Father, we give you thanks and praise for your word.
We give you thanks and praise that your word is true.
We give you thanks and praise that even when your word is very hard to us
and seems to confront things in our lives that are close to our heart,
we thank you, Father, that you speak not because you take delight in the death of a sinner,
but you speak because your heart's desire is that we will turn from our wickedness and live.
That you desire, Father, to redeem and restore us in the person and work of your Son.
So, Father, turn our hearts to Jesus.
Grip us with what he did for us upon the cross as we listen to your word.
And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
So, as many of you know, I have several coffee places where I'm a regular.
And in these places where I'm a regular, people eventually, the baristas in particular,
but also some of the other regulars eventually learn that I'm a pastor.
And we often have conversations.
And many of the different baristas in the coffee shops that I go to,
I eventually invite them to come to my church.
I mean, they'll ask me where I'm the pastor.
And I was thinking about this a lot yesterday as I was working on my sermon some more.
And this morning as I was driving in, what it would be like,
and I don't know, I have no idea whether one of the baristas that I've invited have come this morning.
I can't really see you very well.
The combination of the lights in my glasses, which are for reading, not for seeing in distance.
But as you probably know, many people who work in the coffee shops that I frequent are gay or lesbian.
And identify very closely with that, the LGBTQ and other letters community.
And I was thinking, especially as I was driving in this morning,
what would it be like if this is the Sunday that they come?
Because whether you realize it or not, the text which Emily read,
which we're going to look at right now,
is a text which speaks very directly to the biblical understanding of marriage
and of sexual knowing and of sexual identity.
But that's what we're going to look at.
And so it's really important to keep a particular thing in mind.
And by God's providence, it happened to me on Monday this week.
There's these two really lovely older men who come into one of the coffee shops.
There's one particular coffee shop where I do most of my sermon prep.
And there's these two older men, lovely guys from out in the country.
And they come in, you know, once or twice a week.
They've gotten to know me.
We chat.
They know I'm a pastor.
They never ask anything at all about spiritual things.
Just once we've had a conversation about something.
But they're just very, very, very friendly.
And so this past Monday, one of them came and tapped me on the shoulder.
I was, you know, focused.
My first crack at Genesis 2, 18 to 25.
And one of them tapped me on the shoulder and said,
George, does that book have me in it?
And this is one of those times.
Somebody must have been praying for me Monday morning.
Because I said, without any hesitation, I said,
well, actually, it does talk about you in here.
And he was surprised.
He said, well, what does it say?
And it says, you're in far greater danger than you can possibly imagine.
And you have far greater hope than you've ever dreamed of.
And I wish I could say that we then had a spiritual conversation.
But he just laughed and went and sat down with his buddy.
But you never know what seeds are planted.
And that's true.
This text and the Bible as a whole warns us that we're in far greater danger than we can ever really, really, really understand.
But also that we're far more loved and have a far greater hope than even our most outrageous dreams have never even come close to it.
So it would be a great help to me if you open your Bible.
And we're going to look at this text.
Genesis chapter 2, verses 18 to 25.
And it's the second creation story.
And it begins, the whole second creation story begins in verse 4.
But we're sort of skipping that early part.
We looked at that a couple of weeks ago at church.
By the way, if you need Bibles, there's some Bibles over here.
You should just feel free to get up and get a copy of a Bible so that you can follow along.
And what's happened is that this is the second creation story.
It's focusing more on the creation of Adam and Eve.
And in the first part, Adam is created, but not the woman.
And, you know, other things are sort of said about how Adam is created.
But then in verse 18, the story continues.
Then the Lord God said,
It is not good that the man should be alone.
I will make him a helper fit for him.
And just sort of pause.
That little three-word, four-word, helper fit for him, is an important idea.
It's going to be repeated in another verse or so,
which shows that it's an important idea to try to get our minds around.
So just the man has been created.
That's how the story goes.
But it's not good that the man is alone.
In fact, there's a little bit of a tension.
If you've been reading from the beginning, Genesis 1, and then you read this,
you'll see in Genesis 1 that time after time and time it says,
It is good.
It was good.
It was very good.
And now we see this sort of second look, like from a second perspective about how God has created,
that the man has been created, but there's a not good.
The work of creation hasn't been completed because the man's alone.
And in particular, there is a helper fit for him.
I'll talk about that more in a moment.
That still has to happen.
Verse 19.
Now, out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens
and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.
And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.
But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.
And so just sort of pause there for a second.
There's some details here in the story, which are all like, this is a text to really be meditated upon.
One of the reasons I'm preaching through the book of the first 11 chapters is that I think,
and I talked about this more in my first three sermons in the series,
that we're so afraid of looking at this because we're afraid of getting caught up with controversies
around evolution and young earth and all of that,
that Christians increasingly are afraid to look at these early chapters,
but they're really central.
Like, if we don't understand these first chapters, it's hard to understand the rest of the Bible.
And we're afraid to look at them, to memorize them, to meditate upon them, to ponder them.
And that's one of the reasons.
Like, we're just facing our fears, folks.
And we're looking at these texts.
They're not scary texts.
They're very, very wise.
And they're very, very helpful.
And they're very true.
And it's a very, very interesting little dynamic here.
The animals come out of the ground.
That's how God creates them.
That's the language which is used.
And God has this Adam.
And there's a not good because he's alone.
And there's a helper fit for him that has to happen.
But God doesn't just create it right away.
He has this, the naming of the animals first as part of Adam's awareness as well.
That in a sense, he surveyed living beasts.
And there's nothing fit for him.
A helper fit for him is not found.
So then the story continues in verse 21.
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.
And while he slept, that is not God but the man, while the man slept, God took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
And just sort of pause there for a second.
This is sort of, I mean, it's worth lots and lots of meditation upon.
Obviously, it's both a true text, historically true.
But obviously, it's weighted with symbolism to try to communicate in a very, very simple picture language to us really, really deep truths.
See, one of the things which is very interesting here is that the animals have all been created out of the ground.
But woman is not created out of the ground.
It's really actually very, very important.
The text is trying to communicate to us that it's not that women and men are of a different nature.
As you know, there's many religious systems which denigrate women.
And Christians, to our shame, have often denigrated women.
And there's many, many systems of political and social and theological and religious and spiritual talk that make it almost as if women are a lesser creature.
That they're almost like our chattel.
That we can almost treat them like animals.
That we can cover them up.
That we can just boss them around in a way which is deeply denigrating to them.
But what the text is showing is that woman and man are of the exact same nature.
It makes it very, very clear.
This funny image, which for many of us, it's very easy to make jokes about it as if the Bible is really, really stupid and foolish.
But the Bible here is saying something very, very, very profound.
This idea that men and women have the exact same nature.
That there's a fundamental equality in their nature.
And this is a type of dynamite idea.
I mean, the church, we Christians, because we want to keep slipping back into religion.
We want to keep slipping back into accommodating to our culture, whatever our culture is.
And it's easy for us to keep getting unbalanced because we want to keep slipping into our culture.
But this is one of these healthy viruses that's constantly there challenging us to understand the fundamental equality,
the fundamental same source as man and woman.
And so when it first seems like an odd thing, like even mentioning the animals coming out of the ground,
it's an important thing to meditate upon.
And the other thing, though, that's very important is this whole idea of that helper fit for him
is also going to be very important, as we see in a moment when it's going to talk about marriage.
Because if Genesis 1, the first story of creation, I mean, both stories tell us different things about God.
And they both stories tell us different things about what it means to be human.
And last week, when we looked at human beings being made in the image and likeness of God,
there's a lot of really important teaching here.
And now there's an unpacking of that, which is going to be connected to sexual knowing and marriage and sexual identity.
It's going to be talked about here in this story.
But, well, okay, when I was younger, when I had to move, or when Louise and I and the kids had to move,
we couldn't afford buying boxes.
I mean, I don't even know if moving companies sold boxes to mere mortals back then.
So you'd go and you'd try to get a banana box, LCBO boxes.
I don't know if any of you have ever moved with a whole pile of different boxes.
You know, banana boxes, Apple boxes, LCBO boxes.
And they don't fit together very well.
You know, that's one of the reasons why moving companies, it's so wonderful when you discover,
whoa, you can buy boxes that all fit together.
And it's such a great thing, you know, but boxes are all just boxes.
They don't say, here we're going to give you a diamond shape, a star shape, a star of David shape, a round one.
They're all, they fit together.
But what this text is trying to communicate, and it'd be more like an entire separate sermon with this idea of help or fit for him.
It's talking about the man and the woman, they fit, but there's an angularity and pointedness about each of them.
I mean, those of you who've been married or have dated, you understand your spouse has pointy bits.
It's that my pointy bits can irritate Louise and her pointy bits can irritate me.
And that's part of learning how to stay married.
But it's not as if God just took two blobs of jello and squished them together.
It's not as if he had two identical cubes and laid them side to side.
But that every human being, but man in a sense have a particular type of male, mannish, angular, non-symmetric shape, as does woman.
But God somehow in the mystery of his created order has made it so that the man and woman can fit together.
So there's something equal, something complementary, and something different about the way that God has made the man and the woman.
And that's all communicated in this very simple picture language.
Very simple, easy to remember, but very, very profound and powerful.
And then the text goes on, and we see here, verse 23, and this is really cool.
If you're like me and you're a Christian and you believe that this is God's word written, and ultimately God is the ultimate author of this,
what you see in the next verse in poetry are the only words spoken by a human being before evil came into the world.
Isn't that cool?
The only recorded human words before evil comes into the world.
Not quite entirely true, because there's a few little, you see some words with Eve, with the serpent,
as part of the beginning of evil coming into the world.
But just this pure with no evil, no shadow of evil, just an unfallen creation where everything is good.
And what are these words in poetic form?
The man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,
completely equal, and fit for him and him for her.
She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife,
and they shall become one flesh.
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
And that little image is an image of what, at the end of the day, we all long for, not to stand naked.
I definitely do not long for that.
But what we long for is a type of complete transparency and being of ourselves,
and being transparent and being unashamed and with no evil.
And there is a great human longing for that.
A great human longing to be transparent, to be open, to be yourself, without shame and without sin.
And every human being has it, and I think only ultimately the scriptures explain,
why that longing is present in human hearts.
It was woven into us at the moment of creation,
that we should relate to each other and relate to the created order
and relate to God in such a way that there's just this complete openness, transparency,
and ourselvesness without sin and shame.
But here's the really big thing, though.
I don't know if you noticed it.
Look again at verse 24.
So verse 23, we've had Eve is created.
God brings Eve to Adam.
In a sense, if you want to use an old-fashioned traditional marriage analogy,
it's God who walks Eve down the aisle.
to meet Adam at the front.
And we have the bone of the bone and the flesh of the flesh.
So male and female have been created.
Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife.
And if you're like me, you go, one moment, that doesn't follow.
Like in our day and age, the existence of male and female,
people don't say,
therefore, because there's male and there's female,
because there's man and the woman,
therefore, heterosexual monogamous marriage happens.
That's not a therefore to us, is it?
Not even close.
Like in our day and age, what we say is,
you know, listen, George,
I don't know what all this big fuss is with you Christians.
There's this thing called sexual pleasure.
There's other types of pleasure as well.
There's pleasure around food.
There's pleasure of,
there's aesthetic pleasure,
in terms of looking at a nice piece of art.
There's pleasure in terms of nature.
There's physical pleasure,
just sort of just being alive.
And there's sexual pleasure.
And there's all sorts,
the only limit to the way you can experience sexual pleasure
is the limit of your imagination and your taste.
And, you know, as long as you can just,
that's the therefore,
there's men, there's women, there's pleasure.
And therefore, whatever allows you to experience pleasure,
as long as it doesn't hurt the other person,
well, go for it.
It's, the therefore is actually a shocking thing.
So I want to just say a couple of things.
These, I mean, one of the reasons I,
by the way, just as an aside,
if you read books on preaching,
the way I do points is not the way you're supposed to do it,
just so you know.
I'd get an F in sermon points.
And, but one of the reasons I write these points
is I know that some people were,
they, hearing words,
if they see it,
it also helps them to understand,
and that's why I write these points,
even though I fail at sermon points.
If you could put it up,
this is an important thing for us to remember now,
because some of us are maybe feeling a little bit uncomfortable.
One man, one woman,
heterosexual, monogamous marriage,
and we're feeling very uncomfortable
uncomfortable because it doesn't describe us.
On Friday, I had the great privilege to speak on Parliament Hill
to some of the staff workers who are Christians on Parliament Hill.
And, of course, Parliament Hill,
I'm speaking to staff workers for political parties.
And one of the things I said as I was going into this,
as I said,
this is not a political talk.
This is not an us versus them.
This is not looking for Twitter bits
that we can use to get people,
because all of us struggle with different sexual issues.
This is not about people out there
who are bad or are demonized
versus us who are pure.
We're talking about deeply personal human issues.
And one of the things we have to understand,
even though at first this Bible passage
is going to seem to hurt some of us,
we have to understand that beginning and the end
is going to be the same point.
What is it that the whole Bible...
The Bible is aware that it's only in the first two chapters
that it talks about the world before evil comes in.
Next week, we're going to look at the introduction of evil
into the created order.
And most of the Bible, then, from Genesis 3
right to the end of the book of Revelation,
is all about God's dealing with the presence of evil.
And what we need to know
is that even when God's word seems to be hard to us,
that Jesus seeks, redeems, and restores
lost and ruined masterpieces.
Jesus seeks, redeems, and restores
lost and ruined masterpieces.
And if you're here and you're same-sex attracted,
if you're here and you're transgendered,
you should not understand me to say that,
okay, now he's saying I'm ruined.
No, no, no, no, no.
Well, actually, I am.
I am.
But I'm saying it about myself, too.
And I'm saying it about every single person here.
If you're a guest here,
you are sitting amongst lost and ruined masterpieces,
with no exception,
some of whom,
hopefully most of whom,
I pray all of whom,
Jesus has not only sought you,
but he has redeemed you
and is working at restoring you.
Some of us feel like the type of masterpiece we are
is one of those great old Dutch masters
that just look so unbelievably lush and lavish and beautiful.
Some of us are more like a Picasso,
all weird angles that don't really seem to fit together
and not really one dimension, you know, two-dimensional.
And some of us are more like Van Gogh's.
We're not all the same masterpiece,
but the way to understand what Jesus is all about,
what the Bible is all about,
is that Jesus comes and seeks us.
What is that phrase of the church's one foundation by Luther?
From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride.
With his own love he bought her.
Is that how it goes?
And for her life he died.
That very beautifully captures this idea.
Every one of us is a masterpiece,
is how God has created us.
We are now bent and marred and broken by sin.
We are lost and ruined.
But Jesus seeks us.
He redeems us.
And when we are his,
he begins the process of restoring the masterpiece,
just as if some horrible Nazi had stolen some artwork
and finally somebody discovers it now in an attic.
And, you know, maybe it's a priceless Picasso
and there's water damage and all sorts of other damage
and it's found, it's restored,
redeemed to its original owner
and the work of beginning to restore it,
to bring out the beauty begins.
That's what grace is.
So, some of you might say,
I've had this said to me,
it was a couple of years ago,
it wasn't recently.
Somebody said to me,
George, you know, it's really,
you know, all those texts in Genesis
and, you know, in the Bible,
but, you know, especially, George,
those texts in Genesis,
they just, they come from an age
when they didn't understand same-sex attraction,
they didn't understand healthy same-sex desire,
they didn't understand the capability
of forming sustained relationships,
they didn't understand the creativity
and the beauty that comes from within that community,
and it was just a prop,
to prop up the social order,
and that's all that it was.
You just have to understand
that the Bible is limited to a time
where it didn't understand the range of things,
it's propping up a social order,
and it's just out of date.
It just has to be brought up to speed.
It has to,
the social order and social understanding
is just different.
And when I say that,
it's a very compelling argument.
In fact, some of us might even be getting
a little bit anxious
as to whether,
that I even would say that in public in a church.
But here's the interesting thing,
it's very, very compelling,
but it's completely wrong.
Andrew, could you put up the next point?
Biblical teaching on marriage,
sexual identity,
and sexual knowing
is perennially,
I can hardly say that,
countercultural,
and perennially good news.
Let's take for a moment
that this text,
which I just read,
was written either
in around the year 1500
or around the year 1300.
In either one of those years,
BC,
either one of those years,
what did all the smart people think?
What are all the people
who are the best educated?
If you went to the best educated places
in Cairo,
what we now call Cairo,
in Alexandria,
in Babylon,
if you went to the places
where the powerful,
the rich,
the best educated,
if you went to them
and asked them advice,
what would they tell you?
They would say that
Genesis chapter 2
is complete rubbish.
Why?
Well, because, George,
obviously the smart thing
is polygamy.
The entire world,
every culture,
was polygamous.
George,
they'd say,
it's just very,
very natural.
A man should try
to be a real man.
And real men
who are successful
and powerful
and almost like a god,
they deserve many wives.
And it's just obvious,
George,
that you have wives
to guarantee
that there's legal
passing on of property,
but a man like myself,
a powerful man,
I also need other sexual outlets,
which is why I have concubines.
And George,
it's just very obvious
from the way
that the world works,
all of the smart people
understand it,
that part of worship
is appeasing
and dealing with the gods.
And sometimes that means
sacrificing an animal.
And George,
sometimes that means
you go to the temple
and you have sex
with the priestess.
That's what all
of the smart people understood.
And in fact,
if you read the Old Testament,
you'll see constantly
that the Old Testament
people of Israel
were constantly struggling
with going back
to follow
what the smart people understood.
See,
the fact of the matter is,
is that when the Bible said,
then the man said,
this at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman
because she was taken out of man.
Therefore,
a man shall leave
his father and his mother
and hold fast to his wife
and they shall become one flesh.
This teaching
is perennially countercultural.
In every culture,
at every time,
and it is always good news.
Now,
do you notice
that verse 24,
it sounds like a funny verse,
but it's actually really important.
If you could put up
the next slide,
please.
This next,
this verse 24
tells us
three
essential
steps
in an
essential order.
I can hardly say it.
I'm having speech
problems this morning.
I leave forever.
I hold fast forever.
I know sexually.
Look at verse 24 again.
Therefore,
a man shall leave
his father and his mother.
Very interesting, eh?
It's one of the things
about
all of the biblical teaching
on sexual relations,
like in marriage,
all of the teaching
about marriage.
It shows that
there's both
always a fundamental equality
between the man
and the woman,
but it also shows,
sorry for a big word,
time out,
big word moment.
I'm not showing off.
An asymmetric relationship,
not a symmetric relationship.
Like if you look
at Ephesians 5,
one of the tasks
given to the wife,
believe it or not,
is not to love her husband.
One of the tasks
given to the wife
is to respect her husband.
There's several
in Ephesians 5.
And it's that
the husband,
one of the tasks
given to the husband
is to love his wife.
And there's other language
there of the husband
being willing to die
for his wife
that's describing
what loving is.
But it's an asymmetric
relationship.
It's not
husband,
respect your wife,
wife,
respect your husband,
you know,
husband,
love your wife,
wife,
love your husband.
No,
I mean,
it's not saying
that obviously
women shouldn't
love their husbands,
but there's
this constant
asymmetric aspect
to it,
not the same.
And it's very interesting
in this text
that it talks
about the man leaving.
Now,
it doesn't mean
that the woman
doesn't leave her family,
but this is
three steps,
an essential step.
And what it's talking
about is that
for the men here,
I mean,
this is something
that you can just
meditate upon.
This verse
is well worth
meditating upon
because it's marriage
is,
it's describing
not only marriage,
but the place
of sex
within marriage,
sexual knowing
within marriage
and in life,
is that the first step
of an essential three
is the leaving
forever.
And in particular,
it's a primary task
of the male.
And I think,
and we're going to have
an interesting conversation
around this
over coffee
and other places,
I think it's because
in an age
where chauvinism,
and if we're going
to see this
after the fall,
that part of the problem
constantly for men
is violence against women
and a desire
to lord it over women.
And so the task
is for a man
to abandon
all of his other
sources of comfort
and power
to be only
for his wife.
A complete
abandonment
of power
and prestige
and any other
source of comfort
or influence
or importance
because in those times,
these times,
the livelihood
would have been
connected to the family.
So there's this idea
of complete abandonment
of power
to give yourself
to your wife
as the primary relationship.
And, you know,
it can be extrapolated.
In the New Testament,
it's extrapolated
and developed
and it's part of
the marriage vows.
if you go to
a Christian marriage
and forsaking
all others
is,
but it's a special
task given to the man.
The second
is that they both
hold fast forever
and hold fast
is covenant language.
It's the language
of,
of being close,
of committing
yourself to the other.
Not only do you,
you leave
the other sources
of power,
the other sources
that will give you
direction,
so to speak,
the other sources
that will be
of your power
and your influence
and you're learning
because now
we're fallen human beings
where evil
has come into the world.
It's not describing
how marriages
actually work,
it's describing
how God created
marriages to work.
And so the thrust now
is on the holding fast.
It's covenant language,
it's language
of holding fast
till death
do us part.
It's the language
of commitment,
it's the language
also implied
within this whole fast
of something public
and communal.
and marked.
In other words,
it's not describing
two people
living together
and then at some point
in time
they sort of realize
that they've been
stuck together
for a long time
and maybe they'll
continue for a while
and there's nothing
formal,
there's nothing
to mark it.
But this whole fast,
this whole idea
of a covenant
of something
which goes on
which has some degree
of formality
of public,
of yes,
I will to it.
And so first
there's the leaving,
second there's
this commitment
and of holding fast
and then
the third thing
is the sexual knowing,
sexual knowing.
Look again
at verse 24,
therefore a man
shall leave his father
and his mother
and hold fast
to his wife
and they shall
become one flesh.
In this particular context
it's a very polite way
of talking about
sexual knowing.
and this is a very
hard thing for us,
isn't it?
This is a very
hard thing for us.
So just to help,
before I sort of talk
a little bit about
how this is good news
for us,
if you could put up
the next slide,
I just want to make sure
we understand
what the Bible
is saying here.
In the beginning,
the good God
created a good creation
with faithful,
monogamous,
heterosexual marriage
as an essential,
natural feature.
That's what the Bible
is claiming.
Remember the Bible
is making a very big claim
that things don't just
happen completely
by chance
and by accident
and purely by cause
and effect,
that there's actually,
that the universe
in a sense is designed,
that it's created
with a plan
and a design feature
to it
which scientists
can understand
and begin to understand
more and more and more.
And you talk to
physicists and scientists
in the room
and they'll tell you
the more they know,
they don't know.
But that's another thing.
But what this text is saying
is making a very,
very big claim.
It's saying that
in the beginning,
the good God
created a good creation
with faithful,
monogamous,
heterosexual marriage
as an essential,
natural feature.
Listen again
to verse 23 and 24.
Then the man said,
this at last
is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman
because she was taken
out of man.
Therefore,
a man shall leave
his father and his mother.
The therefore,
right?
A man shall leave
his father and his mother
and hold fast to his wife
and they shall become
one flesh.
If you could put up
the next slide,
Andrew,
just to make sure
we understand it.
And some of you
don't understand
this language
of social construct,
but some of you
work more in arts
or social science
or legal environment.
And so you maybe
have a bit of an understanding
of what it is.
But I want to make sure
I'm nailing it here
that I'm making it clear
to us what the Bible's saying.
When it says,
this at last
is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman
because she was taken
out of man,
the helper fit for him.
Therefore,
a man shall leave
his father and his mother
and hold fast to his wife
and they shall become
one flesh.
What the text is saying here
is that monogamous
heterosexual marriage
is not
a social construct.
It is woven
into creation
by God
from the beginning.
What's a social construct?
Social construct is,
you know what,
George?
You know,
once again,
it's all just about pleasure
and not hurting people
and so,
George,
since it's about pleasure
and not hurting people,
like why isn't it
that,
you know,
that you can have
like whatever marriage is,
it's just a contract,
George.
That's all it is.
It's just a contract
and so why can't
completely willing people
as long as they're of age
and nobody's being hurt
just have contracts?
Contracts that express love.
Why can't,
it's just a,
George,
that's just something
which developed
in the 50s
or the 30s
or whatever,
this concept of marriage.
It's just a social construct
and,
you know,
obviously,
if I was having
a discussion about this,
you know,
at a university faculty
that don't believe the Bible,
I would talk about this
in a different way
but before we talk about it
in different ways,
we have to understand
what the Bible itself teaches
and what the Bible here
is making very clear
is that monogamous,
heterosexual marriage
is not a social construct.
That's because of the word
therefore.
But that,
in fact,
it is woven into creation
by God
from the beginning.
If you could put up
the next one.
So what this text
is in a sense saying,
now that we understand
how it is that God
has created men and women
and God has created
a place
within creation,
created order
for marriage
that it's somehow natural
to God's original
creational intentions
and that therefore
even sexual identity
is to be understood
within this text
just as it was last week
when we talked about
the image of God
and that therefore
out of the way
that God created
human beings
and originally
before evil
that therefore
the place of sexual knowing
comes after
I have left
and after
I have held fast
and then
with the one woman
there is sexual knowing.
And so what the Bible
is teaching here
and this helps us
to understand
all of the rest
of the biblical teaching
because of course
evil has come
into the world.
Brokenness
has come into the world
and temptation
has come into the world
and cheating
and
of all sorts
of different types
has come into the world.
So you see
from this text
follows something
that all sexual stimulation
or sexual knowing
outside
a faithful
monogamous
heterosexual marriage
is both a sin
and
a violation
of how God
created us.
You see
that's the whole point
of this therefore.
therefore.
It's a big therefore.
Like it's a really,
really,
really big therefore.
And you know
within this whole text
I didn't mention this
but if you go back
to verse 18
when it talks
about the man
being alone
and the helper
fit for him
that's an extremely
highly emphatic.
In other words
if we were to try
to write that
in a
print that
in a way
that brings out
what
the original language
is trying to do
those first
you know
it is not good
that the man
should be alone
I will make him
a helper fit for him
not only should it be
bolded
but the font
should be twice as big.
It should jump out
at us
this idea
of the helper
fit for him
and the complementarity
which leads
to the creation
of the woman
the helper
fit for him
equal
but somehow
complementary
and different
and the man
shall leave
his father
and his mother
all sources
of power
and identity
separate from his wife
and hold fast
both hold fast
to each other
and then comes
the sexual knowing
that
what is not
from that
is not only a sin
but is a violation
of how God
created us
which is a hard
teaching
isn't it folks?
See that's why
I began
by giving
the end
how
Jesus Christ
seeks
redeems
and restores
lost
and ruined
masterpieces
that's what's
going on
you know
last week
I gave
a
I got a little
bit of pushback
about
trying to describe
aliens
and me sitting
on a toilet
and brown stuff
as to whether
it was appropriate
in a church service
but another way
to put it
is let's say
after this service
I'm you know
some of you
all left
and I'm up
my son's
visiting you know
from out of town
and my son Jesse
and I
and Tommy
and Emma
we're just
the four of us
are out there
chatting
and all of a sudden
an alien spaceship
lands at the
intersection of
Besserer
and King Edward
and out comes
something that's
obviously an alien
and whatever
sort of vaguely
looks like arms
it starts
pointing them
and starts
knocking out
parts of the
Ottawa Little
Theater
and parts of
the buildings
around there
and people
go running
and screaming
but Jesse
Tommy
and Emma
and I
not wanting
to see people
hurt
rather than
running away
we run
at the alien
tackle the alien
do our Will Smith
from the original
Independence Day
and knock that
alien down
and hold it
down
and we somehow
cover it
so it can't
fire
ray gun
things
killing people
and the police
eventually come
and people of course
are taking things
for YouTube videos
which will go viral
and get a couple
of billion hits
and all that
and then eventually
because it's an alien
the police don't
come any closer
say you got to
cover it
yeah we got to
cover it
eventually people
hazmat suits
come and take
the alien away
and put them
in an enclosed
thing so it
can't have
its terrible
alien germs
infect people
and meanwhile
they would take
the four of us
Jesse
Emma
Tommy
and myself
off
and they would
also put us
in isolation
and here's the type
of thing
we have no idea
what a healthy
alien is like
so they'd have
no idea
whether
somehow or another
when Jesse
punched the alien
in the nose
whether he in fact
it wasn't a nose
it was its life
center
and he was
killing it
and it's dying
before their eyes
because they have
no idea
how an alien
is to function
but they know
that when I
start to turn
a very very
bright red
and part of me
is turning black
and part of me
is turning yellow
and part of me
is having skin
peeling off
they'd say
that's not good
George has
an alien
virus
infection
and they might
not know
exactly how
to treat me
but they know
what health
looks like
they know
what health
looks like
and you see
that's why
Genesis 1 and 2
is so important
and it's really
really wonderful
that Genesis 1 and 2
go together here
because you see
if we only had
Genesis 2
if we only had
Genesis 2
then we would think
that health
means you're married
and if you're not
married
you're not healthy
if you're single
you're second class
but that's why
the two stories
are so important
because what we see
when we look at
the two stories
together
what we see
is that on one
hand marriage
is somehow
between a man
and a woman
is woven
into the created
order
but because
of Genesis 1
it's very clear
that it's not
necessarily the case
that a man
and a woman
need to be married
to a member
of the opposite
sex
to be fulfilled
to have
dignity
to have integrity
and to have worth
that in fact
if you go back
and listen
last week
and if you look
at that first part
you see that
every human being
by the very very
nature that we bear
the image of God
have an inherent
integrity
dignity
value
and worth
that's not connected
to whether or not
we're married
it's not connected
to whether or not
God blesses us
with children
it's explaining
sexual desire
and it's explaining
the place of marriage
and using
sexual desire
in service
to the common
good of humanity
and to the glory
of God
but it's definitely
not saying
when you look
at the two stories
together
that unless
you're married
you are an
incomplete person
it's a very
very powerful
and very very wise
it's why
when we
Christians
because of
cultural pressure
are afraid
to think through
and read
and meditate
upon Genesis 1
and 2
it is to our
hurt
and to our
detriment
it's 42 minutes
I need to
could you just
put up
the next
point please
and then
try to wrap it up
you know
it's very very
interesting
where's the gospel
in all of this
you know
because the gospel
is
you know
it's very very
interesting
look at the test
again
therefore man
shall leave
his father
and his mother
and hold fast
to his wife
and they shall
become one flesh
in some way
this relationship
of leaving
of holding fast
of being one flesh
in some ways
it's going to end up
becoming a picture
of all of God's
covenants
with his people
that are going to
happen
after the fall
I mean even now
it describes
not obviously
in the exact same way
because God the Father
the Son and the Holy Spirit
don't have to leave each other
but it pictures
we'll see it next week
of this connection
and this oneness
between human beings
and God
and then after the fall
when we can no longer
be naked and unashamed
and all of the different ways
the covenant
that God makes
with Seth
the covenant
that God
you know
with Adam and Eve
in terms of how
he's going to redeem
the covenant
with Noah
the covenant
with Abraham
the covenant
with Moses
the covenant
with David
and most importantly
the new covenant
with Jesus
there's all this aspect
of this holding fast
or covenant
and this desire
to somehow be one
but it's most completely
and perfectly fulfilled
in the person of Jesus
who on the same night
that he was betrayed
took a cup
and after he had taken a cup
he took the bread
and he described
how that what he was inaugurating
was a new covenant
and the disciples
were going to be filled
with all sorts of confusion
because of Jesus' capture
his betrayal
his horrific death
their complete
and utter refusal
to believe
that he would rise
from the dead
all of that
they're going to be
completely and utterly
puzzled by it
they're going to be
heartbroken
they're going to be destroyed
and then Jesus
is vindicated
in his resurrection
what is it that Jesus said
he doesn't leave
his father and mother
but he leaves heaven
he leaves God the Father
and God the Holy Spirit
and he leaves to seek
and just as in Ephesians
it's going to talk about
how the man's love
for his wife
is to be
as if he is willing
to die for her
we see that
because Jesus
not only leaves
but he holds fast to us
in such a way
that when he dies
upon the cross
it's my sin
that he's holding fast
and he's not only
holding fast my sin
so that he dies
for my sin
he's holding fast
so that his perfect
obedience to the Father
is being held against me
and the result
of his death
upon the cross
when we receive it
by faith
is that
not that we are
one flesh with God
but that we are
at one with God
from heaven
he came to sought her
to be his holy bride
with his own blood
he bought her
and so we see
that Jesus
to restore us
he
could you put up
the final point
Andrew please
that he seeks us
we didn't seek him
he seeks us
that he redeems us
and that once he
comes in
and takes us
he's going to restore us
that are lost
and ruined masterpieces
and I don't know
if that means
that I'm going to be married
or not married
I don't know if that
I don't know what
that's going to mean
I mean I know
what it is for me
because I'm married
but I mean for us
listening to this
we don't know what it means
but we know that as
as we cleave to Jesus
and as he begins
to work in our lives
I mean for those of us
who are same-sex attracted
maybe there'll be a change
in our desire
maybe there won't be
but the Bible's teaching
is not saying
that if you're not
in a marriage relationship
you're second class
it's not saying
that at all
but that every person
is a masterpiece
lost and ruined
and Jesus comes
and seeks
and finds you
and redeems you
and as you cleave
to him
and come to him
and submit to him
and listen to his word
he restores you
in the direction
of Genesis 2
and Genesis 1
he will restore you
so that the masterpiece
becomes more
and more
clear
as we trust
him
to restore us
please stand
just bow our heads
in prayer
Father
you know the different ways
that we violate
your creational intent
in Genesis 1 and 2
Father you know the men
amongst us
or the women as well
who struggle with pornography
Father you know
those of us
who struggle
with different types
of same sex desire
and acting out on it
you know Father
those of us
who
we're not sure
what our gender is
and who we're attracted to
you know those of us
Father
who are just struggling
with any type of attraction
Father you know
there are so many
different ways
that we are sexually broken
and we come before you
Father
not as the pure
and as the holy
but acknowledging
before you
that
every single one of us
was
or is
a lost and ruined
masterpiece
a masterpiece
because we are made
in your image
and we thank
and praise you Jesus
that you sought us
that you redeem us
that as
you hold fast
to us
and we submit to you
and walk with the Holy Spirit
that you will work
to restore
the masterpiece
that is us
we ask Father
that you help us
to be willing
to repent
that you would help us
Father
to be willing
to submit to you
and to learn
to walk with you
so that you will
work your work
of restoration
and healing
in our lives
Father bless those
who are married
here
bless them
in their marriage
and for those of us
who are single
Father bless us
in our singleness
that in whatever state
you have called us
that we will live
to bring you glory
and all this we ask
in the name of Jesus
your Son
and our Savior
Amen