God invented sex. It’s normal. However, He didn’t leave the details up to us. Probably the worst assumption we could make about our Creator is that He put a sexual “itch” in human beings, and now we’re free to scratch it however we want.
This is not something we want to talk about. We Christians have learned how to grow churches, argue doctrine, and build ministry empires. But the area of sexual purity is not one where we post a lot of victories.
Phil Yancey, a celebrated Christian author, speaks of a man named Harold who had befriended him in the church of his youth. Harold excelled at being offended by behavioral minutiae such as women wearing makeup, contemporary musical instruments in church, and anything that didn’t conform to his extremely particular, nuanced views of how things ought to be.
True to his cranky, judgmental nature, Harold eventually left the church. Much later, Yancey began writing his long string of best-selling Christian books. As a courtesy, he would send a copy of each one to his old friend Harold, who would respond with long, disapproving critiques. In one case, Harold was so offended with a title —Disappointment with God—that he didn’t even bother to open the book. But he still managed to write a scathing, three-page dismissal of it. Nothing was moral enough, correct enough, for Harold.
This only heightened Yancey’s utter shock when he eventually found out that his old legalistic church friend had been arrested for distribution of pornography.
And before anyone thinks such failures belong solely to seedy basement perverts of the male gender, it’s also a female problem. I was told a while back about a young worship leader who had a lot of muscles and a great haircut. He would get notes from female congregants who complimented his physique in inappropriate ways with requests for a “hook up.”
In another case, a young church leader reported how, as he helped to pass the bread and wine during the Lord’s Supper, he received a note from an attractive woman. She had written inside it her bustline measurements and an offer for “action” after church.
Needless to say, modern Christian dating hardly operates any differently from the world at large. Even mature singles in the pews can act as irresponsibly as any hormone-driven teenager.
Scripture teaches limitations on sexual expression. Largely due to this one feature, perhaps, serious Christian faith has never achieved mainstream popularity. Today’s complaint is that the Bible’s teaching about sex collides with social progress. But that so-called progress is illusory. The world might feel as though it’s moving forward into some liberated, enlightened age, but it only seems that way.
The progress we think is happening is actually a regress back to the times of Roman paganism, in a world where the Bible didn’t figure into the lives of most people. The church obviously can’t afford to go along with such a backward trajectory.
Our society has listened to and been shaped by all the wrong influences. These have historically ranged from hostile philosophers to daytime television, to professors at junior colleges, to preachers who talk a lot about love while dumbing down the rest of the Bible. Real believers in Christ, though, listen to the Scriptures.
A majority percentage of the biblical literature (by book) mentions the hazards of sexual immorality. You’ll find prohibitions against adultery, fornication, homosexuality, corrupting children, bestiality (sex with animals), necrophilia (sex with the dead), and the lust of the eyes (which includes pornography). Though these are not all equally popular, all are present somehow, somewhere on the globe at any given moment.
The world counsels people to act on those inclinations and live them out (In the name of being true to yourself).
The Bible warns us not to listen to that advice. Sexual sin retards and dulls the spiritual condition. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). It’s evident that the impure will find themselves spiritually blinded in the relational sense of the word and not able to perceive Him. There’s more. Sexual sin also leads to an addictive descent of “lawlessness leading to more lawlessness” (Rom 6:19), habits that can become so entrenched they seem impossible to escape.
Here’s the good news: when Christ is Lord of our personal space, freedom from sexual sin becomes quite possible. A few principles are helpful toward this end.
1. Be Willing to Learn
“For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God” (1 Thes. 4:2-5).
Abstinence from sexual immorality involves a learning curve. No, it doesn’t come naturally to the old you. However, it is natural to the new you, where holiness and honor are your chief characteristics. This amounts to knowing how to control our bodies, not to the opinions of society, but according to the will of God.
2. Start on the Inside
Our challenge concerning sexuality doesn’t begin with the things we do. Rather, it starts within the personal space of the heart. Jesus said,
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. (Matt. 15:19).
It stands to reason, then, that if we want to deal with sexual impropriety, we must start on the inside, where sinful impulses first appear.
How do we stand a chance against things so internal to us and so much a part of us? The apostle no doubt agreed that rogue sensuality is internal, but reminds us that the Holy Spirit is now internal to us, as well: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (1 Cor. 6:19). “The Holy Spirit…dwells within us” (2 Tim. 1:14). With this understanding in view, you are equipped to “…walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16).
Believers in Christ have all the power in the universe for holy living inside of them. They only need to walk according to it. The Spirit is the ultimate internal source of holiness.
But this, unfortunately, sounds naïve to Christians today.
During my time in the service, the Army sent me to a school for advanced training. I carpooled in a van to class with a number of other young men. A few in the vehicle were Christians, and I was a brand new believer myself. The thing was, we had already been away from our wives for one week, and some of the guys had begun to have issues. As a result, the talk in the van became sexually charged and graphic. I felt since I was with Christians, it was safe to voice the obvious, so I did: “Maybe we just need to walk according to the Spirit.” The remark wasn’t meant to be a rebuke against any of them, just one of those bald-faced, think-out-loud moments.
Instead of grudging agreement, each fellow took turns hammering me with profanity. I was lambasted and cursed. Even the Christians present found it ludicrous to suggest that men might be able to escape sexual temptation.
Forty years have gone by, and I’ve learned some things about human life. When I look back at that van at my younger self, so fresh-faced and green, spiritually immature, without social graces or shepherding know-how, I smile and wink and say, “You were right, kid.”
Galatians 5:16 isn’t naïve, it’s the truth.
It may have been a while since you felt the inward presence of God. Under those circumstances, of course, spiritual things are going to sound impotent. Although God has invested the spiritual equivalent of a billion dollars into you, you may very well be living as though you’re in a spiritual third-world country, making 37 cents a day.
But before you start thinking that to walk by the Spirit is some type of secret spiritual hack or unusual experience, it’s not. There’s no programmer code here. It merely means living a life that gives preferential treatment to the Holy Spirit.
Prayer and Scripture reading, for instance, stops being a perfunctory exercise and turns into worshipful conversations with God that go deep. Confession no longer skims the surface of generic shortcomings but scoops the bottom of our hearts, dredging up our most honest and painful failures.
Church changes from being a time slot to being a group of companions that endlessly encourage you forward, even when you’d rather drift away. Your daily life compresses all the fragmented compartments that separate sacred from secular and bring them into one reality.
But even at this wonderful stage, we’re not done yet with making Christ Lord of our sex life.
3. Make Changes on the Outside to Support the Inside
This last principle involves supporting our inward spiritual experiences by making practical changes on the outside. Scripture says,
“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom. 13:14).
The verse literally tells us not to plan opportunities for the flesh. This means we’ll need to implement practical measures to avoid those “opportunities.” After all, what good is it to pursue inward revival but keep old things in place that will continually sabotage it?
Be honest with yourself. What are the outward factors that stimulate you toward sexual sin? Is it a time of the day when you’re tired? Lonely? Upset? Make arrangements to remove those inducements.
Is it a location like the beach, where there’s a lot of skin scenery? Try a vacation destination that’s less risque—trout streams and mountain ranges, maybe. Is it a gym where the people don’t really need the workout but love being seen in yoga pants? You might want to switch to a gym where members like me actually need to go.
Is your trigger related to an activity, like watching women’s sand volleyball? Learn guitar instead. Or go mow the grass.
Is it literature such as romance novels that read like soft porn? Or celebrity gossip rags with photos of beautiful, almost naked folks? Or worse, mags with fully naked folks? Pick up a Bible. Or the classics. Or comics instead.
Is your trigger a television show, like the current hot series people are binging on? Some of these programs offer voyeuristic scenes that wear down resistance to harder forms of sexual stimulation. How about a good educational documentary, instead?
And don’t forget the wild, wild west of the internet. Do you frequently get in trouble wandering around there? Try setting up boundaries for yourself that only allow for work-related use. Keep your computer in a public place. Install accountability software.
None of this, of course, will matter if you’re not willing to be honest with yourself. Don’t say you’re doing pretty good. “Pretty good” is not the standard.
The holiness of God is the standard.
The fuel is the Holy Spirit.
The goal is Christ as glorious Lord over your personal space.
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This is an updated edition of a post originally published on John Myer
Featured Image by Hoàng Đông Trịnh Lê from Pixabay
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