Sexual Purity
From the Series—Body Language
June 6, 2004This evotional concludes our Body Language. Next week we’ll begin a new series of evotionals on prayer titled Onstar Onboard: Always There, Always Ready.
A Theology of Sexuality
Let me pick up where we left off two weeks ago.
A few years ago I heard Bart Campolo speak and he said something pretty profound. “Ask the average teenager how they’re doing spiritually and what they tell you is actually how they’re doing sexually.” I don’t think that is just true of teenagers. I think that is true of every person reading this evotional. I don’t think you can compartmentalize spirituality and sexuality. How you’re doing spiritually is a reflection of how you’re doing sexually.
So some of you are struggling spiritually and you’re struggling spiritually for one reason: you’re struggling sexually. You’ve got sexual scars that you can’t seem to heal. You’ve got sexual addictions that you can’t seem to break. You’ve got sexual issues you can’t seem to figure out. And it’s like walking around with a fifty-pound backpack strapped to your shoulders or a fifty-pound anchor attached to your ankle. It’s dragging you down and holding you back spiritually.
In the last week’s evotional I laid out a theology of sexuality. We did some reverse-engineering and went all the way back to Genesis 2:24. Whether you’re a software engineer or car manufacturer, one way you solve problems is via reverse-engineering. You take the problem apart and go back to the original blueprint or source code. When you take apart the sexual confusion that exists in our culture I think you end up at Genesis 2:24. It is the original blueprint or source code. It says, “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh.” And then it says, “The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.”
I think this passage reveals God’s original blueprint: sex without shame. God wants us to experience sexual satisfaction. Sex is a gift from God. God is pro-sex. It was his idea in the first place. But he doesn’t want us to experience the side-effects of shame.
So how do you experience sex without shame? The answer is pretty simple: when you do some reverse-engineering you discover that sex without shame is sex within marriage.
Let me give you a definition: Sex is a sacred covenant between a husband and a wife. Anything less or anything else devalues something sacred. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about sex in these terms, but here is what is so cool about that. That means that every time you have sex as a married couple you are renewing your sacred covenant with your spouse. And I think that is the most beautiful and most biblical way to think about this gift that God has given to us.
I’ve received lots of emails the last couple of weeks. Let me share one of them that I got permission to share.
Pastor Mark,
Thank you for taking on the difficult topic of sexuality in this morning’s sermon. I, like many others, have always been prone to shut out pastors in the past when this issue was discussed, probably because of the approach that was taken. I’ve heard my fair share of hellfire and damnation speeches regarding sex.
Your sermon made me realize I have grown so accustomed to giving into my sexual desires I had lost sight of how beautiful sex can be—probably because no one has ever described its purpose as you did. Over the years, sex has become part of the process of dating, not something to look forward to on a spiritual level. I have always blamed the shame I felt the morning after on God, when all the while, it was me who was ashamed of myself because I knew I was not living in His image.
I’ve made so many mistakes in my life, all of which could have been avoided had I not succumbed to my sexual desires. But ultimately, it’s God’s forgiveness I am seeking and I know the first step is changing my habits. Over the past few months I began this process, and after hearing your sermon this morning, I know God brought me to National Community Church for a reason. He is ready to forgive me, and I am ready to forgive myself.
I’m not sure where you’re at on the continuum between sexual purity and sexual immorality, but I’m less concerned with where you are and more concerned with what direction you’re headed. What I want to do is help you move toward sexual purity.
Sexual Drift
Hebrews 2:1 says, “We must pay more careful attention therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” This verse describes a danger that all of us face and the danger is drifting.
Webster’s dictionary defines drifting as “the velocity of the current of a river” or more metaphorically “the path of least resistance.”
The writer of Hebrews is concerned about what could be called “doctrinal drift.” But drifting has general application—it affects every area of our lives.
Businesses experience drift. An upstart entrepreneur starts with a vision for a particular market niche. As the company grows it diversifies or grows through mergers and acquisitions and ends up getting away from it original core business.
Marriages experience drift. Instead of growing together you grow apart and you wake up one morning and you feel like you hardly know the person you’re sleeping next to.
Churches experience drift. They start out with a white-hot passion to “go into all the world and make disciples” and they end up lots of committees.
All of us experience drift and it affects every area of our lives! What I want to focus on is sexual drift. Some of you have ended up someplace you never intended to go sexually. I want to talk about how you got there and how you can get back.
The Current
Imagine a river. I want you to think of the current as sexual temptation.
We live in a culture where the current is pretty strong. You can’t drive down the highway without seeing a billboard or walk through the mall without seeing a poster or read through a magazine without seeing an ad or flip through the channels without seeing an image that is designed to elicit sexual desire. That is the reality. And you can’t escape it.
You can’t get out of the current. You never outgrow temptation. I love the way Rick Warren says it in The Purpose Driven Life. “Many Christians are frightened and demoralized by tempting thoughts, feeling guilty that they aren’t ‘beyond’ temptation. This is a misunderstanding of maturity. You will never outgrow temptation.”
Let me just say it like it is: you will experience sexual temptation the rest of your life. No matter how spiritual you become there will always be an undertow of sexual temptation trying to suck you under and pull you downstream.
Here’s another way of thinking about it.
We were at an Orioles game a couple weeks ago and it started to rain. I looked up into the ballpark lights and it was incredible—you could see the individual raindrops falling. So I started “doing a matrix.” I was dodging the raindrops in super slow motion! It was amazing—to me at least! The rest of the story in a second.
Some of us try to “not sin” by “not sinning.” But it’s called a double bind in psychological terms. If I say to you, “Be spontaneous,” you can’t be! But that is how so many of us try to avoid sexual sin—don’t think about sex, don’t think about sex, don’t think about sex. But you have to think about it to not think about it.
So I was dodging these raindrops, entertaining myself, and then we looked at the first base side and the started coming down in sheets. And my initial reaction was one of laughter. I pointed my finger and started mocking them. And then my laughter slowly turned into one of those, “I was laughing at you and now it’s your turn to laugh at me” scenarios. Long story short, we got soaked. It rained buckets.
I think avoiding sexual temptation is like avoiding raindrops. It’s impossible. You can’t get out of the current.
So sexual temptation is the current.
The Headwaters
I want you to think of the headwaters as sexual purity. All of us start out upstream. And it’s pretty easy to resist the current when you’re all the way upstream.
When I was a kid my parents took us to Lake Itasca State Park in northern Minnesota. I was too young to remember it, but I’m told that you can actually walk across the Mississippi river at its headwaters because the current isn’t very strong and the river isn’t very deep.
The Mississippi river is the longest river in North America—it’s 2,552 miles long. It releases 2.3 million cubic feet of water per second into the Gulf of Mexico. If you try to resist the current all the way downstream, good luck! But it’s pretty easy to resist the current and hold your ground at the headwaters.
Now let me add something to the analogy: Every time you give in to sexual temptation the current takes you a little further downstream.
It may seem like a small compromise, but the water gets a little deeper and the current gets a little stronger. If you aren’t careful you get deeper and deeper into pornography or a romantic relationship and the current gets stronger and stronger. Let me tell you a few things I know about the current:
The further you go the faster you go
The further you go the further you want to go
The further you go the harder it is to go back
And before you know it you’re knee-deep or neck-deep in sexual sin. Some of you are so far downstream you’re drowning in sexual sin. You can hardly keep your head above water.
I want to throw you a lifeline. Let me talk about how we drift downstream. And then I want to talk about how we can get back upstream.
Spiritual Sensitivity
Let me start at the headwaters.
Ephesians 5:3 says, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality.” That is a pretty tall order. And it may seem like an unattainable goal from your present vantage point downstream but let me explain why it’s so important.
I’m not convinced that sexual purity is an end in and of itself. The goal of sexual purity isn’t just sexual purity. I think sexual purity is a means to an end. The goal of sexual purity is spiritual sensitivity.
Ephesians 4:17 says, “You must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality, so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.”
There is a juxtaposition in this passage between sensitivity and sensuality. Sensuality is living at the level of lust—your desires become your god. Sensitivity is living at level beyond the five senses. It is a heightened spiritual awareness. And you can’t have it both ways! It’s one or the other.
Here is what happens when you give in to sexual temptation—you lose some spiritual sensitivity. Let me explain it this way. The same Spirit that prompts us to do good things is the same Spirit that convicts us when we do bad things. And if you tune out convictions—which is what we do when we continue to live in sin. We tune out the promptings. And our lives become full of missed opportunities.
Let me describe it another way.
Sin hardens your heart—so you can’t feel those subtle promptings of the Spirit. And it hardens your hearing—so you can’t hear His still small voice. And eventually it leaves you numb and deaf. You become so calloused you can’t feel God or hear God. And then most of us blame God that we can’t feel him or hear him. But it’s our sin that has left us numb and deaf.
So the problem with sexual impurity isn’t sexual impurity—it is spiritual insensitivity. We lose all spiritual sensation. The goal of sexual purity is spiritual sensitivity.
Lust
If you give in to sexual temptation and live at the level of lust you end up losing spiritual sensitivity. Let me tell you what will happen next. Ephesians 4:18 says, “Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality, so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.”
Lust is sexual greed—it is craving sexually what God has forbidden. It’s saying to God, “Thanks for my current spouse or future spouse, but that isn’t enough for me.” And the truth is: enough is never enough.
Here is what is so insidious about sin. Sexual sin won’t satisfy your hunger. It will only increase your appetite for more. It goes back to the current—the further you go the further you want to go. One image or one partner is never enough. You’re left with “a continual lust for more.” So you end up further and further downstream. And one day you look at the shoreline and you don’t know where you are or how you got there. It’s pretty simple: you became driftwood. You let the current take you where it wanted you to go.
Let me talk about how to get back upstream.
Confess Your Sin
If you’re drifting sexually I think the first thing you need to do is confess your sin—and not some generic prayer like, “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done wrong.” You need to get specific. We don’t let our kids do one-word apologies or generic apologies. We make them be specific, because if an apology isn’t specific it isn’t sincere. You need to call sin “sin.” The healing process can’t begin until you acknowledge what’s wrong!
Here is what happens when you confess your sin—God throws you a lifeline.
Read to Isaiah 30:10 and tell me if this isn’t an accurate description of not just Israel in the 7th century BC, but America in the 21st century AD.
Isaiah 30:10 says, “They say to the seers, ‘See no more visions!’ And to the prophets, ‘Give us no more visions of what is right!’ Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. And stop confronting us’.”
Essentially, tell us exactly what we want to hear. But God loves us to much to tell us what we want to hear.
The Lord says in Isaiah 30:12, “Because you have rejected this message, this sin will become for you like a high wall.” Some of you live in a prison of sexual sin that you built brick by brick. And it’s become a high wall. You don’t see a way out.
But there is good news. Isaiah 30:19. “You will weep no more. How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.”
My youngest son, Josiah, just started sleeping in a “big boy” bed and it was a tough adjustment at first. He was scared so I did with him what I did with my other kids. I said, “Josiah, you call for daddy and I’ll come running. Ok?” So I would walk out of his room and into the adjacent bathroom. He’d say, “Daddy.” And I’d fly out of that bathroom and into his room like a crazed Bull seeing red. He’d giggle and we’d do it again and again and again. I wanted him to know that I’ll come running if he cries for help!
God is right around the corner waiting for us to “cry for help.”
Reestablish Boundaries
Once you confess your sin you need to reestablish healthy and holy sexual boundaries.
Proverbs 23:10 says, “Do not move the ancient boundary stone.” A boundary stone was like an ancient “no trespassing” signs. It marked a boundary line that should not be moved or crossed. It was a reference point, a line in the sand.
Some of you have gone out-of-bounds sexually and you need to put the boundary stone back where it belongs.
Maybe you need to take a break from a relationship if you keep crossing sexual boundaries. Maybe you need to cancel a subscription. Maybe you need to lose some channels on your TV or put a filter on your computer. It’s not going to happen by default. It’s only going to happen if you put the boundary stone back where it belongs!
Job 31:1 is a great example of reestablishing sexual boundaries. Job said, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully on a woman.” You’ve got to draw a line in the sand. You’ve got to dig your heels into the riverbed and resist the current.
I want to challenge you to put sexual boundary stones back where they belong. Will it be easy? Absolutely not! It’s very difficult to swim upstream sexually. And the further downstream you are the harder it is. But I want to push back a little bit. I think we whine too much when it comes to sexual desires and how hard it is to stay sexually pure.
Two verses.
I Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted he will provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
That is a promise you need to claim: there is a way out. I believe that. In recent weeks I’ve gotten emails and talked to several NCCers who want out of an addiction or a lifestyle or a habit. I believe God will make a way out if we look for it.
One more verse.
Hebrews 12:4 says, “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding of blood.” No one said this was going to be easy. But let’s stop throwing a pity party about how tough it is to stay sexually pure. Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him.
If Jesus can endure the cross we can endure some sexual temptation.
Guard Your Heart
Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” The word “guard” is the Hebrew word natsar and it literally means “to blockade.” That is such a graphic image to me. It makes me think of the Pentagon. Every time I drive by there are military vehicles blocking different entryways. They are in a defensive posture—prepared for any kind of attack. Proverbs 4:23 is saying that we need to guard our heart that way.
Let me give you another image because I want you to understand this concept. I played basketball in high school and college and we used to watch game films and I would study my opponents. I would try to identify their tendencies. Do they like to shoot off the dribble or off the pass? Do they like going to the basket or pulling up for a jump shot? Do they tend to fake right and go left or fake left and go right. I identified tendencies. I still had to go out there and guard them. But it put me at an advantage.
Guarding your heart is very similar. It is identifying your own tendencies. Joshua Harris says, “A lot of people can admit that lust is a prevalent sin in their life and say they want to change. But they’ve never taken the time to think through how the process of temptation unfolds for them. Instead of anticipating and being on their guard, they’re surprised by the same attack over and over.”
I remember an incident in graduate school. I was walking out our back door and I walked full speed into the sliding door! It was a “Kramer moment.” I nailed it—no hesitancy, no balking. I just flat out walked into it. I think you can do that once and get by with it. But if I walked into that sliding door every other day you’d start to wonder about me wouldn’t you? Of course you would. Why? Because you can only be surprised by something once or twice. But if you keep walking into sliding glass doors you’ve got issues!
But some of walk into the same temptations over and over and over again. Why? We don’t guard our hearts. We’ve never identified our sin tendencies. Let me ask you a few questions. What causes you to lust? Where are you? What are you doing? When are you doing it?
You’ve got to take radical measures to guard your heart. Jesus said in Matthew 6:27, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks lustfully on a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” This is why pornography is wrong—it is imaginary adultery. Then Jesus says, “If you right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for you whole body to be thrown into hell.”
Jesus is using hyperbole. Don’t take this passage literally. But you better take it seriously. Jesus is saying: take extreme measures to avoid tempting situations.
One more verse.
II Corinthians 10:5 says, “Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.” The sexual battle is won or lost in the mind. We are mediavores. But you’ve got to control your mental diet. There is an old aphorism—garbage in, garbage out.
Spiritual Disciplines
I think the best defense is a good offense. I think the way you move upstream is by practicing the spiritual disciplines.
Too many Christians try to practice what could be called “righteousness by subtraction”—don’t do this and don’t do that. But this is about so much more than avoiding sexual sin. What you need to do is fight a negative with a positive. It is a two-sided coin. I Timothy 6 talks about temptation. And verse 11 says, “Flee from all of this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.”
I think the spiritual disciplines are the way we play offense.
Fasting
I love fasting because it is sort of an “in your face” kind of discipline. I grew up in the Chicago area so I’m a huge Michael Jordan fan. I used to love it when defenders would egg him on. Jordan could talk smack with the best of them. I remember one game where you could read his lips and he was saying, “You can’t guard me.” It was “in your face” basketball.
Fasting is “in your face” spirituality. I don’t want this to sound sacrilegious, but it’s almost like the temptation of Christ is a jawing match between Satan and Jesus. Luke 4:2 says, “For forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.”
The Message says, “The Devil, playing on his hunger, gave the first test: ‘Since you’re God’s Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread.” He hit him where it hurt. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man does not live by bread alone.” It was “in your face” spirituality.
I feel defiant when I fast. It’s my way of saying, “I will not be mastered by anything.” It’s my way of saying, “God, you’re more important than food.”
Let me just share a conviction. If you want to get back upstream you won’t do it without fasting something. You’ve got to give something up. Here’s another way of saying it: you’ve got to starve something!
I shared this in the last evotional but let me reiterate it: what you feed grows and what you starve dies! I think we over spiritualize and over complicate holiness. Let me take some of the mystery out of it.
There is thing called the law of consequences in Galatians 6:7-9. It’s put holiness into agricultural terms. It says, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature from that nature will reap destruction.” Here’s my translation. You can sin, but you’re spitting into the wind! That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news. “The one who sows to please the Spirit, from that Spirit will reap Eternal life.” Nothing you do right will go unrewarded. So Paul says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
I love the way Joshua Harris talks about this in his book Not Even a Hint. “Holiness is a harvest.” That is exactly what Galatians 6 is saying. Harris says, “Any child knows that if you plant carrot seeds in the garden you will harvest carrots. We all understand the unbreakable link between what we put in the ground and what we take out later. The same principle is true in our spiritual lives. What you see in your spiritual life today is the direct result of what you’ve put in the soil of your life in days past. We can’t get around this truth. There are no exceptions—our actions and choices can’t be separated from specific consequences.”
John Stott says, “Some Christians sow to the flesh every day and wonder why they do not reap holiness.”
You’ve got to starve the flesh. Romans 13:14 says, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” You’ve got to starve it to death.
And you need to feed the Spirit. How?
The spiritual disciplines.