell in a woman's body has 46 chromosomes, except for one the sperm cell and the egg each only have 23.
Speaker 2:You see, the words generous, generate, genesis, genetics, genealogy, progeny, gender and genitals come from the same root word, which means to produce or to give birth to come from the same root word which means to produce or to give birth to. Contrary to the widespread secular insistence, a person's gender is not a malleable social construct. But I want you to hear me say this gender dysphoria is a real experience. It's a real disorder that our friends and neighbors experience, that we have to take seriously. But a person's gender is based on God's design for that person to generate new life, determined by the kind of genitals he or she has. So, in agreement with all of the biological sciences, we can say that there is quote two roles, one belonging only to men and the other only to women, that are irreplaceable and absolutely indispensable for the survival of the human race fatherhood and motherhood.
Speaker 2:Christopher West says it like this when we understand the gender-genitals-generation link, we also understand why a degenerate, a degendered society is bound to degenerate. So in the modern West, because I believe we worship at the altar of self, marriage and parenting have actually become a lifestyle choice, and so, in 2023, the US's total fertility rate was 1.62 births per women. All right, why does this matter? Well, suppose we have 100 people, 50 men and 50 women. Assuming they all marry between them, they will have 81 children. If this group is half men and half women, when they marry each other and reproduce, they will have 65.6 children. So, in just two generations, the population decreases by 34% from 100 to about 65 people Two generations. One commentator says it like this quote if you don't think that's a problem, think about who's going to be running your hospitals, repairing your roads, policing your streets and paying for your pension.
Speaker 2:This is a demographic time bomb, and I'm saying it arises out of a complete collapse of confidence in a biblical vision of marrying, building a family and having children. And so when Adam saw the naked body of his wife, what did he see? Adam saw the naked body of his wife. What did he see? Listen, the problem of pornography is not that it shows too much, but that it shows too little. It portrays the person as a mere object of sexual gratification, and it fails to display the fact that they are a human being made in the image of God, designed for union and communion and intimacy, and that their erotic desires were made for something more than being exploited as a sex object. When Adam and Eve saw each other's nakedness, what did they see? They saw God's plan of love inscribed in their naked bodies, and that's exactly what they desired to love as God loves in and through their bodies.
Speaker 2:Now I know that this topic can stir up so much for so many of us. There's three people in this room right now that I'm particularly, I feel, for. The first is those of you who are single but desire to be married. The second is those of you who have persistent same-sex attraction and you know that obedience to Jesus right now in your life looks like celibacy. The third is those of you who are married but can't have children because of various reasons of infertility. I know that this lands on you in a particular way.
Speaker 2:Elizabeth Elliot says suffering is when you get what you don't want or when you want what you don't get. There's suffering here. I know it, but listen when I talk about a biblical vision of sexuality. It not only heightens your pain but it validates it, because you can see how your desires rightfully fit within God's design for your sexuality, how your desires rightfully fit within God's design for your sexuality. Both of those really matter.
Speaker 2:And so, as we close, what if the foundations are shaken of a biblical vision of sexuality? Look with me at the last verse in our chapter here, leviticus 18.30. Quote so keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you and never to make yourselves unclean by them. I am the Lord, your God. Psalm 11, verse 3, says if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? We live in a cultural moment where the foundations of a biblical vision of sexuality have been destroyed. What can the righteous do? Well, if you look at Leviticus 18, god clearly is calling his people to be a counterculture. But there's two ways to be a counterculture there's us versus them and there's us for them. Both are countercultures. One is a counterculture for its own good, the other is a counterculture for the common good. God, throughout the story of Scripture, has always called his people to be this a counterculture for the common good. But they've often failed by becoming a counterculture for their own good or by not being a counterculture at all.
Speaker 2:And so let me ask you a series of questions. What if the church looked less like a battleship in our culture wars and more like a rescue boat for the victims of our culture's dehumanizing sexual ethics. What if we became a hospital for those who are sick of their own sexual autonomy? In order for that to happen, we would have to be characterized by sexual wholeness and sexual holiness. I promise you that. What do you have to offer if you're darkness in here when there's darkness out there? What do you have to offer if you're decay in here when there's decay out there? Jesus calls us to be salt arresting decay and light pushing back the darkness. That's to love our neighbors, counterculture for the common good. We would have like imagine if New City, in our cultural moment in Orlando, became less like a thermometer that just kind of ebbs and flows with the cultural moment and more like a thermostat that actually changed the temperature of the cultural moment. What if New City reclaimed the right to look at sexual sinners in their eyes and, in the name of Jesus, say neither do we condemn you, go and sin no more, full of grace and truth. What would that take for us to be able to do that?
Speaker 2:Well, I started this sermon by saying that Jesus can redeem a lot of sexual brokenness in this room, and that's because he has in this preacher and is continuing to do in this preacher. When I came to know Jesus at 19 years old, I had a radical transformation in most of my life, but there were a few habits that died hard. One of them was pornography use. Another one was the love of human praise. And so, in the midst of the distress of thinking if I'm supposed to be a follower of Jesus but my life looks like this in secret, do I even belong to Jesus? I agonized over that question for years, and I would find little buoys of hope that I would latch onto, and one of them was a video. You can still find it on YouTube.
Speaker 2:It was a part of, and he met this woman named Kim, and Kim was a 26-year-old single mother in college, and he and his group of friends just began to love her and minister to her and speak about the grace and mercy of Jesus for sexual sinners, and they would even go and babysit for her. They found out a little bit later that she was having an extramarital affair with a married man, and so they would talk to her about that graciously, and Chandler tells the story of how he had a friend who was playing music at a local church and so he invited Kim to come, in that sketchy way that we do sometimes we're like, want to see a concert. And she came, and so they're sitting there and his friend played music. He was phenomenal.
Speaker 2:And then the pastor gets up and the pastor begins to give a lecture, a sermon, a teaching on a biblical vision of sexuality, although it was very unbiblical, it was fear-mongering, it was demeaning. And what he did is. He started by taking a rose and he took this rose and he said look at this rose, it's beautiful, it's perfect, it's all these things. And then he tossed it out into the crowd and he said pass that around, smell it, touch it, pass it around. And as people passed around, he went on to preach his sermon, which was truly awful, and at the end of the sermon, his main point, his big crescendo, was this he said where's the rose? Somebody give me the rose. And it got passed back up to him and he held it up and it was broken, the stem was snapped, the petals were all gone, and his main point this was what he was after. He said now who would want this If you give yourself away sexually. This is what happens to you, and who would want this? And Chandler, in this moment that still brings tears to my eyes, stands up and he goes. Jesus wants the rose. That's the basics of our faith. That's the heart of the gospel.
Speaker 2:There are those of you in this room this morning that feel your sexual brokenness. You feel so much shame in this area of your life and you have to hear the good news of the gospel says Jesus wants the rose. Leviticus 18 5 is quoted by Paul. In Galatians 3, paul says this the law is not of faith, rather, quote the one who does them shall live by them. He goes on to say Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. How is it possible that we could be right in the sight of the one before whom everyone will stand naked and exposed one day? How is that possible? Because Jesus wants the rose so much that he was willing to become a curse for us so that we might be blessed in him. He was broken. He took on your sexual brokenness in his body on that tree so that he who is broken could make you whole. That's the good news of the gospel, that's the hope for sexual sinners like you and like me this morning and for eternity.
Speaker 2:You have to understand Jesus is the most fully alive human who has ever lived. And guess what? He never had sex. Instead, he's a patient husband longing for the moment of consummation with his bride, when he will come back and we will descend out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, and there will be a union between lover and beloved, quite like no one has ever seen that. Every marriage and every act of sex is in and of itself a sign pointing to that great union of Jesus, the great groom and the church, his beloved bride.
Speaker 2:That's the day we anxiously await. For as we wait for our loving groom to come get his bride, let's pray. Spirit of God, you search us and know us. There's people in this room who have closed, locked, boarded up this area of their life, and I believe you're standing at the door and knocking. Jesus, spirit, would you invite them, with the gentle mercy of Jesus, to unlock that door, to welcome you in? Your presence is always cleansing. Your presence is always healing. Your presence always brings light where there's darkness. That's your work to do, god, do it for Jesus' beautiful name. We pray amen.