Here is our foundational understanding that we're going to start with; that God created sex and he created it to be a good gift.

We should never be ashamed to discuss what God was not ashamed to create.

We want to talk about the truth of Jesus and we want to do it in the spirit of Jesus.

But that's what makes this whole conversation difficult, the truth of what Jesus says. Because when Jesus speaks he speaks as the authority, his words don't give us options, he calls us to a certain way. People walked away from Jesus all the time because they didn't want to hear what he had to say. And today is no different. Some people are not in a place that they will receive what Jesus says. Some people will walk away from this church. But I've also been around long enough to know that many of them will come back around.

And, if you are tempted today to walk away because of something that is said or a stand that is taken, maybe you should consider that when something feels hurtful it's an indication that healing needs to take place.

And ultimately that is what our desire is, freedom and healing for every part of our lives, especially this part of our life. Many people carry around much guilt and shame and brokenness but Jesus has come to make you whole and to save you and to give you freedom.

So let's start this first week by understanding that we are all being sexually discipled.

Romans 12:2  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

 

We are discipled to think of sex in two ways.

It's no big deal.

This is the biggest deal.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Sexuality has a divine design.

Do you believe in the beginning that God created the heavens and the earth?

 

In the beginning God created humankind and he says two things about humans that are incredibly sensitive truths today

First, he says that you are made in the image of God and that every person has value as an image bearer of God.

Secondly, he made us male and female.

 

Genesis 2:23  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.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

1 Corinthians 6:16 Or do you not know that he who is joinedto a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Sexual immorality is anyway that you abuse sex outside of the way that God designed.

Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Scripture says that sex was created for a one flesh union.