Sermon Tone Analysis

Salt and Light: Living Righteously in a Homosexual-affirming Culture

Text: Leviticus 18:22-23; Romans 1:24-27; Matthew 19:1-12

Theme: In a culture that increasingly affirms and even celebrates the homosexual lifestyle, Christians need to be Salt and Light.

Date: 11/10/2013File Name: Salt_and_Light_04.wpdSermon

ID: 26

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I. THE BIBLICAL TEXT

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

“‘Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it.

A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.”

(Leviticus 18:22–23, NIV)

•“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.

Amen.

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 1:24–27, NIV)

•“When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan.

Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

Some Pharisees came to him to test him.

They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?

So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.

But it was not this way from the beginning.

I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.

For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

The one who can accept this should accept it.”

(Matthew 19:1–12, NIV)

1. in Matthew 19 Jesus is clear about the Creator’s will for His creatures in the expression of their sexuality

a. in an attempt to paint Jesus into a theological corner, some Pharisees ask him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

b.

Jesus points them directly to the Scriptures ...

1) “Haven’t you read?” he asks them ... "that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,' and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?

So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

2) Jesus is, of course, quoting the great Jewish law-giver, Moses

3) and, as any Sunday School child knows, Moses is merely the conduit of the law, the real law-giver being the triune Godhead

2. in the Matthew passage, Jesus reiterates and reinforces the Scriptural view of gender, marriage, and sexual relations

a. everything outside of this matrix is sinful because it is outside the will of God— period

1) no “if’s” no “but what about’s” no “my situation is different” no “that was written for a different time”

2) I’ll say it again—everything outside of this matrix is sinful because it is outside the will of God—end of story

b. here Jesus clearly forbids, Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Bisexuality, Polysexuality, Lesbianism, Bestiality, Polyamory, Polygamy, Pedophilia, Fornication, and Adultery

1) all of these are sexual perversions because they pervert the Creator’s assigned roles for men and women and His decreed way of expressing one’s sexuality

2) the prima facie case against homosexuality or any other sexual misconduct is found in God’s creative plan for human sexuality

3. Jesus is clearly in sync with the Old Testament prohibitions such as Leviticus 18:22–23

a.

He merely takes the negative command—Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman—and turns it into a positive command

1) have you not read?

This is God’s will and command for human sexual expression: One woman, one man, in a covenant relationship sanctioned by the culture, establishing their own home, sexually active only with each other, united until death separates them

2) after Jesus says this, there is not much left to say—no “if’s” no “but what about’s” no “my situation is different” no “but that’s so Old Testament”

4. in the passage from the Epistle to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul is in sync with Jesus and Moses on the issue

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

(Ephesians 5:31, NIV)

a. Paul reminds us in his Epistle to the Romans, that anything outside this matrix is not only sinful, but detrimental to the culture as a whole because rampant sexual sin is a clear sign of God’s rejection of a people and ultimately incurs God’s judgment (Romans 1:24–27)

1) three times in the 1st chapter of Romans, Paul writes God gave them over

2) in other words, they were so bent on sinning, that God removed His hand of restraint and allowed them to engage in sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another

b. the growing acceptance of all forms of sexual perversion, homosexuality in particular, is a sign that God has removed His restraining and protective hand from a society, allowing the consequences of sin to take their inevitable, destructive course in the life of the sexually perverse as well as the culture that affirms the perversion

5. in an increasingly sexually perverse culture Christians need to celebrate the biblical

model of marriage and sexuality

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II.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

1. the Doctrine of Marriage clearly teaches, then, that marriage is the union of one woman, and one man, in a covenant relationship sanctioned by the culture, establishing their own home, sexually active only with each other, united until death separates them

a. this is not merely a New Testament doctrine

1) we believe it is a decree of God going back to the creation of the race in Adam and Eve

b. if the Scriptures are our source for faith and practice, then our duty is to bring our thoughts and attitudes and behaviors into line with the Scriptures, regardless of the protests from the culture

1) it seems that fewer and fewer Christians are willing to take such a stand

2. again, there are principles that we need to understand and affirm

!! A. MARRIAGE IS GOOD

“The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.

I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky.

He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

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.

So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”“ (Genesis 2:18–23, NIV)

1. there is something about Adam that is distinct from all the other creatures that God assigns Adam to name

a. 1st, we assume that when God creates giraffes, and bison, and rabbits and all the other myriads of critters the day before, that they are created in pairs—male and female, boys and girls, masculine gender and famine gender

b. 2nd, unlike the man, giraffes and bison and rabbits and other critters have no conciseness of being alone, but Adam will

2. in naming the animals Adam discovers that there is no helper suitable for him

a. the word helper essentially means compliment—Eve will be exactly what he needs, the perfect “fit” for him

b.

here is where biblical honesty is very important

1) this is not a salacious biblical reference to sex, but just the obvious of how God created us and why He created us

c.

Adam is in the Garden fully equipped as a man having all the physical equipment that the masculine gender has

1) but you realize from the story that without the feminine gender, much of the physical equipment Adam is endowed with is nonsensical or superfluous

3. what is interesting is that it is not Adam who makes the self-declaration it is not good for me to be alone

a. Adam doesn’t complain to God, “Hey, where’s mine?

I’m lonely.

Get with it.”

b. it is God who says, “I will make him a helper suitable for him, because nothing else is fit for him.”

1) it is God who knows best exactly what Adam needs, and so he takes a piece of Adam to create Eve