Sexuality, a Biblical Perspective and Response – Part One

Follow Along with the Message

Three Key Aspects of Today’s Message:

• Theology
• Ministry and Response
• Relationship and Story

Part One Key Sections:

1. The importance of language
2. The grace and truth way of Jesus
3. A Biblical theology of marriage

Part Two Key Sections:

4. What does the bible say about same-sex sexual relations?
5. Responding to affirming arguments
6. Can Christians truly love LGBT+ people without changing their theology?

Section 1: The Importance of Language

• Lesbian: women attracted to women.
• Gay: attracted to the same sex; used of both men and women.
• Bisexual: attracted to both men and women.
• Transgender: an umbrella term capturing many different ways in which someone does not identify with their biological sex. Typically, a biological man who identifies as a woman, or vice versa.
• Queer or Questioning: Queer means different and it’s used as sort of a catch all term for other experiences and identities that aren’t straight or cisgender (Cisgender just means you identify with your biological sex.) It used to be a derogatory term, but it’s now been used positively by younger people.
• Intersex: A condition where someone is born with some abnormality in their sexual anatomy, reproductive system, endocrine system, and/or sex chromosomes. This is not the same as transgender people.
• Asexual: not sexually attracted to anyone.

Affirming vs. Historically Christian

• Meaning of affirming is that you approve theologically of same-sex activity. That you have come to the conclusion that this is not a sin.
• Historically Christian View communicates that your view comes from beginning of scripture and throughout scriptures; and throughout history that your view of marriage is between the opposite sex in covenantal marriage.

Section 2: The Grace and Truth Way of Jesus

How did Jesus relate to people who were considered socially unacceptable by the religious elite?

Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich.
He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way. When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name.
“Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.”
Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.
Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!”
Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”

--Luke 19:1-10 (NLT)

“I must be a guest…” – Greek – “dei” meaning necessary, Divine compulsion, Divine script.

• Jesus didn’t share all of the reasons why Zacchaeus was a bad person.
• Jesus didn’t share his position on Tax Collectors.
• Jesus always had a posture of love.

When Jesus encountered people who were considered socially unacceptable sinners, he always fronted love:

• Prodigal Son (Luke 15)
• Woman caught in adultery (John 8)
• Sinful women (Luke 7)
• Matthew the tax collector (Luke 5)

“Ninety One percent of people outside the church perceive Christianity primarily as anti-homosexual.”

--David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons, UnChristian

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

--Romans 2:4 (NIV)

You didn’t think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard?
Or did you think that because he’s such a nice God, he’d let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he’s not soft.
In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.

--Romans 2:3-4 (MSG)

Section 3: A Biblical Theology of Marriage

1.    When Scripture talks about marriage, it says that  is part of what marriage is.

What is marriage?

• Is marriage a consensual union between two adults who fall in love and commit to each other?
• Or is marriage a one-flesh union between two sexually different persons?

A.   The story of creation and redemption.

Marriage, as a union between two differences – male and female – is an essential part of the story of creation.

Genesis 1 is about creational difference singing in harmony; differences complement each other in unity.

• Male / Female
• Day / Night
• Evening / Morning
• Land / Sea
• Earth / Heaven

Male / female marriage “is a very profound reality at the heart of that whole story of God’s good creation.” Therefore, “the coming together of male plus female is itself a signpost pointing to that great complementarity of God’s whole creation, of heaven and earth belonging together.”

--N.T. Wright

B.   Genesis 2 shares the sex difference.

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”  So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

--Genesis 2:18, 20 NIV

• “suitable” (Hebrew: kenegdo meaning similar and different) helper (Hebrew: ezer meaning “one who helps” or “warrior” used to name God 66 times throughout scripture.)

“At last!” the man exclaimed.
“This one is bone from my bone,
and flesh from my flesh!
She will be called ‘woman,’
because she was taken from ‘man.’”

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

--Genesis 2:23-24 (NLT)

C.   Jesus speaks to Genesis 2 and sex difference in marriage.

“Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’” (quoting Genesis 1:27) And he said,

‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ (quoting Genesis 2:24)

--Matthew 19:4-5 (NLT)

2.    When Scripture talks about same-sex sexual relations, it always prohibits them.

“Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”

--Leviticus 18:22 (NIV)

“If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

--Leviticus 20:13 (NIV)

“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.
Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

--Romans 1:26-27 (NIV)

“We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious,
for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality,
for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine.”

--1 Timothy 1:9-10 (NIV)

• There is  in Scripture about whether same-sex sexual behavior is ever okay.

Do we see such uniformity on other ethical questions?

• Divorce?
  • Deut 24 – Moses makes an allowance for divorce
  • Ezra says to divorce your foreign wives
  • Malachi says God hates divorce
  • Jesus says that you can only divorce on grounds of sexual immorality
  • Paul is the same vein of Jesus approach to divorce.
• Women Teaching and Leading?
  • Paul says 1 Tim 2:12 Women are not to have authority over a man or to teach
  • 1 Corinthians 11 the Apostle Paul says that if women are going to prophesy in church, that they have to cover their heads.
  • We also see multiple examples in the Old Testament and New Testament where women were leaders, judges, prophetess and agents for change.
  • We also see lots of examples where women were mistreated and maligned.
• Election?
  • Did God choose you or did you choose God?
  • Are you Calvinist or Armenian?

The bible does not give us a diverse perspective on sex.

3.    Global, Historic, Multi-Denominational 2,000 Year Agreement.

All branches of Christianity have said the same thing – Marriage is between a man and woman.

• Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Coptic.
• Christians in Africa, Latin America, and wherever Christianity exists.
• Charismatics, Reformed, Wesleyan, Easter Church, Western Church.
• The western church has changed this position in the last 15-20 years.

What is marriage?

• What is your definition of marriage?
• Where did you get that definition?
• How does Scripture inform that definition?

Action Points:

• It is important that Scripture informs you of what God thinks about sex and sexuality.

• In everything you do, front it with LOVE!

Next Week:

• What does the bible say about same-sex sexual relations?
• Responding to affirming arguments
• Can Christians truly love LGBT+ people without changing their theology?