Tyler Lynde: So over the last few weeks, we've been looking at how believers in Jesus Christ should approach the issues in culture.
Tyler Lynde: Where culture is yelling at us that we need to conform, we must conform.
Tyler Lynde: There's pressure everywhere for that to happen.
Tyler Lynde: We learned that we have a strong foundation to stand on because Jesus Christ is absolute truth and he also inspired a Bible to be written which gives us instructions on truth.
Tyler Lynde: Then we talked about the fact that, as much as truth is important, we must also have the motivation of love.
Tyler Lynde: It should matter to us what happens to people right, and so the gift that we've been given of truth we want to give to others.
Tyler Lynde: We want to do it in a loving way, in the way that represents Christ very well.
Tyler Lynde: Last week, john and Derek did an amazing job talking about family and really how families can talk to each other about cultural issues that are so much a part of everyday conversation that happens almost everywhere that you look Television and internet school systems at work almost everywhere.
Tyler Lynde: The conversations that need to be had in homes are happening outside of the home, and so we want to create an atmosphere where families again begin to talk about things and have open dialogue about the most important issues of life, amen.
Tyler Lynde: So I'm going to pick up on that and start talking this morning.
Tyler Lynde: Our subject is can we talk about sexuality?
Tyler Lynde: Can we talk about sexuality?
Tyler Lynde: And this is a two-part message.
Tyler Lynde: We'll start this morning and then we'll finish up next week, so hope you can join us for that.
Tyler Lynde: So what is culture saying about sexuality?
Tyler Lynde: What does God say and what?
Tyler Lynde: How can we talk about it?
Tyler Lynde: Genesis 2, verses 18 through 25, says then the Lord God said it is not good that the man should be alone.
Tyler Lynde: I will make him a helper that is fit for him.
Tyler Lynde: 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.
Tyler Lynde: The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.
Tyler Lynde: But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.
Tyler Lynde: So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept he took out one of his ribs and closed up the 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.
Tyler Lynde: And then the man said this is at last.
Tyler Lynde: This, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
Tyler Lynde: She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
Tyler Lynde: Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.
Tyler Lynde: And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Tyler Lynde: Let's pray, father, god, we thank you that this subject is not something that is embarrassing to you and it's not something that we should be ashamed of to converse about.
Tyler Lynde: But, Lord, we know that we are surrounded by many evils and many perversions of what you say is true and right and holy and pure.
Tyler Lynde: So today, lord God, would you create an atmosphere in our hearts and minds where we would be ready to receive your truth, to recalibrate the idea that we have concerning sexuality, especially if it's in a negative connotation.
Tyler Lynde: And, lord, we just pray that your kingdom would come.
Tyler Lynde: Your will would be done here in this service.
Tyler Lynde: Take the words that are spoken, holy Spirit, and do the work that only you can do.
Tyler Lynde: In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
Tyler Lynde: My first introduction to sexuality happened when a neighborhood kid molested me, and I don't say that this morning in order to create some form of a shock or to engender sympathy, necessarily.
Tyler Lynde: The reason that I bring this up is because of the fact that, for the thousands of years, many people have been introduced to the area of sexuality in the wrong way, from the wrong place, and, instead of hearing about it from church in a holy way, in a way that represents Christ, or hearing about it from their families, most people have either heard about or experienced sexuality, especially for the first time, from a stranger, from somebody doing something to them that they didn't want to be done to them, or even from hearing about it through watching a movie, a reading, a book or magazine, whatever the case is right, and so it's very important for us, and for me in particular, because of what I went through, to help people to understand that God does have a plan, and it's a great plan, it's a perfect plan, it's His original intent for humanity, and there are ways that we can come back from things like I experienced in my life, and I am not here today to determine how many of you have experienced things in your life that have been negative in this area, but I can guarantee you that many of you have, and I want to say right from the start I'm sorry that you experienced something negative concerning sexuality in your life before you experienced what God intended for it to be.
Tyler Lynde: If you have even experienced that up to this point there is hope, there is healing, there is forgiveness and there is a day of new beginning, right, and that's the type of thing that I want to start with at the very beginning this morning.
Tyler Lynde: It's interesting, though, how an experience like that early in your life can kind of mask or can kind of distort the way you look at something for the rest of your life if God doesn't intervene right.
Tyler Lynde: So, growing up after that happened to me, I never told anybody about it.
Tyler Lynde: I didn't tell my parents about it, I didn't tell my brother.
Tyler Lynde: I was ashamed.
Tyler Lynde: I felt like there was something that I had done wrong.
Tyler Lynde: I should have known that what was happening was wrong and I should have stopped it.
Tyler Lynde: I should have been able to somehow make this not happen in some way.
Tyler Lynde: It had to be my fault.
Tyler Lynde: I was the one to blame, and so, because of that, I lived in this shame in this area of my life in a distorted view of what God created and what he intended from a perfect standpoint.
Tyler Lynde: And that included, as I grew up, being exposed to pornography and also, later in life, as a teenager, having a relationship with a young lady that was not holy in a sexual way, and all of those things were like hidden in the darkness in my life, in the shadows, in this shame-filled space that nobody I thought knew about.
Tyler Lynde: But God knew about it all along, and God had a purpose and a plan.
Tyler Lynde: Not that he caused that to happen to me when I was a young child, but he had a purpose and a plan for my life and part of that story of my life I even found out from the first service.
Tyler Lynde: There's somebody that came up to me and shared that they had a similar experience and that God was working in them, even now and since they've been a part of this church, to bring about healing and restoration in that area.
Tyler Lynde: And, to be honest with you, it's all worth it.
Tyler Lynde: It's all worth it if we're able to see people's lives transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and also by the word of our testimony, and being able to express to others how great our God is in the midst of horrible, terrible things that you wouldn't wish upon anybody else on the planet.
Tyler Lynde: There is hope for America, there is hope for the next generation and there's hope for you.
Tyler Lynde: If you've experienced these things, maybe your first exposure to sexuality was dirty jokes that you heard, or sex outside of marriage, or pornography.
Tyler Lynde: Whatever the case might be, I'm here to tell you there's a better way.
Tyler Lynde: There's a better way.
Tyler Lynde: That's such a distortion.
Tyler Lynde: What the world has to offer in this area is such a distortion.
Tyler Lynde: It's such a falsehood in comparison to what God created.
Tyler Lynde: So it's a broken area in life.
Tyler Lynde: All of this that we're talking about is manifest brokenness in the world that we live in.
Tyler Lynde: And so how do you fix something that's broken?
Tyler Lynde: You go to the manual, you go to the Creator and you ask how do we fix this broken thing?
Tyler Lynde: And so the Bible is what we do.
Tyler Lynde: We go to the Bible.
Tyler Lynde: So God's original intent for human sexuality.
Tyler Lynde: We're going to look at what God planned and what His plan is.
Tyler Lynde: Even today, it's not outdated.
Tyler Lynde: It's been 6,000 years or so and it still works.
Tyler Lynde: It's still God's perfect plan, and he wants us to initiate it and to live out His perfect plan in our lives.
Tyler Lynde: So the first, not good, of creation was for man to be alone.
Tyler Lynde: Every other day of creation God did wonderful things.
Tyler Lynde: He created the heavens and the earth and the animals and all of the things that we read about in Genesis, chapter 1.
Tyler Lynde: And after each day he subsequently would say you know, this was the end of the first day and it was good.
Tyler Lynde: But here is the first time that God looks at His creation and he says it's not good for man to be alone.
Tyler Lynde: And the men say amen, that's the right answer.
Tyler Lynde: Thank you very much.
Tyler Lynde: It is not good for man to be alone.
Tyler Lynde: And Adam was experienced that.
Tyler Lynde: He was feeling that he was going about his daily work in the garden.
Tyler Lynde: Isn't it interesting that he wasn't floating on a cloud, he wasn't strumming a harp.
Tyler Lynde: God actually gave him a job in the kingdom.
Tyler Lynde: He was naming the animals, he was involved in all of that kind of work with the plants and trees and stuff, and so all of that is happening and he's experiencing this and he literally is learning the lesson even of the birds and the bees, right as he's looking at all of this creation.
Tyler Lynde: But for himself there wasn't any kind of partnership like that it was just him.
Tyler Lynde: He was alone and God looked at that.
Tyler Lynde: And God said it is not good for man to be alone.
Tyler Lynde: So God created woman out of man and brought her to him.
Tyler Lynde: This is an exciting thing.
Tyler Lynde: It's interesting that God created man out of the dust of the ground, but he caused Adam to go to sleep and he took a rib out of Adam's side and that's what he created Eve with.
Tyler Lynde: So, ladies, when you call your husband a dirt bag, you're being literally accurate.
Tyler Lynde: I'm not saying you should do that, but I am saying we are Men, were made from dirt and men.
Tyler Lynde: If you call your woman a pain in the side, in your side, you're accurate as well, because God took a rib out of Adam.
Tyler Lynde: Don't encourage you to do that or to say that at all.
Tyler Lynde: That's another whole sermon that we could get on to talk about how to respect one another.
Tyler Lynde: But Adam was so excited when God brought Eve to him.
Tyler Lynde: He was so excited that he actually he a poem came out of his heart.
Tyler Lynde: It's like the first hallmark moment.
Tyler Lynde: He said this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
Tyler Lynde: She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man, amazing what a great gift it was for God to breathe life into Adam and then into Eve and to bring Eve to Adam to be his wife.
Tyler Lynde: When Amy and I first got married on our wedding day, I decided that would be the first time that I ever sang a song on a microphone.
Tyler Lynde: I mean ever in my life.
Tyler Lynde: No karaoke, no, you know anything.
Tyler Lynde: And so I decided to do that and I was thinking beforehand how am I going to be able to do this?
Tyler Lynde: I'm not a great singer, I'm an okay singer, but I'm not a great singer and I've never done this before.
Tyler Lynde: And I'm singing.
Tyler Lynde: You guys may remember Leon Patilov probably none of you over here will know who that name is, but he did.
Tyler Lynde: He wrote this song called you Are Bone of my Bone and Flesh of my Flesh.
Tyler Lynde: We Are One.
Tyler Lynde: Do you remember that song?
Tyler Lynde: And so that was the song that I sang to her, and the only way I could do it was to turn my back to the crowd and just to stare at her.
Tyler Lynde: And when I did that I was able to just let it rip because I was singing to her and that, huh, oh, you want to hear it now.
Tyler Lynde: Okay, come back tonight at 5 pm for the servant's heart banquet and you may or may not hear a rendition of you Are Bone of my Bone and Flesh of my Flesh.
Tyler Lynde: I'll sing it if Scott will do the interpretive dance.
Tyler Lynde: You guys ready for that?
Tyler Lynde: All right, okay.
Tyler Lynde: Now, since this morning I've actually changed something about the way that I refer to my wife, because in the past, before this morning, sometimes when I was joking, I would say that she was my prime rib because she was a rib that was taken out of man.
Tyler Lynde: But I have decided since then that that's really not appropriate, not a great way to describe my wife.
Tyler Lynde: So from now on I will not be referring to her as my prime rib and she can hold me to that right.
Tyler Lynde: I will only tell the story of when I used to call her my prime rib.
Tyler Lynde: I will not any longer call her that in the present tense.
Tyler Lynde: Okay, but really I wish that I had thought of this.
Tyler Lynde: But Matthew Henry, the great commentator, wrote this description of what it was like for God to choose a rib to form Eve out of.
Tyler Lynde: She was not made out of his head to top him, she was not out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side, to be equal, with him, under his arm, to be protected and near his heart to be beloved.
Tyler Lynde: Isn't that a great description of what a Christian marriage, a godly marriage, should be like A partnership, one helping the other.
Tyler Lynde: And so God instituted the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman, between one man and one woman.
Tyler Lynde: Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Tyler Lynde: Now, if there was ever a time in all of human history that there could have been an argument made for there not to be a need for a marriage, it could have been Adam and Eve.
Tyler Lynde: Why is that?
Tyler Lynde: They were the only two human beings on the face of the planet as far as we know, as far as creation is concerned.
Tyler Lynde: Also, they didn't have mom and dad.
Tyler Lynde: God was their father, right?
Tyler Lynde: There was no need for a white dress.
Tyler Lynde: They were fine without any clothing.
Tyler Lynde: There was no need for flowers.
Tyler Lynde: They were surrounded by flowers.
Tyler Lynde: They were in the garden.
Tyler Lynde: No reason for any kind of a ceremony or celebration in that sense.
Tyler Lynde: But God still wanted to institute something with this first family.
Tyler Lynde: That would be something that would be carried on, should be carried on throughout all generations that were to follow them.
Tyler Lynde: And so God instituted not a contract, not an agreement or a legal agreement.
Tyler Lynde: He instituted a covenant between Adam and Eve, between husband and wife.
Tyler Lynde: Heterosexual monogamy is the divine pattern for marriage that God established at creation.
Tyler Lynde: Amen, and a woman being married for life.
Tyler Lynde: That is God's intent.
Tyler Lynde: God's pattern for marriage wasn't devised by Adam.
Tyler Lynde: He didn't come up with it.
Tyler Lynde: It wasn't Eve's idea.
Tyler Lynde: None of that.
Tyler Lynde: There's a traditional marriage ceremony that states it like this Marriage was born in the loving heart of God for the blessing and benefit of mankind.
Tyler Lynde: His heart, what was in God's heart, was to bless His creation, to bless them in such a way that they would be fulfilled in every aspect of life, and so one of the ways that he did that was by implementing the covenant of marriage, and we hold in such high esteem in 2023, believe it or not the covenant of marriage that God set in place.
Tyler Lynde: You see, no matter what the courts may decree or society may permit, when it comes to marriage, god has the first word and he will also have the last word.
Tyler Lynde: Marriage is defined by God, not by me, and not by you and not by anybody else on the face of this planet.
Tyler Lynde: God didn't need any help with that, he did it Himself.
Tyler Lynde: So the act of sex within a heterosexual monogamous marriage is holy.
Tyler Lynde: It's holy, it's set apart, it's designed by God with us in mind, and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Tyler Lynde: Can you imagine a world with no shame?
Tyler Lynde: Can you imagine a world where there's no need for conviction of any kind or condemnation that Satan would try to apply to people's lives, because there was perfectness, holiness.
Tyler Lynde: Everything that was around them, around Adam and Eve, was pure and pristine and perfect and holy, and every aspect of their union together and their life together was perfect and holy and set apart by God, for God and with His blessing.
Tyler Lynde: With his blessing.
Tyler Lynde: How many of us have grown up with a negative connotation in our thought life concerning what sex is, not understanding or believing that somehow God could actually be behind this and that it's his idea?
Tyler Lynde: In so many ways we feel like we're trying to hide this aspect of our lives from God.
Tyler Lynde: We don't want him to see.
Tyler Lynde: We close the curtains, we turn off the lights and then we do whatever we're going to do God in Christian marriage, in a godly marriage, he intends for us to enjoy this aspect of his creation.
Tyler Lynde: This is not a boundary of oppression, but of love.
Tyler Lynde: We're different than the animals.
Tyler Lynde: God created us to be monogamous and to have a heterosexual marriage between a husband, a man and a wife, a man and a woman.
Tyler Lynde: Because of our tendency to think about sex again from a perverse point of view and our own experiences, or even, to be honest, the way that it's been presented in church.
Tyler Lynde: Most of the time when the word sex is talked about in church, it's talked about don't do it, and for young people we agree don't do it.
Tyler Lynde: But that doesn't mean that it's something that's impure or unholy.
Tyler Lynde: It's precious, it's a blessing from God.
Tyler Lynde: It's something that he gave not only for procreation, which was for us to be able to be fruitful and multiply, to have children.
Tyler Lynde: I know some that haven't been able to have children, and that doesn't make you any less of a person.
Tyler Lynde: Many have adopted and other things that they've done in their lives spiritual fathers and mothers, right, but procreation was part of it.
Tyler Lynde: But he also created sexuality and the act of sex for our enjoyment, for mutual enjoyment, something that God planned and instituted and wanted to be a part of our lives.
Tyler Lynde: So if you think about sex only from a shameful, dirty, perverse way, stop it, just stop it, just stop.
Tyler Lynde: That's not the way that God intended for us to think about it.
Tyler Lynde: It is wholly impure when it is exercised and done within the confines of marriage.
Tyler Lynde: Think about how precious it is that God made us different than the animals.
Tyler Lynde: The fact that we even from a, from the standpoint of our anatomy, the way that we fit together in this aspect, the fact that we look at each other face to face, that our heart beats and the other person's heart beats and we feel that together.
Tyler Lynde: What a romantic, intimate, beautiful thing.
Tyler Lynde: This gift that God has given us of Christian marital sexuality Beautiful.
Tyler Lynde: So the downward spiral of how we get here.
Tyler Lynde: How did we get here?
Tyler Lynde: It's hard to picture how far we've come from that beautiful image of creation, isn't it From the Garden of Eden, with everything just so pristine and pure.
Tyler Lynde: Not only according to culture is this an ultra-limited idea of human sexuality, what we just talked about, but it's outdated.
Tyler Lynde: It's also hated by many who want to decide for themselves how to define sexuality.
Tyler Lynde: This culture is all about defining for themselves what sex is what it looks like, how it's done.
Tyler Lynde: Now.
Tyler Lynde: The Bible, believe it or not, addresses almost every single one of the issues that you can find in our culture today, and so we're going to look at some of the biblical words for sexual sin for just a minute, and we'll give definitions for these things.
Tyler Lynde: So the first one is fornication.
Tyler Lynde: What is fornication?
Tyler Lynde: According to Scripture, it is sex outside of marriage.
Tyler Lynde: This is the downward spiral that I'm talking about.
Tyler Lynde: This is where we go when we don't follow God's way of doing things Right.
Tyler Lynde: So fornication is sex outside of marriage, which adultery is sex with others while married Pretty easy, two sides of the same coin fornication and adultery.
Tyler Lynde: There's also prostitution, which is sex for money.
Tyler Lynde: Abuse and rape, which is sex that is unwanted and harmful.
Tyler Lynde: Self gratification, which is self sex with oneself.
Tyler Lynde: Sodomy is sex with one's own gender.
Tyler Lynde: Pedophilia, sex with children All of these things, by the way, the culture is holding up as the standard.
Tyler Lynde: None of these things are taboo within the extents of what culture is saying.
Tyler Lynde: We're going to talk much more about this next week, as we get into the darker side of this.
Tyler Lynde: Today, we're going to be focusing primarily on what God said and how we've gotten to the point where we're at now.
Tyler Lynde: There's also bestiality, which is sex with animals.
Tyler Lynde: I'm sure that I'm missing some.
Tyler Lynde: Those are the major categories of sin when it comes to sexuality and there are so many times, in so many ways, that people are involved in these different activities.
Tyler Lynde: And there's hope today because there's freedom.
Tyler Lynde: We don't have to walk according to the flesh To gratify the flesh.
Tyler Lynde: We can walk according to the Spirit of God, and that's what we believe and we want you to experience that in your life.
Tyler Lynde: So if you take your Bible and just flip it over one page we just finished Genesis, chapter 2, and you just turn the page and at the beginning of Genesis 3,.
Tyler Lynde: We don't know how much time went by between the end of Genesis 2 and the beginning of Genesis 3.
Tyler Lynde: Maybe it was hundreds of years.
Tyler Lynde: There was some extent of time that went by.
Tyler Lynde: And remember, god had given the commandment to Adam that he could eat from every tree in the garden, except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that he would eat of it, he would die.
Tyler Lynde: And so Adam explained that to Eve and they both understood we can eat every other fruit, every other tree, but this tree we're not supposed to mess with.
Tyler Lynde: And then you go to Genesis, chapter 3, verse 1,.
Tyler Lynde: Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
Tyler Lynde: He said to the woman did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
Tyler Lynde: And the woman said to the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.
Tyler Lynde: Neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
Tyler Lynde: But the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
Tyler Lynde: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
Tyler Lynde: And then the eyes of both were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Tyler Lynde: Wow, what a departure.
Tyler Lynde: What a rapid decline and departure with just one conversation with Satan, who personified and who personified himself as a serpent, one of God's creations, talking to them from this tree about the fruit that was in this tree.
Tyler Lynde: So how did Satan do it?
Tyler Lynde: How did he change their minds?
Tyler Lynde: How did he convince them of something that was a lie?
Tyler Lynde: First of all, satan sowed seeds of doubt about the word of God.
Tyler Lynde: He said did God actually say?
Tyler Lynde: Did God actually say?
Tyler Lynde: You know, a lot of times, culture today is even separating out Jesus and Paul from the Bible.
Tyler Lynde: Well, jesus didn't actually say anything in particular about that, paul did.
Tyler Lynde: But we don't like Paul, so we're going to pay attention to Jesus.
Tyler Lynde: We don't read the New, the Old Testament at all because it's got way too much stuff that that's against what I want to do and who I want to be, so I'm going to focus on the words of Jesus, not understanding the heart of Jesus behind the words that he spoke.
Tyler Lynde: Right, we cannot do that.
Tyler Lynde: That is not our place.
Tyler Lynde: But Satan will always attempt to twist the word of God, truth, in any way that he possibly can to distract us.
Tyler Lynde: Satan was kicked out of heaven by God because he said to himself I will make myself like the most high, and God said no, sir, probably didn't say sir, and he kicked him out of heaven.
Tyler Lynde: And so Satan not able to get to God.
Tyler Lynde: What's the next best thing for him?
Tyler Lynde: To try to get to God's children, adam and Eve, his creation, his children, god's children.
Tyler Lynde: Attacking them in this way was the only way that he could see to try to get back to God and unfortunately it worked, didn't it?
Tyler Lynde: He's the father of all lies.
Tyler Lynde: There is no truth found in him, and we must understand that.
Tyler Lynde: He tries to make himself like God.
Tyler Lynde: He tries to be clever.
Tyler Lynde: He's not, by the way.
Tyler Lynde: He has no creative power.
Tyler Lynde: He has no unique thought.
Tyler Lynde: All that he can do is pervert something that he sees.
Tyler Lynde: He can try to cause confusion and chaos by speaking lies, and so that's what he attempts to do.
Tyler Lynde: The Bible even says that in the end, when he's revealed to all of the nations, people will look at him and say is this the one that caused all of the chaos in the world?
Tyler Lynde: And they'll laugh at him because he's a lie.
Tyler Lynde: He's a lie.
Tyler Lynde: He's the father of all lies.
Tyler Lynde: He's real, he's very real, but all he does is speaks lies, and he loves to twist scripture more than anything else, to cause confusion and chaos.
Tyler Lynde: And so you see that in Eve and her response, did God truly say she says what God said, but then she adds to it.
Tyler Lynde: Not only did he say we shouldn't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he said we shouldn't touch it.
Tyler Lynde: God never said we shouldn't touch it, but they were adding to it, it was being added to in her thought process.
Tyler Lynde: Right, this chaos, this confusion was beginning to work and to take root in her, and Satan planted a denial of the word of God, next a denial.
Tyler Lynde: So doubt first, now denial you will not surely die.
Tyler Lynde: Wow, it's one thing to say, well, did you understand what God said.
Tyler Lynde: It's another thing to say he's lying to you.
Tyler Lynde: So the get this.
Tyler Lynde: The father of all lies is calling God, our father, a liar.
Tyler Lynde: So what's the truth?
Tyler Lynde: Who's the actual liar here?
Tyler Lynde: Satan is lying to them and saying you will not surely die.
Tyler Lynde: All of this was being used to lure Adam and Eve into the next and final steps, which is Satan then planted a delusion, a delusion opposed to the word of God, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
Tyler Lynde: So what card did he play?
Tyler Lynde: He played the victim card.
Tyler Lynde: He said you're victims of God.
Tyler Lynde: God is attempting to oppress you and to keep you from everything that you could have.
Tyler Lynde: Your fulfillment is not nearly what it could be if you would just follow my plan and my way instead of following God's plan in his order and his directives.
Tyler Lynde: So again, he's not a creator.
Tyler Lynde: There's no game that's different.
Tyler Lynde: In his game it's the same thing over and over and over again, maybe new renditions and new words and new vocabulary, but it's the same thing.
Tyler Lynde: And so here he is.
Tyler Lynde: He wants them to believe that there's something good that God doesn't want them to have.
Tyler Lynde: He's holding out.
Tyler Lynde: All they need to do to break his spell, to break this bad God's spell, is to eat of the forbidden fruit, and then all that they could ever imagine they could have in an instant they could be just like him.
Tyler Lynde: Now, if you remember from Derek's message last week, in Genesis, chapter one, he said what that mankind was, that mankind was made in the image and likeness of God.
Tyler Lynde: So who is Satan to be the determining factor on us being like God?
Tyler Lynde: God already created us in his image and likeness, and not only that, but we know that later on the story, through Jesus Christ, that God continues to make us like Jesus through sanctification, those who believe in Jesus Christ through the process of sanctification.
Tyler Lynde: So it wasn't that what he was saying was an evil thing, necessarily.
Tyler Lynde: It was the root that he was saying to take.
Tyler Lynde: It's just like when, when Satan tempted Jesus.
Tyler Lynde: Remember when he came to him and he said just bow down and worship me and I'll give you all the kingdoms that you can see of the world to be yours.
Tyler Lynde: What a liar.
Tyler Lynde: Do you think he would have done that?
Tyler Lynde: First of all, were they even his to give?
Tyler Lynde: He was like the manager at that point in time because of the sin that came in the world.
Tyler Lynde: But God already had a plan.
Tyler Lynde: I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Tyler Lynde: We're going to get to the plan that God had to bring about redemption.
Tyler Lynde: They could be like God and then guess what?
Tyler Lynde: They wouldn't need God anymore because the final stage is they would be God.
Tyler Lynde: Adam and Eve, just eat of the fruit.
Tyler Lynde: You don't need God, you can be your own God.
Tyler Lynde: To use modern day vernacular, satan was attempting to convince Adam and Eve that their patriarch, god, was oppressive and cruel and was marginalizing them and making them victims of his own evil plan to keep them from reaching their fullest potential.
Tyler Lynde: That sound familiar.
Tyler Lynde: Nothing new friends, maybe new applications or new ways of distribution, internet and instant everything, but there's nothing new under the sun.
Tyler Lynde: It's the same plan to discount God that Satan attempts to do throughout all of history.
Tyler Lynde: Unfortunately, as we know, adam and Eve gave in to the threefold temptation that all human beings face.
Tyler Lynde: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate as well.
Tyler Lynde: First John, chapter two, verse 16.
Tyler Lynde: Many of you probably know this.
Tyler Lynde: It talks about temptation that everybody faces, and there are threefold.
Tyler Lynde: There's a threefold temptation the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life.
Tyler Lynde: And here, in this one story, we have all three of the temptations that are facing Adam and Eve as they choose whether or not to give in to this, to Satan's lies.
Tyler Lynde: So, the lust of the flesh, which is.
Tyler Lynde: They looked at the fruit and saw that it was good for food.
Tyler Lynde: It looked like they wanted to eat it.
Tyler Lynde: Right, the lust of the eyes.
Tyler Lynde: It was pleasant to look at.
Tyler Lynde: It must have had a special sparkle to it or something that made it appealing.
Tyler Lynde: Just the no word, probably no, you can't eat from that was enough.
Tyler Lynde: Right, it was appealing to them, to their eyes and the pride of life.
Tyler Lynde: If they just ate of it, they would become even wiser than God himself.
Tyler Lynde: They took the fruit and ate it, and that sentence, right there, explains the root cause of all sickness, all disease, all sorrow, all suffering, all fear, all guilt, all perverseness and death that we see and face in this world that we live in.
Tyler Lynde: They took the fruit and ate it.
Tyler Lynde: What God meant to be, the beautiful union of husband and wife, was instantly perverted by sin.
Tyler Lynde: Listen to the phrase.
Tyler Lynde: The sentence is here In the eyes of both were opened.
Tyler Lynde: Adam and Eve's eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked.
Tyler Lynde: And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Tyler Lynde: Wow, can you imagine what a moment?
Tyler Lynde: Never experienced shame in whatever time that they had as created beings, never had experienced shame, never had felt the desire to hide or to pretend None of that perfect perfection.
Tyler Lynde: And yet, in this moment, as soon as they disobeyed God, the veil was torn and they recognized now that they had been duped.
Tyler Lynde: Satan, the father of all lies, lied to them.
Tyler Lynde: They believed his lie to be true and they ate the fruit.
Tyler Lynde: And since that time, every human being except one has been tainted, has been born dead to God and outside of right relationship with him, because we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Tyler Lynde: Right God shows up on the scene.
Tyler Lynde: Can you imagine?
Tyler Lynde: Is there trying to hide from him?
Tyler Lynde: How are you going to hide from God?
Tyler Lynde: How are we going to hide from God?
Tyler Lynde: They try to hide from God and God calls out to them basically what happens.
Tyler Lynde: And Adam being the brave man that he was the provider of his family, the covering says it's the woman you gave me.
Tyler Lynde: He's playing the blame game.
Tyler Lynde: It's interesting.
Tyler Lynde: He's blaming his wife, but he's actually blaming God, the woman you gave me.
Tyler Lynde: God, we were fine before she came into the scene, really, don't you remember?
Tyler Lynde: He looks at Eve and Eve blames the serpent.
Tyler Lynde: She says the devil made me do it, literally.
Tyler Lynde: Yeah, how many times have we actually said that the devil made me do it.
Tyler Lynde: Separation from God and death now inevitable.
Tyler Lynde: Was there any hope to be found?
Tyler Lynde: This is the end that Satan had in mind.
Tyler Lynde: He would have loved for the story to end with the death of Adam and Eve, but I want you to know that, as God was passing out sentencing and judgment, it was she had to do, as a righteous God and a holy God, for himself to remain pure and holy and just.
Tyler Lynde: He had to punish the sin that was committed.
Tyler Lynde: And so, as he was giving those punishments out to Adam and to Eve, he also turned to the serpent and he said to the serpent something that gave hope to even to Adam and Eve, in the very moment that they had gotten busted for committing the greatest crime in all of history.
Tyler Lynde: He said of himself I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.
Tyler Lynde: He shall crush your head once.
Tyler Lynde: Translation says or he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
Tyler Lynde: I don't even know that God was not surprised by what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Tyler Lynde: It's not like they had an emergency session of the Trinity to determine what in the world they're going to do now.
Tyler Lynde: They had a plan, before the foundation of the world, of how this was going to play out and how redemption was going to be found.
Tyler Lynde: And I'm telling you, jesus Christ himself is the hope of the world and for any of us to experience health and life in any area of our lives.
Tyler Lynde: The only way that we can do that is to be in right relationship with him.
Tyler Lynde: So I encourage you today if you don't yet know Jesus Christ, if you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, if you've not submitted your life to him, do it today.
Tyler Lynde: Choose today to follow after him, call out to him, ask him for help and for the rest of us, jesus is the promised hope of redemption, who came to overturn Satan's plan to steal, kill and destroy by making a way for us, through faith in him, to be restored to right relationship with God.
Tyler Lynde: That, my friends, is the good news about every area of life, but especially as we talk today about human sexuality.
Tyler Lynde: Now I left you with the beginning of my story, but I wanted to give you the rest of the story.
Tyler Lynde: So I met a young lady named Amy French, and as I met her my heart jumped on the inside because I had given up any thought of ever being married.
Tyler Lynde: I was a part of the group called the Bachelor's to the Rapture.
Tyler Lynde: I don't know if you ever knew about that.
Tyler Lynde: I had put myself in that category because I could not trust myself to make wise decisions when it came to relationships.
Tyler Lynde: So God brought this young lady a year later into my life, and the first time I met her, god was so gracious to tell me in my heart you're going to marry her.
Tyler Lynde: But then I'm thinking what about all this stuff?
Tyler Lynde: What about all the years of living a lie in different aspects of my life?
Tyler Lynde: Because now, if I'm to be real with her and to be honest with her, I'm going to have to tell her how I've chosen to live my life in every area, and especially in the area of sexuality.
Tyler Lynde: And so we sit down together and we pour out with each other the backstory of our lives and, to be honest with you, one of the greatest areas of healing that ever happened to me was when she heard me tell her about the things that I had done and been a part of and the things that had been done to me, and she looked at me and said I love you, in spite of the love of Jesus manifest in her and through her to me, was part of the healing that God gave me.
Tyler Lynde: The other thing that happened is that a little bit later on, the Lord began to deal with my heart about what had happened to me when I was a child.
Tyler Lynde: And it's interesting because that person that did that to me probably had no idea how much that cost me in my life, how difficult it was for me to just live in a Christian home with a pastor as a dad and around all of these Christian people who were talking about sin as being evil and not evil, but sinful and wrong.
Tyler Lynde: And yet I had had these things experienced.
Tyler Lynde: That I had experienced and that I must have allowed happen to me.
Tyler Lynde: Somehow it was my fault, and for the Lord to preciously help me to understand that really I was the one who needed to forgive.
Tyler Lynde: How in the world do you forgive somebody that has done something so wrong to you?
Tyler Lynde: You know, what I recognized is that I was in a prison of unforgiveness and because of that I wasn't able to fully understand the love of the Father for me or to express that love fully toward other people, even to my wife the way that she deserved, and so I chose, through, by God's grace, to forgive this young man.
Tyler Lynde: You know what the Lord said to me.
Tyler Lynde: He said he was doing what was done to him.
Tyler Lynde: Does that make it right?
Tyler Lynde: Absolutely not, but it gave me just a little bit of compassion and understanding that maybe this young man, who didn't have Jesus, who didn't have a family that cared about him in the same way that my family cared about me, that he'd gone through something very traumatic himself and was just expressing that because he thought that this was what was normal.
Tyler Lynde: I went back to Wyoming with my young family a few years later and I drove down that street.
Tyler Lynde: For the first time since it happened to me, I was able to breathe as I drove by that house and I could say to my family this is where I lived, without even mentioning the trauma that had happened to me on that street.
Tyler Lynde: This is where I lived, this was a part of my childhood, and that's when I knew that the work that God was doing in me was getting to the point to where I'd be able to help other people with my story, and that's why I'm sharing it with you today, not so that you can say, well, tyler has all the answers, or he's figured it all out Absolutely not.
Tyler Lynde: But so that you understand that God turns everything around for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
Tyler Lynde: If you are a child of God, there's nothing in your life that he can't turn around and use it for his glory and for his purpose and for his kingdom.
Tyler Lynde: And so I'm going to close today just by praying for all of us.
Tyler Lynde: I'm going to ask the prayer team to come in just a minute, and you might find yourself in a few different categories, and next week we'll spend more time talking about what culture says, what God says and how could we talk about it.
Tyler Lynde: But I really felt like it was important for us to lay this foundation out so that we really understand that we're not defending something we feel.
Tyler Lynde: We're not defending something that's been passed down from generation to generation from our families.
Tyler Lynde: We're standing for truth that was intended and directed and established by God himself, the maker of heaven and earth, and if it's his truth, it's worth standing for.
Tyler Lynde: Amen, I'm going to pray for you.
Tyler Lynde: Maybe you find yourself in a category, like I was, where you have some form of hurt that's come into your life in the area of sexuality.
Tyler Lynde: I want you to know that just because I chose to forgive the young man that did that to me, it does not mean that what he did was right.
Tyler Lynde: It was wrong.
Tyler Lynde: It was very wrong Not saying, when you forgive somebody, that the sinful behavior was right.
Tyler Lynde: You're saying that in spite of the behavior I choose to forgive and then let go, I'm going to ask for you to have the ability to forgive and to be healed.
Tyler Lynde: I'm also going to tell you that there are a lot of people, including within our elder team, who would love to sit with you and talk about these things.
Tyler Lynde: There are ladies within our church who are spiritually mature.
Tyler Lynde: If you're a lady and you'd like to sit and talk with somebody about something that's happened in your life, there are also Christian counselors that are professionals that do this all of the time that we can either refer you to or you can find those on your own.
Tyler Lynde: Maybe you know somebody already.
Tyler Lynde: Talk to somebody.
Tyler Lynde: The second thing is there may be some in this room that were actually the perpetrators, those who actually harmed other people in one way or another.
Tyler Lynde: I want you to say that if you will repent, acknowledge the sin and ask Jesus to forgive you and cleanse you, that the same grace that was available to me as the victim is available to you as well.
Tyler Lynde: The Bible says Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery go and sin no more.
Tyler Lynde: Today can be a day of new beginnings and a fresh start where that kind of life and that kind of activity in your life, or even in your mind, no longer has power over you.
Tyler Lynde: Third category maybe you find yourself in a marriage where sexuality, your sexual relationship, is not good, it's not healthy.
Tyler Lynde: Maybe one person is using it as a weapon.
Tyler Lynde: They're only allowing you to, they're only having sex with you occasionally.
Tyler Lynde: If you perform a certain way during the week, or whatever the case is, maybe that's one thing that's happening.
Tyler Lynde: Maybe you're actually something that your partner's doing is hurting you, and they don't even know that it's hurting you.
Tyler Lynde: You've got to be able to be honest and open with each other.
Tyler Lynde: God intended for this area to be something that you mutually could enjoy.
Tyler Lynde: The only way for that to happen is if you're honest and real with each other.
Tyler Lynde: So I'm gonna pray for you that you will be able to.
Tyler Lynde: That God will mend and heal any area in your life and marriage that keeps you from enjoying this precious gift that God's given, okay.
Tyler Lynde: And then also, if you are not married, you're either too young to be married or you are single, you're a widow or widower, or you just have never been married and don't have a desire to be married.
Tyler Lynde: I have good news for you.
Tyler Lynde: Jesus Christ himself, and having a right relationship with him, can be the most fulfillment that you can ever experience in this life or the life to come.
Tyler Lynde: And so, even if you're not married, your relationship with God and with Christ can be so pure and so holy and so fulfilling that you don't even have a desire to be involved with sex.
Tyler Lynde: You don't have a desire to have sex?
Tyler Lynde: Okay, god can do that.
Tyler Lynde: He can give you the grace for that.
Tyler Lynde: All right, so we'll also be praying for that.
Tyler Lynde: I'm sure there are other categories that I'm forgetting or missing, but those are the ones that I really wanted to address this morning.
Tyler Lynde: So let's go to the Lord together today.
Tyler Lynde: This is a very serious thing, especially for people who have experienced these types of things, and so I'm gonna ask if you're not in any of these categories and you're doing great, awesome.
Tyler Lynde: Pray for somebody else, pray for somebody in your family that you know that might be confused about sexuality.
Tyler Lynde: I guarantee you, 90% or more of people who find themselves in that choice, that life choice, have some form of abuse in their background.
Tyler Lynde: That's a fact.
Tyler Lynde: So let's pray together.
Tyler Lynde: Amen.
Tyler Lynde: Lord, I thank you for this day.
Tyler Lynde: I thank you for the privilege of standing before these people and declaring your word, telling the story of how you've worked in my life in this particular area.
Tyler Lynde: And, lord, I just ask now for those who have been victimized, who have been taken advantage of by other people, maybe people that they really trusted, their family members, people around them.
Tyler Lynde: I ask, lord God, that you would pour your healing balm, the healing balm of Gilead, in their lives, touching and healing them, lord God, from all wounds, from every trauma, lord God, and also that you would grant the grace to be able to forgive, to let go of the hurt and to begin to experience life in every area, and especially in this area, the way that you intend for it to be experienced.
Tyler Lynde: And, lord, I also pray for those who may find themselves in the place of being the victimizers, the abusers.
Tyler Lynde: Lord, would you grant repentance, would you give, lord God, a new start, a new beginning?
Tyler Lynde: Would you convict and change and transform in such a way that the old has passed away and all things have become brand new?
Tyler Lynde: I pray for marriages now that are dealing with difficulty in maybe different areas, but especially in the area of sex.
Tyler Lynde: Lord, I pray that you would bring healing.
Tyler Lynde: I pray that they'd be able to be open and honest with each other, that they would have selfless love and self-sacrificing love that expresses itself in every way.
Tyler Lynde: And, lord, I also pray for those who are single, either those that are single because they're not yet ready to be married.
Tyler Lynde: I ask that you give them self-control, Father, that you would protect them from the lies of the enemy and from the plans that he tries to exercise against them to confuse them, to create chaos, to give them definitions and explanations from the world around them instead of from the word of God or from their families.
Tyler Lynde: I pray, lord God, that you would bring about that you would put a hedge of protection around our young people, and even the youngest among us.
Tyler Lynde: Lord God, preserve them and protect them from any harm that the enemy could ever do to them, and just thank you and praise you, father.
Tyler Lynde: I also ask, lord, that those who are not yet saved, that you would bring them to a point of salvation right now, in the name of Jesus, help them to put their hope and trust and confidence in the living God who loves and gives and who is faithful in every way.
Tyler Lynde: In Jesus' name, amen, I just wanna say to you for the last 30 years of my life in our marriage, amy and I have enjoyed a special relationship with each other, based on the fact that God has healed us and restored us and brought us together to be husband and wife, and I am so grateful for a partner like her and for the love that we share.
Tyler Lynde: And my hope for each of you is that you can either experience that for yourself again in your marriage if you're not experiencing it now or that God would bring you somebody in the right time that would be that person for you, because, man, it's an amazing thing to live life as God intended in every area, but especially in this aspect of life.