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This is part 3 of 4 from my sermon on Leviticus 18. For the introduction to the series where I talk about homosexuality and the Reformed Church in America go here. Part one talked about other kinds of sexual sin. Part two talked about homosexuality.

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Why does God ask us to follow these rules?
There are all sorts of reasons why God gives us commands and we ought to obey. Let me just highlight three reasons from this chapter.

First, the Lord is holy. Six times in this chapter 18 God says “I am the Lord” or “I am the Lord your God.” The point is “You belong to me. I delivered you. I chose you. I promised to bless you. I am your God. You are my people. So you ought to live by my rules. You ought to be holy because I am holy.”

How you live as a Christian matters a lot to God because you are meant to be a reflection of the God who saved you. You are not your own. The purpose of your life is not your fulfillment, nor your self-expression, nor your sexuality. The point of your life is make much of God by bearing witness to Jesus Christ and by being as much like him as you can.

God’s glory is at stake with your sexuality. The hallowing of God’s name is at stake in our churches. Please do not tell me God does not care about the purity of his church or the holiness of his bride. His Son died to wash us clean. He chose us in him that we might be blameless and holy. When you give up the fight against pornography, when you embrace another lover besides the one you promised before God to be faithful to, when you embrace homosexuality as your “God-given” identity, when you are a champion for calling darkness light, then the God you profess to believe is made to look like the gods of the nations, not the Holy One of Israel. And when the church of Jesus Christ refuses to pursue holiness, with the Spirit’s forgiving and transforming power, and gives in to the spirit of the age, the church has given up on it’s central responsibility: to demonstrate the true character of God to the praise of his holy name.

Second, you belong to a different country. You see this in verse 3: “You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you.” Verse 24: “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean.” The Israelites were not supposed to be like every other nation. So what if the Egyptians did these things? So what if the Canaanites practiced them? They belonged to the Lord and they were to live a different way.

Oh, how we need to this word from God. So what if the academy thinks any kind of sex is fine for anyone, anywhere, anytime? What does it matter what the media say? Why do you have to think just like everyone else in your high school? We belong to a different country. We are seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus. We are strangers and aliens in the world. We have an opportunity to stand out, to take a stand–not with some sort of arrogant triumphalism, but in broken-hearted humility, confident that the law of the Lord is perfect, the testimony of the Lord is sure, the precepts of the Lord are right, the commandment of the Lord is pure, the fear of the Lord is clean, the rules of the Lord are true, and altogether righteous. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb. By them we are warned, and in keeping them there is great reward (Psalm 19:7-11).

Third, do them and you will live (5). Verse 5: “You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.” God is not urging the Israelites to earn their salvation. Remember, God already delivered them from Egypt, he already promised the land, he already had put his love upon them. The life he is talking about is like the abundant life Jesus promises in John 10:10. The promise here is that the Israelites would experience the blessings of the Mosaic covenant if they walked in God’s ways.

We are not under the Mosaic covenant any longer, so our blessings look at little different, but it is still true that living God’s way is the way of abundant life. For the past 30 years study after study has shown that the best predictor for growing into relational health, personal well-being, and economic prosperity is an intact family, where a mom and a dad get married, have kids, raise those kids together, and stay married. This is not to say the everyone turns out fine from these families or that God does not love other kinds of families. But it is to say, what Leviticus 18 suggests, that God has created the world with a certain moral framework. And to live in that framework, according to those rules, will, on the whole, mean a better life for you. While living outside that framework, against those rules, will, on the whole, mean pain for you.

Satan understand this, which is why he offers the pleasure of sexual immorality as the bait, but he always hides the hook. He won’t tell you that promiscuity can lead to disease, that adultery destroys families, that divorce hurts children, that homosexuality harms the body and does not allow for the creation of life, that incest can produce deformities, that abuse scars the victim and the perpetrator, that pornography enslaves its users. Sexual deviancy undermines the stability of the family, the welfare of society, and the proper development of children. God does not give us rules to keep us from joy, but to guard us from the lasting pain that comes on the other side of fleeting pleasure.

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