Kennystix's podcast
Sex and the Supremacy of Christ: Part 1
the following resources from desiringgod.org. There's a connection between the beheadings of Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson and this conference and its theme, "Sex and the Supremacy of Christ." I look at them on the internet, I look at their eyes, I look at their hands, and I think about my hands and my eyes and my faith. Perhaps Kenneth Kenneth Bigley is included by now, I don't know. And then I remember a word from the Lord Jesus who puts it in perspective and makes a very serious link when he says, "You've heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery." But I say to you, everyone who looks upon a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery in his heart. So if you're right-hand, offend you, cut it off and throw it from you. For it's better to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell. And if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it from you for it is better to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. In other words, there's something vastly more important than whether you lose an eye or a hand or a head. Namely, whether you lose your life forever in hell. And the war to which Jesus addressed those words was not the war in Iraq, but the war against lust. Therefore, we are not playing games this week. We are not here to pamper you, to add just a little more zing to your marriage or mere chastity to your singleness. We're here to prepare you to cut off your hand and gouge out your eye. And if necessary, be beheaded in the cause of the supremacy of Christ in this world. And I hope that before we're done, the weight of glory, the weight of the majesty of Jesus Christ would have come upon you with such heaviness that it will be almost emotionally impossible to go from Internet, Fox or CNN or Google to the pornography. I hope that will be almost emotionally impossible because of the weight of what life is about. I have two points to make in my talk and I think these two points will be explained and applied by all the other speakers, both in the plenary sessions and in the breakout sessions. That's my assumption about these folks that I have asked to join me in this ministry this weekend. Let me tell you what these two points are. First, sexuality is designed by God as a way to know God in Christ more fully. That's point number one. Point number two. Knowing God in Christ more fully is designed as a way of guarding and being our sexuality. I'm going to use the term God and Christ interchangeably. There's a reason for that. This conference is based on the conviction that Christ is God. Therefore, when I say God, I'm thinking God as He manifests Himself in Christ's. When I say Christ, I mean Christ who is the fullness of deity in bodily form. So let me say the two points again. All misuses of our sexuality distort the knowledge of God. Or to put it the other way, point to all misuses of our sexuality derive from not having the true knowledge of God. Put it one more way. All sexual corruption serves to conceal the true knowledge of God in Christ. And second, the true knowledge of Christ serves to prevent sexual corruption. So let's take those two points and develop them. Here's the first one. Sexuality is designed by God as a way to know Him more fully. God created human beings in His own image, male and female. He created them with capacities for intense sexual pleasure and with a calling to commitment in marriage and continents in singleness. And His goal, His main goal in creating human beings with personhood and passions is to make sure that when He comes there would be sexual language and sexual images which would point to the promises and the pleasures of God's relationship to His people and His people's relationship to Him. That's the ultimate reason why you are a sexual being. God made us in His own image as sexual people so that He would be known more deeply and fully. The language and imagery of sexuality is the most graphic and the most powerful in the Bible to describe the relationship between God and His people, both positively when we are faithful and negatively when we're not. Now I want you to listen or read on the overhead if you can without embarrassment to the positive and the negative words of God spoken through the prophet Ezekiel and I want you to keep in mind something before we start reading. Keep in mind that God chose Israel for his own possession from all the peoples on the face of the earth and made a special covenant with them of salvation until the day would come when through Israel the Messiah Jesus Christ would come and He would die on behalf of all those who would trust in Him so that they could be forgiven for all their sins and come into this relationship of covenant with his father and the gospel would spill over the banks of Israel and spread to all the nations so that when we read things like this in the Old Testament addressed to Jerusalem or to Israel because they are God's covenant people we know today that those of us who are in the Messiah, in Jesus Christ and by faith these things are true for us all the more so and not irrelevant though we are not physical Israel so I invite you now to listen to the language God chooses to use to describe his relationship to his covenant people. We're going to start at verse 4 of Ezekiel 16 on the day you were born your cord was not cut nor were you washed with water to cleanse you nor rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling cloths no I pitied you to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you but you were cast out into the open field for you were abhorred on the day that you were born and when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood I said to you live I said to you in your blood live and I made you flourish like a plant in the field and you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment your breasts were formed and your hair had groaned yet you were naked and bare and when I passed by you again and saw you behold you were at the age for love and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness and I made a vow with you and entered into a covenant with you declares the Lord God and you became mind then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil I clothed you with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather that's a picture of how you got saved if you're a believer tonight utterly free undeserved mercy that's how Israel got chosen and that's how you were brought from death to life from darkness to light from the kingdom of Satan into the power and dominion of Christ I said to you live and you lived I made you flourish I married you that's how Israel began that's how the church began free mercy and we love it let's continue Ezekiel 16-13 thus you were adorned with gold and silver and your clothing was a fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth you ate fine flour and honey and oil you grew exceedingly beautiful in advanced to royalty and your renown went among the nations because of your beauty for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you declares the Lord but you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any by your beauty became his you took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines and on them played the whore the like has never been or ever shall be adulterous wife who received strangers instead of her husband men give gifts to all prostitutes but you gave your gifts to your lovers bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings and there's a picture of us when we do not treasure Christ above all things when you turn away from God you are a whore a faithless wife her idolatry her turning from the Lord to anything this picture does the work of a prostitute and so I say again what I said at the beginning God created you a sexual being so that when he comes comes in the history of Israel comes in the person of Christ there would be language there would be images that could capture the glory of what it is like to belong to him in faithfulness and the horror of what it is like to turn away from the living God that's why we're sexual ultimately God could have made babies any way he wanted their sexual ultimately so that this language would exist and this statement could be made in Ezekiel 16 verse 35 here's the word of judgment therefore a prostitute hear the word of the Lord thus says the Lord God because your lust was poured out on your out and your nakedness uncovered and your whorings with your lovers and with all your abominable idols and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them stop did you hear that someday we'll have a conference on abortion and we'll draw the link between the whorings of unbelief and the sacrifice of our children someday we'll do that because that's here and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them all bound up with our sexuality but that's not this conference therefore behold I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure all those you loved and all those you hated I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them that they may see all your nakedness and you might think now that's the end of Israel God is really mad so he put her away put his wife away but it was not the last word God hate divorce and never ever does it therefore though the judge judged and the husband separated he will not finally forsake her she is his covenant people his wife he will make with her a new covenant he will bring her back at the cost of the life of his son verse 59 for thus says the Lord God I will deal with you as you have done you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth I will establish for you an everlasting covenant I will establish my covenant with you and you shall know that I am the Lord that you may remember and be confounded and never open your mouth again because of your shame when I a tone for you for all that you have done declares the Lord the end of the story is not that he gives up his faithless wife to the hands of brutal lovers and they were brutal oh were they brutal all lovers without Christ are brutal in the end the end was not simply that he took her back the end was not simply that he made with her a new and everlasting covenant the end was that he paid himself for all her sins did this prostitute this whore have any outstanding debts with any of her paramours God will pay them and take her back how you doing husbands how you doing wives how much forgiveness is flowing through you in this pained marriage that you brought to this conference and so in the New Testament when the Lord comes and Jesus dies for us and rises for us and begins to gather a people a covenant people for himself no surprise that the apostle Paul says to the husbands to love like that Ephesians 5-25 husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water in the words so that he might present the church to himself a splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish that's the fulfillment of Ezekiel 1659 and following I will remember my covenant with you I will establish an everlasting covenant with you you will know that I am the Lord when I atone for all that you done Jesus Christ creates establishes, confirms, purchases by his blood the new covenant everlasting joy between the father and the people of the son and he calls it a marriage and he pictures the last great final reunion as the marriage supper of the lamb so therefore my first point is that God created us in the image of himself in order that there would be sexual images, sexual language there would be a reality among human beings to which he could point and say that's what it's like for me to love you and that's what it's like for you to love me it's like sex powerful words, powerful images, God made us powerfully sexual so that he would be more deeply knowable we were given the power to know each other sexually so that we might have some hint just a hint of what it will be like to know Christ supremely so all misuses of sexuality, adultery, fornication, illicit fantasies, masturbation, pornography, homosexual behavior, rape, sexual child abuse bestiality, exhibitionism and so on all misuses of our sexuality distort the true knowledge of God God means for human beings and their sexual life to be a pointer and a foretaste of our relationship with him that's point number one point number two knowing God deeply is designed by God as a way of guarding and guiding our sexuality not only do all the misuses of sexuality conceal and distort the true knowledge of God but it works the other way around powerfully the true knowledge of God in Christ serves to prevent misuses serves to guard and protect sexuality in purity and love so on the one hand sexuality is designed by God as a way of knowing Christ more fully and on the other hand to know Christ more fully is designed as a way of guarding and guiding our sexuality now my guess is that many people would hear that and say that is absolutely and patently and demonstrably false because of how many pastors the God-knowers, how many priests, the God-knowers, many theologians the God-knowers have committed adultery have been hooked on pornography have abused little boys and little girls and have devastated churches so so much for your second point that the knowledge of Christ guards and guides us in the purity of sexuality Ha, tell it to the Boston Diocese I think the question to whether or not my point is true should be answered by the Bible first not experience because if the scripture teaches that truly knowing God guards guides governs our sexuality in purity and love then we may be sure absolutely sure that a pastor or a priest or a theologian whose sexuality is not guided and guarded and governed by that knowledge does not know God or say it more carefully at least does not know God as he ought now the question is is that what the Bible teaches? that knowing Christ, knowing God guides, guards, governs, orders our sexuality are right, is that what the Bible teaches? Now in answering this I want to say something about the word know by way of preface to looking at some passages that show that is what the Bible teaches now you're aware many of you anyway are aware that in the fullest biblical sense of knowing sexual imagery is used Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bore a son, no doubt what that's talking about Adam had sexual relations with his wife and that's called knowing her Matthew 1, 24 when Joseph woke from sleep he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him he took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name Jesus he knew her not that is he didn't have sexual relations with her knowing is something very big in the Bible I do not mean that every time the word know occurs in the Bible it has sexual connotations that's not true but what I do mean is that the sexual language in the Bible for our covenant relationship with God does lead us to think of knowing him on the analogy of sexual knowledge, sexual intimacy, sexual ecstasy I do not mean that we have sex with God or that God has sex with man that the pagan notion it is not Christian and it is not true but I do mean that the intimacy and the ecstasy of sexual relations points weekly W-A-K-L-Y points weekly to our enjoyment of God and his delight in his people. One of the books in the Bible that makes this most clear is the book of Hosea I'll quote one passage so that you can see and hear the words of God through Hosea to describe the restoration of marriage from another breach of covenant on the part of Israel listen to Hosea 2.14 and be asking this question what does it mean to know God? Because I'm arguing that to know God that God's and governs our sexuality rightly Hosea 2.14 Behold I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her and there I will give her vineyards and make the valley of Acor that is the valley of trouble where Aiken got the people into such a mess I'll make the valley of Acor and many of you are in it right now I will make the valley of Acor a door of hope and there she shall answer as in the days of her youth as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt and in that day declares the Lord you will call me my husband and no longer will you call me my bale for I will remove the names of the bales from her mouth and they shall be remembered by name no more and now watch the threefold declaration of God I will betrot you to me forever I will betrot you to me in righteousness and injustice and instead fast love and mercy I will betrot you to me in faithfulness and here it is and you will know the Lord I think it is virtually impossible to read that text and then honestly say that knowing God is mental awareness or intellectual understanding or acquaintance merely not in a million years is that what that text means when this text says you shall know the Lord in that context of betrothal this is not the knowing of a scholar this is the knowing of a lover a scholar can be a lover but until a scholar becomes a lover he doesn't know God you may know about God you can learn about God by research but until research and the researcher are ravished by what he sees he doesn't know God not as he is which is why I say with such force any pastor any priest any theologian whose sexual life is not governed and guided and ordered and guarded in love and purity by the knowledge of God doesn't have the knowledge of God at least not as he ought but I'm getting ahead of myself because I said if the Bible teaches that knowing God knowing Christ guards our sexuality and guides our sexuality orders and governs our sexuality or I said if it does then then those who do not have biblically ordered sexual lives don't know him as they ought but now I've got to demonstrate that that is what the Bible teaches so where should we go? I think this entire conference will be an answer to the question does knowing the glory of God does knowing the supremacy of Christ govern and guide and order and guard our sexuality I think the whole conference answers that question but let me just point you to a biblical structure a biblical paradigm that shows that that is indeed the case and if your sexual life is out of order now I'm going to argue now and Sunday morning the number one agenda in your life is to know Christ better let's start with we'll just look through some texts and then we'll be done let's start with Romans 1 28 since they did not see fit to have God in their knowledge that's my literal translation God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done in other words suppressing the knowledge of God not wanting to have it in your head makes you a casualty of corruption that's what the text said it's part of God's judgment that we be given over to our lusts when we don't want to know God we don't want to think about God we don't want to go deep with God we don't want to cultivate an intimate ecstatic, deep, powerful, glorious relationship with God we want Him marginal we are sitting ducks for lust when the devil will see to it that we come down with the click of a mouse that's pretty clear text I think here's Romans 1 23 which underlines it just a few verses earlier Romans 1 23 they exchanged the glory of the immortal God they didn't want Him for images resembling mortal man the one we see in the mirror is the most enticing birds animals reptiles therefore gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves now that's the old way that's the old way and when you come to Christ it says you take it off like a garment you take it off like a garment ignorance of God is what marks the old way ignorance of God is not fitting it doesn't fit anymore you take it off this exchange this unwillingness to have God in your mind and in your heart that garment doesn't fit anymore you take it off and you throw it away and you put on a new self a new person in sexual holiness and listen to 1 Thessalonians now chapter 4 verse 3 to 5 this is the will of God your sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality that each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God there's the difference the clear implication of that verse is if you know him you are not swept away in the bondage of corruption that's the implication listen to the way 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 14 puts it as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance as though knowledge would make all the difference real knowledge there was a behavior that fit and conformed and flowed out of ignorance but as you called you as holy be your holy you holy yourself in all your conduct the desires that governed you in those days got their power from ignorance or the way Paul puts it got their power from deceit listen to Ephesians 4 22 put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through corrupt through how are we corrupt through deceitful desires they lie to us oh with what power they lie to us do you enjoy being such a patsy in front of your computer they are lying and you are believing them they lie no just like the devil the serpent in the garden half true this will feel good it's really good to please the eyes and to make you wise and to destroy you but he didn't say no that's the part that he doesn't say Paul describes this new person in Christ like this the new self is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator isn't that amazing how are you being renewed the Bible says Colossians 3 10 you're being renewed in knowledge by knowledge we laugh at it we scorn it because of how many pastors so many knowers of the Bible have not been renewed and I'm here to say they don't know him as they ought two more texts the clearest most powerful statement on this in the New Testament this paradigm I'm developing of knowing dividing the governing, guarding, guiding ordering of our sexual lives is 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 3 God's divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness oh really oh really that's astonishing how through the knowledge of him he called us to his own glory and excellence if you say I don't have what I need to be godly you don't know him yet as you ought so what are you giving yourself to? morning, noon and night by which I'm in the middle of the verse still by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises here it is again so that through them this is part of what we know his promises through them you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Divine power leads to godliness when you know him and when you know his promises through them you become like him in his character knowing God as he means to be known in the hosea chapter two way is freeing and liberating know how we have been praying that god would come down on this conference and do a massive work of liberation of every kind and there's not a person in the room who doesn't need liberation ongoing liberation of some kind especially as it relates to sexuality and so let's listen with this decisive word from the Lord Jesus it's one you all know by heart John 831 and 32 if you abide in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free is he a liar? Did he fumble the ball? Do we know more than Jesus? What truth is he talking about? The truth that you find in his word he says abide in my word the truth that we find in him is being abound to him people and what truth is that? I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father but by me no one knows the Father except the Son and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him nobody knows God except Jesus the way I'm talking about oh how glad Jesus is in his Father Jesus is the happiest lover of God in the universe I have anointed you with the oil of gladness above all your fellows Jesus is the happiest person in the universe the object of his happiness is his Father in infinite intimacy and infinite ecstasy and infinite knowledge that's why Jesus is so much a model for us as he says nobody knows the Father except the Son and then the astonishing words and the one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him and if that doesn't happen here you will go on in your corruption because we must know him we must know him if we are to be free conclusion my two points sexuality is designed by God the way to know Christ more fully second knowing Christ more fully in all his infinite supremacy is designed as a way of guarding and guiding and governing our sexuality all sexual corruptions therefore serve to conceal the true knowledge of God the true knowledge of God in Christ prevents sexual corruption I'm going to come back to that on Sunday morning and try to lift up the supremacy of Christ as highly as I can as the other speakers will all of them are aiming to unfold one way or the other these two points I believe and as they do it starting at 8.30 tomorrow morning as they do it let the banner fly over this conference from Hosea to the wayward wife and there's not a person in this room who does not need massive mercy let the word come to us with hope that was spoken to the wayward wife is what God said or Hosea said let us know let us press on to know the Lord his going out is as sure as the dawn he will come to us as the showers he will come to us as the spring rain let's pray gracious father in heaven we don't know you very well which is why we are so vulnerable the knowledge of your glory and the supremacy of your son is a light thing to us television is bigger for hundreds in this room family is bigger for hundreds more in this room health is bigger for hundreds more in this room and life is bigger for many and yet you have told us the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life to live is Christ and to die is gained if they cut off your head paradise with Christ so Lord I pray that miracles would happen now in these next few hours together this weekend holy spirit would you come and set us on a hosea like quest let us know let us press on to know the Lord in Jesus name I pray amen thank you for listening to this resource from desiringGod.org if you found it helpful we encourage you to enjoy and share from thousands of resources on our site including books, sermons, articles and more available free of charge desiringGod.org exists to help you treasure Jesus more than anything else because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him
John Piper | God designed our sexuality so that we might know him more. He means to guard our sex from being perverted.