back to indexHow Our Sex Life Manifests Our Soul Health
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Our greatest problems in life are not ignorance problems, they are preference problems. 00:00:10.600 |
And that means our greatest need is not merely new information, our greatest need is being 00:00:14.380 |
given new preferences, new desires, new loves. 00:00:18.380 |
As John Pepper explained from Romans chapter 1 in a 2015 sermon, here's how he explained 00:00:24.760 |
"Having set up why we are existing, namely we exist to know and experience and enjoy 00:00:34.880 |
and reflect the value, the glory, the beauty of God back to Him, He now makes the connection 00:00:46.300 |
Four times, this is unmistakable and amazing, four times he makes the connection between 00:00:59.660 |
the distortion of the relationship vertically and the darkness there with the distortion 00:01:06.840 |
of the sexual relationship horizontally and the darkness there. 00:01:11.540 |
So let's see these four times where Paul does this. 00:01:14.780 |
Number one, the connection between verse 23 and 24. 00:01:20.340 |
"They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images," verse 24, "therefore," 00:01:29.260 |
that's a very important word, "therefore God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts, 00:01:36.420 |
to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves." 00:01:42.260 |
So the exchange vertically, verse 23, "They exchanged the glory of God, results in God 00:01:50.860 |
handing them over to horizontal dishonorable passions of the body in lust." 00:02:03.980 |
Where does the brokenness of our God-given, beautiful, sexual reality come from? 00:02:17.860 |
Here it is again, the connection between verse 24 and 25. 00:02:22.300 |
"God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts, to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies 00:02:29.780 |
among themselves," and here comes the other important word besides "therefore," "because." 00:02:37.140 |
Why did God hand us over to this mess, this brokenness? 00:02:41.740 |
"Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie." 00:02:49.980 |
"The truth about God, the glory about God, for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature," 00:02:57.060 |
that's us, "rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen." 00:03:04.420 |
So he says the cause, don't miss the word "because" there, the cause of lust and impurity 00:03:11.060 |
and the dishonoring of the body is the embrace of a lie about God. 00:03:17.860 |
Darkness of creation is owing to the darkness as we look at the creator. 00:03:27.500 |
Our friends are more valuable to us than God is to us, and sexual pleasure is more valuable 00:03:35.420 |
We have exchanged him for a lie, and God hands us over. 00:03:42.980 |
Number three, the connection between verses 25 and 26. 00:03:49.020 |
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, verse 26, "for this reason," you see it? 00:03:58.420 |
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, "for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable 00:04:05.740 |
So three times so far he has said that the cause, the reason for God handing us over 00:04:12.960 |
to the dishonoring of our own good God-given passions is because we traded God, and we 00:04:23.560 |
traded his truth, and we traded his glory for other things, which they are not. 00:04:35.220 |
The relationship between the two halves of verse 28. 00:04:39.940 |
"Since," very important word, "and since they did not," now the ESV says here, "see fit 00:05:02.540 |
Since they did not approve, that's the usual translation of documadso, they did not approve 00:05:13.540 |
See fit to acknowledge God, that's okay, but I think you feel the horror of it if you say 00:05:21.020 |
they did not approve of having God in their knowledge. 00:05:25.860 |
So the picture is, back in verse 18, they know God and they suppress truth. 00:05:31.700 |
So God is approaching them in manifold ways, and we consider that enough to be accountable. 00:06:01.740 |
Nobody's main problem is an ignorance problem. 00:06:05.180 |
Everybody's main problem is a preference problem. 00:06:14.380 |
I will not have a God in my life who is supremely valuable. 00:06:20.180 |
That's the meaning of the first half of verse 28. 00:06:24.500 |
Since they did not see fit to acknowledge or did not approve, I don't want it, I don't 00:06:30.540 |
approve of having God in my knowledge, therefore God gave them up to a debased mind to do what 00:06:40.980 |
So four times it just could not be clearer, repetitively clearer, that the root issue 00:06:50.220 |
of our horizontal distortions, homosexual and heterosexual, are rooted in, the root 00:07:03.100 |
And if he's not in here, everything is going wrong in the world. 00:07:11.700 |
And then of course, explained Piper, there's a positive side here too in covenant marriage. 00:07:15.780 |
You can hear the whole message in a series titled, "Living in the Light with Money, Sex, 00:07:19.820 |
and Power," a four-part series, three messages and one Q&A. 00:07:23.260 |
And this clip was taken from the second message and they're all on the site, DesiringGod.org. 00:07:28.500 |
Those messages became the new book, "Living in the Light, Money, Sex, and Power," a nice 00:07:31.740 |
little hardcover available now on Amazon and downloadable free of charge at DesiringGod.org/books. 00:07:40.580 |
Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with author and longtime pastor, John