Blind to the Glory of Sex
00:00:00.000 | Cameron, a listener from London, writes in, "Dear Pastor John, to what extent is the goodness
00:00:11.280 | and glory of the Christian's understanding of human sexuality spiritually discerned?"
00:00:19.480 | Animals have instincts that cause them to mate and reproduce.
00:00:26.960 | Viewed from a God-centered perspective, that is amazing.
00:00:30.960 | That's an amazing thing.
00:00:32.560 | It reveals the glory of God the Creator.
00:00:36.840 | How do they know how to do that?
00:00:40.240 | How do those birds know to splay their feathers in just that way to attract her at just that
00:00:49.080 | time?
00:00:50.440 | How does that frog know to change the tone of her chirrup-chirrup so that the species
00:00:59.900 | goes on?
00:01:01.520 | The earth is full of the wonders of God.
00:01:06.320 | In wisdom you have made them all.
00:01:09.120 | We watch, and with the eyes awakened to God, we see the glory of God in all of it, all
00:01:17.480 | that sexuality.
00:01:19.320 | So it is with human sexuality.
00:01:23.020 | We have instincts and desires and understandings that cause us to make love and reproduce the
00:01:28.080 | race.
00:01:29.080 | But without eyes to see the goodness and the glory of God in our sexuality, we are more
00:01:36.120 | like animals than we are like God.
00:01:39.120 | And that's not what God calls us to be or to do.
00:01:44.200 | So when you read what the Bible has to say about sex, you are thrown into a world of
00:01:53.920 | divine glory.
00:01:56.040 | And if we don't have eyes to see, we'll miss it.
00:01:59.900 | So when Cameron asks, "To what extent is the goodness and the glory of the Christian understanding
00:02:06.320 | of human sexuality spiritually discerned?"
00:02:10.280 | My answer is, "All of it, totally."
00:02:13.560 | It is totally discerned spiritually.
00:02:17.320 | Without spiritual life, without the awakening of our spirit by the Spirit of God, the reality
00:02:25.840 | of God, the glory of God, in all things, we may have intense feelings and poetic thoughts
00:02:32.440 | about sex, even far above the animals, but we will never see the goodness and the glory
00:02:39.160 | that God reveals of Himself in and through our sexuality.
00:02:44.960 | Without spiritual discernment—that is, without the awakening and the transforming work of
00:02:49.800 | the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ—we only rise to the level of nature and never
00:02:56.520 | see in it the glory of God.
00:02:58.920 | So let me illustrate with a few passages.
00:03:02.480 | First Corinthians 2:14, "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of
00:03:08.040 | God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they
00:03:12.560 | are spiritually discerned."
00:03:15.600 | We are merely natural—in other words, without new birth by the Spirit—and as such, the
00:03:22.640 | things of the Spirit are not discernible to us.
00:03:28.600 | Discerning the things of the Spirit means seeing all things the way the Spirit does.
00:03:36.800 | Things of the Spirit are not just a class of things, but are all things revealing the
00:03:44.960 | truth of God and the glory of God and the reality of Christ by the Spirit.
00:03:49.280 | So the Bible says that the role of the Spirit is to glorify Christ.
00:03:54.840 | So the things of the Spirit are all things in their capacities to reveal Christ, like
00:04:03.960 | sex.
00:04:06.680 | We will never see that.
00:04:08.440 | We will never see what sex has to do with the glorious reality for which we are made
00:04:14.880 | Jesus Christ without those eyes, the spiritual eyes.
00:04:18.920 | Here's another text, Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church
00:04:26.480 | and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing
00:04:31.720 | of water and the words, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without
00:04:36.220 | spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."
00:04:40.680 | The whole drama of marriage, including sex, is a drama about the glories of Christ's
00:04:49.480 | covenant relation to his bride, the church.
00:04:53.000 | None of this is visible or enjoyable for the person without spiritual discernment.
00:05:01.240 | Another text, two more, 1 Corinthians 6, 15.
00:05:05.880 | Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
00:05:11.960 | Shall I then take members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?
00:05:18.040 | Never.
00:05:19.200 | Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?
00:05:27.560 | For as it is written, the two become one flesh.
00:05:30.480 | But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
00:05:36.320 | I mean, could Paul have woven together the most nitty-gritty physical reality, like prostitution,
00:05:45.920 | with the most spiritual reality of our oneness with Christ?
00:05:49.560 | Prostitution, he says, is about Christ, what you do with Christ.
00:05:56.720 | So not only can we not see the glories of sex without spiritual discernment, we can't
00:06:04.600 | see the prostitution of the glories of sex without spiritual discernment.
00:06:11.800 | One more, Mark 10, 7.
00:06:14.480 | Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the
00:06:19.480 | two shall become one flesh.
00:06:22.440 | So they're no longer two, but one flesh.
00:06:26.320 | But God has joined together, let not man separate.
00:06:32.400 | Mind-boggling.
00:06:33.400 | God joins us together in sex.
00:06:40.560 | This is a great and unseen glory of marriage.
00:06:45.880 | Who sees this?
00:06:47.240 | Who marvels at this, that marriage and its sexual union is a work of God?
00:06:55.080 | God is at work at a wedding ceremony.
00:06:57.880 | God is at work that night in bed.
00:07:01.880 | Who sees this?
00:07:04.440 | Those who are spiritually awake, those who are spiritually discerning.
00:07:09.960 | So yes, Cameron, yes, the goodness and the glory of sexuality is for those with eyes
00:07:19.420 | to see, and those eyes are a gift of the Spirit through faith in Christ.
00:07:27.200 | Amen.
00:07:28.200 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:07:29.200 | And if you have a question for John Piper, or if you want to listen to recent episodes,
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00:07:43.240 | right now.
00:07:44.560 | Go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:07:50.220 | Well a big question for a lot of Christians today is over ISIS and Islamic militants around
00:07:55.640 | the world.
00:07:56.820 | Should we pray that ISIS members be saved, or should we pray that they be destroyed?
00:08:01.020 | I'll ask John Piper that tomorrow.
00:08:03.260 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:08:04.780 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
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