Summer Replay: Module 2 - Sexuality and Gender

These modules have been designed to help people lead, help people work on things in their own life, and to think deeper about , uh, what healing looks like. I thought it would be a good idea to replay these while I'm on sabbatical. Get them in your head and also just say season number three is going to start in August, and we've got a few exciting things lined up for that.

And so listen to the modules and enjoy them. Maybe you'll learn a few new things and look forward to Healing the City Podcast. New episodes in August. The Healing the City Podcast is a Ministry of the Village Church in Tucson, Arizona. If you enjoy the Healing the City podcast and wish to support it financially, you can go to villagers online.com, click the We give tab and follow the instructions.

Thank you for listening and enjoy the podcast.

I'm not gonna try to explain that diagram to you, but it will help you think it through. So though there will be links

, um, the rea , the reason we're doing this is part of these modules are just , uh, me coalescing some ways of teaching ideas and helping people think about them. And so our last module was healing from your Negative Emotions. And people seem to have really enjoyed that. And so, here we go. This one does not have wear , you know, exercises or anything like that. So we'll give this a shot.

So we're gonna talk about gender. And to do that, we have to start by talking about Genesis. And I think it's important to understand that when you look at the gospels, it is very clear. I don't think it's disputed that Jesus, through his life, death and resurrection is moving humanity , um, out of, its running away from God and back into its intended space.

The garden, but not just the garden as it was, but the garden plus mm-hmm. , um, the intended way of being. And so when we think about gender itself, we have to go back to Genesis chapters one to three to really kind of begin to dissect those things. So if you think about gender, the or not gender. Well, yeah.

If you think about this, you first think garden, you can have that picture in your head of garden and the way it's supposed to be. And so if you look at Genesis chapter one, God , uh, says, let us create man and woman in our image, or let us create them in our image that that's important.

Because first there's a, let us, so there's this indication of the trinity and a communal connection to whatever goes on between male and female. It's commu , it communally reflects the image of God. Um, but what's important there too is that in the garden there is male and there's female. And there's not a fluidity between those two. It is, they're nouns.

They define two very separate image bearers who certainly being human, have much in common. Mm-hmm. . Um, but they're separate. That that's important. So you have that as the way it's supposed to be. And , but the second thing you need to understand outta Genesis chapter one, and this is really important in understanding yourself as male or female, is that the blessing is for both of them.

So the blessing to be fruitful and multiply to subdue and to bear the name of God, to be an image bearer belongs equally to both male and female. And they do that together. Mm-hmm. . So that's, that's chapter one in understanding your , who you are as male and female, just kind of beginning that process of thinking about that.

You step into chapter two and what you see is a more detailed explanation of what's happening. And so Adam is put in the garden to rule. It says, and Adam is given this task of naming things. And so part of what you're experiencing as you read the garden narratives as , oh, we're just getting little tastes of what it means to be male and what it means to be female.

And so we do get a taste here of Adam by himself, looking at animals and naming them and realizing that they're in pairs, but he's also taking what's chaotic and making it ordered. He's ordering something that doesn't have order in it. Mm-hmm. . And that really does, is a part of what it means to be male , is to bring order to chaos. That's part of your subduing process.

Um, well, what happens is there is that it's, it says that it's not good for man to be alone. And so let's, so God decides to put him to sleep, Adam sleep, and he's going to create a helper who is suitable. And so he's gonna create Eve, he's gonna create female, basically.

And I think it's a helper who is suitable in our modern times is difficult language because it feels a little bit like servant or one who is , uh, subject to in the sense of like, basically I just do whatever he says. Um, I'm here to just make it all work. Uh , or I'm just the maid servant of some, some kind of thing.

And so I think we have to stop there and just kind of understand that though I'm not a Hebrew scholar, I've done enough reading about this and thinking about it to understand that most likely what it's saying is not that God put Adam to sleep and took out his rib, but that he cut Adam in half and then created Eve.

And so there's in a sense this idea that when he puts Adam in, he's putting his full reflection and saying, but this full reflection is not good. I have to cut it in half and create male and female to reflect myself fully. And for these to be these image mirrors to be in communion together or community together. And so that word rado is yes, could be suitable helper.

It also talks about God and I think Joshua, and that someone will be provided for you who, who will come and assist you, come alongside you in what you're doing. Um, this is used about God. I think a better translation or a better way of for to to understand it would be it's one who stands face to face , or one who stands next to ,

Um, but they stand next to each other, not one in front and one behind. Uh , so, so that's important to understand as you think about that. And also when they're presented, it's key, A key point in it is that they were both naked and not ashamed. There is no shame in the garden, both standing with God and there's no shame standing with one another.

And, and the idea of nakedness , um, is that as more a sense of being safe in your vulnerability, that there wasn't shame brings in a sense of not being safe , um, or being shameful, you could say. So you move, so you have these beautiful, this beautiful picture of what God, how we reflect God is male and female, what it looks like to be together in the beginning and start this process.

But when you get to chapter three, what we find out is that in the garden, there is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And we would ask the question often, why is there this tree? And there are a lot of reasons why there's this tree.

But one of the reasons I think that's important when it comes to our gender and understanding who we are and our identity, is that the invitation from God, and I think it's important for God, cuz I think God wants us to be able to choose this not to be compelled into it, is that the invitation is for God to define what is good and evil for us, for God to define who we are, and for God to define how we're going

to reflect him, that we rely on him for those things. Now, if you think about that now in the state that we're in, when you rely on someone else for your identity , um, or you rely on someone else to know what is good and evil, well, that's a very vulnerable space mm-hmm . for you to be in. But again, it goes back to the invitation , um, not to reflect ourselves, but to reflect God.

Now, this snake comes into this process, or Satan, which again, God allows this God part of what I think people don't realize that when he see the garden, God is saying, you're gonna reflect my image. And this is a wild creation. I'm a God who creates something wild, and I'm inviting you to be in a dangerous wild place. Mm-hmm. .

And I am gonna inform you of what is good and evil, and I'm gonna tell you who you are, and I'm gonna tell you what you should do. And you go do it and tell the world about who I am, and this is, and I'm gonna kind of enjoy this explosive experience that I'm, I'm engaged in with you.

And so we face our first enemy, who is going to be our enemy forever, or, or at least until Christ comes back and makes all things new and defeats the enemy. You have Satan saying something really interesting. He says, look, like God doesn't want you to know what good and evil is, but he doesn't want you to be able to define you.

He doesn't want you to, to define what is good and evil, and he doesn't want you to reflect you like mm-hmm. . And so what's invited , what's he's saying is, you don't have to be vulnerable. If you eat from this tree, God knows you'll be powerful.

That's really what he's saying in all of this, is that you're gonna be powerful and you get to define you, and you get to define what a good and evil you're gonna be . Like, God. And I, I , so, so that's when sin, we would say, sin enters into the world is that moment when Eve, either Adam is there in the conversation, or Eve goes and finds Adam.

We don't really know from the text, but either way she finds him, they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And what the experience is, is that God comes to walk in the garden, which we, this is where we get this idea that God came in in some form and engaged with them in relationship in the garden, and he's looking for them. And it's kind of a very relational thing.

He most likely knows where they are, and he's calling for them, and they realize they're naked and they're afraid. Mm-hmm. that they for the first time taste the fullness of God's holiness with brokenness inside of them, with sin in them, with dis disobedience happening.

Um, so when sin enters the world, one of the main things is just that , that sin affects is our understanding of who we are as male and female, because this is the name that we bear God's name, male and female, and we reflect God. And so that's what's being, what's being affected by sin is a very understanding of who we are. Um, so do you have any questions or are you just gonna, I don't know . We good?

All right . , you're just smiling at me and I'm, I'm going off. I'm preaching. Okay. So here we go. So, the, the, you , Adam and Eve are in chapter three, are given, are kicked outta the garden. And given the curses, we're not gonna talk about the curses of the snake and the woman and the man. There's a lot there about what's happened to the way men and women relate.

But more important to me is just an understanding of sin and how it affects our gender and who we are and our understanding of each other. And, you know, I mean, you know, the puritans tend to think of sin in three categories, and it's helpful for me, and , and theology thinks of it in three categories, but I like their categories. Um, so the first one is distorting sin, which people might call original sin.

The second one is distracting sin, which some people call actual sin. And then the third one is devouring sin, which people might call secret sin, or I've heard it said recently, and I've heard it before, besetting sin, but I , nobody knows what be setting means. So we don't use that word anymore. So secret sin is a good way of thinking about it. Um, so the first one is distorting sin.

And this, this is the part that people have a really hard time with. And that is, this is sin that is not your choice. Um, and it , it's, it's the brokenness that exists within you because of the fall. So when you think about it this way, in the context of gender and sexuality, it's your distorted sexual desire. It is your understanding of your gender, male and female.

Um, it's, it's about your attraction to either to same sex or to, it's your , uh, it's the way that the chemicals and hormones and all of the, you know, kind of, it ,

And Jesus says , people are born a certain way that they become eunuchs because someone has done this to them, and that some choose to live a life of celibacy because of this. Mm-hmm . . Um, so there's this idea that even the , even Jesus, they look , the distortion happens and, and it's an ex , we accept it, but there's a way to embrace it and we'll, we'll talk about that in a minute.

So, so distortion, these aren't not things necessarily you chose, it can even have to do with the abuse that's happened to you and the way it's distorted you , you didn't choose to be abused mm-hmm. . But it has changed the way the chemistry , uh, works, the way your neurobiology works, everything, it, it's affected you. These are not choices. These are distortions.

You know, there's, and we've seen it traditionally in men having power and women being powerless, or women having to gain power by manipulation or , um, a sense that, you know, in the Roman, the Greco Roman culture where there was an honor to shame spectrum where male attributes had honor, but female attributes were on the shame end of the spectrum.

And so , uh, I think, but, but it could be even down to , uh, like the really basic details which aren't necessarily sin patterns, but they're just un understandings of what it is to be male or female that don't shake out as really being gospel concepts as far as like, well, women dress this certain way, or men aren't allowed to cry.

Or, you know, all of the different ways that that can shake out culturally , uh, where we understand what it is to be male or female in ways that aren't actually about what God says , uh, that it is to be male or female.

And we're picking up cues as what it means to be male and female. And they all come from a distorted world of a lot of people who don't understand what it means to be male or female in the context of God.

Um , so yes, it is informed by choices that other people are making, but the internal part, and I wanna , when I talk about distorted, I'd rather spend more time on the internal mm-hmm . part, but external in informs the internal. Sure. So if I say things like, I , I have same sex attraction that is part of a distort, an internal distortion that I didn't choose mm-hmm.

, that , that's important for people to understand. Now I can have same sex attraction that I did choose to mm-hmm . that we'll work on that a little bit later, but, so that's what I'm talking about is original sin affects everything. It's, it's a virus. The best way to understand this is a virus that, that Adam and Eve brought into the world. And it is, it is . Okay. And, and we could go on and on about this.

I mean, there are books and books written around original sin and , and debates and all that kind of stuff, but we'll just start with thinking about it from that perspective. Um, and then we can always revisit that. Um, so I , I think though some of the ways that we, I handle this one in our culture, both Christian and and secular cultures, is that we are obsessed with maleness and femaleness.

I mean, you look at, I, I unfortunately have found myself on reels a lot , um, and watching reels, watching reels, which is on Instagram. And the two things that you note on this other than funny videos is that there are men lifting weights and women showing off their bodies. These are the two things that are being communicated.

Now, the nice thing about reels is you can just flick really fast through them, but this is what's being told. This is what is beautiful. Mm-hmm. . And it is, so there are particular message that you get, and this is what strong looks like, and we're gonna, and, and so there's a distortion there mm-hmm. , um, because we have this obsessiveness about talking about it.

So in the church, what I think the , the difficulty is that we obsess about and talk about the roles of men and women in the church and what they're supposed to do, what it means to be female, what it means to be male.

These are good conversations, but I really don't hear them being talked about first from a Galatians 3 26 idea that in Christ there's no longer Jew , gentile, you know, rich or poor or slave free , uh, or male or female. It doesn't remove any of those categories. In fact, you can't remove the way we bear God's image. But it says it's secondary and informed by Christ. Mm-hmm. .

And so our primary identity, and this is important, when we think about our distorted experience, our sexual attractions, all those kinds of things, they are brought under the rule of Christ. And who I am as male is defined by Christ. Mm-hmm . , and who I am as female is defined by Christ. And we have to work it out from there.

And that's important in understanding my own internal experiences that I don't think I've chosen. Mm-hmm. . Um, and I think I can say that because of my own history , I don't have time to get into that. That's true. Mm-hmm. , right ? That , that lordship is important in Christ's, everything has to fall under that mm-hmm . , male and female.

Also, as we talk about the roles and all of that kind of stuff, and what it means to be male and female. All right . So that's, that's distorting sin. And we can talk about that more , um, in another podcast. But the second one is , uh, distracting sin, or what people say actual sin. This is the sin in which you choose, where you use your volition mm-hmm. .

And so in some ways, your volition in response to what comes at you internally, I look at, look at pornography, or I look at a girl walking by, or I, you know , choose, look at a man, whatever it is I'm choosing. So when it comes to gender, but this is not even just gender.

When it , when it comes to any form of whatever's coming at me in the world, how I treat my wife, how I treat people around me, what I choose to say, how I use my language, all these things are choices. Mm-hmm. , um, and it's very symbolic of what Eve had. She had a choice to choose, or she had a choice about knowledge of good and evil. She could take it or not. There's a choice there. We have volition.

The problem with this is that the way we deal with it is, and particularly with our sexuality, is to pour shame on people. Mm-hmm. . So if I look at pornography , um, and then I, then what we hear is bad. That's, you need to correct this behavior. And part of , um, that is, yes, it is sin and needs to be addressed and you need to repent.

But when you pour shame on people for their choices, and you continually create a, this is bad and this is good, and, and you don't leave any room for grace, forgiveness, repentance, and restoration, that process isn't built into that . Then sexuality and gender becomes something that we don't talk about. Mm-hmm. , which we'll get to the second part , but it , it becomes a shame bound thing. Mm-hmm. .

And what we don't in the church, what we need to be communicating is that if we're in Christ and our all identities fall under Christ, then the primary identity that we're given through Christ as image bearers as his priests, second Peter or first Peter two , tells us it's , we're his priests. And as priests, we have to practice liturgies.

Now , when we say liturgies, these are just ways of engaging God in , in order to draw near to God and to draw others near to God. So in some ways, we have to have a sexual liturgy or a sexual practice as a community. And what I mean by that is that we have to be willing to talk about it, and we have to be willing to , uh, be honest. And it has to be something that we're all very comfortable with. Mm-hmm. .

Because in some ways, what we're trying through Jesus in our identity in Christ is to move back to the end of Genesis chapter two, where we were naked metaphorically with no shame. Mm-hmm. . And part of that is, you know, talking about, you know, our aware , our first time awareness about sexuality, how our internal distortions work, all those kinds of things.

Those are part of just beginning to be practice , being comfortable talking about our sexuality and have it not as a taboo. Mm-hmm. , um, you know, people forget this, but one of the most extremely erotic books in ancient literature sits in the middle of the Old Testament song of Solomon mm-hmm. .

And we awkwardly try to say it's about God, which yeah, there's some love and passion between humanity and God, and that's important, but no, it's about, it's about extreme sexual desire and experience, and it's God's saying that's good. Mm-hmm . , and there's a way to participate in that . So we have to talk about it. So, you know, I have a few things listed. It's easier for me to , to read them, so I will.

But in the liturgy or the practice of being a priest and having an identity of priests, I mean, we, what that would look like is to continue talking about male and female and our sexuality until we're comfortable intentionally, you know, intentionality towards our sexual, our sexual interactions with our spouses.

Um, the way we have an intentionality about the way we interact with men and women , um, guarding our hearts so the enemy doesn't use situations to temp us. Bringing dark, awkward, sensual things into the light, and speaking honestly about them anchoring into the way things are supposed to be.

So, living in the garden experience, like knowing that pr , reading it, thinking it through, what is it really, really examining it to see what it's saying about being male and female. I think that's important. Being able to listen to people's experience and hold sadness about brokenness without necessarily speaking into it.

I think a lot of times when we hear people's brokenness, we want to talk about it, fix it for them, give them an explanation, tell them why it's wrong. And part of the , the liturgy is allowing it to be held in the open. Mm-hmm. , um,

You , God's not saying stuff it mm-hmm. , he's asking you to be honest about it. And if the , and to , to hold the belongings and the loneliness mm-hmm. in relationship with God. And the only way that happens is to talk with other people, to talk to God and to be prayed over and to , to invite people to ask you about it mm-hmm. and to have them be intentional with you about it.

I think we, we, we don't have a lot of intentionality. Um, we're not asking into one another's marriages in that place, cuz that's like, oh, that's off limits. We don't talk about that. Right. Right . Because that's exposing, oh , I don't wanna expose my husband, I don't wanna expose my wife, I don't wanna expose my own sin nature. I don't wanna do any of that. Right. Right.

Um , there's a lot of that that we have to begin to work slowly through, I think mm-hmm. and be more willing to chat about. Okay . So cool. Um, so we got, if you think about it, we got the way it's supposed to be, sin enters the world. We have the, the , the distorting sin or the original sin. We have the distracting sin or the actual sin thing where our volition plays out.

Volition plays out in the third one too, but we, we call it , um, and I always devouring sin. Thank you. I I I always have it in my head. And then , um, but devouring sin or secret sin in that, so this is sin and I like this little phrase. This is sin where we nurture or curate experience internally.

So if I, you know, if I have a pornography is a thing and I I'm nurturing how I'm gonna do it, when I'm gonna do it, what the experience is gonna be, or I'm nurturing , I think a lot of times men and women get caught up in the sexual, romantic serial , uh, things on Netflix and any other, the one streaming things that provide you with a vicarious experience. I like the bachelor.

Like these things are, I , I would argue mm-hmm . Are , um, when you don't bring that in into light or you're not willing to say this, this is actually a broken part of me that gets an excitement out of this and a , and a and , and a vicarious experience. Um, it , it affects how we understand love. It affects how we understand our sexuality. It affects how we understand who we are as men and women.

We don't bring that into our own relationships. We, we are looking in other places, but we keep that secret mm-hmm . a lot of times mm-hmm . the experience. And we, we kinda live off of that.

Um, it's also, you know, when we end up going to strip clubs, when we end up finding novels that we're gonna lose ourselves in any kind of way , uh, or we're nurturing our same sex attraction or the process of moving into a different identity mm-hmm. , um, like everything is secret. And this, you know, in , in Peter it says that Satan is moving to and fro looking for whom he can devour.

That's why it's called devouring sin. It is a sin where the enemy will devour you.

If we hold secrets there , uh, then it can move into the devouring space. Yeah. And so , uh, the battle in the distracting sins, being open, talking about things, being present with each other, praying for each other and speaking into these spaces , uh, is protection against devouring sin.

I think the idea of making the declaration of how we've moved out of darkness and into light is an important part of being a priest and part of being a priest for one another, and part of being a priest to , for yourself in reflecting the image of God is to be vigilant and intentional about uprooting your darkness and letting people see it and proclaiming it as sin and stepping into the light and proclaiming who God

is like there . I , I , I think what has happened and , and is that what , what it means to be male and female, what it means to be one as male and female, what it means to be male female in the church, we have decided that these are not things that we should , um, be passionate about. Mm-hmm . in a way, in a priest way mm-hmm.

, that we are female and male priests proclaiming how God has moved us out of the darkness and the light. And that is the primary role. Like you have a powerful marriage if you two people are working in that direction. Um, , I saw Chris Rock makes this joke, and it's just hilarious. He says, marriage isn't hard. The hard part about marriage is when only one person is working on it.

And his and his joke was like, try moving a couch if one person works on it. And so if one person is being a priest or then a marriage it , or in a relationship, like, it's very difficult and it's a hard thing. But if you have a community of people or a marriage of people who are saying to people saying, our priests mm-hmm .

, and I'm a priest who's male and I'm a priest who is a female, we are going to declare how we've moved out darkness and delight . You'll have a powerful marriage, but if only one of you is moving the metaphorical couch, it's hard. Mm-hmm. . And I think that happens in community.

If only one or two of us or few of us are going that direction, it's very difficult for us to create a culture of people who are standing face to face with Christ and moving into our identities as men and women , um, in a really powerful way that's, I think, cultural, trans culturally transforming. Mm .

So we gotta bring things to the light that's, that's, that's got , we have to be people who are trying to root out darkness in our life and in other lives. I think that's a big deal. Mm-hmm. in dealing with this as a community.

Now, if you imagine you got the garden the way it's supposed to be, the way it actually is, which is sin and the world we live in, and the invitation through life, death, and resurrection of , um, Jesus. So we have kingdom, and the kingdom is the garden . In some ways, the way , the easy way to think of the kingdom is garden, plus it's the garden plus so much more mm-hmm.

because it is the beginnings of a restoration of both the way it's supposed to be, and then how that was supposed to expand itself and transform and, and be holy and good. And so we're moving right now in this age, and I always tell people this age, this is just, I get from empty . Right . But this is an age of the , um, what do you call it?

The, when you , uh, improv, there is a beginning, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. There is an end, the return and the , um, fully bringing in the kingdom of new heaven and new earth. But right now, God invites his church through the spirit that he's given to be little holy temples moving around improv mm-hmm . the kingdom and inviting others into the improv.

Now, improvs have boundaries and improvs have a story and they have a direction, but we get to improv with the spirit of God . We get be part of the dance of that. So that begins with reconnecting to being reflectors of God's glory, which is a per is an announcement of his holiness mm-hmm . of who God is. And you look at Paul and you see this over and over again.

He seems to say, here's the beautiful grace of God and all he's done now change your behavior. Mm-hmm. . And I think the reason he says, change your behavior, and you can see this in second or first Thessalonians, chapter four start there, where he says that we're to be sanctified, we're to be blameless, we're to be holy. And then he starts by saying that we should abstain from sexual sin. He starts with our bodies.

And he starts with the very core , the, like the, the verb part of our identities, the act of, of sexuality, the coming together. And he says, we have to not have perversion here. Mm-hmm. . And I think the reason that he does that is that healing happens and a kind of a reentering a restoration of our identities as male and female does start with our bodies and how we use our bodies mm-hmm.

and when we use our bodies appropriately. So when we approach sexuality in a holy sense and an in Christ sense, when we approach being male and female in an, in Christ sense, that those choices then will affect our souls.

So if you think about it, God, Paul likes to deal with our behavior because he wants to deal with how our behavior impacts our soul because our souls are in a sense the seat of our emotions, how we experience life. And w when we make choices to be under the authority of Christ, to stand in our , on our identity fully as male or female, even if we're not feeling that way, our emotions will change be .

Because what happens is, is when you're obedient, and I think this is the key part, is when you're obedient, your emotional experience of life changes, and when your emotional experience of life changes into a more holy experience, you actually shift into what I would say is a more spiritual experience of life. Hmm . So what happens is, a , we're always experiencing life in our body. We've been given five senses, right .

Smell, touch , uh, taste. We can hear things, we can see things. And we live in those experiences. They are just these data systems that are informing us and they impact our emotion. What God invites us into is a taste of himself, father, son , and Holy Spirit when he gives us his spirit. But we're not connected to that. So our , his spirit mm-hmm . comes with our spirit and tells us who we are.

I know this is a little complicated, but I think it's important is that what Paul is saying is if you obey, it will change the way you experience the world. And when you change the way you experience the world, it will change the way you experience God.

And it , it makes sense to me that those would be, would need to be reconnected or , um, reoriented or realigned as we walk in the kingdom.

So it's true, like part of the reason that we use our body in ways that isn't appropriate is to feel the loneliness. We feel. So when we make good choices, that does begin to transform our emotional experience of things. And it says, and then you said , our bodies process these emotions and we use physical activities to regulate our loneliness.

So Paul addresses the use of the body in order to support a holiness of the soul. Good emotions follow good choices, and a connection of the spirit. And I , I just like that phrase of like the , uh, it supports a holiness of the soul that like, that our choices to obey and to submit to God's definition of who we are and God's power to live out life and God's mission, our souls become holy.

There's a holiness mm-hmm . there. And then that puts us in a position to be able to taste who we are through the spirit.

Yeah. I have a question , uh, about that you may be getting to, but you mentioned at the beginning that God created us as male and female, which were nouns.

It was not an effect on your identity, your sexual practice mm-hmm. . But starting with Freud and many others, most likely partly post-modern theology or post-modern philosophy, what we've done is we've taken , uh, this verb the way we practice our gender or, or , or we act out sexually. And we said, no, this is actually a gender identifier. This , so it's a noun. It be Yes . The verb becomes a noun.

Yes. The verb becomes a noun. And so, and now we're, we're, we're messing with that even more. And we're saying, well, it's fluid in the sense that my, my gender can move back and forth and I can identify it. So, but you, if you think about all these things, a lot of this, yes, we make choices in these experiences, but this , it's an expression of the internal distortion.

But it's also then that distortion comes from a , the choice of Eve and Adam to bring the power on themselves, that they get to decide who they are, and they get to decide what it means to be male and female and what your role is like , how your sexuality should be played out. And so the garden is really clear, God's intention is really clear that to reflect the triune God, it is between male and female. Mm-hmm.

, I think Isaiah and Matthew, Jesus indicate that the distortion has expressions in people's bodies that aren't the way it's supposed to be. And that's actually okay. Mm-hmm. , but there are choices mm-hmm . that we have to make in regards to that. And we might say, well, that's not fair. And and my argument for that is, yeah. That it isn't unfair , it's not fair, but nothing is fair in this world.

We're not, God is not, his intention is not to make things fair. God's intention is to bring all things to, to its rights. So he's, he's undoing what we've done. You might question why he went about doing it this way, but for me personally, I don't feel that questioning it gets you anywhere good. And it really doesn't help. It's not helpful.

And it, and it , it only brings you down a very dark road , um, that isn't, is not gonna be a truth road. And so I think where the light rests is in God's intention for where things are and to walk with those who are struggling with it, and to not be a community of shame. Mm-hmm. , like we have to be a community that stands naked and unashamed through Christ. Mm-hmm.

, because you can't deal with our same sex attraction. We can't deal with our fluid gender , we can't deal with the choices that we've made over time to take in all of the messages and not hold them captive as Paul invites us to in Corinthians and submit them to Christ. Like we, we submit them to ourselves. And I think that is a big part of this .

So the res the restoration process for me , um, when I think about it is that really they're in categories. And so my body needs work mm-hmm. and , and understanding it and , and bringing it into submission. My soul needs work, how I'm gonna face loneliness in the midst of the distortions and choices that I've made in life and how that impacts me.

So am I going to rest in Christ and, and to use a crazy village phrase, sit in the loneliness and wait for Jesus to speak and meet me in that mm-hmm . . Um, and , um, and so that's your, your soul and then , then your spirit. Your spirit is the place where you're told who you are.

And so the only way you can get to the spirit, to inside of you that God has given you, is to submit to the lordship of Christ in your body and your soul in order to listen to the spirit.

I mean, it's kind of like in the sense your body and your soul are like toddlers who are disobedient and you're trying to be, and you're on, you're on the phone with God and they're screaming and yelling, and punching each other and, and jumping up and down. And so you have no way of knowing who you are cuz you can barely hear what God is saying.

And that how we wrestle those out, we do that in community. So I think that's it. Do you have any other questions?

Ask away, say, Hey, I , I would, I would love you to clarify these things for me, or could you talk more about this? And I would love to do that. Mm-hmm. , so healing city gmail.com or Villagers online Gmail. We'll get you , get you there too. So,

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