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You're listening to audio from Faith Church Indie. This Lent, we're studying the book of Leviticus, learning about how imperfect people can have a relationship with a perfect God. Now here's the teaching.

The word of the Lord is written in the book of Leviticus, chapter 15, verses 31 to 33, and chapter 18, verses 24 to 30. Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst. This is the law for him who has a discharge and for him who has an emission of semen, becoming unclean thereby.

Also for her who is unwell with her menstrual impurity, that is for anyone, male or female, who has a discharge, and for the man who lies with a woman who is unclean. And from 18. 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 there 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 the nations that were 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. This is the word of the Lord.

Good morning. I imagine that probably all of you have had an experience similar to the one that I have had over and over. You're looking for something, your phone, your keys, coffee mug, your glasses, and I'm searching around the house everywhere, and I'm getting more and more frustrated.

I just had this thing. Who moved it? And when our kids were younger and living at home, one of them, and both then and now, my wife, Amelia, will come up to me and say, it's in your hand, or it's in your back pocket, or it's on top of your car, or worst of all, it's on top of your head, right? And in that moment, you realize the thing that you were concerned about was never really that far away. It was closer than you realized, and that's where Leviticus takes us today, because up to this point, we've been looking at disorder out there, out in the world, but now we see the issue is not just out there, it's closer.

We've been walking through Leviticus this Lent season, following this path up the mountain, remember, that we envisioned, leading towards the Day of Atonement. And if you've been with us, you've probably noticed something, that as we climb higher, things are getting a little more uncomfortable, right? It was fine when we started with sacrifices. That's certainly outside of us.

And then mediators, well, those are the special people that manage the religious rituals on our behalf. And then we started talking about food, what we're not supposed to eat, and then diseases, what has happened to our bodies. And now we come to things that are deeply personal, even intimate.

It's not just about what we do, but about who we are in the most private, embodied, relational part of our lives. The disorder of a fallen world moves from the camp around us into the tent, into the home, from the public to the very private. And honestly, this is understandably where most of us feel uncomfortable, because it's one thing to say, you know, the world out there is broken or relationships are messed up because of sin.

It's another thing to admit there's something wrong in here, in me. Let me remind you of the structure that we're following. Again, there's this parallel movement that we're seeing through Leviticus, kind of a literary mountain climb.

And as we head towards the peak, towards the Day of Atonement, the ascent shows us ritual holiness, right? Like how disorder affects our ability to draw near to God. And then coming down on the descent, we're seeing lived out holiness, how we reject disorder to reflect what God is like. And today's pair is Leviticus 15, disorder in our bodies, and Leviticus 18, disorder in our desires and our relationships.

And these two absolutely go together. God is telling us through these chapters, because Christ restores what is disordered, we honor God in our bodies and desires. Because Christ restores what is disordered, we honor God in our bodies and our desires.

Now, before we begin, I want to remind us quickly of something we've said the last few weeks so that we don't misunderstand it. Unclean does not mean sinful, right? Clean means aligned with God's order and life, and unclean means reflecting disorder touched by the corruption of our fall into sin. Uncleanness is a condition that we simply live in because the world around us has become infected in every way.

And that means we're not in ourselves appropriately cleansed to come into God's presence. That disorder needs cleansing so that it also echoes the sinful abuse of God's gift that needs forgiveness. And we need both.

But that distinction and the connection are essential to understand what God's saying to us today. So we're going to look at disordered bodies and disordered desires, and then we'll talk about what this means for us. And we'll get some things that suggest how we might live this out.

So if you haven't already, turn your Bibles to Leviticus 15. If you're using the black Bibles in front of you, it's pages 111 and 112. As we look at disorder in our bodies, I'll be honest, you probably guessed this.

It's not a chapter that most preachers really look forward to going through, right? It deals with bodily discharges, with fluids, with emissions, with conditions of the most private parts of ourselves, right? Things we don't normally bring up in church, and yet God does. Why? Because he's not embarrassed by our bodies, and he's honest about what sin has done to us. So what is going on in Leviticus 15? The chapter outlines several different categories of uncleanness that comes from bodily discharges.

There's chronic conditions. There's temporary conditions. There's things that we experience individually as male and female.

There's ordinary and abnormal discharges. And I think you'll be relieved to know that I don't feel that we need to go into detail into all those conditions. But all of them, it's worth noting, are almost all related to life and reproduction, our most private parts.

And in each case, a person becomes unclean for a period of time. Not sinful, but unclean. And in each case, the solution is the same.

Wash, wait, and be restored. And if this seems kind of weird or alien to us, I think in part it's because we have probably all internalized a very modern, secular, scientific view of our bodies, where we tend to think if something goes wrong with us, it's simply a medical problem for us to solve. It has no greater significance than that.

And God is affirming that unclean does not mean sinful. But still, there are some things that are impure and improper to bring into God's presence. Some of you know that I had the fun a week and a half ago of coming down with COVID.

Again, my sixth anniversary, in fact. I'm a repeat customer. I was sniffling and dripping and coughing all over the place.

Now, there's nothing sinful about being sick with COVID, right? But you would be absolutely right to think that that's probably not a condition in which someone should come and lead worship. Not just because I might spread germs, but because there's something about the breakdown of our bodies and discharges that don't fit with entering into God's presence. And God is saying that's true for all of these issues of uncleanness related to these emissions.

So what is God telling us here? Not that the body is bad, not that these things are wrong or shameful, but that even the most natural processes of human life and reproduction bear the marks of the fall and remind us that we are unclean. Think about what these discharges represent. If you just scan over the chapter, you read it this week, the loss of fluids that are related to life and reproduction.

It's about breakdown. It's a reminder of our fragility, our dependence. They're telling us things are not as they should be at the most central part of our lives.

There's something about us that just isn't right and doesn't belong appropriately in God's presence. And we know this. We know this from all the way back at the beginning.

Adam and Eve sin and they disobey God. And what happens? Suddenly, they become aware that they're naked and they make clothes to hide their shame. Now, why? What is that happening? What's happening there? They were naked and unashamed in God's presence when they were living in a state of trusting obedience.

But when they declare their independence and said, we will decide good and evil for ourselves, suddenly they became aware that that was not good and they were not good. And they weren't fit to be in God's presence in their nakedness. It's not because their bodies had fundamentally changed in any way that they could observe, but now they're aware of the impropriety of being naked before a holy God.

We're not what we're supposed to be. Even when there's no obvious disorder, you've never had something go wrong in your body where you just didn't feel right, like a chronic illness, a lingering fatigue, a recurring issue. It doesn't make you guilty, but it reminds you that you are not whole.

That's what Leviticus 15 is doing. It's reminding us. It's helping us recognize that our bodies are affected at the most profound level by the effects of sin.

Why does it matter? Because God's very nature is purity and wholeness and order. And anything that reflects decay or loss or disorder cannot come casually into God's presence. And not because he's harsh, but because he's holy.

Look at how the chapter ends in verse 31, page 112. Thus, you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst. That's strong, but do you see how it makes sense? God is not indifferent to disorder.

His holy dwelling place cannot be corrupted by impurity. But most of all, he protects us from our own destruction by preventing us from entering his holy presence in an improper state. So what's the point? Leviticus 15 is telling us you need cleansing for what you experience.

For not sin, but your condition, not guilt, but just brokenness. Because Christ redeems and restores what's disordered, we honor God with our bodies. And now if Leviticus had stopped there, you know, we could think, ah, this is about biology or, man, those Old Testament laws don't apply to me, so what difference does it make? But it doesn't stop there because the corresponding text on the descent is Leviticus 18.

And here the focus shifts from uncleanness to moral disorder, from what happens to our bodies to what we do with our bodies. So that's the second thing we want to look at, disorder in desire in Leviticus 18. It's one of the most direct chapters in the Bible about sexual behavior.

It's not vague, it names specific practices, and it draws clear boundaries, and it does so with urgency and seriousness. First, look at the framing of this chapter. But before listing anything, look in verse 3. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan into which I am bringing you.

You shall not walk in their statutes or in their ways, your translation may say. In other words, the world around you is disordered, and you must not align yourself with it. This chapter addresses inappropriate relations in families, inappropriate relations with people we're not married to, with people that we have authority over or who have authority over us and deserve our respect, with people whose bodies we're not designed to be with, even with human sacrifice connected to sexual ritual practices.

This is not random restriction. These are profound distortions of God's plan for our life and our joy and our flourishing. The Bible joyfully celebrates physical intimacy between a husband and a wife.

God invented physical intimacy in marriage for our good and our joy. I mean, look at verse 5. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them.

Do you hear what God's saying? God wants us to have life, to have joy and freedom in following him and his good plans. Sexuality is so central to our sense of ourselves, to our identity. It can be such a powerful drive that we have to be careful with it, God is saying.

We have to keep it in the boundaries that God has designed for our good. And the act at the center of marital intimacy is so profound, so powerful, so meaningful, that we have to handle it with care. It's kind of a picture of like a fire.

Like what happens when a fire is not contained? It burns, it destroys, it ruins everything in its path. It can wreck families and communities. But contained in an oven or a fireplace, the flames warm our rooms, warm our bodies, cook our food, even soothe our souls.

Like you can go online and find a four-hour looping video of cozy fire in a fireplace. Nobody sits down on the couch to watch four hours of forest fire. Right? Fire is a kind of nourishment and a delight when it's handled properly.

That's what God is saying here about physical intimacy in marriage. You see what happens when we don't follow God's ways. Look in verse 25.

The land became unclean so that I punished its iniquity and the land vomited out its inhabitants. You see the point, right? The disorder doesn't just harm individuals. It wrecks communities.

It corrupts creation. And that's why God encourages us both to enjoy marital love and to warn us against the disaster of seeking pleasure outside his guidelines, his boundaries, his protection. Because listen, we live in a world where we hear, follow your heart, be true to yourself.

Desire defines identity. And God says, listen, desire in a disordered world can be profoundly broken and destructive. We know it just from looking at the things that God warns us away from in Leviticus 18.

We know it from all the Bible stories of disordered desire. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Samson, David, Amnon, Solomon, and on and on and on. There's something going on in these stories in Leviticus 18 that's reflected in those Bible stories as well.

It's about an abuse of power, frankly. Where most often men use strength to demand fulfillment of their desires. All these sins, you see, center on making our desire ultimate so that it ultimately even becomes a command, an expectation.

But God tells us compulsion never goes with intimacy. Love does not demand its own way. These sins aren't just about coercion either, right? Whenever we tell ourselves, I desire it, so I should have it.

That is like a red warning light on the dashboard. Disorder, disorder, disorder. Danger, Will Robinson, right? Our culture talks about sex all the time.

It uses sex to sell cars and clothes and sports and soap. It's become kind of its own religion with its own rituals and priests. We're even told that if you don't follow your desires, there's something wrong with you.

And if you're not experiencing full sexual satisfaction, man, you're missing out and you're not a full human. Our world has turned virtue into vice and vice into virtue. And we have to be able to take a step back from our culture to be able to see it for what it is, for the lies that it's telling us so that we don't go along.

Look at this solemn warning God gives us, starting in verse 27, leading in 28. The people of the land who were before you did all these abominations so that the land became unclean. Don't do them, 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. Now, you know the story, right? Did they follow God's ways? No.

Did they discipline themselves and people in their community? No. And did the land vomit them out? Yes. Verse 30.

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 Yahweh. I am the Lord, your God.

And that final note is a reminder. It's God's way of saying our bodies do not belong just to us for us to do whatever we want. We are stewards. 

We are managers. We belong to God and he entrusts to us our lives, our bodies, our gifts, our time, our resources, our desires, our relationships. And everything of our deepest, most intimate desires can only be rightly expressed, God says, in the covenant of marriage.

Where a man and a wife are committed to each other and committed to each other's good and godliness. That's what God wants for you. Because Christ restores what is disordered, we honor God in our bodies and our desires.

So what do we do with this? What hope or help is there for us? In the Gospels, what do we see Jesus doing with unclean people? He reaches out to them. He engages with them. He touches them.

Most all of us probably know the story of the woman with that long-term bleeding issue that was almost certainly related to her reproductive system. This woman who, according to Leviticus 15, was permanently unclean. Imagine what her world was like.

Some of you may even know a little of that. You've suffered with reproductive systems that don't work, with the anxiety of conception struggles, with lingering illness. Beyond disappointing and painful, it can be embarrassing and isolating.

But this woman approaches Jesus saying, if I can just touch the hem of his garment, I'll be clean. She does. And she is.

And Jesus commends her. It's not just about that woman. Remember, Jesus reaches out to touch lepers and the sick and even the dead.

And this is astonishing because in Leviticus, uncleanness spreads. Impurity reaches out to infect us more and more. But in Jesus, cleansing spreads.

Wholeness flows out from him. Holiness reaches out, expands to purify unclean people and to make them clean and whole in our bodies and in our desires. Oh, disorders of reproductive systems are some of the heaviest and hardest to bear.

Infertility can just be devastating. Not just physically, but because it goes so deeply to our sense of ourselves, what we were made for, our hopes for the future, what God created us to be. It's a painful, lingering reminder that things are not right.

And Jesus does not promise healing for everything this side of heaven. But he doesn't pull back from us either because we're disordered. He walks with us.

He strengthens us. He carries us. He comforts us.

What was the accusation that the religious leaders like to throw at Jesus? He eats with tax collectors, with sinners, with prostitutes. In other words, he hangs out with unclean people. What a beautiful thing to be accused of.

What a friend you have in Jesus. When it comes to desire, Jesus transforms us and grace doesn't lower the bar. If anything, it actually raises the bar.

Jesus says anyone who looks at another with lustful intent has already committed adultery in his heart. He goes to the heart, but he also offers forgiveness and restoration and a new heart. Because Jesus isn't just holy.

He came to make us holy. Jesus and his apostles picture the Lord as a bridegroom. Do you understand what that means? It means that Jesus is the one who restores covenant, who restores faithfulness, who restores intimacy in our relationship.

With God, he washes us to make us pure and radiant as a bride prepared for her husband. And ultimately, at the cross, Jesus takes on our uncleanness, our shame, our guilt, all this, our disorder, so that we become clean and forgiven and restored because Christ restores what is disordered. We honor God with our bodies and our desires.

So what do we do with this? What does this mean for us? A couple of thoughts. One, don't minimize the disorder. Don't minimize the disorder.

We need to be honest. Our fall into sin has affected everything. When your body feels weak or anxious or fatigued or broken, don't pretend.

Pray honestly. Lord, I am not whole. Would you cleanse me? I need your help.

When your desires pull you towards things that you know are not good, don't say, well, that's just who I am. Acknowledge to God, this is not aligned with your design. And I think we all struggle with the temptations at times to tell ourselves, well, you know, at least I'm not as bad as whatever.

At least I don't struggle with that. That keeps the disorder hidden instead of allowing it to be healed. Don't compare your struggles to others in order to justify them.

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