The following is from a talk I gave to the Shawnee State University’s 9th Hour men for their Spring Retreat.
Jesus is the source of the greatest satisfaction that you will ever find in existence! I have been tasked to speak about the subject of sexual purity in a sex saturated world, but honestly a lot of what I will say tonight you have already heard. Most of us who have spent any significant time in the church know what God’s moral standards are for sex. We know that God does not condone fornication, pornography, adultery, etc. Yet for all our knowledge of God’s standards sexual immorality remains one of the most prevalent problems in the church today. Statistics from a few years ago revealed that the top two types of websites viewed on a particular Christian college campus were seminary websites and porn websites, and the number of men who resign from the ministry every year due to sexual immorality prove that this is a major problem. So all the knowledge of what God condemns doesn’t seem to be helping us much. What I want to argue tonight is that it takes more than condemnation for us to resist sexual sin, it will take belief in a greater promise. Ultimately if we are going to fight sexual temptation and succeed we must fight it with the gospel, we must fight it with the knowledge that Jesus is the source of the greatest satisfaction we will ever find in existence.
I want to take some time to consider why God created sex and sexual desire. What was His purpose? I believe that if we can understand this better we will be able to see more clearly what makes certain things so awful in God’s sight, and why they are sins. So we start with the positive and move to the negative.
If we’re going to understand why God creates sex then we have to turn to the book of beginnings, Genesis. In Genesis 1:27-28 we read:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
We see clearly, from this text, that part of God’s original design was procreation. But there has to be more to sex than that, right? I mean God could have caused procreation to happen anyway He wanted, why does he choose, then, to make it part of this amazing gift of sex? He could have had us making babies by punching each other in throat…now granted if that had been the process there would have been less baby making I assume, but also less fist fights. The point is that sex is so wonderful and unique and amazing that surely God saw more to in than simply the furthering of the human race. And the Scriptures tell us that he did.
Again in Genesis we read:
Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
So part of God’s plan for the creation of sex was the breeding of intimacy between spouses. The one flesh concept is about a unique intimacy experienced and celebrated only by the husband and wife. This is part of God’s purpose for sex. There is a uniqueness to the relationship a husband and wife share, they don’t relate to anyone else in the same way. That is by God’s design. But there is still more to God’s creation of sex, and this is the big picture in Scripture.
Ultimately, God creates sex and sexual experience to point us beyond the intimacy of husband and wife to a completely unique intimacy that we experience with Jesus. In fact God creates sex and sexual desire so that we might have a language and concept by which we might better understand what it means to relate to Jesus. Now, I know how that sounds. It probably sounds weird and a little bit creepy. But let me explain.
Scripture often uses sexual language to talk about God’s relating to His people. The point in these places in Scripture is not to suggest that man has some kind of weird spiritual orgy with God, but rather to highlight how the excitement, joy, pleasure, and unique intimacy that husbands and wives experience together is a pointer to similar things in our relationship with Jesus. It is the only language that can come close to describing the joy, excitement, and unique intimacy we have with our God. A couple of examples might serve us well here.
Think, first, about the phrase “to know.” In Scripture we read that Adam knew Eve his wife (Gen. 4:1) and that Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore Enoch (Gen. 4:17). The point of these and other such passages is not that these men mentally understood who their wives were, but that the expression “to know” is connected with sexual intimacy. This becomes especially clear when in the New Testament we read that Mary was with child though Joseph never knew her (Matthew 1:25). Apply this same phrase then to God’s knowing his children, or to Jesus saying, “I know my own and my own know Me” (John 10:14). Here sexual language is applied to God’s relating to His people to help us understand better the unique intimacy they experience.
Consider, more specifically Ezekiel 16:1-8. Here God is described as Israel’s lover, even proposing to her in marriage (covering her with the corner of his garment). In the New Testament the most significant passage is Ephesians 5:25-32, where Paul describes marriage as a mystery which points to Christ and the church. Paul’s theology, then, tells us that God creates marriage (and all that goes along with that) to help us better understand what it means to be in relationship with Jesus (husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church, etc.). The key here is that sex and sexual experiences are given to us from God so that we might have a language and an idea by which we might better understand what it means to relate to Jesus. This, then, explains why sexual sin is so heinous.
Each and every act of our sexuality screams, “This is what it’s like to relate to Jesus!” You see our sex is either personal, monogamous, intimate, respectful, etc. or it’s selfish, abusive, easily tossed aside, and shameful. Think carefully about the various acts of sexual immorality that we can, that we have, committed: What does lust say about Jesus; What does masturbating to porn say about Jesus; What does a one-night stand say about Jesus? Is God’s love for us a one night stand? Is God’s love for me cheap and easily bought? Is God’s love for me momentary and rooted in selfish gratification?
Look back at Ezekiel 16:30-38. Here we have sexual immorality being used as a metaphor for idolatry. It’s a pretty graphic description. Or look at 1 Corinthians 6:15-19, where Paul points out how insane it would be to join the members of CHRIST to a PROSTITUTE! You can’t do this, he says! Your sexual experiences are not unrelated to your Christian life. In fact your sex is part of your theology, and what you do with your sexual expressions can either communicate true theology or false.
So first, your sexual sin can affect your theology of others, or anthropology. Neurologist William Struthers has written a fascinating book called Wired For Intimacy in which he argues that the combination of physical sensation, orgasm, with the graphic images of pornography actually burn neural pathways in our brain. The more frequently we do this the deeper those pathways become and the more commonly used they will become for all our thoughts. So that eventually what happens is that guys begin to move seamlessly from the world of their computer screens to the world in which they live, work, and play. So that now those images you have seared into your brain of some girl doing porn are transposed onto the people you interact with daily. You’re no longer just thinking lustful and graphic thoughts about the women online, but the women in your office, class, and neighborhood. Some men have confessed that as they indulge in more porn they find themselves thinking horrible things about their friends, their wives’ friends, and their co-workers. The porn world becomes the real world for them!
Sexual sin also affects your doctrine of the gospel. What I do with my sexuality affects how I view God’s love for me. If sex is created to point me to what it’s like to relate in unique intimacy to Jesus, then the abuse of this creation leads me to false understandings of God’s love. It becomes easy for me to see God’s love for me as requiring little or no commitment, and as something that I can abuse and manipulate as I see fit. Overtime, then, what happens is that I increasingly see no real discrepancy between my “love” for Jesus and my viewing porn or sleeping with random people. But there is a real problem with this, because Jesus does not take this sin lightly.
Look at Matthew 5:27-30. Here Jesus says that if something is tempting me to engage in sexual immorality he wants me to do whatever it takes to get rid of it. He is so serious about fighting sexual sin that the says gauge out your eyes and cut off your hands. In even stronger words he says, “It’s better to go to heaven missing an eye and an arm, than to go to hell with both.” Now, the point is not that sexual sin keeps you out of heaven, but Jesus says if you’re not even willing to fight it (regardless of how well you succeed) then maybe you don’t really love me in the first place. Friends, what things are tempting you to sin that you need to cut out: computer? TV? Girlfriend? Jesus says, there is nothing worth keeping if it means dishonoring me! Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus is better than the promises of sexual immorality? Do you believe that Jesus is the source of the greatest satisfaction that you will ever find on earth? I pray you do!
In conclusion I want to leave you with 8 Biblical motivations to purity, look up the verses with each of these:
o First, Remember everything is for God’s glory à 1 Corinthians 10:31
o Second, Consider the danger of sin à Hebrews 10:26-27
o Third, Consider the Benefits of Purity à Psalm 16:11
o Fourth, Remember the Promises of God à Psalm 84:11
o Fifth, Remember that you are no longer a slave to sin à 1 Cor. 10:13
o Sixth, Remember that God is satisfying à Psalm 90:14
o Seventh, The Holy Spirit Will Aid You à
o Eight, The Word of God Will Guide You à Psalm 119:9
Ultimately, I want you to remember the gospel! You are not here depending on your purity, your successful battle against lust, for your salvation. Rather you are, if you are truly a Christian, trusting in Jesus righteousness. Trust Him for your right relationship with God, and then ask Him to help you fight lust in your heart!
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 