ONE PURE AND HOLY PASSION 1 Thessalonians 4:1-5

Transcription

1 September 14, 2014 Providence ONE PURE AND HOLY PASSION 1 Thessalonians 4:1-5 INTRODUCTION: Many who grew up in the church have viewed anything to do with sexuality as taboo. Yet in the culture around us, we find that there is such a saturation with sensual images and messages that we are deeply conflicted and often confused. This disconnection produces yet another area in which following Jesus Christ puts us at odds with the world around us. The dominent perspective of the culture is that our sexuality is a personal matter and should not be regulated by anyone or anything that curbs or condemns what we want. The logical fallacy of such a position is quickly apparent because even the most liberal perspectives rule some actions and attitudes out of bounds. So today, we want to explore what it means to be a follower of Christ in a culture which not only disagrees with our perspective on this matter, but has become aggressive in attacking much of what we are asked to hold as sacred by the Lord. We are in fact required to abstain from sexual immorality and exercise great care to see that we control what we do with our bodies in holiness and honor. This means that 1) God defines some things as sexually immoral; 2) He expects us to keep ourselves from such things; and 3) He will make our sexual affections all that they should be only when we learn to give our best affections to Jesus. THESIS: To find the will of God for our sexuality, we must find our greatest affections and passions begin with a pure love and pursuit of Jesus Christ who will then direct us into His perfect plan for this area of our lives. Note: In order to keep this message user friendly for all ages, I will speak broadly of sexuality as a general term that will not force long and awkward conversations for parents of young children here this morning. You should not have to worry about language or concepts that require much more explanation than the simple sexuality refers to the fact that there are two sexes men and women, and God s will explains how they are to relate to each other. I. JESUS CREATED ALL THINGS FOR HIS PLEASURE --And among all those things He created, He created human beings as sexual beings and the purpose for our sexuality is God s glory and pleasure. --We can find great delight in what brings Him glory, but only when we trust Him to define and direct our course of actions and our frame of heart and mind. A. OUR GREATEST PLEASURES IN LIFE ARE FOUND ONLY IN HIM. --Temporary enjoyment has become a substitute for lasting pleasure and delight. 1. Deferred gratification promises the greatest reward --When God asks us to wait, the reward for any delays far outweighs the frustration we experience to get there. ILLUS. We know that is true in some of our own common experiences in life. If we plan a long drive to the Disneyworld for vacation, we have to keep reminding our kids that their patience will be rewarded by something amazing in the end. Yes, we could stop along the way and try to enjoy whatever was available when we gave

2 up waiting, or we could push through, postpone our demand for immediate satisfaction, and get what we hoped for when the destination was reached. --God s destination for us to experience the best of our sexuality is to be realized in the marriage union of a man and a woman. --Holding out for His best requires a commitment to wait for the best, and never settle for less! 2. Careful obedience brings the broadest pleasures --The more we pay attention to the details of God s plans and provisions, the broader and wider our delight will be in the fulfillment of them. --Deciding that close enough is good enough guarantees that our pleasure will be greatly diminished from what it could have been yes, the details really do matter! ILLUS. God wired us carefully when He created us. The difference between what works great and what hurts horribly is usually a fine line! If you put healthy, good food in your mouth, great! That is how it is supposed to work. Change that up just slightly and you are in trouble spoiled meat will make you sick licking dirt off the back of a rock (as a toddler will do!) cannot be good for you!...putting the fork with food on it in your eye or nose will hurt chewing the food up for the flavor and spitting it out or throwing it up later robs you of its benefits. This is silly of course! No one intentionally satisfies hunger for food by paying no attention to some basic designs of the Creator for how this works! --Why then do people think we can toss out God s design and intentions for our sexual appetites and not expect to lose the benefits, miss the greatest pleasures, or avoid the pain? B. OUR GREATEST PLEASURES AS SEXUAL BEINGS ARE FULLY REALIZED ONLY IN HIM. --Hard as it is for us to realize, nothing God made can be fully enjoyed apart from Him. --In fact, when we take His delightful pleasures away from Him and use them however we want, we do two things: 1) we break them, shattering them beyond recognition, and 2) we lose the best and greatest pleasure we wanted to find in them. Note: Along those lines, a very helpful definition of lust is to take a God-given desire and pursue it in a ungodly way. C. OUR GREATEST PLEASURES IN MARRIAGE POINT TO OUR UNION WITH CHRIST. --God has chosen to use the marriage of a man and a woman as the illustration that demonstrates the kind of intimacy possible between Christ and His church. --The Bible begins with a wedding as Adam and Eve enter into a holy union, a one flesh marriage relationship of knowing and being known, nothing separating them, heart, soul or body! Eph. 5:31-32 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. [Gen 2:24] 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. --And the Bible ends with a wedding as Christ and His Bride, the church, enter that ultimate union as we come to be one with Christ forever!

3 Rev. 19:7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; Is. 61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. --When we treat our sexuality with disdain, and the sacred covenant of marriage with dishonor, we violate God s plans, protections and purposes. --We also bring heartache to Christ, defile the purity of marriage and demean the treasure of our sexuality! --Christ-centered, biblically sound marriages always point to Him and show Him to be altogether lovely and the chief desire of our hearts as we long for Him! Psa. 63:1 O God,Thou art my God; I shall seek Thee earnestly; My soul thirsts for Thee, my flesh yearns for Thee, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Perverting (twisting) sexuality and marital impurity make crooked arrows that cannot point straight to a glorious Savior! --But is all hope lost? In Christ, that hope is restored! II. JESUS REDEEMS ALL THINGS FOR GOOD --Among those things lost in the Garden, the purity and liberty of human sexuality stands high on the list. --Try to imagine a world where everything of sexual nature has been completely restored to its original pristine beauty, filled with nothing but unceasing delight and ecstasy! --That is what Jesus Christ does when we allow His redeeming grace to restore even this broken part of our lives! A. A BROKEN WORLD CAN ONLY PRODUCE COMPROMISED RELATIONSHIPS --As it stands, the shattered remnants of our sexual natures scramble to find something of value among the ruins of what God had in mind. --What He intended for pleasure for security for loving intimacy for transparency our sin destroyed and marred almost beyond recognition! 1. The brokenness of sin results in shame --Before sin entered the picture, the pure sexuality of Adam and Eve provided a beautiful picture of relational intimacy between a man and a woman. --God even told them directly to act on their desires for one another and be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:28). --We are told that there was such complete freedom between them and such transparency that the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed (Gen 2:25). --But then they both chose to reject God s perfect design and seek to control their own destiny and define their own pleasures sin destroyed it all! Gen. 3:7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

4 --As soon as sin shattered the image of God they shared with Him and with each other, they became aware of their nakedness and wanted to hide vulnerable to their environment selfconscious in front of each other unsafe and insecure because they were now exposed to a fallen, dangerous world filled with deadly and destructive forces brought upon them because of what they had done! 2. The hiddenness of shame results in lost intimacy --Immediately the two who had been one flesh were out for a pound of flesh, each looking to assign blame for their dilemma and seeking to cover up themselves and their part in their own fallenness! Gen. 3:9-13 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? 10 And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. 11 He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? 12 The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate. 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. ILLUS. All of us struggle with this desire to cover up, to hide our true nature and keep others from seeing us as we really are. We know ourselves to be unworthy of affection and hope those we want to love us never find that out. We then get so absorbed in protecting and hiding ourselves that we miss the fact that others are equally frightened and trying to keep us from discovering who they really are as well. So marriages suffer from fear of exposure, dreading the moment we are found out and certain that the result will be that we are abandoned and left alone. --Apart from Christ, such fear of discovery will keep us from finding one another and truly recovering the one flesh union God desires us to have with one another in a marriage between a man and a woman. --No wonder intimacy is so hard to find and maintain in marriage! 3. The loss of the image of God results in distortion. --Whatever God had once revealed to be freely and gloriously a delight for His people could now only be sought in a distorted picture of what could have been! ILLUS. If you have ever broken a mirror, you can understand how impossible it is for us to return that mirror to the perfect reflection it used to offer. The shattered pieces, even when reassembled, show us only a distorted and fracture image of what once was whole. When sin broke us sexually, we wanted it the way it was but have no way of seeing it accurately. Therefore, we work around the fractures and try to envision what a complete picture looks like. Some parts of the image are missing entirely because the glass disintegrated into dust from those sections, leaving large parts missing in the picture so we try to fill in the empty places with our own imaginations. That fails, of course, and we end up frustrated, incapable of reproducing what God originally designed until we bring the broken pieces to Jesus and let Him mend the brokenness and transfix the image once again into the perfect reflection it once offered. --With that distorted picture in mind, people begin to shape their desires and pursue their passions without regard for the true image of sexuality they should long for. B. COMPROMISED SEXUALITY CAN ONLY BE RESTORED THROUGH CHRIST

5 --What then, can take the seriously flawed and compromised sexuality of a culture obsessed with it and restore it, make it fresh and wonderful again? 1. A Removal of Guilt and Shame --What if you recognize that you lost your sexual purity and cannot imagine any way it can be regained? --When we violate God s design, not only do we feel guilt and shame, we should feel that way! --If we do not, it is only because we have been misled into thinking that there are no out of bounds areas and we can do whatever feels right. --But once we ask the Lord to show us His plan and expose our hearts, we will experience a sense of profound guilt and shame both of which will either weigh heavily on us, or lead us to repentance and His forgiveness! 2. A Recovery of Innocence --What if Jesus Christ showed you how to recover your innocence and be at peace with Him, with yourself and with His plan for you to find fulfillment in the sexual intimacy of marriage? --Is lost innocence recoverable? Of course! That is the message of the Gospel! --Rather than leaving you crushed by the impact of your sin, Jesus offers a return to innocence, a sweet declaration that you are free from the burden of sin and made new in Christ! 3. A Rejection of Impostors --What kinds of pretenders impose themselves upon us and offer empty promises of satisfaction when only God s plan for sexual fulfillment will do? --The majority of people never realize what is offered to them in what God prescribed for them in the beauty of godly sexuality, so they chase after counterfeits and impostors which cannot satisfy and will do nothing but leaving them empty and desperate to find true fulfillment. 4. A Return to Purity --What do you do if you have already fallen, have already settled for less than God s best, have already been guilty of sexual immorality? --All is far from lost! Jesus invites you to come to Him and have your purity restored as He cleanses you from all unrighteousness and makes you new again! III. JESUS PRESCRIBES AND PROTECTS OUR SEXUALITY IN ORDER TO INSURE OUR PURITY 1 Th. 4:3-5 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; --Knowing Christ puts our passions at God s mercy not knowing Him puts us at the mercy of our passions. A. NOT FINDING OUR SATISFACTION IN CHRIST PUTS US AT THE MERCY OF OUR OWN UNGODLY DESIRES

6 --Abstaining from sexual immorality is frequently commended in Scripture because God has put protective measures around a very great treasure. --He does not leave us to determine what is sexually immoral but identifies several aspects of it, just as certainly as Jesus condemned it both in thought as well as action [as in Matthew 5:27-28]. ILLUS. Some advocates for sexual immorality try to suggest that some of their favorite indulgences are not forbidden by Jesus in any explicit statement He makes in the Gospels. Those who demand the right to be sexually active before marriage try to excuse their sin by redefining what Jesus meant by sexual immorality those who want homosexuality to be accepted as a legitimate Christian alternative try to dismiss clear biblical teaching elsewhere (as if Jesus spoke one way in the Gospels and that other inspired Scriptures do not count). However, what He says about sexual immorality is rendered meaningless if it is not defined and qualified through His Word in other places than the Gospels. --There can be no satisfaction in any area of our lives that contradicts what God has communicated in His Word. 1. Lust robs us of the godly joy in physical purity --Even with all the temptations surrounding us in a sex-saturated culture, there is never any suggestion that lust will bring the profound joy and satisfaction found through godly purity. 2. Immorality perverts every desire for soul-satisfying intimacy --Scripture makes sure we understand the various forms of immorality and lists many of them by name, as well as giving us the basis to understand other forms of immorality. Fornication -- porneiva" unmarried sex Adultery -- moico" sex with non-spouse Homosexuality -- ajrsenokoivtai" lust for same sex Effeminate malakoi men or boys who allow themselves to be misused homosexually Perversions twisted and unnatural acts (such as pedophilia, transgenderism, necrophilia, etc.) Pornography anything, visual or verbal, that stirs lust Serial monogamy (via divorce) Molestation and abuse [rampant in our culture, to the extent that we are publishing a church policy this week on The City explaining the hows, whats and why s of our legal responsibilities as a church when dealing with sexual offenders] 3. New affections for Christ will stand high above any unworthy desires --Rather than try to fight a moral battle of containment, God calls us to a spiritual victory of transferred affections. ILLUS. Thomas Chalmers, Scottish pastor from the early 19 th century wrote a book called The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. If we have not allowed the Holy Spirit to elevate our love for Christ to the point that He has our highest and best affection, we will always drift back to the pursuit of those lusts which control our most basic desires. But what cannot be thus destroyed, may be dispossessed and one tast may be made to give way to another, and to lose its power entirely as the reigning affection of the mind We know of no other way by which to keep the love of the world out of our heart than to keep in our hearts the love of God In other words, if I love God more than the world, I will devote myself to that which owns my heart, that which my heart treasures above all else. The competing appeals will find no

7 welcome in a heart that has already been won over completely by Christ. And, any remnant of love for the things of this world, including our inclination to seek sensual satisfactions, will be expelled by the sheer force of the prevailing power of our all-encompassing affection for Jesus Christ! --The gospel remedy is simple but costly be crucified to this world and put to death all affections that are inferior to our passionate pursuit of Jesus Christ, our highest treasure and greatest love. Gal. 6:14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. B. KNOWING CHRIST ENLARGES THE HEART TO RECEIVE ALL HE WANTS TO GIVE Psa. 119:32 I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart! --Do we want a thimble full of God s abundant and joyful provision, or do we want barrels full? --When we run toward His commandments, gladly embrace His regulations, and stand firm in the place He has surrounded by His wise and powerful protections, He will expand our capacity to receive more and more! --Therefore C. KNOWING CHRIST ELEVATES OUR SEXUALITY TO WHAT GOD INTENDED ILLUS. Settling for less than the best may seem like the normal thing to do in life after all, few of us can say we have the best car, the best job, the best house, the best education, etc. We figure that we can only afford what we can afford, so we adjust our expectations accordingly --But in the area of sexuality, God makes it possible for us to have the very best and He will bear the cost Himself. --By accepting His forgiveness for our previous failures, listening to and obeying His instructions, heeding His warnings and accepting His limits, we get to enjoy the fullness of His plans for us as sexual beings! CONCLUSION: Since the purpose and appropriate expressions and experiences of sexuality as only intended to be fully realized as a means of glorifying the Lord, their Creator, it is not strange at all for an ungodly culture to miss the mark. Painfully unsatisfactory attempts to counterfeit what God alone intended for our pleasure have placed us in a confused and obsessed cultural environment. Thinking that anything goes is the best way to find our way through the maze, people without Christ keep experimenting and pushing aside any limits. Then they find that not only does it not satisfy, but actually creates more problems, generates more insecurities, produces more guilt and in many ways makes our culural obsession with sexual matters all the more irrational. Why? Because it is a pursuit that satisfies only when God s design and plan call the shots love Christ more than your own pleasures and this one pure and holy passion will unleash the richness of His pleasures in the realm of human sexuality. What to do? 1. Pursue Christ more passionately than anything or anyone else. 2. Find personal holiness by following Christ s plan for sexuality, not that of the world around you.

8 3. Flee from those things which are likely to tempt you and make no provision in your life for ungodly passions. [Romans 13:14] THESIS: To find the will of God for our sexuality, we must find our greatest affections and passions begin with a pure love and pursuit of Jesus Christ who will then direct us into His perfect plan for this area of our lives. Septmeber 14, 2014 Providence Baptist Church David Horner, 2014 Sermon outlines are copyrighted in the event of future publication. They may be used for preaching and teaching purposes but may not be published or sold.