God's Design pt. 2

Resources that have been helpful

• Theology of the body Explained and Fill These Hearts  -Christopher West
• The Forgotten Feminine -  Denise Jordan
• Sermons from different pastors  - Jon Tyson Pastor of the Church of the city in NYC

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1–2 ESV

"We must submit our desires  according to God's design so that it launches us to our God givendestiny."  –Christopher West

Naked and unashamed, they saw that in the distinctions of their sexual difference, was a call to the giving and receiving of each other and in this their unity declared a full picture of the unity and community we were made to experience in the life of the Trinity.

Together male and female glorify God by together communicating His image.

Our design was meant to guide our desires into the perfect fulfillment of our destiny with Him.

However, when we reject or deny the design, when our desires are aimed toward other things for fulfillment, we miss the mark of our destiny with Him.

It has been Satan’s goal for thousands of years to distort the image of God in us.

Believing a lie that moral standards + will power = holiness

Believing the lie that desire + consent = freedom.

All sin is not the same.

Sexual sin is different than other kinds of sin

Because it bends us away from being formed into Christ

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.”

The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?

Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body?  For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”

But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.  Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭6:12-20‬ ‭

We have all been formed by different experiences that evokes temptation from within

Those desires need to be submitted to God’s design not to the compulsion of what we feel

As we live in reverence for God’s design, our desires are purified; this is not prudishness or the rejection of our desires, but instead the redemption and transformation of our desires.

Sexual abuse is deeply formative.

We are proposing this equation from John Tyson
Godly Vision + Holy Spirit Power + Practice = (Transformation) Formation into God's design

"There is no dignity when human dimension is eliminated from a person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little." –Pope John II

"Sin is loved turned in on itself."  –St. Augustine of Hippo

Personal Letter From Lewis to Keith Masson (found in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3)

“For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides.

And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman.

For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival.

Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity.

In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself. . . after all, almost the main work of life is to come out of ourselves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.”

Marriage is meant to be a representation of the love we were created for, but Jesus is the reality of this ultimate love as a human being entirely submitted and in perfect fellowship with God.

Godly Vision + Holy Spirit Power + Practice = (Transformation) Formation into God's design

If i am asking is it sin, you asking the wrong question

Who am I becoming by participating in this practice of our culture's way of dating?

"When you reverse the way God designed it, you commodify people, but when you order them, you value them." –Jon Tyson

Sexual Fraud: To promise with your body what you will not pay with your life.

There is no neutrality, you are either being formed by the sexual revolution or your are being reformed by the scandalous love of Jesus

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. ‭‭Romans‬ ‭7:6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

We need to develop a Christ-centered culture of delight, joy, and discipline practices.

Jesus has compassion
For the struggle
For transformation

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
‭‭John‬ ‭4:10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Contemplative Prayer

Jesus my Savior,

I come to you now to be restored in you, and to renew my place in You.

I receive from you all the grace, mercy, empowerment, validation, belonging, joy, vitality and focus I need from you this day.

Jesus I honor you as my sovereign Lord and surrender every aspect of my life completely to you.

I give you my entire body as a living sacrifice,

My Spirit, soul, mind, will, emotions...my relationships,  my shattered places, my hidden places, my lost places, my disoriented places, my dreams, memories, and interpretations of my life.

I give myself to be one with you as you call me to your Father.

Father my true Father,

You are my Creator and Sustainer...I worship you and give myself over to you in my heart’s search for life.

I declare that You alone are life.

I receive the gift of belonging to you as your daughter/ son.

I accept Your invitation to be incorporated into Your life and I receive your love, your goodness.

Thank you for the gift of Your Spirit.

Holy Spirit my very breath,

I sincerely receive you as my counselor, comforter, guide, teacher, the one who leads me into the life of God.

I receive from You every good gift you have for me.

I give you total claim to my spirit ,soul, body, mind, will and emotions.  

Lead me deeper into the unity and community of Your life with the Father and the Son.

Amen