Jul. 23, 2023

The Chaos of Sexual Struggles

Confronting the Chaos Series 

Primary Text: Romans 1:20-28                        

Last Teaching: Sexual Chaos

1)  Moral Sexual Laws

Leviticus 18:5-6, 18, 20-22:  I am the LORD.  No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations….  Do not take your wife's sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living. . . . Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor's wife and defile yourself with her.  Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God.  I am the LORD.  Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

DQ 1)  Why is adultery explicitly condemned within the ten commandments?

DQ 2)  How does homosexuality contradict the created order of human society?

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2)  Do Not be Deceived

1 Corinthians 6:9-11:  Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And that is what some of you were.  But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.  

DQ 3)  Is sexual sin a form of idolatry?  Why?

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This Week’s Teaching: 

1)  Awareness of Sin

Romans 7:5, 7, 11-12:  For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death….  What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law….  For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.  So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. 

DQ 1)  How does the moral law of God arouse the sin nature of 

            humans?

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2)  The Struggle

Romans 7:14-20:  We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 

DQ 2)  How does sin live in us?  Why? 

DQ 3)  What must happen for sin to stop having reign within us?

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3)  Sexual Impurity

Romans 1:20-21, 24-28, 32:  For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened….  Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.  They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised.  Amen.  Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.  Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.  Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.  Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done….  Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.  

DQ 4)  What does it mean to be “given over” to sinful desires? 

DQ 5)  What constitutes sexual perversion? 

DQ 6)  How does the demonic work through sexual perversion?

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4)  The Hope

Romans 7:24-25:  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. 

DQ 7)  How does Christ rescue us from our sin nature?

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