Thinking Biblically about Politics: The Family
-
Thinking Biblically about Politics: The Family
As you turn to Genesis 1, because Genesis 1 is where we get our guidelines for everything that we see created by God, his world, his universe, his rules. So that is a starting point for us to thinkBiblically about politics. There is no specific Bible to turn to or book in the Bible that is not...one book. But there are many places that contain the truths we need for how we need to think and act as salty Christians as we learned about last week withPastor Harry. That is our mission here. We are to be the salt and light, a savory enhancer of society around us, a preserving element, a mark of purity. And that applies to the entire Bible, the whole counsel of God. And so when we do a series like this that is evidently topical, we're going to have to move around in order to see all that it has to say when we want to speak to the issues of our day. And that's my clear mandate, is not to go off ever on any hobby horse, but to say, hey, if there's an issue going on in society that you have to take a step back from the Bible and piece some things together, you do that. And that's alluding to maybe when Paul talked to the elders in Ephesus in chapter 20 of Acts and said, I did not fail to preach Christ and to take to you the whole counsel, to declare to you the whole counsel of God, all of it, not leaving any part out, especially the parts that might make us uncomfortable. And so that's my mandate as a preacher. But our mission also as a church when it comes topolitics, is very clear in 1 Timothy 2:1-2. It's to pray for those who are in authority at all times, and especially during an election cycle. We should pray for God's work to be done through the political process to give us leaders who are marked by integrity, honesty, bravery, humility, compassion, all the aspects we see the scriptures put forth of the type of leader God looks to. We're never going to find a perfect one on this side of eternity, but we still can look for marks that would say that person would make a good leader. And so I try to keep things simple often here by saying, look, if I can reduce down how we think about politics to just a few things, one would be we need the Word of God to inform how we think. And that comes by way of the Word of God being preached. And we also are called to pray. So those two things...that forward that simple. My job is done today. We'll see you next week. No, we're going to go into the Word today and see what it says. And I know that for some of us, the last thing we want is more politics, especially more texts from people pretending to know us personally. Hi, I'm Andrew, I'm a former fill in the blank, but now I'm fill in the blank. Would you watch this video I made to change your view.As if it's going to change your view. Steven has texted me this week. A guy named Alex. Somebody that wants me to stand with crypto, which I have no idea what that means, and I'm not going to check into it. But we all just might want to say, like, can we take a break from this being the most important election ever...being told to us constantly. I don't mean to seem to sound cynical about it, but I don't know. As far back as I could think, maybe 20 years of paying attention to it, that each one seemed to say this is the most important election ever. And yeah, if you're four years old and it's your first go round and you're eating crayons as I talk, it probably is your most important election ever. That's all just to highlight the amount of political fatigue. And I don't want to add to that. I would rather over the next three weeks that we look at thinking Biblically about politics to ease a burden rather than put one on you. I would rather bring you to a cup of refreshment from the Word of God each week rather than the cesspool of man's opinion. And so the next few weeks, as we walk through the scriptures looking at what God's Word says, I do want to challenge you to do this one thing right on the front end. And it's the same thing I'm doing each week as I study, and that is to take your presuppositions, however they have been formed. Those older, more set saying, I've been there, seen it, read it. I'm twice your age, preacher boy. Yeah you are, but it doesn't mean your presuppositions about politics shouldn't be subject to what God has to say, any more than the young in our audience who might be privy not to believe anything old. What's new is true, and what I can see on TikTok and whatever grabs my attention and aesthetically impresses me. That must be where the truth lies. And so the same caution I would give to the young that just because we're going back to something super old. The old paths, as the prophets called the Word of God, thatyou can have your positions moved as well. It's to take up the attitude of the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther, who challenged the authorities of his own day. He had his own presuppositions challenged when he was changed to go from what he thought was a works based righteousness found in the law of God, to grace based salvation found in the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. And when he was put to the test after he had already on October 31st, 1517, nailed the 95 theses on the doors of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. His desire to reform the church from within, to say that we've lost our way both in what we believe and how we behave, and we need to talk about it. Well, that didn't sit too well with the Pope at the time. He called him to a papal bull, where he had to stand before a group of leaders, and they wanted him to recant. And you know his famous words. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Here I stand. I can do no other. That's my challenge to you the next three weeks. Regardless of what you believe coming in here about politics, are you willing to let your conscience be captive to the Word of God and say, if this is what I see, despite what I've heard, then that's what I'll believe. That's how I'll think differently. Now, what you do with that different thinking, the implications it has on your life, and the application of then what you do this election year that's on you. That's not on me. What I'm here to do is to assault the conscience with the Word of God, to make it so clear, not through some compelling, persuasive speech. Not to try to sway you to one side or the other, to mention one name versus another. But to say this is what the Bible says about these issues and you've got to deal with it. And that's what it does to us all the time.
So what we're going to examine over the next few weeks, starting in Genesis one, are the three foundational institutions that God has built human existence around. These three institutions of human society were created by God and commanded to be sustained until his Son returns. It's the institution of the family. It's the institution of the state, and it's the institution of the church. As in, God is sovereign over all. And we know Jesus has all authority given to him, Matthew 28. In heaven and on earth all authority is his. But there are vice regents who are given spheres of sovereignty, spheres of authority in these three areas...the family, the state, and the church. And they are to respect each other out of a respect for the sovereign God. And if you understand how God sets each one of these institutions up, you understand how to view politics. You understand how to view platforms. You understand how to view parties. If you understand what the family was designed for by God, created and commanded for human flourishing, not subject to man's opinion. Next week we'll look at the institution of the state, and then we'll finish with the institution of the church, the only one of the three that's going to remain forever. So let's start today, first up in thinking biblically about politics is the institution of the family as ordained by God in Genesis 1:26-28. And we'll see as we just work in Genesis one and two, mainly today when we talk about the institution of the family, Genesis gives us three clear convictions, three clear truths that flow out of the text. The first is that gender is a fixed reality, not a fluid fantasy. The second is that children are a gift from God, not a curse of man. And the third is that marriage is a covenant promise, not a convenience contract. These are not political talking points. These are theological realities. What God says when he instituted the family about gender, about children, and about marriage are meant to last forever. Now, I also realize as the preaching pastor, I'm not just here to preach at you. I'm here to shepherd. That's that second part of my title. And as a shepherd, I realize that on the subject of gender, it touches on the sensitive issue of LGBTQ friends and family that, you know. And on the subject of children, it touches on the painful issue and private issue of abortion. And on the subject of marriage, it touches on the issue that has touched probably every person in here to some degree or another...divorce. I get, on the front end, that this is personal and painful and for many...private. You'd rather just not talk about it. But my desire as a shepherd is not to reopen any wound. But it's actually for you to find healing in the Word of God. I hope you know that's my primary motive. My primary motive isn't to get you to rock the vote. It's not a voter drive that's going to be out in the atrium afterwards. My primary desire to shepherd you through these truths is that if something was burdening your heart attached to any of these issues that we're going to talk about today, that the work wouldn't be done out there in some...let's make sure everybody votes this year. It would be down here talking to me afterwards. Another one of our pastors or somebody in your life group and saying, you know, I've never just seen that sin for what it is called it for what it is. And I don't know if I've ever healed from it. That would be the greatest thing God could do with this series, especially today's message. And I want you to know that whatever we talk about today, whatever sin is talked about in relation to gender, children and marriage, none of them fall under the category of the unpardonable sin. Any of those can be forgiven when you take them to the cross, and they're covered by the blood of the lamb, and you find further healing by the body of Christ coming around you, not distancing you from them. So that's why it's important to talk about this. There is deep guilt and shame with a lot of this, but far more important than the politics is your personal relationship with God this morning. We live in his created order and under Christ's heavenly reign and everything we see and hear, we want to take captive to him. Because there is a war going on and it's unseen, the Scripture tells us. It's a war for truth, and I would hope that you would give me the benefit of the doubt this morning, that I'm not trying to make any enemy with any person. I've got one enemy this morning. It's the prince of the power of the air who lies and who kills and who destroys and who is a murderer from the beginning. That's who is in my crosshairs this morning. And the lies that he's promoted in our culture for the last few decades that have allowed some people to buy a narrative...that's not true...that sounds tolerant, that sounds scientific. That sounds right philosophically. And you say, but when you hold it up against the Word of God, it crumbles. It's smashed to pieces. That's what I'm out here to do today. The greatest gift I can give you today, in a world of lies is your ability to discern the truth. So if any of these issues today, as you see it more clearly in Scripture and your conscience says, you know, I've been lied to, but now the truth is doing what Jesus said it would do, right? It will set you free, but you got to take him at his word. This series is to give us the convictions we need for the institution that God ordained the family.
So let's start with the first truth. The institution of family begins with gender as a fixed reality, not a fluid fantasy. There was a line that caught my ear this week from a political comic who, in all fairness, punches left and right. He even admitted in the last few years he's punching left a lot more than he used to. But he does it in the cause of common sense. He said that in today's world, when truth conflicts with the narrative, it's the truth that has to apologize. This isn't coming from a godly man, but this is coming from somebody who just sees that there's a narrative that's been created that feels like no matter what, the truth is always the one that has to apologize to the narrative that's out there, and especially the narrative of the last decade on gender fluidity that we hear nonstop about. Well, what's the truth that conflicts with it? It's back in Genesis 1. First in verse 26, it says, God says, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. It's at the high point of creation, established from the beginning of the Bible, is that we are the crown of God's creation, the most glorious gem made exclusively in his image and likeness. But we were made in a particular fashion. And there's only two categories. Verse 27, God created man in his own image, his character qualities that are unique to humanity, not to the rest of creation, the unique privileges we have to carry out as a result of that. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, He created them. Genesis 1:27 is where you develop your core convictions about gender. Because if you don't start here, where will you? If you don't take God's Word from page one day six male and female two categories fixed from the beginning, unchanging forever. When will you start taking God's word serious? It's rather arbitrary, isn't it? I don't know about Genesis 1 and 2. I think it's kind of poetry. I heard some person say that once. It's it's poetic narrative. It's poetic allegory. I don't even know exactly if Adam and Eve were real people. And so you take that first wrong step that Eve took when Satan came and said, Did God really say that? Can you really trust him? Can you be smarter? Can you be as smart as him? Well, the thing we'd have to see is, does it ever change in the Bible? Is gender ever seen anything otherwise besides male and female as you walk through the scripture. Well, just staying in Genesis alone when you move to Genesis 3 and there's the fall. And maybe because sin comes in, maybe the categories change. Well, if you get to chapter 5, when it's kind of a recap of all the generations, it's rather an overlooked chapter. The descendants of Adam, the book of generations, Genesis 5:1-2. You see that after the fall, 1,100 years later, when Noah is around, nothing has changed. This is the book of the generations of Adam in the day when God created man. He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and he blessed them and named them man in the day when they were created. And then chapter 5 takes you 1100 years, all the way up to the time that Noah was born. Nothing changes in those categories. Genesis 6 came about when man began to multiply on the face of the land. God looks down at his creation, and he sees in verse 5, the wicked wickedness of man was great on the earth, and every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. So he's going to send a flood, he's going to start over. And when he starts over, maybe he starts over with some new categories. Maybe he's going to just say, Noah, just whoever wants to come on the ark. It doesn't matter. Male and female. Just bring whoever. Actually, it's quite the opposite. God is very specific in how the world's going to start over again after the flood. Genesis 6:19, and of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark to keep them alive with you. Human flourishing, even the animal kingdom flourishing is going to be built on this line. "They shall be male and female". So it's not just exclusive to humans, it's what?...it's in the animal kingdom too. The very simplicity of Genesis 6:19 shows us natural law proves that this is how society is going to continue. And throughout the rest of the Old Testament, it goes that way. But then what about the New Testament? Maybe you say I'm a red letter Christian. Jesus is my creed. I follow what he says. I don't know, you know, all this stuff in the Old Testament, it's just Neanderthal. It's pre-modern. I'm a Jesus Christian. All right, well, Jesus says this in Matthew 19 when questioned on the issue of marriage and divorce, verse 4, Matthew 19, he answered and said to the Pharisees, have you not read? So he's pointing them back to the Old Testament that he, God, created them, Adam and Eve, from the beginning. And then he quotes directly, making them male and female. So if you're for Jesus, you say he's about love, he's about tolerance. He's about change. He's about accepting people as the way they are. Not according to Him. He loves people. He loves them where they are, but doesn't leave them there if they've been believing a lie, does he? He takes them right back to Genesis 1:27. And then he adds, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh. It's repeated in Mark 10:6, affirming the special creation of Adam and Eve in the beginning. In the genealogy of Luke 3:38, Luke connects Jesus being born all the way back to Adam...human lineage. That's the history of mankind all the way up to Jesus. Paul reiterates in Ephesians 5:30 and 32 that the basis on which we build our marriages between male and female is all the way back to Adam and Eve...Christ and the church, two categories. 1 Corinthians 11:8-12 Paul argues for family order because of Adam and Eve. So here's where we land. God has made clear throughout the entire council of His Word what no amount of Satanic lies can change. Gender is a fixed, God ordained reality, not the fluid fantasy narrative it's become today. Now here's something interesting. I typed that phrase...gender is fixed, not fluid into Google because I do things like that often. Just curious what would come out and artificial intelligence Google AI kind of rebuked me. Never been rebuked by AI. I typed in...gender is fixed, not fluid. And this is what Google AI said back to me. No, gender is not fixed. It's a social construct that changes over time and varies from society to society and different from sex. Gender is socially constructed, gender can change. Gender is different from sex. And I said thanks Google AI you just gave me sub points. Three lies there. Did you catch them? It's a social construct. That's a lie. It's a God construct. It changes over time. That's a lie. God sets it and it stays that way. And gender and sex can be artificially separated out. Yes, I know on one hand they're talking about sex being biological and gender being social or philosophical or environmental, I get that. But what they're trying to make the case and build is you can pull them apart and say, one is this and one is that, and the form doesn't have to match the function. I actually, I was curious. I was like, how like, you know, personal does Google AI get. So I was like, I'm going to try something else. I'll type in the earth is flat...typed in, the Earth is flat. Google AI didn't have a response. It is interesting to me though, that it would attack that one, that it would respond to me as if it knows the facts. Well, let's take those lies and pull them apart first. Gender being a social construct, the truth that gender is God constructed. He made it, not us. Made me think about something in my own lifetime, going back to the 90s, my teenage days, and I wondered if the same advocates of gender fluidity today were the ones 30 years ago looking for the gay gene to justify homosexuality as fixed from birth. You notice how that just disappeared from any discussion, right? That it moved from...if we could just find a gay gene, which they never found. It's hard to even find credible information talking about it anymore. That you go from something...if you could just establish this thing that tells us something that is deviant from the way God designs is fixed, has disappeared, and now we have to say, okay, something in a new category, not sexual biology, but now gender behavior. That's what's fluid. So which is it? Is it fixed or fluid? Science has given us no more clarity today than it did in the 90s. Why? Because it's a shifting Satanic lie designed to confuse the sheep and destroy the family. Even I found an article in Psychology Today not written by a believer whose headline was...We need to drop this distinction. Move beyond it's socially constructed, because there's a contradiction inherent in it. His main thesis is gender cannot simultaneously be socially constructed and inherent to the individual. He goes on to say that the APA's definition...the Association of Psychology of America. Sex refers to biological apparatus. Gender refers to cultural expectations and norms. And he admits, drawing on this distinction, when people say that gender is socially constructed tends to assert that sex is independent of gender. But this is what I put up there. However, if gender is an arbitrary creation of society, how is it possible for it also to be internal and inherent as a sense of self? This is not a Christian writing this. This is somebody who's not reading Genesis. This is somebody just pointing out it doesn't pass the test of logic. It is not possible for gender to simultaneously be an arbitrary product of the culture you're in, and an inherent experience of the individual. It can't be simultaneously self-chosen and the product of socialization. Are you catching what he's saying? This idea of artificially separating the two through by way of a social construct. Maybe you're not into following, you know, that line of logical argument. You just want something more pop culture and symbol. So I found another article written by a female who now says she's a man, and she is arguing that gender is fluid and because her life proves it. And at the end she closes with the line, so go out there and be exactly who you were born to be. That sounds fixed, as Lady Gaga says, born this way. So I'm born a certain way that actually isn't any way because I could choose whichever way I want to be. You have your feet planted firmly in midair, don't you? And I mean, it's laughable, but it's tragic that young and old are buying this lie because it gives you no sense of where you stand in the world. If simultaneously I am born a certain way, but I'm not because it can change whichever way the wind is blowing. However, I feel whatever the society tells me. Go and be whoever you were born, but you weren't born any way...we can't tell you that. That's the social construct lie. Then there's the gender can change, which is related to that. But we just build it on what we already saw in the Scripture that the Bible never says that gender changes. The Bible, written by 40 authors from three continents over 2000 years, maintains a perfectly consistent message from beginning to end on the most important matters. Salvation is from God alone in Christ alone, but also on these other matters of understanding who we are and where we fit in. And the gender being male and female only, and always throughout is one of those truths. And then lie number three from AI. Gender is separate, can be separated from sex in a way that they can be different. And the Bible teaches us that it cannot be artificially separated. The Bible teaches us from Genesis 1:27 that who we are is determinative for what we do. Said another way who we are biologically determines what we do behaviorally. You cannot separate those two out. We see it in Genesis 1:27 right after it says, male and female, he created them. Then he tells them, now that's your form. Here's the function...I bless you. Go be fruitful and multiply. There's a biological and behavioral lesson right in there. And we also know that throughout the Bible, the act of homosexuality is proof of the same reality. It's always called a sin, when a person acts in a way against his or her created nature...always a sin. Never put in a new category. There's no divide. That is an observable truth of natural law through general revelation, and it's a revealed truth of special revelation. It's particularly spoken of in Romans chapter 1. If you want to turn there, starting in verse 18, an anti-God narrative Paul addresses that has attacked the truth that through lies wants to suppress righteous living andgodly living for the cause of unrighteousness and ungodliness. That's there in verse 18. Paul sets a stage for where humanity is and is headed, and it's a downward spiral. Sin is always a downward spiral. Seeking self over God always takes you down the wrong path. That's the message of Romans 1:18 to 32, but it starts with any individual in 18 to 20, denying which is evident within them and around them. Verse 19. Natural law, the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. And remember what I said from the beginning. This is about an attack on the truth. These unrighteous and godly men suppress the truth. Why?...in unrighteousness. That's what they want. They want their sin. That's why they do it. Rebellion against God. Verse 19, but yet that which is known about God is evident within them. They know it naturally. He's not even saying that special revelation or the Word of God has come into the equation here. God has made this evident to them. Verse 20, since the creation of the internet...No, they didn't have to wait for the internet to understand this. We didn't need the enlightenment to understand this. Since the creation of the world, God's invisible attributes and eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Ever since creation, the same loop has been played. But rather than humans move upwards toward God and true godly wisdom, they move downward toward sin in human wisdom. Verse 22, professing to be wise, they became fools. It didn't happen overnight, but with every choice to stand opposed to what God has already said and by the lie of Satan and what man says, further down they go, professing to be wise, becoming fools, taking the glory of God, corrupting it...false gods. Verse 24 all the way to 32 is now here's what God gives them over to the lusts in their heart, the ungodliness, the impurity, the dishonoring of bodies, degrading passions. And then 26 and 27 talk about why we can't separate gender from sexuality and say that it's acceptable behavior. People change. No it's not. It's actually a change from what does it say in verse 26, natural function for that which is unnatural right there in your Bible is the blinking lights that say, look back at Genesis 1:27 and 28. That's what he's talking about here, the natural being taken away with the unnatural. Men, abandoning the natural function of women and burning in their desire toward one another, men committing indecent acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of that error. How far down does it go? All the way to verse 32. It's not just that a society sees it, allows it. It says those who practice such things are worthy of death. They not only do the same, but they give hearty approval to those who practice them....hearty approval. Acceptance. Celebration. So I have to ask you this morning, just on this first point, what societal sin do you see our country in now and heading headlong into further? And as it relates to politics, what can you do about it? We live in a country that we feel like we can do something about it if we choose to. But why would we choose to do it? Not because we're trying to score political points for a certain person or a party. We...our consciences are captive to the Word of God here. That's what it's about. It's theological above everything else. And you have to stand before what the Word of God makes plain as day. Natural law, revealed revelation, that the future of the God ordained institution of the family in Genesis one through the end of the Bible, divinely designed to build society, starts with gender as fixed. So what has your conscience been taken captive to?
Truth number two, the institution of family grows as children are a gift from God, not a curse on man. Connected to the creation of male and female in Genesis 1:27 and the next verse...first command God blessed them and said to them, we don't know what the blessing was, but as far as we know, here is the first charge he gives to this newly married couple. Be fruitful and multiply. How beautiful and simple that this is what he wanted Adam and Eve to know right out of the gates. Maybe I need to adopt that as not the Aaronic Blessing of number 6, but the Adamic blessing when I do premarital with couples, the last session I'm having with them, I should say bless you...have babies. Because that's what God said to Adam and Eve. That's where it goes. The second truth to stand for with no compromise is this. The implication is that God is for giving life, not aborting it. That's not a pro-life position. That's a pro God decision. It's a Biblical reality. It's a God truth. Life beginning at conception is theological and science caught up eventually. They were behind a few thousand years figuring out when does life begin? A few years back, biologists from over a thousand academic institutions were given a survey on when life begins, and there was 96% consensus. It begins at conception...scientists. So whatever discussion is being had that tries to pit theology against science, they're in accord where it starts. It begins at conception as an act of God. Well you say no...it's an act of man...granted. Who does the Bible say opens or closes a womb? God does. We're not in control of that. We pray to that end from the beginning. God is the only sovereign with the will and ability to create, sustain, and take life in the sanctity of human life starts with the will of our Creator, not the created. Everything we believe about abortion and the right to life hinges on our reading of Genesis one. Now it builds from there. We learn in Ezekiel 18 that when we're talking about life, we're talking about a soul. Who does that soul belong to? Who created the soul? Ezekiel 18:4 God says, behold, all souls are mine. So you start with the soul. It belongs to God...no exceptions. Every single person, righteous or wicked, who will live forever in eternity, is a soul that belongs to the One who gives life. Second, the opening of the womb for life is from God. Psalm 127:3,behold, children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. I stopped and read that very slowly, because if you were here in first service, I said, the fruit of the loom is a reward. And it was a needed point of levity in the discussion. I accepted it as from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, which then got me thinking...distracted. Is that how fruit of the loom came up with their name? But that's for another day. Don't ask Google. God is in sovereign control over the ability to conceive. We learn this in Genesis in the narrative. I mean so much focus of the activity of God choosing Abraham on through the line of Isaac, and then to Jacob, always referred to as the patriarchs, even to the time of Jesus, always going back to talking about your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What consistent story do we learn about their wives? What's the thread that runs through their lives? Genesis 16:2 Sarah, the womb had to be opened by God. Genesis 25:21 Rebecca same thing. Genesis 30:22 Rachel same thing. Each one was barren until God opened the womb. You think he's telling a story there about who gives life and how he is going to keep the line of the Messiah moving on through redemptive history. It is going to be by no accident. It's going to be by his Sovereign will. Right from the beginning when he called Abraham and said, through you I will bless the world. Third, the fullness of our days is from God. It's just not at the beginning, and it's all throughout, and it's all the way to the end. We learn this from Paul speaking in Acts 17 to a group of pagans...sermon on Mars Hill. And as they're trying to figure out who this unknown God is, he wants them to know. You may not know him, but he knows you. And how well does he know you? He knows you from the time you were a soul all the way throughout eternity. This is what Paul preached. The God who made the world Acts 17:24 and all that is in it. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He does not dwell in temples made withhuman hands. He is not served by human hands as though he needs anything. He himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. That's the fundamental distinction between creator and created. He is not dependent upon his creation for anything. We are dependent on him for everything. And he made from one man, Paul's going back to Adam and Eve, every nation of mankind, to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and boundaries of their habitations That's how much God knows where every person is going to be, where they're going to go...that they would seek God; perhaps they might look for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Isn't that a wonderful truth? I don't know where all of you are this morning. I recognize most of you, but somebody out there could be new. And you might have come in here searching this morning, searching for truth, searching for God because you thought he was far from you. Do you know he is not far from you? You know that you're sitting under the teaching of His Word is his grace to you. He wants you to know him. He wants you to be amazed by him. He wants you to know the truth about yourself no matter how lost you are today...and confused and angry. None of that deters God's interest in you because he made you. You're by his design, and he's designed your life all the way up to this point to put you in that seat right here to be told he's looking for you. He sees you. And what he wants you to know about him is you can know him through his Son, Jesus Christ, the Son that he loved and he sent to die for a sinner like you. And whatever sin is in your life, whatever guilt, whatever shame, whatever you've done, he says, it can be forgiven if you call upon the name of his Son thismorning. You can be saved. He did all of that for you. And you sit there and you are a recipient of his grace. But you have to first see he's a holy God who has a holy law that's expected to be obeyed. And we can't keep it, but we can turn to him and ask for forgiveness of our sins for us breaking it. Would you call upon him today? And then, as Paul says, to close, in him we live and move and exist. And he says, your poets, your pagan writers even know this. What point am I making there? That the fullness of your days is from God? The clear account from the Bible is that God fundamentally is the giver of life, the sustainer of life, and only he has the right to take it. But who wants to usurp that right?...Satan, the liar and the murderer from the beginning. He wants to end all life and he doesn't care when it happens. He just wants it to happen. He comes to steal, kill and destroy. Satan is the one on the wicked side of history wanting to end every human life, not give it. I remember walking past pictures in Frye when our first son was born 12 years ago, and there was a great theological point there on the wall. Doctor Seuss made it. A person is a person, no matter how small. We all start out as a tiny zygote, full of all the genetic information we will ever need to live. The Human Genome Project went on from 1990 to 2003. If you don't know anything about it, just look for a guy that looks like that and ask him. Somebody with that haircut clearly knows how to tell you about the Human Genome Project. But it was the idea that if we could map our genetic code, it could lead to us being able to understand how we can help human life flourish even more. I think it was done with good motives, and it was to map out 3 billion letters of our DNA. You learned those in grade school or somewhere. A, C, T and G, and it's repeated in sequence 3 billion times in our DNA this sequence happens. In fact, somebody probably that guy figured out that if you would, from the time you were born till you turned a hundred said A, C, T or G, every second, you would finally do it 3 billion times. And it took thousands of scientists from 1990 to 2003 to get 80% of it working all the time, funded by billions of dollars to figure that double helix out that God does for every single person at every single conception, just like this. There's no comparison in the brilliance and wisdom of God and how he designs us from conception. No mere clump of cells was God's precious handiwork. Psalm 139:13 to 16 has such wonderful language when it says, you formed my inward parts. Verse 13, you wove me in my mother's womb. And then later in verse 15, my frame was not hidden from you. When I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. And that skillfully wrought phrase was in my head this week as my family, we were reading through a children's story Bible where the writer just would take sections, chapters, and kind of put them together and just telling a little story for them. And we hit some dry toast, as I call it, not fresh bread. Exodus 35 to 39 talking about the Tabernacle, because it's just a lot of very talented, skilled people, make these curtains and make this high priestly garment and put on some pomegranates, whatever those are, I know they're not the fruit, but whatever. And weave them and they keep saying this word. And I was reading it. And then the writer talked about how these two guys, Bezalel and Aholiab, apologies, men, if I butchered your names. And she just had such a picturesque way of describing how they would have to take the strands of purple and take the satin and cut it and line it up, and then twist it together, and it was dry for me. I'm like, how am I going to get it's 7:30. These kids don't want to listen to how to make a tabernacle curtain. And then it hit me. It said in those sections that they were doing this work, Weaver's work. And it triggered skillfully wrought. And so Nerd Dad looks up the word in the Hebrew. It's used nine times in the Old Testament. Eight of them are in Exodus 35 to 39. The ninth time it's used in Psalm 139, when you and I were skillfully wrought, just like those weavers work, just like taking every strand and the detail of an artist putting together the most beautiful thing worthy of God in a tabernacle. He took you and me and in our DNA. 23 and 23. 46 chromosomes, weaving them together, making you exactly the way you are today. He does it for every person it exists. Those that don't acknowledge him makes him with the same intricate care and love...fearfully and wonderfully made. And any life...and no, it's no less prized and precious because of size at conception or location inside of a womb versus outside, or an evil situation surrounding the origins of that life. It doesn't change that life's preciousness at all. That's the hardest issue, isn't it? Sexual assault is heinous. Despicable.Heartbreaking. God hates it and hates it and hates it. It can't be said enough. And yet, Biblically speaking, that baby's life is no less deserving of protection because of the means by which it came into existence. God ordained that we live. He made us. He formed us. He breathed life into us. He opened the womb for us. He knew who he wanted us to be. That's the truth. Those aren't political talking points. Those are theological starting points with eternal endpoints. Truth number two.
Truth number three. The institution of family will remain as marriage is kept as a covenant promise, not a convenience contract. You build from the first two. You have to keep male and female in their categories, and you have to protect life. And then you have to protect the idea of marriage being built on covenant promise, not this contract of convenience that our culture has made it. You have to understand what marriage is in order to rightly promote it and protect it. If you don't understand that marriage is between male and female only, then you'll fall prey to the culture's narrative. Even the phrase same sex marriage is a contradiction in terms. It might be a marriage in the eyes of society who have changed the meaning of it. But according to the Bible, according to God's view, it's a mirage of a marriage. It's not the real thing. And all the talk of love, being love and commitment doesn't change the fact that God sets the parameters for what a marriage is. It's between male and female. So when people ask me, pastor, I have this wedding of a family member, a friend. I love them deeply. Should I go? I say, is it a marriage? It's not. So what are you going to see? I don't know, but it's not a marriage according to the scripture. And if you don't understand that, then how can you promote the right view of it? If you don't understand that marriage is a covenant meant to be honored for life, then you won't protect it from a culture of convenience that says if you don't like it, just quit. Harry, who was here with our men last week and preached here, said to the guys last weekend, marriage is a covenant, not a contract. It's not. If you will, then I will. It's I will whether you do or not. That's what a covenant promise is. I'll keep my side of the deal...even if you don't. It's not...you do this, I do that. And our culture sees it entirely differently. Their solution to keeping marriages together is cohabitation. Interesting thing is, 34% of couples who live together before marriage end in divorce. 22% who don't live to before marriage end in divorce. So clearly cohabitation isn't the solution. You got to live and get to know the person beforehand. The number one reason divorced couples gave recently, 75% of them summarized it as this...lack of commitment. I no longer was committed to them. They were no longer committed to me. We were no longer committed to each other. Sure, they would acknowledge there were other pieces of the puzzle that contributed to that, but 75% said it was lack of commitment. I didn't want to stay in it. And our culture has embraced the idea of no fault that's spread to the church. And now irreconcilable differences is an accepted explanation for many endings. Now, in bringing these to our attention, these statistics, it's to show how far our nation has fallen as a culture, what we used to call the sanctity of marriage and the protection we showed it. And yet, I want to say this that the Bible does have a permissible reality for divorce, though it wasn't God's intention. Even Jesus said that...Moses had to create this. Moses had to come up with this idea because of how you guys had trodden over the sanctity of marriage. In our church, we strive to maintain a high view of marriage and the hard work of forgiveness to keep them together, while also understanding that the Bible makes provision for divorce in the cases of adultery and abandonment. And I do want to make clear this morning, as much as I can, that we as elders, leaders, life group leaders, flock leaders will continue to fight for every marriage in this room. That's our first step. That's our instinct. We're going to do it. It's never pleasant. It's hard because you're coming into something that didn't happen overnight, and it's going to take a lot of work to get out of. But we've seen God do it. And so that gives us from the hope of the Word of God and the healing we've seen...why we're going to keep stepping right back into it. And all that said is we won't promote any attitude in this church that would treat a divorced or remarried person as a second class Christian. How you walk in the door is how we get you. Whatever has happened before is how we receive you. We're going to try to help you where you're at. We can't undo what's already been done. Paul says very clearly in 1 Corinthians 7, stay in the condition that you're in. And so if you're in the condition of marriage in here, and even if it's a mess, we're here to help you where you're at, because we believe in that covenant promise. We believe it's a display of the gospel...Ephesians 5:22 to 31. The mystery of marriage is this the gospel displays Christ's love for his church, which is then what we try to display in our marriages through forgiveness and commitment. John Piper writes it this way in his book, This Momentary Marriage. The ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God's glory. It's patterned after Christ's covenantal relationship to his redeemed people. Therefore, the highest meaning and most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenantal relationship of Christ and His bride on display. Keeping our covenant with our spouse is as important as telling the truth about God's covenant with us in Christ. Marriage is not mainly about being or staying in love. It's about telling the truth with our lives. When he calls marriage a mystery in Ephesians 5, it's not because the basics of it haven't been known to humanity since the beginning. The mystery of it was that it tells the story of the gospel, the sacrificial love of Christ for his church.
So as we bring this all together this morning, talking about gender, talking about children, talking about marriage, the question for you is how will you steward these truths that you know? If we are to be salt in a culture that's declining and decaying, what can you do to support the righteousness and justice that God has built his world with? Psalm 89:14, righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. So what throne are you bowing before right now? Is how you view the way our culture is going...is it more worried about the throne in DC or is it more worried no matter what happens? Are you saying what I'm obligated to do is to support the throne that God sits on whose foundations...the two things that matter most...Righteousness not wickedness. Justice...not corruption.Truth not lies. I made no mention of person or party today. Because all I care about is the truth. That every thought that you came in here with and will leave with has been taken captive to the Word of God. What God has fixed in gender let no man deviate. What God gives in conception, let no man take away. And what God has brought together in marriage let no man separate. Because all of it is about the institution of the family that God has designed for his glory and our good.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word this morning. We thank you for its simplicity, that we could go back to the beginning of Genesis 1 and be so shaped by it, strengthened by it, and in the hope that we have in Jesus Christ the steadfastness of Christ. He himself directs our hearts to your love, that we see that the way you design the family to operate in its form and its function, was a gift of your love. You had the best idea for it from the beginning. Help us to get back to that. Do what we can, individually and as a church and as a society, that people would see our good deeds and praise you in heaven and know you sit on a throne of righteousness and justice. We ask in Jesus name, Amen.
