Who is your god?

Leviticus 18

In the Sermon on the Mount, the most famous sermon in history, the Lord Jesus went up the mountain, taught his disciples with absolute sovereign authority said,

Matthew 6:24,

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve a on a God and money. 

Money reveals the master. The checkbook exposes our loves. How we use money doesn’t create our worship, but merely declares what we value the most. On the mountain, Jesus says you have to choose. Who will be your God? For you can’t have more than one. No one can serve two masters. 

In Leviticus 18, begins and ends the same way, not with a choice but a declaration, “I am the LORD.”  Moses begins in verse 2, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, “I am the LORD your God,” and ends in verse 30, “I am the LORD your God.” The rationale for all of the Lord’s commands are rooted in our relationship with him. When God speaks to Israel, his chosen people, the people of his own possession, the people of his heart, the people he rescued from bondage to slavery, the people whom he delivered from death, declares, “I am the LORD your God.” “I am the LORD your God.” 

In the most famous sermon of history, the Lord Jesus declares, “You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and money.” In Leviticus 18, one of the most famous sermons of Israel, Moses declares, “You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and sex.” How we spend our money and how we spend our bodies are not normal dinner conversations, but both of them spotlight our greatest love. Both of them expose the desires of the heart. Both of them answer the question, “Who is your God?” 

Friend, this morning,  I want you to seriously consider the ramifications of that question and want you to answer honestly, “Who is your God?” And by answering, I am not merely hoping you say the right thing but that you live the right way. For you cannot serve two masters, you must choose. 

Leviticus 18 formally begins the holiness code of Leviticus outlining the holy commandments required from God’s people. The rationale is given throughout the section and is given in the opening verses of this chapter,

Leviticus 18:1–5,

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the LORD your God. 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. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the LORD your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD. 

Let’s pause after verse 2 and consider how Israel may have heard those words in context. “I am the LORD your God.” The Creator of the World, the most Supreme Authority, the most powerful in all the world, declares, I am the LORD your God. You who were once slaves to sin, unclean, unholy, unable to enter God’s presence says, “I have chosen Israel to be my special possession. I have set my love upon you for I have made atonement for your sins. I have provided a way for you to enter God’s presence and be with him.” God declares to a sinful, unclean people, you belong to me. Not in a, “You belong to me so you better or else,” but rather, “Since you belong to me  this is how you must live.

The LORD distinguishes Israel from Egypt, from where they were, and from Canaan, from where they are going. Israel cannot be defined by where they live but who they serve. God’s people can never be defined by the culture around them. For we live in the world but are not of the world. For when we become Christians, part of the church, the ekklesia, the called out ones,” we now live by God’s standards not the worlds. 

Egypt and Canaan had their one sexual ethic. And some of the commands laid out in this chapter define some of the sexual practices of both Egypt and Canaan. Two cultures who were defined by pleasure and unhindered desire. Verses 6-23 is the body of the chapter and it is not difficult to understand. Let me read this section and make a few comments along the way.

Leviticus 18:6–23,

“None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. 

To uncover nakedness is a euphemism for sex. 

I am the LORD. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness. 

Notice how the nakedness of a husband is his wife’s and the nakedness of a wife’s is her husband. They would have known Genesis 2:24-25, 

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. 

Sexual union was only to be expressed in marriage between a husband and a wife. It was given for procreation, for pleasure and as a sign of covenant faithfulness and oneness. The husband and wife were made to fit together and become one flesh. The exclusive one flesh union of a husband and a wife consummated and defined their relationship. This is why the nakedness of a husband belongs to his wife and the nakedness of a wife belongs to her husband.

Therefore, uncovering the nakedness of a wife or a husband outside of the marriage relationship is strictly prohibited. Verse 9 and following prohibit all from of incestual sexual relationships, 

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son’s daughter or of your daughter’s daughter, for their nakedness is your own nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter, brought up in your father’s family, since she is your sister. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is your father’s relative. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is your mother’s relative. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother, that is, you shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law; she is your son’s wife, you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter, and you shall not take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter to uncover her nakedness; they are relatives; it is depravity. And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive.

These commands seem reasonable to us, but remember for Israel living in Egypt and going to Canaan, these practices were normal. There is a reason the Lord had to speak against them and highlight these commands. They are not difficult to understand. The Lord is clear with his commands. And the first paragraph outlining incestual sexual relations even our culture would define that behavior as depravity. Since our culture has been historically rooted in a Judeo-Christian ethic, sleeping with a family member has always been wrong.

And even though that has always been the case, the farther our culture drifts from its historical roots, more and more vile practices like these will not only be done, but encouraged and celebrated. Sin is blinding. It distorts reality. And sexual sin, the sins laid out in verses 6-18, sexual sin among family, is uniquely and powerfully devastating. 

Beloved, sex is a wonderful gift, but taken out of its context it is destructive. Sex in its place is like a fire contained in the fireplace on a cold, winter night, or like the water of a still lake contained by its boundaries. But remove sex from its design, that beautiful fire in the fireplace becomes a raging wildfire destroying everything in its path, like a tidal wave of destruction when the water leaps from its boundary. And I know by even reading the last paragraph many of you are reminded of the pain, heartache, and devastation of what may have been done to you or to someone you love.

Let me make a few comments, 

First, if you have experienced the pain of any form of sexual misconduct. I’m sorry. I have seen its devastation too much. What happened to you is evil and wrong.  

Second, we are here for you. We are here to listen to your story and to help you process your pain and your hurt. Do not allow shame to keep you from seeking help. The enemy wants you to live in shame, but God wants to free you from it. 

Third,  if you or anyone you know are experiencing any form of inappropriate sexual contact or advances, tell someone about it. Abusers want to silence you. Don’t let them.

Fourth, God is a God of redemption and healing. You are not permanently broken. You may have scars, but you can heal.

1 Peter 2:24,

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Jesus came to give life and life to the fullest. Jesus wants to heal you. He has given you himself so you can become like himself. It is not an easy journey but a necessary one. 

Moses continues in the next paragraph with more prohibitions which are more common in our day,

Verse 19-23,

“You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion. 

God has already spoken in the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:14, “You shall not commit adultery.” Verse 20, “And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean.” Tim Chester writes, “In our culture sex is everything and sex is nothing.”

Our culture often celebrates sexual pleasure as the pinnacle of joy and thus encourages everyone to have. The hookup culture has become the norm on college campuses and for young professionals. Cohabitation, living together and engaging in sex outside marriage, has become the norm in our culture. And yet, God forbids his people to lie sexually with another’s spouse or to say it another way, to lie sexually with anyone but your spouse. Sex is given for marriage and marriage alone. 

God’s people must repent of any and all forms of sexual immorality. Paul summarizes all of Lev 18 from a New Testament perspective,

Ephesians 5:3–5

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 

Who is your God? If you belong to God, if you are a saint, declared holy, then you must honor God with your body and put away all sexual immorality. If you are struggling with sin, seek help. Confess it. Bring it to the light. Let the Lord heal you. 

The whole chapter is clearly about unlawful sexual relations, but verse 21 addresses child sacrifice,

Leviticus 18:21,

You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. 

Notice again the Lord naming himself in the middle of the context: I am the LORD. The LORD is the giver of all life and therefore all life should be cherished and protected. Our culture has used abortion to celebrate and promote a free sex culture. Sexual immorality and abortion are linked. Men and women want sex without consequence so when a woman becomes pregnant with life, our culture provides a way for that child to be offered to the idols of comfort and sex so their life of freedom does not have to stop. Of course, there are many different reasons one may decide for an abortion, but one of the reasons they are so common is our culture's love of sex without consequences. Abortion is child sacrifice and not accepting responsibility for one’s actions. Who is your God?

Our culture also celebrates everyone’s choice to choose who they want to love. Leviticus 18 lays out certain prohibitions of unions people should avoid. One of those being homosexuality.

Leviticus 18:22,

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

An abomination is something that is detestable or abhorred or hated. God hates homosexuality because it goes against nature. Remember what God is doing in the

Tabernacle, he is creating a new Eden for his people where he dwells. And since the Lord dwells with his people, then his people should walk as they did in Eden. They should walk like the Lord. This is the context of the whole chapter, verse 4-5, 

You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the LORD your God.

You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.

Homosexuality, when a male lies sexually as with a woman, it is an abomination because it is unnatural and against God’s created order. God gave sex to humanity in the context of marriage between a man and a woman for oneness and procreation. Sex was given for life.

And the sex that only can give life is sex between a man and a woman. 

We live in a culture that celebrates homosexuality and has made it a cultural norm. One of the main reasons people leave a biblical faith and the stated reason for not coming to the faith, is this issue. Israel was told not to live like Egypt from where they came and not to live like Canaan to where they are going. Likewise, Church you cannot live like the world. You can normalize homosexuality. It is contrary to nature and goes against the created order.

The world may give you all sorts of plausible arguments of love and companionship and celebrating the freedoms of a modern society, but they are all smokescreens to obscure the violation of God’s law. Do not buy what they are selling. 

It is interesting that God places homosexuality right next to bestiality. Again, another form of sexual perversion that goes against the created order. We may blush at the Lord mentioning but in the world of Egypt and Canaan there is a reason it had to be mentioned. Every culture has its own perversion. For some it is bestiality for others is pedophilia, pornography and prostitution. It is all against God’s law and the created order. If the Tabernacle was to be a new Eden, God’s people were called to live as priest kings under his authority reflecting his good order to the world. 

God’s ways are the best ways. Our culture preaches sexual freedom. It preaches that the church is sexually repressed and limits people’s joy and sexual pleasure. It is no different than the evil one in the garden who said, “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.” In essence, Satan was saying that God was not good and he did not provide for Adam and Eve all that they needed for optimal joy. He made Adam and Eve believe that God's limits were repressive and kept them from real joy. He lied. And our culture does too. True joy is not walking in sexual freedom but serving God with his sexual ethic. Sex in marriage is the most fulfilling, most joyful, most satisfying and most free form of sexual expression. Don’t listen to the culture’s lies. 

Young people, you are bombarded with sexual images and ideologies every single day. The world wants you to drink its salt water only leaving you more thirsty. God wants to give you the living water that never runs dry. Who will be your God? Will you bow down to your sexual desires or will you trust God? 

The LORD closes the section with a summary and a recap of the opening paragraph.

Leviticus 18:24–30,

“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, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God.” 

I am the LORD your God. Notice the standards of God’s people are not only for them but for all who sojourn among them. The Canaanites did such evil deeds and lived so against God’s created order in regards to their sexual ethic and their disdain for life, God is going to remove them from the land. God’s created world cries out against those who live against

God’s command. For even after Cain killed Abel, the Lord said to him, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” If we live according to God’s command, we will live with him in the land. If we live against God’s commands, we will be cut off from the land. 

This is no different than the New Testament. Think about the land as our inheritance. Listen against to what Paul said in Corinth,

1 Corinthians 6:9–10,

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 

Those who practice sexual immorality, including those who practice the sins of Leviticus 18, men lying as with women and adulterers, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. They will not inherit the land. They will be cut off from it. 

Listen beloved, all of us should be cut off from this inheritance. For all of us have served other gods. What did Jesus say,

Matthew 5:27–30,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Jesus said it is not merely what you do externally but what you think about in your heart. Sins of the body are one thing, the sins of the heart are something else. They both spring from the heart. They both spring from the same well. 

So, if we give ourselves to lust in mind or in body, we will not receive our inheritance and we will be cut off from the land. But remember the refrain from Leviticus 18, “I am the LORD your God.” He has made a way. The point of Leviticus in God’s storyline is not merely focusing on God’s commands, but on how he has made a way for sinful people to enter his presence. He has opened a way for adulterers and those who practice homosexuality, those who have had abortions, those who have gone against God’s created order in all sorts of devastating sinful ways. And by God making a way for sinners through a substitute in no way minimizes the sin. We know it is not minimized for Jesus Christ beaten, mocked, whipped then nailed to a cross taking the full force of God’s wrath by becoming sin for us. None of us are holy. None of us have a clean slate. Some may have drifted farther than others, but all of us come back the same way. We come back through the cross. We come back through a sacrifice. We can be made clean by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here are Pau's words again.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. 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. 

We who deserve to be cut off from God’s presence and don’t deserve the good inheritance of the promised land, will be welcomed because we have been washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. We will not be welcomed because of our purity, but the purity of Christ. 

Think of those throughout the Bible who were known for sexual sin, but who were welcomed to take hold of the inheritance of the saints. Think if Rahab the prostitute who is the lineage of the Messiah, King David the adulterer who was given the great promise of a forever king on a forever throne, the Samaritan woman with 5 husbands who spread the Word that Jesus was a prophet, the woman of the city who washed Jesus feet with her tears, the Corinthian man who was welcomed back to after being removed from the church for sexual sin, and the list goes on. We could speak of Augustine who left his life of debauchery whose pen was mightily by the Lord, Rosaria Butterfield who left a homosexual lifestyle who is now a pastor’s wife whose books are shaping modern day evangelicals, or the countless no-name men and women addicted to porn who turned their hearts to serve the living God, or the former adulterers who turned from sexual idolatry to love their spouses, or what of those who have been betrayed or abused who chose to forgive others as Christ forgave them,  and the list goes on. 

We are all unrighteous and have no claim on God’s inheritance unless we claim it through Christ. Beloved, we must fight for sexual purity in all its forms. We must be a holy people for two main reasons. First, so that we will see and be with God.

Matthew 5:8, 

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  

Second, so that others will see and praise God.

Matthew 5:16, 

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. 

There are many other reasons I can give, but I think those are the primary emphasis of Leviticus 18. We should not be like the nations where we live but we should be a distinct nation so others may know God. We should not be like the nations so that we will one day see God and be in his presence forever. 

So, non-Christian, you may not have expected a sermon on sexual conduct on mother’s day.

It may have sounded repressive and legalistic, but I wonder if it also sounded freeing. Is it freeing to know that the culture’s claim of sexual freedom is actually bondage? For anyone who has walked down that road has not been filled but left empty. It is not freedom but slavery. Friend, who or what is your God? And how is that working for you? 

Let me encourage you to lay down the culture’s lies and come to Christ. For there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We all deserve to be condemned but only those who turn to Christ can and will be forgiven. We will be forgiven because Jesus took our place and was raised for our hope. You can believe today, Jesus will swallow up your shame and finally and truly give you peace. 

Beloved, over the last few years I have seen the damage of sexual sin in people’s lives.

Either the sin that has been done to them or the sin they have done to others. But as much sin as I have seen, I have seen a whole lot of redemption. By his wounds we are healed. I am the LORD your God. If you are humble, contrite and repentant, he is not a God to be feared, but he is a God to be praised. For he welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor, our sins they are many, his mercy is more. There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us. Is He your God? You cannot serve two masters, and why would you want to? He is good and so kind to those who turn to him in faith. Are you broken? He will fix you. Are you sinful? He will forgive you. Are you sexually confused? He will give you wisdom. Are you hurting? He will heal.

God looks at us and still says, “I am the LORD your God. My sheep hear my voice, and I know him, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. I am the LORD your God.” So let me leave with that one question, Who or what is your God?  You cannot serve two masters. Choose wisely.