Origins: A Garden, A Kingdom, A Choice - Week 5: May 24, 2026

Pastor Nate Rovenstine

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning, everyone. Um, I would like to invite everyone to join in the congregational prayer. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, you are God. We praise you because you are holy, and we thank you for dwelling in our hearts. Thank you for walking our lives. You guided us into salvation, renewed our dead spirits, and you opened our eyes to the truth of God in Christ Jesus. Thank you. Help us to see you more clearly, to recognize your movement and activity and leadership in our lives. Make us more sensitive to you as we can follow you more closely. We recognize that we can be so selfish and rebellious. We need you to help us to be obedient. We need you to lead and guide us every single day. We ask you for your help and comfort today. You know our pain and anxieties very well. Thank you for praying over us, for bringing our needs before the Father. Help us to rest in your comfort today. Spirit of God, grow good fruits in our lives. You are the one who produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in our lives. We cannot leave out these things on our own. We need you. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for your presence and your power. We pray all of these in the name of Jesus, the Son. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Well, good morning. Hey, uh I want to start. My name is Nate, by the way. I want to start by thanking our tech team back there. We don't do it enough, they're awesome. And I know the online folks appreciate that. I also want to say to our tech team, Hayden, I will stand here. Now, if you were here last week, you know why that was important to say. Uh DJ did not stand here. He was all over the place. Wasn't that fantastic last week with our with my friend DJ Dangerfield? Which I love his preaching, I love his person, and I love his name. You know, I think he should, I don't know if he's ever done any DJing, but that's I mean, DJ Dangerfield, that is a perfect, perfect name. What a great, what a great man of God. It's one of the great things I love about Connect Church is there's so many different voices that speak in so many different styles. And um I'm just privileged to be a part of that. And so uh last week I was at Janet and I uh were and along with Jamie and Barb, who are staying in Indiana today to visit family. We were in Indiana at our general conference for our denomination. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time talking about that except to say it was a fantastic week. I've been to seven of the general conferences that we've had over the years as a delegate, and but this was by far the best one. Um, our new general superintendent, Dr. Jim Dunn, has actually speak spoken here before. Uh maybe we'll get him up here sometime again, good friend of mine, and uh I'm just I'm just excited to do that. I'm also excited to be back, and I'm looking forward to, I know John talked about the 90th birthday celebration. Some of you weren't in here, let's remind you, one service that Sunday, two weeks from today. We're gonna be outside, bring your lawn chairs, pray for good weather. Uh, we'll figure it out if it's raining, but come anyway. We're gonna have food, we're gonna have a great time celebrating on our 90th birthday for a little bit, and then looking forward to what it looks like for our church to be a hundred years old. And so we're gonna care, uh, cast some vision around that. We're excited about that. So, one of the things we talk about around here is that too often, and this goes a little bit to this after-party conversation, but too often we approach contemporary topics through the lens of our preferred ideology. This is human nature, um, but this is what we often do. And so here, connect, we've been we've been asking the question what would it look like to look at contemporary issues through the lens of Jesus and the gospel and the scriptures? And so in January, you might recall, we did a series from the book of Genesis, thinking that that that's the place to start in forming this viewpoint through which we look at contemporary issues that would help us move from our preferred ideologies to the redemptive story of Jesus. So we we asked that question in January, in early February. Some of you remember that series. But it snowed during that time, you might remember. And so we thought because we're kind of between series right here for a couple of weeks before we start our new series on the church after our birthday party, we thought it might be helpful to go back and revisit that. The reason we want to do that is because I already prepared a sermon and I just thought you needed to hear it. It's actually changed a little bit since I prepared it. But I'm gonna read, if it's okay with you, a lot of scripture today. Some of it will be on the screen, some of it won't. If you want to find any of the scripture I'm reading, it's all in Genesis 1, 2, and 3. Again, some of those will be on the screen and some won't. Um, Paul encouraged the early church not to neglect the reading, the public reading of scripture. So, embedded in my sermon today will be a lot of public reading of scripture. Is that okay with you? Good, because I'm gonna do it either way. All right. So I'm gonna start in Genesis 1, 26 and 27, and actually portions of this verse will come back later in the sermon. Listen to what God said. God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. And God blessed him and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish and the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. And so we use that as our core passage in the January series, kind of reframing that for those that were here and introducing it for those that weren't. And in that passage, we found four key principles, key issues that have both ancient and contemporary application. We looked at the sanctity of human life. We talked about how this verse uh talks about the sanctity, can you pop that slide up? Talks about the sanctity of human life. We talked about the splendor of creation. John did a great job of reminding us of the beauty of creation in the whole Genesis account. Among everything else that's going on is this beautiful picture of creation and our responsibility for it. We talked about the satisfaction of productivity. If you remember, we reminded you that work was not a result of sin. We were created to create. We were created to produce. We are created to make things butter. And we talked about the value of that. And then in that passage was also the beauty of sexual equality. That's the one, that's the day it snowed. So we're gonna talk about sex, sexuality, and sexual equality today. It's gonna be okay. Everybody else talks about it, the church should talk about it. Because I think in these verses, lays the groundwork for the ideology we should embrace as we approach this issue. Now, let me tell you something. I'm not gonna touch on every subject that you want me to touch on. I'm not gonna touch on any subject. You might you might have questions about why didn't I address this or that? It's obviously a huge topic, but I think there's a little exegetical key that I think is helpful for us to understand how to frame all of our conversations around sexuality, sex, and sexual equality. All right, so we're gonna get to that. So that's the beauty of Genesis 1 and 2. That's how it should be. That's how God created it as image bearers. He said, this is how life should be. But we all know that the beautiful truth of Genesis 1 and 2 was shattered by the seductive lies of Genesis 3, the lies of the enemy. Genesis 3, 1. Now, the serpent approaching Eve, and again, there's all kinds of backstory to this, but but you'll catch the gist of it. The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. And one day he asked the woman, Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden? Of course we may eat from the fruit of the trees in the garden, the woman replied. And God said, You must not eat it or even touch it. If you do, you will die. You won't die, the serpent said to the woman. God knows that your eyes will be opened, and as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it, and she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it too. At that moment their eyes were opened, and they were suddenly, and suddenly they felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. So we have the four beautiful truths in Genesis 1 and 2, and then the throre seductive lies in Genesis 3. The four seductive lies can be summarized this, and we looked at this in the series. Did God really say? That's what that's what that was the first lie. Did God really say? This is questioning God's truthfulness. God might be wrong, the serpent was suggesting to Eve. This this this, if you were to put maybe a philosophical framework around that, but skepticism, God might be wrong. You will not die was the second lie. God can't be trusted. How can you you're not gonna die? God says you're gonna, you're not gonna die. This this may be, generally speaking, kind of what agnosticism. We can't really know that God proclaims truth that we can base our lives on. He may be, but we can't know. The third lie was, you will be like God. I like the way the version I read, New Living Translation, said, um, Eve wanted this wisdom. She wanted this knowledge. We all want this knowledge to be like God, to control what's right and wrong, to determine it ourselves. And this is this is the Satan's way of saying God's not sovereign, he's not in total control. God exists, he's there, but you're the one that really ultimately gets to decide what your life looks like. God's not in control. You're the one who decides. This is a devastating lie. And the last one is this will satisfy. This fruit looks good. Uh the Bible, did you catch it? She saw that it was good and she wanted it. Pleasure as the highest good. Desire. This philosophical idea here is hedonism, and at the core of that is that God's not enough. I need something else. I need something else to give me pleasure. And so today we're gonna come back to that issue of sexual equality. But again, there's the four truths that we've already talked about. We've talked about three of them. We're gonna talk about this beauty of sexual equality, and we're gonna we're gonna think about it in terms of these lies that Satan has perpetuated in our culture with Adam and Eve. So back to Genesis 127. This will be on the screen. We're zeroing in now on the conversation. And so God created human beings in his own image, and the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. So here's this piece where the specific issue of sexual equality comes into play and frames the conversation. Also in Genesis 2, which is the same story written with a different purpose. Uh, we get even more depth to what is being said here. So Genesis 2, I haven't read this yet. This is new this morning to this sermon. Then the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him. So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. And while the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib and brought her to the man. At last the man said, This one is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. She will be called woman, because she was taken from man. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. The man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. There's a lot there to unpack, isn't there? There's a lot there to unpack. And when we did the series, we zeroed on this idea that regardless of the variety of views one might have on what is going on in the book of Genesis. And I'm not going to get into that discussion today because it's not the point. The point is what is being said here theologically matters the most. All right. And so there is this beautiful idea that man was alone, man and man and man needed someone to come along as a companion, an equal partner, and God creates Eve. And when I if I were to if I were to frame what is being said, particularly in Genesis 2, this last passage I read, I would think that I think that God is describing a relationship between a man and a woman as a relationship full of complete vulnerability, deep intimacy, and perfect teamwork. That's my words to capture what I think is being said, again theologically, in Genesis chapter 2. Complete vulnerability, no shame. Deep intimacy, flesh of my flesh, and perfect teamwork. This idea of taking care of the garden. And so as we think about the issue of sexuality and sex and gender roles and all the other things that could be put into this big cauldron of conversation, this is what unlocked in my brain a little bit, and hopefully it's helpful to you. Because I think sometimes we approach this conversation about what does God allow? What does God want? What's God's plan? And I think we we think about purity and what it should look like, and all those are important conversations, by the way. But I think we need to start this conversation with the idea that sexual equality, the sexual equality intended by Genesis, if we find that, we will find sexual purity, pleasure, and bonding through that act. I think sometimes we approach it from our own personal things, but I think Jesus, God is saying, listen, I want you to understand what it means to be flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones. And we're gonna we're gonna unpack that a little bit together today. And I know this is a huge topic in the church. There's a variety of opinions on how this all plays out. And I just there's so there's a resource. I, you know, the staff does a lot of the planning of the service. I didn't ask anybody, so they might fire me this week. I'm gonna be on vacation, they can't fire me. As you go out these lobbies, there's a little paper that I actually picked up at General Conference about, it's called uh Men, Women, and Biblical Equality. Just give some theological understanding of that throughout scripture. I'd encourage you to pick it up. So, sexual equality was what we're gonna center this conversation on. But remember, the beautiful truth of Genesis 1 and 2 was devastated by the lies, the deceptive lies of Genesis 3. So let's go to Genesis 3, all right? If vulnerability, intimacy, and teamwork are what God intended, what happened in Genesis 3? Well, in place of vulnerability, sin brought shame. What a powerful word. What a devastating concept. How much damage shame has done. And we see it right out of the gate in Genesis 3, verse 7. At that moment, their eyes were opened and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. I wonder how much of the sexual brokenness in our lives and in our culture comes from a place of shame. Instead of vulnerability, this desire to believe, this, this, this, this believing of the lies of Satan, which was not just unique to Adam and Eve, all of us have believed those lies, introduces idea of shame. Instead of vulnerability, shame. In place of intimacy, sin brought blame. Blame. So they eat the apple. It's not an apple. I don't know. What was it? A pear. I don't I don't know what's a fruit. They ate the fruit. And all of a sudden, blame came into me. Flesh of my flesh, maybe, but you're the one that gave me the fruit. Bone of my bone, maybe, but Satan's the one that made me do it. All of a sudden, blame. Who told you that you were naked? The Lord God said, Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to? The man replied, It was the woman you gave me, who you who you gave me, who gave me the fruit. Actually, he goes right to the top. Adam does, he blames God. Just now saw that. Then the Lord God asked the woman, What have you done? So, in place of complete vulnerability, shame and in the place of intimacy, blame. And when blame enters a relationship, and by the way, this applies to all kinds of relationships parents, children, co-workers, friends, family, marriages, all of it. But when you start blaming one another, that intimacy has a wall that's hard to get. You know, it just pushes you apart. And then in place of teamwork, sin brought power dynamics, which is a more modern phrase, which I actually like, that helps frame some of what happens in relationships. You understand what power dynamics are, right? They the the how influence, control, and decision making and emotional leverage are used between people. So every relationship has a power dynamic of some kind. You know what it's like, but you know what power dynamics are. We can walk into a room where you're not sure you feel fit there. That's a power dynamic reality. So there's there's always these issues in human relationships. Who's the influential one? Who who's controlling this conversation? All that. And and for many of those, it's just very minor, it's not a big deal. The clerk at the checkout stand, whatever. But in in relationships, this becomes the point of contention. In Genesis 3.16, listen to this. Listen to the power dynamics right out of the gate. This is when God brought about the curses as a result of sin. Then he said to the woman, I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. Now catch this line. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you. Power dynamics in play right out of the gate. Both the husband attempting to rule over his wife, which is not how God intended, and the woman trying to control her hus her husband, or Adam trying to control Eve and Eve, and you know, it's it's it'll play right at the beginning. All of a sudden, what should have been teamwork becomes competition, control. Now, here's the good news. Healthy relationships manage power dynamics well. This is a big part of growing up, by the way. Big part of maturity is this understanding I don't always have to be in control, I don't always have to get my way. Like, I understand that there's all kinds of tools, important tools, to help us manage the power dynamics in relationships. But here's the point I want to make. The fact that we have to have tools to manage power dynamics in the first place illustrates the sin that created the power dynamics in the first place. Does that make sense? Even if we do it well, the idea that we have to do it is not how God intended it to be. There was this bone of bone, flesh of flesh, teamwork, Adam and Eve tending the garden. And once they chose to believe the lies of Satan, there was this lack of intimacy, there was this blame, and there are these power dynamics. So when you read the Old Testament, when you read the Old Testament, understand that it unfolds in the context of all of this. You'll read some wonderful. Wild stuff in the Old Testament. And it's a really dangerous thing to say, oh, I'm going to read that and apply it directly to my life. We have to understand that God was preparing for something different. And so when you read the Old Testament, just understand that's all in place. And then Jesus comes. Yay! Y'all said amen for DJ once in a while. Let me try that again. And then Jesus comes. That's good. All right. And the Pharisees came to Jesus in Matthew 19 and they tried to trap him with this question: Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason? Which is a strange question to ask, but not really. Because I heard recently, actually general conference, that the greatest signs of religion is that religion makes simple things complicated. That's a great definition of religion. And if that's true, the Pharisees were very religious. By the time the New Testament comes along, and we're living in this broken sexual equality world, the Pharisees had manipulated the teachings on divorce in such a convoluted and complicated way that they would spend hours debating verses like Deuteronomy 24.1 that says, Suppose a man marries a woman but she does not please him. Having discovered something wrong with her, he writes a document of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house. That's in the Bible, Genesis 24.1. Again, written to a world that was under these broken power dynamics, this broken relationship, but a law that would help protect women. So we're going to come back to how that protects women in a moment. But when you read in the Old Testament, notice it was always the man who divorced his wife, not the other way around. The man who blamed the woman, the woman who lived with shame, and the men who clearly controlled the power dynamics. Why? Because God intended it that way? No, because that's part of the brokenness that happened in Genesis chapter 3. And God brought laws around that brokenness to protect people to some degree until Jesus could come to undo what Genesis 3 did. In fact, at the time of Jesus, there were three schools of thought. Listen to how convoluted, how messed up, and how complicated the Pharisees made this. There were three schools of thought of what it means that you could put away your wife because she did not please him, right? That's the phrase. The school of Shemai said that means immorality. When your spouse has been immoral, you can put her away. Again, it was never he that was put away, but she that was put away. It's broken. The school of Halel says anything that proved displeasing. So there's a group of rabbis in Jesus' time that were saying, look, if your wife does something that doesn't please you, you can send her away. You can divorce her. The rabbi Akabi, a little bit later, but not long after the time of Jesus, went even farther. If you find a more pleasing wife, then you can divorce your current wife. You can write a certificate of divorce and you're free. Now, we kind of groan at those things, but when I think about the reasons people get divorced, some of those sound familiar to me. The human nature hasn't changed a whole lot, perhaps. So when asked the question by these religious leaders, here's what Jesus answered. He said, Haven't you read the scriptures? They record that from the beginning God made them male and female. And he said, This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united in one. Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together. Jesus doesn't go to their debate. He says, When marriage happens, something new is created. This is what I like to tell couples when I'm counseling. This is not you bringing your own stuff together and you know, kind of this is a brand new thing. You're creating something that's never existed before. Something completely new. You're not just here to share commonalities, you're here as marriage creates something new. So Jesus takes it back to God's simple intent for marriage. One man, one woman, one lifetime, an entirely new reality, marked by vulnerability, intimacy, and teamwork. And Jesus says this is what God intended it to be. This sexual equality, found in that kind of relationships, for sure, expresses itself in sexual union. And that sexual union illustrates the equality and strengthens the equality. That's what sex is for. It bonds us together to that which we have already committed ourselves to. So it both illustrates it and strengthens this idea of equality. And anytime shame or blame or competition comes into a marriage, particularly into a sexual relationship, it makes it harder. But the Pharisees were not content with Jesus' answer. His very simple, clear answer. So they had a follow-up question for Jesus. One intended to trap him and draw him into a complicated world of religion. But Jesus did not take the bait. And now, here's the text of the morning. Finally, Matthew 19. Then why did God say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away? That actually seems like a fair question. Jesus replied, Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts. Here's the phrase that jumps off the page to me, but it was not what God had originally intended. And I tell you this: whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery unless his wife has been unfaithful. You see, in the shame, blame, power dynamic culture of a broken world, a man could divorce his wife simply by saying, I'm done with you. But the law, this law written in Deuteronomy chapter 24, that this whole debate was based on, this law was a way to provide some protection for women, that there has to be a written certificate, which allowed the chance. The idea with the law was it would maybe, instead of just saying, I divorced you and you're gone, he has to have a written certificate that gets certified by somebody, and hopefully in that cooling-off period, there would be a recognition that by sending your wife off in that culture, that broken, broken, broken culture, your wife was now without a source of income. There was not a job. She was going to be destitute and at the at the whim and whimsy of any man that would come into her life. And that's, I know that's not good. That's just how it was because of the deceptive lies believed in Genesis 3. And so this law in Deuteronomy 24 was a bit of a hedge against that. Again, the laws were written, not as way things should be, but how to protect one another in a broken world. But Jesus says, I'm not going to talk about that law. I'm going to remind you that that law was written because of the hardness of your heart. Jesus said, This is not what God originally intended. Now, that kind of leaves us hopeless if we stop there. You said the world's broken by sin. Sexuality is broken in so many ways. Equality between all the stuff, all the issues you're thinking of right now that I could address specifically with his principle. This is not how God originally intended it to be. But you know what? Jesus knew that. And that's why he came. That's why he came. That's why he died. That's why he rose again. That's why he taught us a new law of love instead of a law of creating barriers to protect people from sin. That's why he rose from the dead. That's why, as Clement said in his prayer, he sits at the right hand of God, the Father, interceding for us in our brokenness. That's why he sent his Holy Spirit on this Pentecost Sunday. To bring healing and hope and forgiveness and transformation. And that's why that Holy Spirit also convicts us in ways that sometimes are uncomfortable. Not because he doesn't love us. But he says, I want you to understand how it was intended to be. And I want to empower you to a growing degree to live in the reality of how it I intended it to be. And I've resourced you with the gospel in the spirit. Does this make sense? That this is why Jesus came. And so when we touch these difficult subjects, it's easy to start forming opinions and camps and you know, debates or whatever. But what I want to say is, what if we embraced this idea that Jesus came more and more to make it how it was intended to be? So that may be a way to sum up what I'm saying today is this phrase. In Jesus, God's original intent becomes a growing reality of our lives. Vulnerable, intimate teamwork is God's original intent for marriage, sexual equality and sexuality, and through the power of the gospel, this reality becomes increasingly possible. Can I make a suggestion, though? Just like Satan was lying to Adam and Eve, we're being lied to. To quote Body the Elf, to fake Santa? You disgust me. How can you live with yourself? You sit on a throne of lies, you're a fake, you stink, you smell like beef and cheese. We're being lied to, friends. We're being lied to in so many ways. We're being told that God might be wrong, that God can't be trusted, that God is not sovereign, that God is enough, is not that God is not enough. And here's what I don't want you to do. I don't want you to leave today here saying, I'm gonna try harder. I'm gonna try harder. I'm just gonna try harder to get this right. Here's three steps I'd like you to think about. This is how you enter a relationship with Jesus, by the way. And I I uh I would encourage you to understand that the gospel is as simple as responding this way. Confess. Just just say, I'm broken. I believe the lies, whatever those might be. And this is such a difficult sermon to preach because there's such a wide variety of applications. That's why I'm trusted with the Holy Spirit to do what I cannot do and apply this to your situation. And then repent. Which is this big scary word that is the most beautiful word in all of scripture in my in many ways in my mind. It just means I'm turning from my way to yours. I I'm I'm you know, and we we talk, I I can't I kind of think I had a long time in my life that repentance is turning away from sin and then but when you turn away from sin, the the real question is what do you turn to? Because you can repent and turn to self-sufficiency or to a different philosophy, right? But when you repent and turn to Jesus, he's not there condemning you, he's not there shaming you, he's not there blaming you. He says, I want to come inside and I want to work alongside you, and I want to restore you, whatever that restoration looks like. Maybe your sexual brokenness is because you're a victim of others' control issues or power dynamics, or maybe it's because of things, or whatever. Maybe it's just things you're trying to sort out in your mind about how you're dealing with life, what you're feeling inside, how you think about some of these issues, some of the voices you're hearing. I'm not here to tell you what to do with all of that except to say, listen to the Holy Spirit, and open your eyes to the idea that the God who started it all understood that that's now how it was supposed to be, and is saying, I have a plan that if you'll trust me, we can walk in newness of life and then receive. This is the beautiful part of the gospel, receive. Receive the truth about Jesus, receive the authority of Jesus, which means I'm gonna walk as best I can in obedience, but mostly receive the forgiveness of Jesus. I love the words of Jesus when he said back to the Pharisees. That's not how it's supposed to be, but more so I love the gospel that says it can be like this. Holy Spirit, there's some deep stuff happening in this room, I just sense it. This is a difficult subject, but it's also a beautiful subject. In our marriages, in our relationships, and how we treat others. Lord, help us to see that we're being lied to in so many ways. Help us to believe the truth that this is not how it's supposed to be. But more so help us embrace the reality of the power of the gospel of Jesus and the power of the Spirit within us that can make things to an increasing measure, never fully in this life, we understand that, but to an increasing measure how it should be. By your power and in your name we pray. Amen.