CREATED: Body & Soul (recap)
[Read Genesis 2:5-9, 18-25]
It’s been almost eight months since my last message in this series. Some little complications with COVID kinda messed it up and forced us to put the series on pause for a little while. But I didn’t want this series to be on pause forever. This is a massive topic that’s being talked about throughout our culture, and we need to address in the church. It can also be frustrating and divisive and controversial, which is why we don’t talk about it very much, but we need to talk about it in helpful, healthy, and biblical ways. That’s really the goal of this series and I’m thankful for the emails I got this past week letting me know they were looking forward to getting back to this series.
Since we’ve had an eight month break, I thought it would be important to restart with a couple recap messages in order to catch everybody up a little bit. So, not a massive task, I’m just trying to combine five messages into this one sermon and three messages into next week’s sermon.
That means I’m not going to be able to go into a lot of depth in this message. If you want to dive in deeper, you can find all of my old messages on my personal website: jasonruis.com. You’ll actually see a tab in the menu that says, “Biblical Sexuality.” If you click on that link, you’ll find all of my previous sermons on the topic and can dive deeper at that point. Also, we’ll be starting Q&A sessions after each service—at least throughout this series—in order to give opportunity for further conversations and questions on the topic.
That’s really the goal of this series. I want to reiterate that once again. The goal of this series is not to be intentionally controversial or get people angry. The goal of this series is not to “beat people up” with the Bible.
The goal of this series is to equip the saints. That’s the goal of every sermon I preach. That’s the calling God has given me. There are so many different ideas of what the pastor is supposed to do—often people think the pastor is the CEO of the church. But here’s what the Bible says about my calling: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,” (Ephesians 4:11–15, ESV).
So, that’s what I want to do. I want to equip you to live out your faith in the world. And, since the world is constantly talking about sexuality, we need to be equipped to be part of that conversation in a way that brings glory and honor to God. And the reality is, many of us don’t really know how to have the conversation and where to start. Many people are really struggling to figure out how to live and speak and connect with people in our current cultural situation. In other words, many people are feeling very ill-equipped to live out their faith in this world. So, we’re doing this series to help answer that need as best as we can and we’re doing the Q&A sessions to help with that need and, to be completely honest, we’ll probably have to keep talking about it more and more.
One of the foundational truths that we need to understand when talking about Human Sexuality is that we’re created Body and Soul. We see that clearly in Genesis 2: “When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then 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.” (Genesis 2:5–7, ESV). God created us from the dust of the ground and gave us a body. Then he breathed life into us and we became a living creature. Like I said last time, that phrase “living creature” could also be translated “living soul.” When God breathed life into us, we became living souls. We’re not just souls with a body—as some people say. We’re also not bodies with a soul—as some people act. We’re embodied souls. They are connected and united to one another.
This is one of the most important truths we need to understand when we talk about human sexuality. As you’re going to find out as we go further into this series, almost every instance of sexual error comes from trying to either separate the body from the soul or trying to emphasize the body over the soul. We can’t do that because that’s not how God created us. God created us so that our bodies and souls are connected and we need to live that way in the world. To live any other way is a refusal to live according to reality—and that never works out well.
Here’s a brief example I used last time I preached this message. It’s become common for people to talk about how important it is to love someone for what’s on the inside and not on the outside. Now, of course, there’s a level of truth in that. However, there’s an aspect of that sentiment that devalues the body. Try using that logic on your spouse and see where it gets you. Go home after church and tell them that you don’t love their body, just what’s on the inside. Everybody knows that will not fly. It won’t be as romantic as some may think. The reality is that we want people to love us body and soul because God created us so that they’re deeply connected. What God has joined together, man must not separate.
We also talked about the fact that we’re created to be in relationship. We find that toward the end of Genesis 2: “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”” (Genesis 2:18, ESV). It wasn’t good for man to be alone, which is pretty incredible when you think about it because Adam wasn’t actually alone, was he? He was there with God but God still said that wasn’t good. So, God created woman and formed the family and formed communities and societies because it’s not good for man to be alone. We are created to be in relationship.
We see two different relationships represented in the garden. First, we are created to be in relationship with God. That comes from the fact that we’re created in the image of God: “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every 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.” (Genesis 1:26–27, ESV). The fact that we’re created in the image of God means that we are created to be in relationship with God. That’s at the core of our being.
Second, we’re created to be in relationship with other people. It’s not good for man to be alone—even if God is there. We need people in our lives. We need community and friends and family. We were never created to live like lone rangers in the world. God created a foundational relationship between husband and wife, but that’s not the only relationship we have in the world. Eventually, we’ll dive more into how singleness plays into all of this, but for now, we know that God didn’t just call individuals, he called a community. That’s part of why we gather together every week on Sunday mornings. God has called us together in a community to worship him because it’s not good for man to be alone.
Because we’re created for these two relationships—God and others—we’re told the two greatest commandments are: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37–40, ESV). You can see those two relationships very clearly in this passage. First commandment, love God. Second commandment, love your neighbor because you’re to be in relationship with them.
But this also helps us understand something really important. We must never sacrifice our relationship with God for our relationships with other people. Our relationship with God is fundamental. There’s a constant temptation for us to be in relationships in a way that dishonors God—and I’m not just talking about sexual relationships. Since our relationship with God is fundamental, that must influence every other relationship we have. Our relationship with God must filter every other relationship and affect our friendships, our marriages, and our church communities.
However, we must also not make the opposite error. I’ve heard people say that they don’t need to be in relationship with other people. They only need their relationship with God. That’s not true either. If it wasn’t good enough for Adam in the garden, it’s not good enough for you. God has created you to be in relationship with other people—especially in relationship with His people, with other believers. Again, that’s why it’s so important to be worshiping together as the Body of Christ every, single week. Of course, you can worship God wherever you are, but you cannot worship God together in community wherever you are. You can only do that on Sunday mornings.
So, we’ve been created Body and Soul; we’ve been created to be in relationship with God and others; and we’ve been created to have desires. We see this in a couple placed in Genesis 2. First we see it here: “And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:9, ESV). Why did God create these things pleasant to our eyes and good to eat? Because he wanted us to desire them. It’s good to desire beauty in the world. It’s good to desire good food. We are desiring creatures.
We also see this when God creates Eve: “And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” (Genesis 2:22–25, ESV). Like I said last time, this passage is filled with desire. Adam didn’t say this in a monotone, robotic voice. No. God created the trees pleasant to our eyes and he created Eve pleasant to Adam’s eyes. When he saw Eve he said, “At last!” Then the language of a man leaving his father and mother and holding fast to his wife is also filled with desire. And the comments about Adam and Eve being naked and unashamed are filled with desire.
All of this is a reminder to us that God created us to be desiring creatures and that is a good thing. Too often, when we talk about sin and sexuality we try to downplay the goodness of our desires. We sometimes even act like desire is a bad thing.
But that’s not Christianity. That’s actually Buddhism. Buddhism teaches that our desire causes problems. So, Buddhism teaches that perfection is removing all desire from yourself. In a stark contrast, Christianity teaches that desire is good and given to us by God. It’s not desire itself that causes problems, it’s desiring the wrong things that causes problems. Perfection is having all of our desires ordered, in the right places, and on fire. And, as a side note, that’s the picture of heaven. God’s people with all of their desires in all of the right places, and our desires on fire for the rest of eternity.
That’s why the Bible doesn’t teach us that our desires are too strong, they’re actually too weak. Most of our problems are caused by longing for and desiring lesser things that will not actually bring us joy and satisfaction—will actually end up leading us into destruction. That’s why scripture is filled with the language of desire for our God like Psalm 63: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1, ESV).
And here’s one of the beautiful promises of the gospel, through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection our desires can be renewed and reordered. Isn’t that amazing? When we turn to Jesus Christ by faith, our sins are forgiven and we are made brand new. But that’s just the beginning. From that point on, Jesus and the Spirit begin a remodeling campaign in your life—reordering your desires so that you will desire the right things in the right ways at the right times. Then, lighting those desires on fire. Then, as your desires are reordered, your relationships begin to be reordered. Your relationship with God begins to be straightened out and your relationship with others begins to be straightened out. Your soul begins to be renewed. And because your soul is being renewed, and your body is connected to your soul, your body even changes to some degree—your face and emotions and actions change. It’s a beautiful renovation process of our entire being, and that renovation process will continue throughout our entire life. It will only be completely finished in heaven. And in heaven all will be set right. We will have resurrected bodies that are united with our souls and everything will be functioning the way it was designed; we will have perfect relationship with God and others; and our desires will be for all the right things at the right times and in the right places, and our desires will be set on fire for eternity.