PONDERING... Matt Chandler's Gospel Project Lesson on Sexuality

Disclaimer: These are not my original thoughts. These are some highlights (snippets really) from Matt Chandler's Gospel Project Lesson: Sexuality as God Intended. Good food for thought.

Opening Thought:

"...keep in mind that whenever we are discussing this issue, we’re talking about people, not position statements. We are talking about human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect because of the God whose image they bear. And ultimately, we’re talking about us–our own sinful hearts that need redemption."- Matt Chandler

God Created Sexuality for Our Good.-Genesis 2:8-9, 15-25

"...God gave us good things, not so that we would simply enjoy them for their own sake but so that our hearts would be stirred with gratitude and joyful worship of God, the Giver...

...God’s law is intended to restore the peace of the garden. He doesn’t want to rob us of joy but to lead us into fullness of joy...

If we don’t have the right view of God, we’ll never have the right view of sexuality...

...The Bible reveals God, and because this God speaks, we believe morality isn’t something that humans decide. It’s something that God reveals."- Matt Chandler

Humans are Sexual Sinners Due to Sin -Romans 1:19-32 

"...the root error of humanity–idolatry...We don’t want God; we just want His stuff...

...we see God judging us by allowing us to go our own way. He delivers us over to our own desires...

...The reason he uses sexual immorality as an example is not because he believes this sin is worse than all others but because it’s a classic example of how we take the design of creation and make it into an idol... the truth applies to all kinds of sexual practices outside of God’s plan.

So in this passage, we find what the Scriptures say is wrong with humanity–we are idolaters. All of us. We rebel in various ways... but the common theme is that all of us have sinned."- Matt Chandler

Grace and Forgiveness are found in Christ-Luke 5:29-32

"...Christ calls us to respond to sexual sin (indeed, all sin!) with repentance and faith...

We must humble ourselves before God every day, ask for His mercy, and hold tight to the promise that in Christ He has given us all the grace we need to be obedient to all His commands. It is not the nature and character of God to put us in situations where we cannot, through His grace, overcome temptation....

... on the one hand, you fill your life with whatever stirs your affections for Jesus. And on the other hand, you make war against your remaining sin.

Along the way, recognize that the church is meant to be an honest, open community for people fighting sin....

...We must not justify or excuse sinful behavior nor avoid people living outside of God’s plan. They are created in God’s image and should be loved and treated accordingly...

Our life goal is not to get people to stop sinning; it’s to see people know and respond to the love of God, first and foremost." -Matt Chandler

Additional Quotes to consider:

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.1–G.K. Chesterton

We must exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God. Anything else than this simultaneous exhibition presents a caricature of our God to the world rather than showing Him forth.2 –Francis Schaeffer

Relativism promises freedom but enslaves people: it refuses to acknowledge sin and evil in the way the Bible does, and therefore it never adequately confronts sin and evil, and therefore leaves people enslaved by sin and evil.5 –D.A. Carson

Sometimes, people will say that the homosexual behavior condemned in the New Testament is not the same kind of homosexuality we see today. Paul was addressing an exploitive version of sexuality, where masters were taking advantage of slaves, etc. He would not have understood the idea of a long-term, monogamous relationship between members of the same sex. This argument is culturally popular, but it falls apart under close scrutiny of Romans 1. Paul clearly wrote that men were consumed with desire for one another. He was writing about reciprocity, not rape.- Unknown

Our struggles and temptations often trigger sin, but they never cause it. The root cause is always the heart and its sinful desires.6 –Tim Chester

Apart from Scripture’s call, the greatest argument for sexual purity is the living example of a faithful man and woman deeply in love. This is what our cyber-sexed, reductionist world must see. And more, they must see that Christ is the center of marriage and the answer to sexual immorality.7–R. Kent Hughes

We can be communities of repentance only if we’re communities of grace. And this means being honest, open, and transparent about our struggles.8–Tim Chester

References

1.    G. K. Chesterton, The Quotable Chesterton, ed. Kevin Belmonte (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 64.

2.    Francis Schaeffer, in Letters of Francis A. Schaeffer, ed. Lane Dennis (Wheaton: Crossway, 1986), 202.

3.    Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 36-37.

4.    Charles Colson and Harold Fickett, The Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 66.

5.    D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 132.

6.    Tim Chester, You Can Change (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 67.

7.    R. Kent Hughes, Set Apart (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003), 83-84.

8.    Tim Chester, You Can Change, 161.

*All Matt Chandler Quotes here are taken from his Gospel Project lesson,"Sexuality as God Intended"

SCRIPTURES:

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 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. The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 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 2:8-9, 15-25

19  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  20  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.  21  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  22  Claiming to be wise, they became fools,  23  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.  24  Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,  25  because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  26  For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;  27  and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.  28  And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.  29  They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,  30  slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,  31  foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.  32  Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.-Romans 1:19-32

And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”-Luke 5:29-32