The message presents human sexuality within the biblical doctrines of creation, fall, and redemption. Sexuality is not itself a consequence of sin, but part of God’s good creation. In Genesis 2, God creates humanity as male and female and establishes marriage as a covenant union in which husband and wife become “one flesh.” Their nakedness without shame indicates that sexual intimacy belongs properly within marriage and originally expresses trust, love, communion, and covenant faithfulness.

Sexual intimacy is powerful because God designed it to communicate something beyond itself. Its closeness, joy, desire, and pleasure provide a created illustration of the greater joy found in knowing and enjoying God. Sexuality is therefore not the ultimate reality or final goal. It functions as a sign that points beyond itself to the fullness of fellowship with the Lord. Psalm 16 describes God’s presence as the place where true and everlasting pleasure is found. The deepest human longing is not finally satisfied by sexual experience, marriage, or any created gift, but by communion with God himself.

Scripture also uses marital and sexual language to describe the covenant relationship between God and his people. In Ezekiel 16, Israel’s idolatry is portrayed as the adultery of an unfaithful wife. Israel abandons the Lord for false gods, and this spiritual infidelity provokes divine jealousy and righteous judgment. Idolatry is therefore not merely intellectual error. It is covenant treachery, a violation of love and exclusive worship. Sexual immorality and spiritual apostasy are closely related because both arise when created desires replace the Creator.

Nevertheless, judgment is not the final word. God remembers his covenant and promises to establish an everlasting covenant with his people. Ezekiel’s language of atonement and restoration points forward to the redemptive work of Christ. Through Christ’s death, God provides propitiation for sin, reconciles his people to himself, and restores those who have been unfaithful. The covenant faithfulness of God becomes the foundation for Christian marriage, especially in the calling for husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church and gives himself for her.

The message then explains that biblical “knowledge” is more than the possession of information. Genesis says that Adam “knew” Eve, using language for intimate and personal knowledge. Joseph “knows” Mary not in the sense of ignorance, but in the sense of abstaining from sexual relations. This language illustrates that knowing God is not merely academic or conceptual. True knowledge of God involves personal communion, affection, reverence, delight, and fellowship. The analogy does not suggest sexual relations with God, which belongs to pagan religion, but shows that marital intimacy can serve as a created picture of the depth and intensity of covenant communion with God.

Christ’s supremacy provides both the goal and the safeguard of sexuality. Colossians 1 declares that Christ is the image of the invisible God, the Creator and sustainer of all things, the eternal head of the church, and the one through whom God reconciles all things by the blood of his cross. Since Christ is preeminent in everything, sexual desire cannot occupy the place of ultimate authority or ultimate satisfaction. Disordered sexuality often reveals a disordered worship, as restless people seek in sex what can only be found in God. Conversely, growing knowledge of Christ governs desire, exposes idolatry, strengthens self-control, and directs sexuality toward its proper covenantal purpose.

The Christian life therefore calls for continual communion with Christ through Scripture, prayer, worship, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The believer’s knowledge remains partial in this age, yet God truly makes himself known and progressively sanctifies his people. Christ does not merely save believers from guilt. He saves them for the enjoyment of God himself. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism summarizes, humanity’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Sexuality is rightly ordered when it serves that end, becoming a gift received with gratitude, governed by holiness, and understood as a sign that points to the greater beauty, joy, and satisfaction found in Christ.

Bible Verses Used

• 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.” These verses establish marriage and sexual union as part of God’s good creation.

• Ezekiel 16:32-38: “Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband!” This passage portrays Israel’s idolatry as covenant adultery and reveals God’s righteous jealousy and judgment.

• Ezekiel 16:59-63: “I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant.” God’s covenant faithfulness and promised atonement point toward redemption in Christ.

• Psalm 16:11: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” God himself is the source of lasting joy and pleasure beyond every created gift.

• Genesis 4:1: “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.” The verse illustrates biblical knowledge as intimate, personal, and experiential.

• Matthew 1:24-25: “He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son.” The passage clarifies the biblical use of “knowing” for sexual intimacy.

• Colossians 1:15-20: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together... that in everything he might be preeminent.” Christ’s supremacy over creation, the church, and reconciliation governs the sermon’s understanding of sexuality.

• Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Christ’s sacrificial love becomes the model for covenantal marriage.

• Genesis 8:22: “Seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” God’s providential covenant faithfulness sustains the world until the final judgment.

• 1 Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.” Present knowledge of God is real but partial, awaiting consummation in glory.

• Matthew 11:28-29: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” True rest for the restless heart is found in coming to Christ.

• Psalm 42:1: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God!” Spiritual desire for God must exceed every disordered desire for created things.