In our first week the main challenge was simply this; do you believe that in the beginning God created... created everything. That he is the creator of relationship and he is the creator of sex? That he designed it for a purpose and that when we violate his purpose, it is hurtful, it is sinful. As we talk about sexual discipleship it all starts, not with behavior, but what we believe. Do we believe that in the beginning God created all of this. Do we believe that he is the Designer? And if he is, then what is the design? What is the plan? Does God have something to say about sex? Matthew 19:3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” How Jesus sexually disciples us is to understand that sex creates one flesh union. The Hebrew word is Ahad. Ahad Is the divinely designed and divinely blessed way that fuses two people together emotionally, psychologically, physiologically, biologically, and physically. Tim Keller says it this way, “sex is a way of saying ‘I'm giving myself to someone fully, exclusively, and permanently’ because sex is meant to involve the whole of who we are and our entire person is being given to this other person and I'm not giving myself to any other person in this same way. I'm creating a bond with you that can't be undone without considerable pain.” When we violate Ahad, it sticks with us and it also sticks with other people. And the Bible is incredibly consistent, and Jesus just reiterates what is absolutely clear in the Bible - that Ahad has been designed for a man and a woman within a marriage. Any other kind of sexual activity outside of a marriage is forbidden. - Prostitution - Homoexuality - Adultery - shacking up - same sex activities 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. Matthew 19:6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” The purpose and design of AHAD is the fuse people together. But this isn't all that Jesus calls attention to. In the sermon on the mount Jesus says something that is equally devastating and dignifying. Matthew 5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Lust is doing in my head what I want to do in my body. Lust is craving something that God has forbidden. Lust is using others for my own gratification. When we love we expend ourselves for somebody else’s betterment, lust is when I expect you to expand yourself for my betterment or pleasure. What Jesus just did was level the playing field because we have all done this. Pornography fuels lust and porn is inherently violent and inherently unloving. - It is a perversion of sexuality, not a true form of it, and one that teaches violence and degradation at the expense of mutual pleasure and intimacy. - It is about conquests, about conquering. - It is the very opposite of God’s intention for sex. - It tears love from sex, leaving sex as the immediate gratification of one’s most base desires. - It lives beyond rules and ethics and morality. - It exists far beyond love. - And yet countless young men, Christian young men, are coming into marriage bringing with them all of this pornographic baggage. Having seen thousands of sex acts in a pornographic setting, they load the porn star expectation upon their wives. But what Jesus says here is also very dignifying. Jesus lifts up the sexual dignity of people. Jesus is saying that people matter so much to him that they must not be violated even in the privacy of your own mind. He cares about how you think of other people. And he cares about how people think about you. Matthew 5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. This, no doubt, is very challenging. Of 1. Confess what is inside of us. 2. Cut off what is outside of us. Jesus is up front with the terms and the conditions. Matthew 16:25Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.