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Sex: Worshiping the Creator By Jeremy Lelek, Ph.D.

Sex: Worshiping the Creator By Jeremy Lelek, Ph.D. . The Existential Unity: The Pathway to Worship Romans 1: 19-20. Creation: A Signpost to the Divine Creation points to God’s… Invisible Attributes Eternal Power Divine Nature. Creation: A Signpost to the Divine.

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Sex: Worshiping the Creator By Jeremy Lelek, Ph.D.

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  1. Sex: Worshiping the Creator By Jeremy Lelek, Ph.D.

  2. The Existential Unity: The Pathway to Worship Romans 1:19-20

  3. Creation: • A Signpost to the Divine • Creation points to God’s… • Invisible Attributes • Eternal Power • Divine Nature

  4. Creation: A Signpost to the Divine “Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he ‘lives and moves [Acts 17:28]”. John Calvin (The Institutes, p. 35)

  5. Creation: A Signpost to the Divine Creation “carries the benediction of God” R.C. Sproul

  6. Sex: A Signpost to the Divine? Passion Stimulation Nakedness Sex Pleasure Orgasm Glorious Worship Uncomfortable Shame Which response do such words (and other sexual words) evoke in you?

  7. Sexual Brokenness: • When the issue of sex must be dealt with in counseling (or in our own marriages), we must remember the idea of “sex” is often associated with much sin and suffering… • Childhood Sexual Abuse • Rape • Promiscuity • Adultery • Sexual Idolatry • Habitual Sexual Sin • Used • Violation • Shame • Entitlement • Dirty

  8. Legalistic Tendencies: “An erroneous attitude still prevails in our society, and even sometimes in our churches, that sex is sinful and dirty and not to be openly discussed.” (McDonald & McDonald, 1994, p. 112)

  9. The Great Divide: When we do not seek to glorify God in ALL things (including SEX), then it creates a psychological imperative to Compartmentalize! The illusion that we can hide from God.

  10. Transformed Minds: As counselors (and spouses) it is profoundly important to gain a proper understanding of the transcendent nature of the sexual lest we: (1) reinforce the world spirit of the current culture in which sex is nothing more than a focus on the erotica of self-pleasure or (2) remain bound in our minds to the sexual sins and shame of our past! (See Ephesians 4:23; Be renewed in the spirit of our minds.)

  11. The Ultimate Reason for Sex: “God created human beings in his image – ‘male and female he created them’ (Gen. 1:27) – with capacities for intense sexual pleasure and with a calling to commitment in marriage…And his goal in creating human beings with personhood and passion was to make sure that there would be sexual language and sexual images that would point to the promises and the pleasures of God’s relationship to his people and our relationship to him. In other words the ultimate reason (not the only one) why we are sexual is to make God more deeply known.” John Piper (Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, p. 26)

  12. God and Sex: “It might sound shocking, but it’s true: God doesn’t turn his eyes when a married couple goes to bed. It only stands to reason that we shouldn’t turn our eyes from God when we share intimate moments with our spouse.” Gary Thomas (Sacred Marriage, p. 201)

  13. Sex is VERY Good: Genesis 1:28 Genesis 2:24 “God made sex. Adam and Eve went unclothed and celebrated a unity that was frankly physical…When the husband and wife join in intercourse, the One who sees in the dark sees exactly what they are doing and says, ‘It is very good.” David Powlsion (JBC 13[3], 1995, p. 1)

  14. Sex points to UltimateGoodness: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in rich food.” --Isaiah 55:1-2 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” --John 6:35

  15. Sex points to UltimateGoodness: “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” Psalm 100:5 “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” Psalm 107:9

  16. Sex points to UltimateGoodness: We must seek to recognize sex as a beautiful and amazing creation of God, and foster in those we serve to stand in awe of God’s goodness and kindness in His offering the gift of incomparable physical pleasure through intimate act of sex. Even more stunning is that the goodness we experience within the sexual union ultimately points us to our eternal union with Christ, further revealing a good and gracious God who longs to satisfy our thirsty souls.

  17. Sex: A Reflection of Jesus’ Sacrificial Love Galatians 1:3-4 Titus 2:11-14 “This is what sex is finally about: one man and one woman to the end, loving and caring for each other’s bodies.” Ben Patterson (Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, p. 157)

  18. Sex: A Reflection of Jesus’ Sacrificial Love The Paradigm of the Unending Debt Vs. The Paradigm of Emotional Needs and Love Tanks “Let no debt remain outstanding, except for the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.” Romans 13:8 (NIV)

  19. Sex: Our Call to Reflect Jesus The husband should give his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another.” 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 This call is realized in a Person, and our call to give ourselves away MUST be centered in our hope to incarnate the very love of this living Christ!

  20. Sex: A Christ-Reflecting Attitude “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:4-8

  21. Sex: Physical Oneness and the Holy Trinity “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image after our likeness…” (Gen. 1:26) “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30) “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth…You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:15-16)

  22. Sex: Physical Oneness and the Holy Trinity “The doctrine of the Trinity is not an incidental addition to the doctrine of God; rather, it is the doctrine of God as a whole, in which God gives us a glimpse of his own inner life.” John Frame, (The Doctrine of God: A Theology of Lordship, p. 735) Furthermore, this distinction is so far from contravening the utterly simple unity of God as to permit us to prove from it that the Son is one God with the Father because he shares with the Father on and the same Spirit; and that the Spirit is not something other than the Father and different from the Son, because he is the Spirit of the Father and the Son.” John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Part 1, p. 31-39)

  23. Sex: Physical Oneness and the Holy Trinity “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.” Genesis 2:23-24 “The great mystery of the one becoming two foreshadows the greater mystery of the two becoming one. God’s math is that one and one don’t equal two, but one (Gen. 2:24)…In marriage as with the Gospel we find ourselves as we give ourselves away (Luke 9:23-24 (p. 59).” Ben Patterson (Sex and the Supremacy of Christ)

  24. Sex: Physical Oneness and the Holy Trinity “As couples seek to imitate and enjoy oneness in the physical relationship, it should create an atmosphere in which couples may consider how infinitely greater, more perfect and more magnified is the unity found among the Father, Son, and Spirit, resulting in the humble praise and glory to the One who sits on the throne!” It may be properly summarized that the unity as found in the sexual encounter between a husband and wife provides an exhibition of willful harmony rarely apprehended within the relational world and infinitely exceeded only by that purest of harmony and oneness portrayed in the living relationship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy spirit. It is through the sexual union of man and woman that much may be gleaned regarding the sacred relationship of the “Three in One”.

  25. Sex: An Intimate Time of Worship God, all nature sings thy glory, and thy works proclaim thy might; Ordered vastness in the heavens, ordered courses of day and night; Beauty in the changing seasons, beauty in the storming sea; All the changing moods of nature praise the changeless Trinity. Clearer still we see thy hand in man whom thou has made for thee; Ruler of creation’s glory, image of thy majesty. Music, art, the fruitful garden, All the labor of his days, Are the calling of his Maker to the harvest feast of praise. Hymn by David Clowney

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