This past Sunday (8/26/18) I got the opportunity to discuss the question, “Why is sexual purity such a big deal in Christianity?”  It was a fun sermon and typically we would be making sure that it got up online for the folks who were unable to attended, so that they could listen to it and talk about it with the rest of us… but, due to a recording issue, only half of the sermon was recorded… 🙁

I thought I would give a couple of bullet points here and allow them to stand in for a sermon recording!

First we walked through the fact that humans are, in our nature, image bearers of God (see Genesis 1:26-28).  We also pointed out that God created a community of humans in order to reflect the community in God’s Triune nature.

We next jumped to Genesis 2, where the Bible explains HOW God made the community of people.  In verses 20-24 of chapter 2 we see God cause the man to fall into a deep sleep, and then God takes a part of the man and creates two whole people.  Once again there is the unity in plurality idea that reflects the unity in the three persons of God.  But the person who pulled all of the stories in Genesis together jumps in at verse 24 and says,

²⁴ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

The reason people want to become one flesh, or have sex, is because humanity was once one flesh and we now act out that reality in the context of sex in marriage!

Wrap that all together and the reason why sexual purity is such a big deal in Christianity is because we play out our roll of imaging God in the context of pure sex.  If sex is impure, or rather if we are taking part in sexual immorality, we declare something about God that isn’t true.

• If we have sex with a prostitute, or purchase sex in any way, we are declaring that God is cheap enough to be purchased.
• If we create a fictional character in our minds, whether it is put there by a pornographic movie, image, a book we are reading or we create the image using a person’s body we know in the real world, and we have sex with them in our minds, we are declaring that God isn’t real.
• If we have sex with ourselves by masturbating we are denying that God is a community of persons in unity.
• If we have sex with our boyfriend or girlfriend we are declaring that God does not require commitment.
• If we sleep around, use sex as a weapon, a tool to get what you want, or just for your own enjoyment promiscuously, we are declaring that God is shallow, manipulative, and not worthy of trust.

 

All of us are declaring SOMETHING about who God is by the way that we are interacting with sexual purity?  What about you?

 

At the end of the sermon I encouraged folks who wanted to talk about this one over a burrito or a beer or tea or whatever to contact me, because this is not an easy topic.  I know that I have made a mockery of sexual purity at different points in my life.  I have needed many people to help encourage me during the journey.

One of the books that has been floating around, giving help to some, is a book called Pure Desire by Ted Roberts.  He was a fighter pilot, so some of his examples are a bit on the macho side for my taste, but he has faced sexual immorality in his own life and allowed the gospel to bring healing.  There is something for everyone to learn from reading this book!

There were so many great points in the sermon (like answering the question about how single people image this aspect of God without having sex), but there is only so much space in a blog post.

As always, I would love to get together and chat if you have questions!  Shoot me and email and we can figure it out! dave@graftedcc.com