Human Sacredness and Sexuality - Pastor Nik Godshall

before we dive into the word tonight. Jesus, we thank you so much for loving us, God. Lord, tonight is not a night to just focus on the hot topics that burn in the minds and hearts of our culture. Lord, tonight we wanna talk about your beauty and how you have designed people to be a reflection of that beauty. God, I pray that you would help us to recover that. Lord, I pray that you would help us to communicate it to the world around us. God, this is not rules for rule's sake. Lord, this is not legalism or the enforcement of a system of control. God, this is about freedom. This is about your image being fully expressed, the beauty of the Creator being found in His creation. Lord, I ask that you would give us a heaven's eye view of our topic tonight and that you would give us the grace to proclaim it to those who need to hear it most. And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen, and amen. Praise God. I did not volunteer to teach this topic. It was put upon me. I wanna be very clear on that from the beginning. And typically the content that we're gonna cover tonight, I would try to cover in two to three sessions, not one. But due to just some scheduling difficulties, this is what we got. And Sibbi was very, very gracious.

Sibbi Washington, who leads all of the On Guard series and a lot of other facets here at the church. She was very gracious, so I've got a full hour to get through the topic with you tonight. Hopefully I won't need quite that long. And then afterward we're gonna have about 45 minutes of Q&A after a short break. So please ask your questions. I'm not afraid to say, I don't know. Your Bible is infallible. This pastor is not. So I will leave room for a margin of error there. But we're gonna talk about human sacredness on a number of different levels. And our main focus in looking at this is what makes us sacred. It's the fact that we reflect the image of God. And we're gonna look at the levels where that image is meant to be found, where God designed it to be seen and present. And there's gonna be a few points that come up on the screen as we go through. They'll be able to stay up there for a few moments. I'm gonna unpack them. And hopefully the Q&A will be a good time to touch on anything I don't get to present in the teaching right now. So the first thing that we wanna establish is that the body, the body that you have and live in is God's image. And when we think of the image of God very often,

even in a lot of theology textbooks, it'll be things like creativity, the ability to communicate verbally, something unique that we have as people. But the image of God isn't defined that way in scripture. The image of God is defined actually with your human body. The fact that we are made male and female in the image of God is explicit that because you are a man, let's say, you are the image of God. Because you are a woman, you are the image of God. And neither body is inferior or superior to another. You are a living reflection of the beauty of our God. When we talk about the body, a human being is a composite oneness. A human being is a composite oneness. Now what do I mean by that? If something is composite, that means it's got multiple parts to it. But it's one, you're not just a body, your body, soul and spirit. And sometimes what we do though, and this is why I'm using the phrase composite oneness, we'll put those things on a totem pole. Your spirit is up here, your soul is underneath that, and then your body is the least important component of what you are. That's not what scripture teaches us. Every part of you is sacred. You're not human if you're just a soul with no body.

You're not a human if you're just a body with no soul. When you read in the Genesis account in chapter two, verse seven, I'll just read it to you, it says, "The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground "and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life "and the man became a living creature." Look at the sequence there. The thing that we believe to be the least important is the thing God created first. He fashioned the body for Adam from the dust, and then he breathed into it, and then man became a living soul. So the human body was made first, hand-fashioned by God. He breathed into us that spirit was the breath of life, and it was the animation of our bodies that made us living souls, living beings. I am not going to cover tonight. What are the differences between the soul and the spirit? Because quite frankly, I don't trust people who think they know. I really don't. I don't trust people who feel they can speak with absolute certainty about the difference between the soul and the spirit, because in the Bible, in both Old and New Testaments, those words are used almost interchangeably. It doesn't mean they're the same thing. They're different, they're distinct. The Apostle Paul prays in 1 Thessalonians, So we know that they are distinct, but the way that they're spoken of,

it can be like they're synonymous with each other. And so there's a bit of mystery about you that we can't quite unravel yet. That's, you're a big deal, if I could put it that way. There's something mysterious about your own makeup that we can't quite quantify. There's something special about us, and it's God's fingerprint. 'Cause you can't know everything about God. If you could, he wouldn't be infinite. He would be too tiny for us to worship. And in the same way, there's something about you that can't be fully explained. And I kinda like it that way. Mystery reminds us that things are a little too big for us to fully understand. Now what that also shows us though, is that every part of you is sacred. Your body is as sacred as your soul. And it's not to be thought of as inferior. The reason why there are so many commands in the Bible on sex, for example. It's because the body that you use to engage in that is holy, and it has a divinely designed purpose that is not meant to be violated. And when you violate that purpose, it leads to all kinds of consequences. And I'm not talking about divine judgment for crossing a moral line. I'm talking about even just destructive behaviors,

tendencies, fears and insecurities can erupt from violating the intended purpose of the body. So a human being is a composite oneness. Being human is bearing the image of God. Being human is bearing the image of God. I'm gonna read to you Genesis 1, verses 26 and 27. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock and over all the earth and every other creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them. Moses is writing Genesis and he gives us two features that define what it means to be in the image of God. One, it means you are created to rule. Most ancient cultures at this time believe that humans were created to be a slave force for the lazy gods. The gods made the world, they got tired of feeding themselves. So they said, hey, let's make a bunch of inferior beings that we can control and manipulate and get them to do all the stuff that we don't want to do. And when that's your worldview, people don't mean much. If you believe the reason you were put on the earth was to be an inferior life form, to be enslaved, you're not gonna think much about exercising power over somebody else.

You're not going to feel guilty about being corrupt in the way that you wield authority. And that's why the nations of that time, Israel's neighbors, they were marked by brutality on levels we don't even understand. So when God breaks into history and he brings a people forth who have a totally different worldview, no, we weren't made to be slaves by lazy deities. We were actually created by an all loving God who is kind, who is good, and he made us to actually rule this world on his behalf. The reason why it is wrong to do violence to your neighbor is because they're created with the inherent dignity of the creator. People have intrinsic worth. You do not need to do anything to have value. You have value because of what you are. You are human. You are created in the image of God. Image bears are created to rule and image bears are created to be male and female. Think about that. Now, it's not a surprise to me that there's literally a war going on across the world, not just in our culture here in the US, but everywhere there is a battle being fought over what that means. But right here at the very beginning of God's story and scripture,

he decided that one of the defining features of his image would actually be the two human sexes. That's a level of dignity that we've lost sight of. Neither sex by itself is a sufficient expression of the divine image. Adam was not enough to express the image of God. It took the addition of Eve as well. It's together, male and female, that we are an expression of the image of God. It's not just one sex or the other, one gender or the other. Why? Because God is a relationship. He's triune. He's father, son, and Holy Spirit. One individual human can't express that. For God to express who he is, he had to make a family. That's why he put Adam and Eve together and said, now you be fruitful and multiply. Just like out of the abundant love that I have in me, 'cause God is a loving relationship. The Father loves the soul. Just as my abundant love has brought forth life, I want your abundant love for each other to bring forth life. They were meant to mirror him in the way that they lived. So as an image bearer, you are made to rule. You're not made to be oppressed or tyrannized by somebody. You're not made to be abused. You're not made to be defined by cruelty

and things that have been done to you that maybe haunt you from the past. You are made to be defined by the fact that you were carefully handcrafted by a loving father who puts you here so that you could be like him, so that you could know him. And being an image bearer means you were endowed with the body that you have. And I know sometimes we don't like it. Even on good days, we don't like it. We have a lot of criticisms of this thing. But God thinks it's so special, he calls it his temple. If you're a born-again Christian, he dignifies your body. And that's why you're not allowed to reject yourself. You're not allowed to abuse yourself. The reason why you are not allowed to do things like starve yourself, cut yourself. And I'm not speaking of those things as gross sins. Very often people who do that don't like themselves as it is. I'm telling you the reason why you must not do those things is because there's someone who values you and he wants you to value yourself the way that he does. That's why you have inherent dignity and worth, not because of what you do, but because of what you are. The human body, whether male or female, expresses God's beauty. The human body, whether male or female, expresses God's beauty. Now we have to clarify something about this. God is not physical. Jesus said this in John 4, 24. God is spirit and those who worship him

must do so in spirit and in truth. He transcends physical sex. God is neither male nor female. Don't be thrown off by that. We're not saying that, oh, God is kind of neutral. No, God designed the two sexes that we exist in to express what he is like. Our physical attributes express his spiritual attributes. Though God is described in masculine terms, his pronouns, or he/him, his, he does have selected pronouns, he's still non-physical. And really the reason, primarily, that he's spoken of in masculine terms is because it's to denote his authority. It's to denote his authority. The sexes are for this life, and they help us understand what God is like. And he dignifies them both. Did you know that God doesn't only describe himself according to masculine terms? God dignifies femininity. He dignifies womanhood by using it to describe himself. In Isaiah 49, 14 through 15, this is God's speaking. But Zion said, Yahweh has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her suckling infant or refrain from having compassion on the child of her womb? Indeed, these may forget, but I will never forget you. God says in that prophecy, you want to know what I'm like? Come up with, show me a mother who

can forget the infant nursing at her breast. That's not possible. I'm like that. There's a better chance of a mother forgetting her nursing baby than me forgetting about you. He is not ashamed to use maternal language to describe his character. That's how much dignity there is in being a woman. God himself is not ashamed to use your bodily features to describe his character. That's the dignity that he places on us. The Hebrew word for compassion. The first thing God says about himself, in Exodus 34, when he declares his name to Moses, he says, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate. The word for compassion in Hebrew comes from the word for womb. Hebrew in the Bible is a very picture oriented language. When you want to come up with a description, you think of an object to compare it to. What's compassion? Oh, it's like the womb of a mother. A baby safely growing and being nurtured in there. That's compassion. And that's the first thing God says about himself. He's not ashamed to use maternal language to say this is what I'm really like. And of course, he's equally unashamed to use masculine features to describe himself. Jesus said in Luke chapter 11,

"What father among you if his son will ask for a fish instead of a fish will give him a snake? Or also if he will ask for an egg will give him a scorpion. If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? He says, I am like a generous father. Not just that I'm like a generous father, I am a generous father. God is committed. Proverbs 3 chapter 12, it says, whoever the Lord loves, He is committed to your well-being. He is like a father who's committed to shaping his child into an even better version of himself. Now, we can't be shaped into a better version than God. He's perfect, but that's what we're aiming for. We wanna reflect him. And he is fiercely protective, fiercely protective. In Deuteronomy chapter one, verses 30 through 31, it says, Yahweh your God, who is going before you, will himself fight for you. Just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and just as he did in the wilderness, when you saw that Yahweh your God carried you just as a father carries his son, all along the way that you traveled until you reached this place. It's like you wanna know what I'm like? I'm like a father who picks up his little boy

when he's afraid. I'm like a father who picks up his child when they're scared and they want protection and they want safety. He describes himself in Exodus 15 as a man of war, a man of war. God dignifies both sexes by using descriptions of each to talk about what he's actually like. That's the level of dignity and honor that you bear just by being human. God will compare himself to you so that you can get a better understanding of what he's like. And that's why what we do with our bodies matters to God. What we do with our bodies matters to God. Whether you are male or female, your body was assigned to you. It's a gift given to you by your creator that you can use to know and to serve him. You're designed to express the uniqueness and the beauty of God, the one who made you. That's the purpose of your physical body. And when we begin to alter that, when we alter or redefine gender, sexuality, marriage, we're violating God's self-expression. That's what lies at the heart of this issue. We need to strengthen our narrative as Christians. If the only thing we know how to do is scold our culture and say, "You can't live that way because God says it's sin."

That's an abomination. Everybody knows that verse from Leviticus 18. We need to do better. What if we actually start telling people, no, the reason why God doesn't want you to reject your body and alter it is because he made you to be beautiful as you are. You express the beauty of the creator of the universe without any alteration, without any addition, without any subtraction. There is a time where we've got to plant our feet and we have to call sin what it is. But I don't know if that's the best starting point for people who very often are broken and confused. Sometimes you want to ease your way into that more aggressive kind of conversation. When we alter gender, sexuality, or marriage, we violate God's own self-expression. We owe our bodies to him. That's why we use them in accordance with his truth. When our bodily autonomy, when our bodily freedom violates God's self-expression, we make ourselves idolaters. Because we're now taking the worship that he deserves and we're giving it to ourselves. The obedience that he should be receiving, we now give it to our own desires or to our own confusion. And that's why we have the standards as Christians that we do. The reason why the Bible says what it says about marriage,

about gender, about sexuality, the reason why it says anything at all is because our bodies were designed for a specific set of expressions. And when we go outside of that and we begin to alter or redefine things that we did not create, that we did not endow ourselves with, you can't escape consequences coming from that. Now we're going to zoom in a little bit and talk about why man is God's image. Men, the male sex, being a man is being in God's image. So what does it mean to be a man? I'm going to give you a really mind-blowing definition. You ready for this? To be a man is to have a male body. That's good, Pastor Nick. Well, you'd be surprised at how revolutionary that can sound in certain audiences. Now look, our bodies are different from each other. And listen, I'm very sensitive to the fact that I am making generalities and there are exceptions to some of the things that we're going to say tonight. And there's not a problem with that. So I keep that in mind because I've interacted with people who fall outside of what seems to be normal and acceptable. I've walked with them, I've talked with them, I've heard their stories. And so I have total room for that.

The thing that we have to remember though is that truth is truth, okay? And we don't change that to accommodate moments when things fall outside the lines. What we do is we try to bring everyone, regardless of where they are, inside the bounds that God has set for us, because that's where humans begin to flourish. So to be a man, yes, it's to have a male body. Men, you have the body that you do because God didn't want you to be a woman. He gave you the body that you have because He wanted you to be a man. By design, men are generally bigger and stronger than women. That's not some evolutionary development. That's what God wanted. It fits your role. By design, and some of the women are going to say, amen to this, men are generally less preoccupied with emotion. That's why we're so dense. We're not always the best listeners. We can seem a little unaware. No, it's not just you, man. Other women's husbands are like that too. Other women's sons are like that too. It's pretty normal. Now, dare I suggest though, part of that, there's a corrupt side to everything. Because, okay, look, if you were to compare my wife and I size-wise, there's a stark difference. She's five foot nothing. Five foot nothing. Cute is anything, okay? I'm a lot bigger than her, and my bigger, stronger body can either be a reason for her to feel safe, or it can be a reason for her to feel vulnerable. If she feels vulnerable because I'm bigger than her,

it means I'm violating God's intended design for me as a man. I'm supposed to use my physical power as a means of advocacy and protection for her and for our son. If I'm more emotionally hardy than my wife is because I am a little more dense, a little less aware of things. I don't catch stuff right away. It's probably because I'm able to maintain some kind of stability when crisis hits. And that's what happens. Men are designed by God to be pillars in a community. And it doesn't mean there's no strength in women. Very often when we talk about purpose, here's what's happening. We'll say things like, "God created men to be sources of strength." And what happens is the enemy wants to twist that and say, "Well, that means you're saying that there's no strength in women." I'm sorry. Who said that? Where is that coming from? And it gets put forth as this major talking point about why this is an oppressive idea and it's meant to control – no, it's not. Trust me, you don't want to live in a world with weak men. You do not. You might think you do, but you don't. There is nothing more terrifying than a world of apathetic men who don't have backbones. We need men to be strong. So every man in this room, you were designed for strength, you were designed for it. And this is where to bring scripture into it, to be a man is to fulfill God's stated purpose in Genesis 2.15. Let me read that to you. Genesis 2.15, it says, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.

Men were designed to work." Now that's disappointing. You've got some praying to do. I'm sorry. Listen, work is not part of the fall, okay? Some jobs might be because of the fall, yes? So I understand. If you've got a demon-possessed boss or something, yeah, that's part of the fall, I'm sorry. But listen, work. Work was meant to be the God-given means by which men pursue productivity. Unproductive men are not safe. When men are not doing something, when they're not learning, when they're not achieving or accomplishing, that's when a lot of negative things can begin to set in. And become habit and take root. Work is the God-given means by which men are to hone competence. Competence is such a lost concept. When we talk about strength, when we talk about power, that's not limited to what you can do in a gym, okay? There's a proverb that says, "Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings. He will not stand before." Listen, men, we're called to hone competence and be good at something. It's godly for you to develop a skill set. It's godly for you to develop something that you can use to contribute to your family and community. That's a good thing. If you sit on your hands dreaming for 20 years and never do anything, you're not marriage material. You're not ministry material. You're not material for much.

You need to pray, repent, and get up and get moving. You're made to work. You're made for that. It's the god-given means by which men practice commitment. I'll tell you what, it's hard to hold down a job. It's hard to show up every day. It's very tempting to make excuses sometimes. And when we're engaged in that with the best attitude that we can have, we are fulfilling our purpose as men. It makes you pretty attractive too in the long run. Now, the other thing that man was put in the garden to do, he was placed in the garden to work it and to protect it, to keep it. Men were designed to protect. You're designed to be the physical protector of your family and of the vulnerable. You're designed to be the spiritual guardian of your family and your community. It's not a surprise that if you look at a lot of studies and a lot of statistical reports about crime across the nation, things will so often come back to fatherlessness as a major contributing factor, a major contributing factor, certainly not the only one, but maybe the dominant one in some respects. When men are being the pillars they were designed to be, it gives stability on so many levels. You give kids a shot at success even when the odds are against them, when there's someone they can lean on, someone they can get counsel from, someone who's able to strongly say, you're going to be okay, you can do this. When I tell my son things like that, he draws a lot of courage from it. It's kind of remarkable. You don't realize the power that God gives you. He wants his mom when he's hurt. He doesn't come to me when he wants comfort because I'm going to tell him, walk it off, you're fine. But he knows that. So he knows where expectations are, but when pressure's on and he's got to perform, I can just see it on him like he wants me to tell him something. He wants me to tell him, you got this, you can do this. There's power in the voice of a man that's necessary for this generation. You're designed to work. You're designed to protect. We're fulfilling the stated purpose. Now, woman is also God's image. Being female is also the image of God. Another groundbreaking definition. What's it mean to be a woman? It means to have a female body. There's a reason they were designed differently. They were deliberately designed differently. By design, women's bodies have the unique ability to bear and nurture life. Surprise. Contrary to what Time Magazine might say, only women can get

pregnant. Only women can get pregnant. Only women can breastfeed and lactate. And women are wired in a lot of ways to be more acutely aware of vulnerability than men are. Why do you think women respond differently to cute little babies? And they use that violent language. I want to eat you. You look so delicious. I don't understand that, but it's a thing. You know it's a metaphor. But women are naturally wired to be more attentive to that. And God designed it that way. By design, women's bodies generally have… Now, this one we might hover over for a few minutes. Women's bodies generally have more mystique than men's. I thought for a long time, how do I word this? How do I word this? Look, what I'm driving at here is the fact that feminine beauty in the Bible is considered the apex of God's craftsmanship. That's what it is. I heard a praise God from a husband over here. Bless the Lord. Proverbs 5. It says, "May your fountain be blessed, rejoice in the wife of your youth. She is a deer of love, a doe of grace. May her breast satisfy you always, by her love, may you be intoxicated continually." God designed women to be the apex, the high point of his craftsmanship. The crown of the creation week was Eve. You know? And people joke like God made Adam first to practice. And then he got it right. I'm like, it's cute. It's true. But listen, male and female, both are the image of God. Both bear inherent dignity and inherent worth. Women are commanded. And this is where things like modesty come in. Why is so much emphasis put on modesty for women? Well, why? It's because your bodies are powerful. I don't like when it's put as, well, women have to dress modestly because you can be a stumbling block for your brother. I'm like, well, brother needs to close his eyes and pray or something. Don't put that on her. That's ridiculous. Deal with your own heart, man. Come on. No. You cover your body's ladies. And listen, modesty manifests differently across cultures. I'm not going to use universal rules. I don't think that's a wise thing to do. But as a concept, modesty is a biblical command. First Timothy 2 talks about women wearing appropriate clothing. Why? Because your body is powerful. It was designed to make you attractive. It was designed not to be enjoyed by the right man, not to be enjoyed by the right man. That's not what your body was made for. You don't cover it to protect the eyes of lustful people. You cover your body to protect your own dignity. You're showing that you are preserving yourself for a holy context

where you can be rightly and safely enjoyed. Because here's the thing, no woman is responsible for a man's battle with lust. In an ideal setting, women are not inherently responsible for a man's battle with lust. But you also don't want to contribute to it. You don't want to, because you can do that. Being like a dasical, being uncaring, trying to reflect the allowances of the world. Where is it going to take you? You think about how we've sanitized sex work right now. Every girl, do you have any idea how many young women turn 18 and the first thing they do is they create an OnlyFans account? We have a problem, we have a major problem. We are fostering sexual addiction. We're fostering broken identities. We're cultivating an atmosphere where it's promoted. And then when they don't make it, they're not making $50,000 a month like they're told they will if they do this, they now can't get real jobs because all of their naked profiles are out there on the internet. They get searched when they're interviewing for a job. Nobody will hire them. It's a real problem. And we have created it. Modesty commands are about protecting women and their dignity before they're about protecting men. Is it true that, yes, in modesty can promote a battle with lust, yes.

But quite frankly, that's the secondary purpose. The primary issue is you protecting your own dignity as a woman made in the image of God. To be a woman is to fulfill God's revealed purpose in Genesis 2 18 through 24. Now, for the sake of time, I'm going to sum that up. This is when Adam names all of the animals. They're searching for a helper. And I think God did that to show him, yeah, all of these beasts and birds and everything, they're not like you. They're not image bearers. They're made to be ruled by you. If you want to express who I am, I'm going to make you an opposite. That's the Hebrew word for a helper. I'm going to make you an opposite. And that's the first purpose that's stated to be man's God appointed opposite. Unlike the animals over which Adam ruled, Eve was made from Adam for Adam. It's very important to note that she was not made from a separate lump of dust. She wasn't. She was not another kind of human. She was made from him. To abuse her would be to abuse himself. To oppress her would be to oppress himself. That's the view that God wanted him to have. Now interestingly, she was also created

to be man's cherished guardian. There is a protective aspect to womanhood that really needs to be taken into consideration. What was Eve made from? She's made from a rib. What do ribs do? They protect the most sensitive and important part of your life. The most sensitive and internal part of you is protected by that rib cage. And God took something protective away from Adam and replaced it with a person. He took a bone that was designed to give him coverage, designed to protect him, said no. Instead, your weaknesses aren't going to be covered by a bone, Adam. Your weaknesses are going to be covered by this woman. So you have to actually let her in. You have to actually be vulnerable with her. You have to actually let her see you as you are. And you have to trust her to be your covering and your strength. And ladies, you have to not abuse your seat of power. Because nothing will destroy a man faster than a woman saying things to deliberately undermine his confidence. Men have a position of power over-- I'll use more specific terms. Husbands have a position of power over their wives. Wives have a position of power with their husbands. Both can destroy each other if they let selfishness consume them. But when you use the place that you've been given by God

for the betterment, for the good, you live for the benefit of your spouse, you thrive. You will never feel safer than in a marriage that operates according to that. You'll never feel safer or more valued. Just like ribs protect organs, women are designed to be intimate with weakness and to guard it, to have compassion on it. When my wife looks at me and she pays me compliments about my preaching, about whatever, I feel like I can do anything. It's like I haven't been complimented until she's complimented me. You don't give a-- oh, Pastor Nick, thank you so much. That was such a great-- I'm like, thank you. Yeah, that's the-- you know. Because listen, she's never cruel to me, but she is my most valued critic. What the most impactful comment she ever made to me, it's kind of funny, I hope I don't get in trouble for sharing this. She looked at me one day and I actually asked her how was the message, it's a mistake, it's a mistake. She looked at me, she said, I'm tired of hearing sermons on the Holy Spirit. And I was like, well, what? And I'm like, she's not a heretic, but I knew what she meant by that. I knew what she meant by that. My preaching at the time, I was very preoccupied with the Holy Spirit, I was talking about him all the time. And there was never any concrete application. My wife is the kind of person, she's like, don't just tell me what to believe. Tell me what to do with it.

How am I supposed to live with this? Don't just give me a concept and an idea. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's the most important thing I've ever been told about my preaching. And it's never been the same sense. Now she tells me more frequently, good, that was such a good message. And when she's feeling really sweet, she'll be like, that was a really good sermon. The tone is everything, it's everything. Which takes us to the next part, how marriage is God's image. Man is God's image, woman is God's image, and the union of the two. Marriage is the image of God. Now I'm going to give you kind of a rapid fire definition here, there's three components to defining marriage. Marriage is one, the union of one man with one woman. Marriage is a covenant made before God and witnesses, and marriage is only to be severed by death. Now we'll qualify that, that's in the most ideal setting. But marriage is the union of one man with one woman. Marriage is a covenant made before God and witnesses, and marriage is only to be severed by death. That's how God designed it. That's what He wants it to be. And that union, that covenant bond, before I go on to that, let me make a few more comments here. Let me break down each of these lines. So the union of one man with one woman, obviously, we have our stance, our country may have changed this part of the definition, but we have to hold our ground. Because that's not how God designed it to be. We are expressing His image. Marriage is something He instituted, Adam did not institute it.

It was not created by a culture. God Himself established it. But then there's the second part, a covenant made before God and witnesses. This has become increasingly important to me over the past couple of years, because you have more and more people thinking that marriage is just something you can do yourself. And even in the church, you have more and more young adults thinking, "Well, it's just a piece of paper." It's like, "Yes, sign it. It's not hard. What's the big deal?" And the idea that, "Well, we're just doing our own thing." And I've had couples look at me and tell me, Christian couples, who are in the church, look at me and say, "But we love each other." I mean, we're basically married. I love her. I'm going to stay with her forever. I'm like, "Then put your name on a document." And he's like, "Well, the Bible doesn't tell me to do that." I'm like, "Excuse me." No, no, no. You're not going to pull that card with me, all right? You're not going to play that with the Bible teacher. "Well, it's not enough." Like, listen, there is no such thing as a culture, especially in antiquity, where there was not some kind of community symbol involved in the union. There was something that the community would recognize. This is what verifies these two people are married. They are together. You don't get to take authority and marry yourself. Marriage is about coming under authority.

This is an institution that we did not create or implement. God put it there. And I'm going to make a promise, not just to my wife. I'm going to make a promise before God and before witnesses that, "Hey, hold me accountable if I start veering from this. Hold me accountable. Call me out if I start violating the promises that I'm making today." And the only thing that should have the power to break that promise is death itself. Here's the exclusive setting for sexual purity. It is the exclusive setting for sexual purity. Any kind of sexual activity outside the marriage covenant is sin in God's eyes. Hebrews chapter 13 tells us that the marriage bed is undefiled. It's undefiled. It is something that God gave to couples to enjoy with each other, to perfect with each other. There's so many cultural lies. I still remember being in high school, I was in 11th grade, there was a senior girl sitting next to me, and she was pretty, so I really wanted to witness to her. But she was very far gone. It was not a good situation. And she started talking about her exploits with different young kids. And I didn't have a lot of depth or substance to my explanations, but I knew what the rules were. 'Cause you're not supposed to do that. And she said, well, what? You're just gonna wait until you're married? I'm like, well, yeah, of course I am. That's what the Bible tells me to do. She said, but what if you marry somebody that can't please you?

You have to try it beforehand, right? And I had no idea. I had no clue. And there's such ignorance among our young people about the nature of sex. We've gotta step up the level of teaching that will give to them to arm them. It's like, no, sex is a grand adventure that God gives couples. You're supposed to go in clueless. That's the idea, okay? And you are meant to perfect that together and feel safe with each other. 'Cause and you'll hear people boast about the experience they have. I've heard podcast clips of young women talking to each other, boasting about their exploits and how their experiences with other men have made them better lovers, have made them better girlfriends. I'm like, we've never been so backwards. There is no trust in that. There's no safety in that. Commitment is what entitles you to another person's body. You are not entitled to another person's body. You're not entitled to pleasuring yourself with another person's body unless you have promised before God and witnesses that you will not leave them. That you will be for them and them alone. Sex is its most fulfilling when enjoyed

in the context of mutual commitment and respect. That's what God designed it to be. There is no sense of danger. There is no unwanted sense of vulnerability. But we're so far off from that. We glorify hookup culture. How is that safe? I'm going to go sleep with someone I've never met and know absolutely nothing about. There's no beauty in that. That's not the image of God. That's sex, but it's not intimacy. And those two are not meant to be divorced from each other. And the reason why our nation is so sexually lost is because we've created an environment where we get to make sex all about ourselves. And it's not about the person that we're making a promise to, that we're literally swearing an oath to and saying, I'm going to be for you and you alone. And you're going to be for me and me alone. Sexual purity operates on three levels, even in marriage. Physically, any flirtatious, romantic or sexual affections are reserved for your spouse alone. Yes, you don't flirt with other women that are not your wife. You don't flirt with men that are not your husband. Now, if you're single, just make sure they love Jesus. Anyway, talk to your pastor. I'm down in PA, I'm not responsible for that.

Emotionally, your deepest bond with a person of the opposite sex is exclusively with your spouse. You don't get closer. I cannot have an emotionally closer relationship with a woman than I do with my wife. If I talk to a woman more than I talk to my wife, I'm an adulterer already. I am giving my soul, I'm sharing my soul with a person I have no commitment to. And I'm violating the one I do have. And then mentally, the imagination is not used to entertain thoughts of another life or another partner. You devote even your mind, even your mind to your spouse. Faithfulness on every level is what constitutes sexual purity, even in marriage. And then marriage is the bedrock of human civilization. Why is this so important? What's because it's what stabilizes us? Marriage is the bedrock of human civilization. God's original intent for the family was the expansion of his kingdom. When you read the creation story in Genesis, it's not just about the creation of sun, stars, planets, animals, et cetera. It's God establishing his reign. He's setting up a system that he's going to rule benevolently and that he's ultimately going to share with his image bearers.

And the way that he wanted the beauty of his kingdom to expand was through family. The beauty that I've got right here in this garden, Adam and Eve, I want you to spread it to the rest of the world. I want you to take it outside the walls of this garden and I want you to expand it by being fruitful and multiplying. And it's maintaining the dignity of the family unit that guarantees societal stability in an ongoing way. We did not get where we are in 2025 overnight. We've been going down this hill for decades. For decades when the family became trivialized. When divorce became cheap and easy. Things like that lent themselves to cheapening the value and the dignity of the family. We don't suspect that we'll go down the hill as fast as we do, but here we are. Here we are. And now we're even having discussions and certain seats of power about minor attracted persons. And whether that should be permitted or legal. Oh, it's real. You're welcome to fact check me, you all have phones. It's not a major thing, but it's being discussed and talked about. There was even a TED talk a couple years ago now where a woman was presenting and she basically gave a defense of how we need to remember that pedophiles are people too. It's like, okay, while that's not untrue,

while that concept is not untrue, it was very difficult to not hear justification in the way she was presenting it. And I'll tell you, if ever there was a disliked video on YouTube, it was that one. And rightly so, rightly so. God's original intent for the family was the expansion of his kingdom. And Exodus 20 verse 12, that's the 10 commandments. It says honor your father and your mother so that your days can be long on the land that Yahweh or God is giving you. There's two things I notice about that. Number one, you think about this. All of the commands before this were about people's relationship with God. It was the vertical relationship. From commandment five onward, it's all horizontal. It's relationships with people around you. Everything pertains to relationships from that point on. And the first command in that set is honor your father and mother. It's a command to the next generation to keep honoring those who have gone before. Because if children are brought up to value, their parents, to value what they've been past, to value what they're meant to carry forward, that's actually what keeps things moving, the way that they're intended to. Men serve as God's appointed leaders over their families.

Yes, the husband is the head of the house. He is the head of his family. That doesn't allow him to be a tyrant. It doesn't mean he's the CEO and she's the intern. It doesn't mean that at all. It's not that kind of imbalance. What does it mean for husbands to lead their families? Well, number one, they're commanded to unconditionally love their wives. Ephesians 5, 25, husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. There is a death to your own will that must be inherent and visible in the way you love your wife. If she can't see you giving for her benefit and for her good, your love is falling short. I wanna communicate to my wife with the way that I love her, that I value her, that I see her, that I'm being proactive and thinking about her needs. And that's often one of the most difficult things to do. I have this fun analogy that I like to use whenever I'm talking to people about marriage and husband and wife relationships 'cause it's things I see in myself with my wife every day. Men, we can gravitate toward mechanical stuff, right? We like figuring things out and learning how it works. You push this button, it does that. You pull the lever and you can master a machine

by understanding how everything fits together. And then you get this wonderful machine called a wife. And it's a machine that will make you happy if you can push all the right buttons and you pull a lever one day. It's like, wow, that was a really good result. I'm gonna do that again. And then it does something completely different. And you're like, this worked yesterday or five minutes ago, it's what do I do? And then you learn like, oh wait, the key to this machine is listening. I actually have to listen and then, oh wait, no, that's that button today. It's a little different. You gotta listen. My wife loves when she can tell I'm listening to her because that's what tells her more than anything. I value her. I'm trying to perceive what she wants before she has to say it. And that's a recurring conflict in our home because I tend to need to be told, which she longs for the day when I don't need to be told what it is that she wants or needs. And then also have to be committed to empowering their wives to flourish. Now, where am I getting that from? It's from Ephesians 5 verses 26 through 30. And when Paul talks about all of the things

that Jesus did to his bride, the church, he gave himself up for her so that he could sanctify her, cleanse her, wash her with the water of the word, take away every spot and every wrinkle, make her holy and blameless. Thus also husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. If I love my wife, I don't try to control her. I empower her. I want her to flourish. I want her to thrive. I want her to discover her own gifts and her own calling. I want her to be the person that God has intended her to be because if I'm her head, if God gave her to me, to lead and to shepherd, then I'm going to answer And if I stifle her because I'm insecure, if I stifle her because I don't know the difference between authority and control, that's gonna be one of the first things Jesus talks to me about when I stand before him. And that should make you tremble. Should absolutely make you tremble. First Peter 3.7 says that husbands are to be understanding and honoring toward their wives as to the weaker human vessels. Now the weaker vessel, just a quick comment on that, more than likely that is referring to women being more generally more prone to worry than men are. Because look, women can connect things in their brains and they'll see a hundred possible outcomes, 10 miles down the road in a way that men just typically don't.

Foresight is not my gift. My wife, she sees, she's 10 years into the future when anything happens. And I'm like, why are you worried about that? And she'll say, 'cause I can't help it. And I have to remember God designed her that way. Now in first Peter, the church is facing persecution. A lot of the men are getting arrested. In that culture, if your husband goes to jail, you're done. He's the breadwinner. And so when a wife is at home and her husband's going out and all she can think about what if he doesn't come home today, what if they find out he's a Christian and he gets arrested? There might be a temptation there, please just keep your faith quiet. Just don't say too much. And that's why Peter tells him in the same passage, no, you're a daughter of Sarah if you don't give into your fear, okay? And so he tells the husbands, listen, they're not being ridiculous for being worried. It's dangerous out there. Don't belittle them, honor them. Don't tease them or provoke them because they're given to fear or worry in a way that you don't understand. You be understanding and honoring towards your wife. And in first Peter 3.7, it also says that if men fail to do that it can hinder their prayers. He says be understanding towards your wife

so that your prayers will not be hindered. We're meant to guard our homes against spiritual hindrances. And the way that I lead my wife is going to shape whether hindrances are able to come in. If I want a spiritually thriving home, I need to love for like Jesus. And fathers at a nurture their children's faith without exasperating them. Ephesians 6.4, fathers, do not make your children angry. But bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. And it can be remarkable and even grievous sometimes when Christian parents with their own children don't seem to know the difference between discipline and control. They're not the same thing. If you only know how to have a power struggle with your child, something's missing. And look, some kids are willful, not negating that whatsoever. Not negating that whatsoever. But when our default response is firmness and everything, there's no understanding. There's no connection that you're fostering. I want my son, he can't be my best friend. He can't be. It's not that kind of relationship. But I want him to feel like he can be open with me about anything and everything. About anything and everything.

I want him to know, even when it comes to moments of discipline, the safest thing you can do is open up to dad. That's the safest thing you can do. And we have not had to fight through the teenage years yet, which is why I'm being very limited in what I say. He's 10, he's awesome, he has his moments, trust me. We see that endemic nature come out every now and then, but he's a really good kid. And I want him to feel like he can talk to me about anything, no matter what. We had, I'll share this, 'cause he's not quite at the age. He thinks it's cool when I talk about him as an illustration. As soon as that feeling changes, I'm gonna have to be more careful. But, you know, so we, just because of our culture, because of things that are happening in our world today, we had a very serious conversation with him about pornography. At the beginning of the year, he's only 10, he's never seen it, he's never been exposed. But several kids that he knows very well have been. And it turned their world upside down, turned the parents world upside down. I said, okay, we're gonna have, we're gonna have a talk. And I actually got a book called Good Pictures, Bad Pictures, Excellent Resource for Parents. We actually did it as a devotional. Over a couple of weeks, we just read through the book as a family, talked about it, talked about how our eyeballs, it's hard to pull them away from certain kinds of pictures. But if you let those get in your brain,

it can be really bad for you. And there was a day we were on vacation back in June. And I was just sitting upstairs, relaxing, or we rented this lovely cabin in Tennessee, and then he comes running up the stairs, he's crying. And he says, dad, dad, I've been looking at pornography. And I'm like, heart's palpitating, and I'm trying not to go into pastor mode. I'm like, I gotta stay in dad mode. I said, okay, bud, what do you mean? What do you mean? as I never play it with him. He never, never touch it at all whatsoever. I'm just kidding, we play it all the time. It's pretty fun. You know, he has got one of these games and there was apparently a female character in there and her clothing was not modest. And he found it and he was just staring at that character. Now, it was not pornography, but it wasn't good for him, that's for sure. And the first thing I did when he told me what he was doing, I grabbed him, I held him, I said, okay, first of all, bud, this isn't pornography, but I'm so glad. I told him it wasn't pornography because I wanted to take away the shame and the guilt. There wasn't a need for it. He didn't hide it, he came and he was open with me. And I said, second of all,

you did the right thing by telling me this. And that game is still in my possession, not in his, just because of that. But I want him to be like that all the days of his life. I don't ever want that to change. And as he gets older and his life gets more complicated and his experiences get maybe a little more edgy, I want to be even more deliberate about maintaining that connection with him. Whatever it takes, he has to see me as his father, not his friend, but I want to figure out how to maintain that balance. Women are called to preserve the beauty and the integrity of their families. Titus chapter two, Paul writes and says that older women should encourage younger women to love their husbands, love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, busy at home, good, being subject to their own husbands in order that the word of God may not be slandered. There is something about the role of a wife that preserves the beauty of things. It's not just 'cause she knows how to tastefully decorate. There's something about godly femininity that has an ability to cover, has an ability to guide. And even spiritually speaking, Paul says, you have a position of power to protect your home from slander. You actually have authority to defend the gospel by the way that you live and conduct yourself.

Women bless their husbands and guard their children when they ensure order in the home. They're called to trust God and their husbands more than they trust their fears. I mentioned that from 1 Timothy 3 earlier. Children thrive when they're under the committed care of a father and a mother. In Ephesians 6, Paul says, children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise. And children require loving and balanced discipline if they're going to thrive. Proverbs says, if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. I don't care what those TV psychoanalysts say. My son needs the rod. I wish he was the kind of kid that just with a look, he would be instantly repentant. He's not. He responds to physical interaction in the right hand of fellowship. (congregation laughing) Children are to hold their parents in honor, even as they age. You know, you obey your parents when you're under their roof. And even when you're not, you've struck it on your own, you wanna honor them. And you know, I'm in situations within my family where there's a strangement. And it's painful.

It's not desirable. I wish every day that that wasn't a factor. I wish it wasn't. And my labor is making sure that if it has to exist, it's not because of me. But my heart is still to hold an honor. The family members that I'm estranged from, because they had a hand in raising me and making me who I am. And I don't ever want to let the things that have driven us apart to be the only thing that I see and talk about with them. I don't want that. I wanna be humble enough to be grateful that I was given life. I was given a life. And I was brought up in the faith. I have a lot to be grateful for. So the heart of all this, the conclusions that I want us to land on just two major ideas from this whole thing and then we'll take a short break. The beauty of God is what lies at the heart of human sacredness. That's what lies at the heart of it all. You are a living expression of the beauty of the creator. That's why we have standards about gender, sexuality, marriage, all of it is because God has expressed himself through those things. We exhort people to turn from sin, not because we think they're awful, but because they're beautiful.

And they're living beneath the beauty that God's called them to exemplify. Embracing God's design always leads to human flourishing, always leads to human flourishing. Amen? Amen. Let me pray for us briefly and then we'll take a break and come back for Q and A. Father, I thank you for your goodness. I thank you that you've given us the Holy Spirit to guide us into truth. And Lord, I felt even a little overwhelmed by the... I thank you for this very, very gracious audience, my brothers and sisters who wanted to hear your word. God, I pray that you would hide it in our hearts. You would teach us, Lord, how to apply it to our everyday lives, to communicate it to others with grace or to communicate it O God with compassion and with mercy, or that if we are going to proclaim a law of God, if we are going to stand up for truth, we would do it because we recognize the value, the dignity and the beauty of the person that we're speaking to as an image bearer, fallen though they may be. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.