Bloom Where You Are Planted (Life On Purpose)
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The Right Tool
Check out some of these weird tools. Maybe they’re only weird to me. Have any of you used these? Here’s my favourite, which is awesome, and it’s the Stanley #1 Odd Jobs. I absolutely love this guy’s description.
We’ve all used the wrong tool to try to accomplish a task. We are going to hang a picture and can’t find the hammer, so we grab a screwdriver and hope we can use the handle to knock the nail in. We need to turn a ¾” bolt but the only wrench we can find is metric and it’s pretty close, so we try it. Instead of gluing something properly we throw on some tape and hope for the best. But it never quite works, right? The nail is crooked, the bolt gets stripped, the tape doesn’t hold. That’s because we are using the tool to do something it wasn’t designed for.
When God creates a human being He always gives them a purpose. Most people don’t care about God’s intended purpose for their lives but spend their time trying to figure out their own idea – which sometimes gets them part way there but they never feel like they completely fit. But, when Jesus calls someone to Himself and they become His disciple, He doesn’t just save them from their sin and send them on their merry way, but sets within them a desire to live out their God-given purpose. They go from someone who was living for themselves, trying to make themselves happy, and confused about their reason for living, to a Kingdom follower who is now trying to discover why God put them on earth, what will honour Jesus, and how they can glorify God by doing obeying His will for their life.
Sure, we mess up, sin, go the wrong way, and need a lot of grace, but God is always forgiving, rebuking, training, correcting and helping us to find and live out our purpose. The Holy Spirit within us acts like a compass, steering us towards the right and away from the wrong, even giving us spiritual gifts that we didn’t have before in order follow God’s plan for us. And when we hit that groove and finally discover what we were built to do, there’s nothing like it. No matter how hard it is, or how much we have to endure, there is a supernatural power that comes upon us, a hope beyond ourselves, a greater, eternal mission, and a reason and meaning that’s bigger than us – because we are living out our purpose.
Corinth
Please open up to 1 Corinthians 7:6-40. As I said a couple weeks ago, in 1st Corinthians we see that Paul was asked some important questions about what God wants from believers in regard to human sexuality and marital relationships. There were many in the church that wanted to follow God, but were being super-distracted by all the sin around them and the desires and temptations within them. They wondered if maybe they should just make a rule that all Christians everywhere should just give up on the whole marriage idea altogether because it was so corrupted and distracting, and just simply concentrate on following Jesus. Basically, they wondered if Christians should just become monks and nuns. We covered a lot of the answer last week, but we were left with a lot of other situations that weren’t covered like: What about single people who want to get married? What about the single people that don’t? What about people married to unbelievers? What about divorced people? Can they get remarried? Let’s read the rest of the passage together and we’ll draw out some application:
“Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.
To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.) For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.
Now concerning the betrothed [another word would be “virgin” or “unmarried”] , I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.
I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed [meaning parents of unmarried children], if his [or her] passions are strong, and it has to be, let him [or her] do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.
A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. Yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.” (ESV)
It is Good to Stay
Paul is here addressing a lot of situations directly, but there was an overarching theme to all of his answers. Look again. He says in verse 7, “I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.” And then in verse 17, “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.” And in verse 24, “So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.”
There’s no way that Paul could address the many variations on human relationships, or try to write a letter that told every human being what they should do with themselves for the rest of their lives. And even if God did do that, people’s circumstances change so quickly that they would need a new letter every year! So look at the overarching theme for what God says:
Verse 8 – If you are divorced or widowed Christian, it’s good to stay as you are and follow God, but if you need to get married, get married.
Verse 10 – If you are married Christian, it is good to stay as you are and follow God, but if your unbelieving partner divorces you, then let it be so.
Verse 20 – If you are a bondservant or slave who is Christian, then it is good to stay as you are and follow God, but if you have a chance to gain your freedom, go for it.
Verse 25 – If you are unmarried, then it is good to stay as you are and follow God, but if you want to get married, get married.
Verse 36 – If you have a child who is unmarried, then it is good that they stay that way and follow God, but if they want to get married, let them.
Verse 39 – If you are married and your spouse dies, then it is good to stay that way, but if you want to get married, then go ahead and marry a Christian.
Did you catch the theme? What is God’s concern here? Over and over we see God saying that whatever the situation is, find God in it, work in it, be at peace with it, serve God in it – grow and bloom where you are planted as best you – but if the situation changes around you, or you sense that God wants you to change your situation so you can serve Him better, then go for it. One might call it “contentment” – be content with the situation you find yourself in. Another might call it “focus” – stay focused on where you are and what you are doing, don’t get distracted by a bunch of temptations, man-made rules and worldly options. My Bible entitles the section above verse 17, “Live As You Are Called”. Essentially, bloom where you are planted as best you can, until the Gardner moves you.
Recall that part starting in verse 32 about anxieties where the Apostle says: “I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife… the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”
The crux comes at the end there as this teaching is designed to benefit us and our relationship with God, not to try to restrain us or keep us from experiencing what God has for us. A lot of man-made religious rules seemed designed only to “restrain”: “don’t do this, don’t do that”, but God’s rules are designed to help us flourish – to bloom where we are planted. He wants to free us from the entanglements and anxieties of this world and help us live maturely, with “good order”, devoted to our God-give life’s purpose.
For some, God’s purpose requires you to be married, so He’ll give you desires in that direction and point you to a spouse. For others, it means bucking the trend where the whole world seems to want you to hook up with someone or get married, so you can stay single and flexible. For some, it means staying content at a job you aren’t thrilled with so it can help you do something you couldn’t do otherwise. For others it means leaving your job security so you can have the freedom to do something that God needs you for.
The idea is that we weren’t put on this planet to simply eat, sleep, work, entertain ourselves, reproduce, and die. We were created for so much more. God has given us a purpose and when we make these big and little decisions – from will I marry, what job will I get, who will my friends be, what school will I attend, what will I do in my free time, who will my business partners be, what will my hobbies be – there is a bigger picture to consider. Will they bring more anxiety and restrain me from following God’s plan for my life, or will they be beneficial, promoting good order, and securing my devotion to the Lord?
Most of us don’t think that way. We usually get as far as “Do I like it?” “Is it fun?” “Will it make me money?” “Is she pretty?” “What do others expect me to do?” “What will make me popular?” “Will it be safe?” “Will it make me uncomfortable?” God tells us to expand our thinking beyond these worldly concerns and ask bigger questions: “Will it make me a better follower of Christ?” “Will it help me serve God and others better?” “Does it fit with who God has created me to be?” “Does it help me fulfill my life’s purpose or, even if it looks good, will it distract me from it?”
What a shallow, pointless existence it would be to waste our life pursuing fun, interesting, popular things – and completely miss the entire purpose of our lives.
The Purpose Driven Life
I want now to do doing something I’ve never really done before, and that is read a large selection from a book that has meant a lot to me. This is some selections from the first few pages of Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life”, a book that has helped me in innumerable ways. Please listen as I read this to you – and then go buy or borrow this book and finish it. If you hear nothing else this morning – hear this first sentence:
“It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.
The search for the purpose of life has puzzled people for thousands of years. That’s because we typically begin at the wrong starting point—ourselves. We ask self-centered questions like What do I want to be? What should I do with my life? What are my goals, my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life’s purpose. The Bible says, ‘It is God who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone’s life is in his power.’
Contrary to what many popular books, movies, and seminars tell you, you won’t discover your life’s meaning by looking within yourself. You’ve probably tried that already. You didn’t create yourself, so there is no way you can tell yourself what you were created for! If I handed you an invention you had never seen before, you wouldn’t know its purpose, and the invention itself wouldn’t be able to tell you either. Only the creator or the owner’s manual could reveal its purpose.
I once got lost in the mountains. When I stopped to ask for directions to the campsite, I was told, ‘You can’t get there from here. You must start from the other side of the mountain!’ In the same way, you cannot arrive at your life’s purpose by starting with a focus on yourself. You must begin with God, your Creator. You exist only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God and for God—and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.
Many people try to use God for their own self-actualization, but that is a reversal of nature and is doomed to failure. You were made for God, not vice versa, and life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your own purpose.…
How, then, do you discover the purpose you were created for? You have only two options. Your first option is speculation. This is what most people choose. They conjecture, they guess, they theorize. When people say, ‘I’ve always thought life is . . . ,’ they mean, ‘This is the best guess I can come up with.’
For thousands of years, brilliant philosophers have discussed and speculated about the meaning of life. Philosophy is an important subject and has its uses, but when it comes to determining the purpose of life, even the wisest philosophers are just guessing.…
Fortunately, there is an alternative to speculation about the meaning and purpose of life. It’s revelation. We can turn to what God has revealed about life in his Word. The easiest way to discover the purpose of an invention is to ask the creator of it. The same is true for discovering your life’s purpose: Ask God….
God is not just the starting point of your life; he is the source of it. To discover the purpose in life you must turn to god’s word, not the world’s wisdom. You must build your life on eternal truths, not pop psychology, success-motivation, or inspirational stories.
The Bible says, ‘It is in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.’ This verse gives us three insights into your purpose.
- You discover your identity and purpose through a relationship with Jesus Christ…..
- God was thinking of you long before you ever thought about Him. His purpose for your life predates your conception. He planned it before you existed, without your input. You may choose your career, your spouse, your hobbies, and many other parts of your life, but you don’t get to choose your purpose.
- The purpose of your life fits into a much larger, cosmic purpose that God has designed for eternity….”
Kingdom First
Let me close with the words of Jesus from Matthew 6:24-33 where He speaks about anxiety, worry, and focusing on the wrong things – especially focusing on a life worried about money and stuff – but as we saw in 1 Corinthians we can get just as muddled with worries about relationships and other things. Jesus says,
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
This is one of the hardest things about faith to teach and to practice. The point here is that God knows what you need and what you desire. If you think you need money, your heart is in the wrong place. God knows what you need. The question is, will you seek God’s kingdom and a righteous life first, and trust that God will give you what you need to accomplish it? Or will you leave your faith to the side and pursue the money instead.
If you think you need a girlfriend or boyfriend, or husband or wife, or a better husband or wife, then your heart is in the wrong place. Do you not believe that God knows what you need? If so, then will you seek to live out God’s purpose for you, content where you are, blooming where you are planted, trusting God will give you what you need to accomplish what He has asked you to do? Or will you cast your faith in God aside and pursue a relationship God never intended you to have? Which will bring you greater good and God more glory?
If you think you need a better job, then your heart is in the wrong place. Do you not believe that God knows what you need and desire? If so, then will you make the decision to bloom where you are planted, do the good you are called to do, be the employee God wants you to be, and allow God to decide where to put you? Or will you stay anxious, upset, resentful, and bitter that you aren’t getting your due – cutting corners and complaining, or jumping from place to place – trying to get something God hasn’t given you, that won’t lead to your flourishing? Which will bring God more glory and you more good? (James
God says in James 1:1-3,
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
Jesus says, “…[Unbelievers] seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
CT:LIVE Season 3 Finale Q&A (Carnivore Theology: Ep. 98)
The full audio version of our CT:LIVE Season 3 Finale Q&A! It’s a long one, but there’s lots of fun and answers to some awesome questions. Check Facebook for the contest winners.
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Good Christian Sex
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A couple weeks ago I gave a sermon on the topic of sexual immorality which led to some pretty strong and varied reactions. Some people appreciated confronting the topic of pornography from the pulpit while others claimed it was.
I want you to know that whenever I preach my intention is never to be intentionally shocking or vulgar, but simply to present what scripture teaches. None of the criticism I received was that I used harsh language or was in theological error and I ran the sermon past a few people and they agreed. However, while I did present the Gospel as the answer to the problem, one criticism that did touch home was that I may have presented the problem without giving many practical solutions.
One person said, “Ok, so everything is dark, but what’s the solution? Where’s the hope?” Of course, as I said, our ultimate hope is in Christ. The only way to be free from the burden of sin and to escape the trap of sexual immorality is to admit we are sinners, fall down at the cross, and ask for forgiveness and help from God. But there is a very practical, applicable, useful tool to help with the problem of an out of control, sinful, sexually immoral appetite: marriage.
Open up to 1 Corinthians 7:1-5.
[I want to say up front that though I used a bunch of sources, I help for this sermon from one of John MacArthur’s messages called “Marriage, Divorce, and Singleness”]
“Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: ‘It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.’ But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
Marriage in Corinth
We’ve already covered a few times the state of the culture in the city of Corinth. And the Corinthian church needed some instruction as to how they should handle living there. We can sympathize, right? Sin, it seems, has corrupted everything! And so, a believer, wanting to honour Jesus, flee sin, and be obedient to God, is often tempted to just throw everything out. They feel tempted so they figure that they will just get rid of everything. Move to the country, turn off the internet, break the TV, avoid the theatre, don’t date, don’t go to the mall, never talk to anyone except Christians… just avoid everything.
Some Christians in Corinth thought the same thing and some of them decided that the solution to avoiding the sin of sexual immorality at least would be that Christians should simply avoid marriage altogether. Corinth was a mess of immorality of all kinds, but what the city was most famous for, even in the pagan world, was how messed up they were sexually, and this affected the state of marriage too.
Weddings in ancient Greece actually looked a lot like they do today. A lot of our traditions come from them. Rich people had ceremonies, wore rings, had veils, carried flowers, even had cake.
Slaves, of which there were many in the Corinthian church, weren’t even allowed to get married, but if they did find someone they wanted to be with they could ask their owner if they could have a “tent partner” to be with sometimes. But they couldn’t commit to one another because there was no guarantee one of them wouldn’t be sold and have to leave.
In the general culture, the divorce rate was high and morality was very low. Like today, sleeping around, adultery, cheating, and serial monogamy was common. A normal citizen could even buy a wife if they wanted to. There was even, around biblical times, a sort of women’s liberation things that started, which tried to switch it around so that the women would do all the same things to the men. It was a real mess.
And so there were some big questions about what Christians should do. Keep in mind that those being saved and joining the church were coming from this culture completely. They didn’t grow up with the judeo-Christian ethic like we did – but came from a totally corrupted culture. And it was natural for them, seeking to want to be good Christians, to think that simply avoiding sex and marriage altogether would be best.
So here we see them sending a question to the Apostle Paul to ask what Jesus has to say on the subject. See verse 1: “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: ‘It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.’” That was their solution. They had a lot of situations. They had single Christians who wanted to get married but weren’t sure if that was a good idea, Christians married to unsaved spouses and weren’t sure what to do, married people who had a bunch of sinful habits they didn’t know what to do with, divorced people who didn’t know if they were allowed to get remarried, and a whole bunch of dads with angry daughters who were being told they weren’t allowed to get married at all. There was a lot of mixed teachings about this. Everything from “There should be no marriage but just free love and sex for everyone” to “no one should ever get married or have sex ever” – and that continues today among cults and different religions, even in those claiming Christianity. So, Paul, what does Jesus say we’re supposed to do?!
Paul’s answers take each of the groups in turn. He takes on the married people first, so let’s do that. I want to talk to the single people too, but since Paul talks to the married people first, that’s how we’re going to take it.
To the Married
Celibacy and singleness is ok with the Bible and ok with God. It frees you for greater missions in God’s kingdom and allows you to remain focused on serving Him and others. The Bible presents singleness as something to be honoured and godly. But, for most people, since sexual temptation is a real problem, the solution is to get married. Singleness is good unless it leads you into sexual sin. For most people, trying to avoid sexual sin is going to be really hard, because marriage is intended to be the norm. Marriage is a gift given to us by God to be a tool to help us grow closer to Him, learn about ourselves, become a better disciple, practice all the things the Bible says about serving, forgiving, self-control, etc… but it’s also the primary way that we are to deal with sexual temptation.
John MacArthur gives 6 reasons the Bible says God gave us marriage. Procreation, Pleasure, Purity, Provision, Partnership and Picture.
God gave us marriage so that we could Procreate, literally to make babies and carry on the species. He also gave us marriage for Pleasure, because it’s an amazing experience to be with another person for life. He gave us marriage so we could Provide for someone else, living as a servant to them, and so we could have a Partner that helps take care of us. And, God gave us marriage because, as we see all through the Bible, it is a Picture of Christ and the church.
The one we are talking about today is that God gave us marriage so we could pursue Purity and be more godly as we channel our sexual appetite into the right place. Fighting our natural appetites, continually sinning, and feeling guilty and shameful all the time is not a great life, so God allows us to fulfil that appetite in a pure and godly way in marriage.
However, just like those in ancient Corinth, we all today carry sexual baggage into our marriages. Histories with sexual partners, pornography habits, romantic fantasy’s we’ve concocted, and whatever else we have going on in our brains. And both are sinners. Even if we come into the marriage completely virginal, having never seen or read anything bad, we are still sinners and that’s going to cause problems – and it does, right?
The partners have different appetites and both get frustrated. One has expectations of the other that make them feel uncomfortable or simply can’t be done. One accuses the other of being too aggressive while the other is accused of being cold and unloving. What is supposed to be a gift from God, and the means by which we escape the trap of sexual immorality, ends up being a wedge that comes between the Christian husband and wife. Which leads to anger, hurt feelings, loneliness, temptation, thoughts of divorce… and more.
What is the solution for a Christian who has committed their life to Jesus? I believe that a big part of the solution is to have a proper, Biblical understanding of sex within marriage – and how to have good sex. Our pornographic culture has corrupted sex in every possible way, and much of that thinking has seeped into our own, and so 1 Corinthians 7 gives a mini-marriage seminar.
The Power of Sex
What does the Bible say here? Well, first it frames the sexual union as a tool to escape temptation. “…because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” Marriage is good for many things. We learn a lot being married, but another way it is good is that it gives us an outlet for our sexual energies. Most people, except those gifted with the ability to be single and celibate, will find it almost impossible to avoid sexual temptation. Not only because of our inward drives but because sexual enticement is everywhere in the culture.
So it is natural for your spouse to have a sexual appetite and for them to want to have sex with you. That’s normal and good. To be sexually desirous of your spouse, and for your spouse to desire you, is a good thing. And so God says, “Since there is so much sexual immorality within you and around you, have my blessing to have sex with each other!”
Now, some people read these verses and think God says “my spouse has to do whatever I want, whenever I want it!” Nope, that’s selfish and sinful. Remember, your marriage is a picture of Jesus and the church. When has Jesus ever forced Himself on you or made you do anything? When has He made you feel He was abusive or made you feel bad about yourself? Or, for that matter, ever withheld his love because you haven’t earned it? Never. He is always inviting, loving, and seeking the best for His bride.
I know far too many married couples for which sex isn’t a joy but something that divides them. They love their spouse, serve them, enjoy them, but when it comes to the bedroom there’s a disconnect there and it drives a wedge between them and creates a lot of resentment and temptation.
One problem is that people aren’t introspective enough to be able to express how they are really feeling inside. Vulgar, simple, unhelpful, ungodly language has replaced mutual honesty and self-reflection to the point where not only is our spouse confused and upset by what we say, but even we don’t even know how we feel!
Forgive the phrase, but in my experience the most, the average person is able to come up with, especially guys, to describe their feelings is the phrase, “I’m horny. I want sex.” That’s the best they can do. Why? Because it’s what culture has taught them. Sex is an impulse to be acted upon, a means and end unto itself. We want sex so we should have sex. That’s far, far, far too simplistic and even wrong.
When the Bible says, “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.” it’s saying that a husband or wife has the right to expect to fulfil their sexual appetite with their spouse. Now, I’m not saying that it’s a no-holds-barred, do anything they want, free-for-all in the bedroom. We’ll talk about that in a minute. The idea here is that it is normal, right and godly for a husband or wife to want to have sex with their spouse, and it is abnormal, wrong, and ungodly for a husband or wife to “deprive” one another. It’s sin.
But we need to do better at expressing ourselves in this. I want you to do better in this so that you can be closer to your spouse and so that they will understand more of what is happening inside of you. The accusation is often, “My spouse always wants sex! It’s too much! There must be something wrong with them.” But more often than not, it’s not the act of sex that they want – and even they don’t really realize it.
What they really are is lonely, angry, tempted, stressed out, sad, confused or afraid. They feel unattractive, unimportant, unaccepted – and being intimate with their spouse is a very good way to repair that. Sex is reparative in that way.
You might think, “Well, shouldn’t they be praying about that? Why do I have to have sex with them to make them feel less lonely or sad or unimportant? Can’t I just read them a Bible verse and tell them to do their devos?”
Look at verse 5 and see how the Bible connects sexuality to spirituality, especially prayer. “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
The implication here is that if the marriage is being deprived of sexual intimacy then not only will the couple’s relationship with each other suffer, but so will their relationship with God! Effectively it says, “Don’t stop having sex. Don’t deprive one another. Not because the act of sex is so important, but because sexual temptation is real and that depravation will put a wedge between your spouse and God! Sure, maybe you stop for a short time of mourning or fasting or some other special spiritual occasion, but then get back together quick because Satan is right there waiting to tempt you both. And you know that you lack self-control in this area – that’s why you are married! To deprive yourself or your spouse of sex is spiritually dangerous.”
So, my hope here is that each of you do better in expressing yourselves in this, and learn more about yourself. Say you have a hard day at work or at home, things just went wrong, and nothing’s working out. You feel a tug towards sexual temptation? Why? Because it will make you feel better. So when you finally see your spouse again, do you say, “Hey, honey, let’s go have sex?” No. What you should do in that moment is share your heart “I had an awful day today. Let me tell you about it. I’m frustrated, angry, tired and grumpy. I’m all twisted up inside.” What would be a natural response from a loving spouse? Comfort, right? A hug, an affirmation that they are good at their job… but another natural response is physical intimacy.
In 2 Samuel 12:24 David and Bathsheba’s son had just died and they were both in mourning and it says, “Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her…” David sought comfort in God and then, part of the way he comforted his wife was to hold her close and be intimate with her. Sex brings comfort to people.
If our spouse feels lonely, stressed out, unimportant, or unattractive… then not only do you talk to them, affirm them, pray with them, and be with them – but also to make the choice to be physically intimate, to have sex with them, as a way to comfort and help them. Sex relieves tension, release pleasure chemicals, builds intimacy, and is an escape from the stresses of life. It’s a powerful tool to help your spouse deal with what they are going through and wipe away a lot of the cobwebs that have gathered in their soul. Offering sex to your spouse is an amazing spiritual gift to them.
And then, after being together, they will often have more confidence, energy, and joy. By removing the burden of sexual temptation, and connecting with them physically, you will have taken a huge weight off of their soul. And, in equal measure, denying them, depriving them, places a huge weight on their soul. You are sinning against them and setting them, and yourself, your marriage and your family, up for failure. It is literally your duty to take care of one another in this way so you can be free from the distractions of temptation that lead to sin.
Good Marital Sex
Now, I don’t want to leave off there, but want you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians 13, which many people call “The Love Chapter”. Contextually this comes while Paul is talking about how Christians can serve one another in church, but it readily applies to how we can serve each other in marriage as well. And, I would argue, it makes an excellent outline for how Christians should approach marital sex. What does good sex look like?
A lot of questions come to pastors about this: Can I do this or that? Is this or that allowed? He or she likes this but I don’t, do I have to? Those are good questions, but let’s look briefly at 1 Corinthians 13 as an outline for what good, godly, joyful, pleasurable, Christian sex looks like. Go to verse 4. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Let’s go through those together looking at it through the lens of marital sex.
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
Let’s go through those together looking at it through the lens of marital sex.
“Love is patient.” Good marital sex is patient. That means that you take your time, wait for your spouse to be ready, and not try to whatever you want out of it as fast as you can. Usually, one of the spouses takes longer to get “in the mood” than the other – often the woman, but not always. This means that you don’t jump right to intercourse, but spend the day sending love notes, take time to talk, do some wooing, hugging, kissing, and whatever else they like that shows love and gets their motor going. Sometimes this means being very patient while your spouse works through some physical or emotional issues too.
By the way, the other side is choosing to be receptive to this. If you are the spouse that takes a while to get warmed up, then you’ll need to choose to be receptive to their advances. Allow yourself to start you thinking of your spouse, let yourself be wooed, get rid of some distractions, and open yourself up to the other person. You’ll enjoy it a lot more if you do.
“Love is… kind”. Good marital sex shows kindness. There is no desire to hurt or subject or degrade. Kindness takes the initiative to respond to the other person’s needs. What makes them happy, comfortable, feel pleasure. We do this when we have people over to our homes, right? “What do you take in your coffee? Is the room at the right temperature for you? Can I get you a pillow? Would you like the comfortable chair?” We should have the same type of thoughts of kindness when being intimate with our spouse.
“Love… does not envy”. In other words, we are not jealous that someone else, or even our spouse, is seeming to have a better time than us. We aren’t trying to get out of our husband or wife that which we had in a previous relationship or we’ve seen in fantasies.
All of these, by the way, are the opposite of what culture and pornography teach. Remember how I said that people are using pornography as their sex education? They are learning the literal opposite of how God designed sex to work best. Pornographic sex isn’t patient – it’s immediate. There is no relationship, no wooing, no love. Everyone is ready to go 100% of the time. Pornographic sex is not kind. It’s violent and selfish. Pornographic sex is built on envy – it’s adultery with the eyes, wanting that which others have, comparing ourselves to an unrealistic ideal.
“Love does not… boast; it is not arrogant or rude”. Pornographic sex is full of arrogant, selfish boasting, turning sex into competition and conquest. Good, godly, joyful, sex isn’t trying to compete, but to mutually lift each other up! Trying to outdo each other in how you can serve and please one another. Just think of the euphemisms that culture has used to describe the act of sex. We go from “making love” to “hump” to “bump” to “knock” to “hit” to “smash”; each more selfish and more rude. Love isn’t rude, seeking to humiliate or offend, it is mean to uplift.
“Love… does not insist on its own way.” Good marital sex isn’t about getting whatever pleasure we can get out of our spouse, using them as a sexual object to fulfil our fantasies. It is exactly the opposite. Good sex is focused on the other person’s desires, comfort, and enjoyment. That’s one thing that the Bible means when it says, “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” Sure, we share our likes and dislikes, but if both parties are more concerned for the other than they are for themselves – then they will not only enjoy themselves more, but will be practicing humility and service which honours God.
“Love… is not irritable or resentful.” A lot of husbands and wives carry a lot of anger in their hearts toward their mate because of what happens in the bedroom. They are mad because they aren’t “getting enough” or because it’s “too much”. They get irritated and resent their spouse for the occasional, playful sexual touch outside the bedroom – a quick kiss, a pat on the butt – and instead of enjoying it, they get upset. If that’s happening to you, you really need to talk to your spouse about it because the issue isn’t the kiss, the hug, or the pat – it’s something deeper. There’s some anger, bitterness, hurt feelings, fear, resentment that goes way deeper.
Along with this comes the sin of using sex as a reward or a weapon. Sex between spouses is NEVER to be a reward for good behaviour and denial is ESPECIALLY never used as a weapon! Both of those are sin and will lead to spiritual danger. If you have ever tried to manipulate your spouse with sex, you are in sin. If you have ever said the words, “Fine, just do it, I’ll just lie here.” or “Fine, if you won’t do it for me, I’ll do it myself!”, I can’t tell you how terribly hurtful that was to hear. That was you sinning against your spouse. Good sex cannot have irritation or resentment in it. You need to be honest with each other, how you feel, what’s going on inside, work out that underlying problem, and then come together having forgiven one another!
“Love… does not rejoice at wrongdoing.” Most other translations say, “Keeps no record of wrongs.” If you are keeping track of how long it’s been, how many times, and how long it lasted, so you can throw that back in their face – then you are in sin. If you are holding bitterness in your heart and then giving your spouse the cold shoulder, you are in sin. If you are using your spouse’s rejection as an excuse to get your sexual fulfilment from other people – by looking where you shouldn’t or building a close relationship with someone you’re not married to – then you are in sin. You can’t use your spouses’ “record of wrongs” as your excuse to sin. It will destroy your love for them, and your ability to be intimate with them.
“Love… rejoices with the truth.” Good marital sex has its foundation in the truth! We tell the truth about how we are feeling, what we like and dislike, our fears and desires, and what’s on our hearts – and it builds intimacy and improves the sexual relationship. Before marriage we are honest about our sexual history and the baggage we are bringing in there, and then during the marriage we are honest about when we make mistakes and fall to sexual sin.
Another side of truthfulness is the sin of pretending when you are with your spouse. Either pretending they are someone else – which is adultery – or simply pretending you are feeling something you are not. Making sounds and looking a certain way because you think that’s what you are supposed to do for your “performance”. Teaching yourself to be someone you are not, or asking your spouse to be something they are not, will damage your soul and break your intimacy! Some people tell you to pretend and fantasize to make your sex better, but you can’t pretend and be truthful at the same time – and that pretending will cause bitterness and confusion and lead to a fractured relationship and bad sex.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Good sex comes from love. Love comes from feeling safe, protected, trusted, hopeful, anticipating, and full of the knowledge that the person you are with is committed to you, never going to leave, will endure anything with you, and will persevere with you to the end – no matter what happens in life or in the bedroom. You can’t have real love if you think the other person will let you down, distrusts you, or will leave you. That’s why marital love, built on the covenant of marriage, is so much better than casual hookups. It’s infinitely deeper.
Conclusion
I know this is a lot to chew on today, but I really want you to think about this. We’ll talk about single and unmarried folks next week, but married people, have you been honest with yourself and your spouse about sex in marriage? Are you doing your duty to help each other flee sexual sin? Are you truly “making love” or is there a wall between you, even while you are in bed together? Talk to each other. Go read 1 Corinthians 7 and 13 and talk about it together – humbly, openly, prayerfully. I want each of you to be free from this temptation, and for you to have all the enjoyment that God wants to give you in sex – without sin getting in the way. It’s His gift to us, but it sometimes takes a lot of work. I encourage you to do that work this week.
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Appetites Out of Control: The Personal and Cultural Effects of Pornography
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“‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything. ‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
(1 Corinthians 6:12-20)
Context
I want you to think back to the context of these verses, to those to whom they were originally written – the Christian church in Corinth. We sometimes think that the Bible is too old to be applicable to modern life, but we are so wrong! Recall the reputation of the city they were in and realize how similar it is to our current context.
Corinth was one of the bigger, more important cities of its day and was full to the brim with trade, politics, money, and religion. It was someone mixed modern inner-city life and the worst parts of the internet together. It was urban, materialistic, and overcrowded with every sort of person from every walk of life – intellectual elites, religious fanatics, celebrities, government workers, hard-core businessmen and poor, uneducated street people. It was the capital of the province, a port with hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world and one of the most influential commercial and manufacturing centers in the world. It was incredibly similar to Ottawa or downtown Toronto.
Everyone in town was committed to some form of religion and most were represented by the many places of worship around the city. They had temples like Ottawa has Tim Hortons. But the temples weren’t churches like you and I think of. They were like a mix of night clubs, museums, live concerts and brothels.
Sailors, tradesmen and people of all kinds would come to Corinth for business and then go to “worship” at one of these temples – the most famous of which was the Temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation. She was literally the goddess of erotica and to worship at her temple was to see pornography come to life. Thousands of girls were kept there as sacred sex workers who would parade themselves before crowds of men so they could choose among them, pay their way (or not), and have sex as an act of worship. One ancient writer (Herodotus) wrote that every female in the city had to take their turn in the temple, whether they wanted to or not. In the centre of town was the Temple of Apollo which glorified sex too. Not with women, but with men and boys.
Today, if you want to see something pornographic, profane, illegal, or disgusting, you can lock yourself in a dark room and find it on the internet. If you want to live it out, then you have to risk making illicit connections online, but in Corinth it was simply all around you. The city was a monument to the fulfilment of any kind of appetite you might have, no matter how immoral. If you wanted the thrill of murdering someone, you could buy a slave. If you desired financial gain or political power, you had every opportunity. There was almost no kind of sexual perversion you could not try, legally. No matter what turned you on, sex, drugs, cults, war, politics, everything – it was there.
It was to this town that the Apostle Paul journeyed to and planted a church in. He felt such a strong connection to the people of this city that he spent a year and a half there – an uncharacteristically long time.
God was absolutely at work among the Corinthians. People were giving up their old, pagan, addicted, messed-up lives and turning to Jesus for cleansing and forgiveness. The utter selfishness and individuality of their former lives was overtaken by a love for each other and a desire to serve. They no longer feared the petty, ever-changing gods, or tried to manipulate them with rituals, but now had a relationship with the One, True God who they knew loved them so much that He was willing to send His Son Jesus to save them. They had become a Christian church. Paul spent months teaching them from the scriptures, preaching and teaching inside and outside the church, and defending the Christians before the government and other opposing groups. Then, before he moved on, he appointed and trained elders to carry on the work of ministry there.
After he left, cracks started to form in the leadership and among the believers. False teachers came in and taught false gospels. Unsaved people from the local temples, working for Satan, started to gain influence in the church and sow discord among the people and tempt them towards their old lives.
Paul obviously didn’t have email, but even while he was hundreds of miles away in Ephesus he was starting to get reports of some of the things going on in Corinth and it was quite unsettling. He wrote them a letter, which we don’t have, addressing some of these concerns, but it clearly didn’t work. Shortly after they received the first letter a couple contingents of people came from Corinth to track down the Apostle, tell him what was happening, and ask some very specific questions. He couldn’t leave the Ephesian church at the time so he wrote a second letter addressing the issues and answering the questions.
We’ve been through part of this letter already, which we call 1st Corinthians, and we are coming up to Chapter 7 which starts the “now concerning” part, where Paul directly answers the Corinthian questions, but before this, he addresses some of the biggest issues he’s heard about through the grapevine.
Things like them not getting along, accepting sexual immorality, rejecting the authority of the Apostles, listening to false teachers, self-deception, sinful living, and changing the word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to fit better with their culture – all things we are still very much dealing with today.
Out of Control Appetites
In our passage today we see the Apostle Paul addressing some of the root issues of what is causing the church such trouble – and if I had to pick one phrase to summarize it, it would be “Out of Control Appetites”.
Do you see the quotes around the first parts of verses 12 and 13? These are the excuses that the Corinthians were giving for their behaviour. They had strong appetites, fed and encouraged by their local culture, and instead of following the Apostles’ teaching, God’s Word, or the conviction of the Holy Spirit within them, they were trying to justify and excuse their behaviour.
We do the same thing. We have strong desires within us, natural and learned appetites that are constantly with us, nagging our mind and trying to steer our lives. Many of these appetites are biological. We have needs: air, food, water, shelter, sleep, and going to the bathroom, and when we don’t have access those things our bodies cry out for them, even causing us physical pain, until we give them what they want. Some of these appetites are not needs, per say (as in we wouldn’t die without them), but they are very strong. We have a natural appetite, or desire for safety, health, love, family, and sexual intimacy. And these appetites go further into our feelings. We want to feel confident, respected, meaningful, moral, accepted, and to know the truth.
None of these needs is wrong. God has designed us, from the very beginning, to have these needs – and they were designed to be perfectly fulfilled by being in relationship with Him and each other.
But when sin came into the world at the fall it corrupted everything, including our appetites. Now, instead of wanting enough food to survive and enjoy, we turn gluttonous, eating so much we make our bodies sick. We take sugar cane and beets, strip them of their “food” and turn them into pure sugar, and then pour that into things we swirl with caffeine, alcohol, and hyped up fats and salts.
Instead of sleeping enough to rest from our work, we now run away from work and our out of control appetite turns us into sluggards who sleep more than we should, inventing more and more devices to remove work and allow for rest.
We have a desire for safety, but now we create borders, barbed-wire fences, and bombs to keep danger away. Our insane pursuit of safety fills us with prejudice and turns us into racists. We become helicopter parents who won’t let our kids out of our site and spend staggering amounts of money on insurance and things to make us feel safe.
We want love, family, and acceptance, but our sin and selfishness cause us to reject and hurt those who are closest to us, creating family splits, divorce, fatherlessness, and runaways. Our out of control appetite to feel accepted causes us to turn from those who were supposed to care for us and seek the acceptance of others. We join gangs, cults, and clubs, giving away huge parts of ourselves in order to feel accepted by someone.
And this same thing has happened with sexual intimacy. God created the beauty of sex to be most fully enjoyed between a man and women in the committed bonds of marriage. Anything outside of this is, by God’s definition, harmful. But the appetite within us is strong, and, like in ancient Corinth, our culture has made us believe that the fulfillment of this appetite is the most important thing in the world, making it available everywhere. They have placed sexual experience at the same level as breathing air or drinking water.
And so, as this appetite grows within us, we seek to quench it. God invites us to turn our appetite over to Him and to seek fulfillment His way, but that requires sacrifice, self-control, mutual respect, the giving of oneself, and patience. But the appetite grows and everyone else tells us to listen to it.
To do this is like to try to go on a diet while living at an all-you-can-eat buffet. We exist live in a buffet of sexual options – from the prostitutes on the streets to the movies we watch, the mall we shop in to the games we play, the ads on TV and websites to the popular books we are told to read, the enticement to sin sexually is literally everywhere. And the appetite grows. It’s like taking little bites of sugar everywhere we go – even without wanting to.
As a Christian, we know we have been delivered from sin and we hate the effects of it. The Word of God teaches against it. Our Christian elders and friends give warning. And the Holy Spirit inside of us is warning our conscience. But with the inundation of options all around us, the internet at home and in our pockets, and everyone in our culture cheering us on to express ourselves, live out our freedom, and trust our appetites to guide us to happiness.
And so we relent. Canada has completely relented to the idea that our appetites will guide us to happiness, and we have a completely messed up culture as a result. Did you know that biggest website in the world streamed 92 billion videos totally 4.6 billion hours of porn – just in 2016? Almost every adolescent boy and girl today has been exposed to explicit pornographic content – and this isn’t naked pictures – we’re talking about high definition and stylized videos of incest, violence and rape, of which 88% of porn videos include. Most have no blockers on their home or devices. And over a third of people my age and younger watch porn to educate themselves so they can mimic it with their partners. Pornography use is rampant at every age, not just young adults. This isn’t merely a male issue. A third of young women (25 and under) and a quarter of older women go looking at least once per month.
Two new things that are being reported recently as a result of continued porn use is what they are calling “sexual anorexia” which is basically a total loss of desire for romantic-sexual interactions with other people, and “porn-induced erectile dysfunction” meaning that even when with a partner they simply can’t get aroused by a real-live girl anymore. Porn use increases the chance of cheating on your spouse by 300%.
The slide of the out of control sexual appetite doesn’t have an end. There is never going to be enough because, like a potent drug, it causes major chemical dependency in the brain. And the appetite for sexual sin only gets darker and more evil. It doesn’t just stay at romantic novels or underwear models, but grows stronger until normal sex isn’t enough – then strange sex isn’t enough – then violent, abusive sex isn’t enough – and then merely watching isn’t enough, you want to act out what you have been watching.
And it barely even twinges the conscience anymore because you have now rewired your brain to consider the perverse, dangerous, and violent images you have been watching to be “normal”. Girls no longer know what modesty, love and romance looks or feels like. Boys have no idea how to respect, woo or patiently love just one girl. Now they believe in the fantasy world that pornography has fed them – and they want to live it out. Maybe you have done the same in your own life as you try to fit the person you are attracted to into a pornographic fantasy, or grow disappointed as the real person doesn’t perform like the person on screen. The real person is way less interesting than the fantasy. That’s an insanely confused version of sex designed by Satan to destroy you.
But this isn’t just about the epidemic of pornography and what we do when we are alone, but all that this out of control sexual appetite creates in our minds, hearts, families, churches and societies. It destroys intimacy and closeness. Friendship is ruined because everything is about sex. Superficiality and total selfishness is rampant. People don’t give themselves to each other, they use each other. Sexual sin is a massive force for harm.
What happens when you take the individual consequences of an out of control sexual appetite and multiply it by the size of a church, a city, a country, or the world? Not just you seeking out selfish ways to use people for your own appetites, but also those around you, and far beyond.
Pornography users have a lot of misinformation that gives them an excuse to come back. For example: It’s free so I don’t pay for it, so I’m not contributing to the bad parts. That’s not true. These sites get money for every click, whether you buy or not. That’s why it’s free. There are dozens of ways to make money of people that come to your website and around. Yes, you are generating income for these companies, allowing them to stay in business.
Another thing people say is that these women are well paid and look like they are enjoying it. The women are some of the most beautiful in the world – they could do anything — no one is making them do this. In truth, many of the women in pornography come from abusive homes and were often sexually abused as children. Some of them are victims of human trafficking who have been told to look good or they will be hurt or killed. Some got into the business after being recruited in their first year of college with the promise of lots of money and a thrilling lifestyle, but many tell the story of how no matter what they did the company wanted them to do more and more grotesque things. They had spent the money already and needed more, so they quell the shame and pain inside them with alcohol and drugs. Especially when people on their campus or family members see their pictures and videos. Some have committed suicide because of the shame and fear they have felt.
When they do want out, they can’t put any of this onto a resume so it has gaps and their professional reputation is shot. Whatever their career was – teacher, nurse, scientist – is ruined because of pornography. So they only have one place to turn – the porn industry. This industry promotes only the youngest women, so as they get older the only way to stay employed is to do more and more disgusting things, perpetuating the shame and fear and trapping them in the industry further. And then they are sent out to do interviews and trade fairs to tell everyone how happy they are. And that’s not even covering the massive psychological and spiritual damage done. Every time someone reads, clicks, or watches, they perpetuating this abusive industry.
But the damage of an out of control sexual appetite doesn’t end with the individual. Then we get the societal consequences like the spread of sexually transmitted diseases which over 70 percent of sexually active Canadians have. There’s the evil of sex trafficking, which is the kidnaping and sale of people for the purposes of prostituting them, and it is growing, funded and supported by the multi-billion dollar porn industry. We see the sexualisation of younger and younger people and the rise of child exploitation, pornography, and child sex rings. And of course we have the holocaust of the millions of abortions in North America lone which have nothing to do with the health of the child or the mother, but simply are the result of people who want the pleasure of sex without the consequences or responsibility of parenthood. Rape culture, divorce, fatherlessness… and I could go on.
Consider that when an industry or company is connected to terrible things like child-labour or environmental destruction most people freak out and refuse to buy from that store or support that industry. Why not this one? Because it’s an out of control appetite that the world supports without question. Just this week they tried to fly the Walk for Life flag down at Ottawa city hall and it was pulled down within hours. Just FYI, the Mayor had the LGBT Pride flag fly for the entirety of the Sochi Olympics. Why the difference? Different appetites.
The Gospel is the Answer
Verse 12 gives their first excuses, “All things are lawful for me…” they say. Here we see them throwing Paul’s words back in his face. He had come and taught them that people are not saved by religion, nor obedience to a set of laws, but are instead set free from having to follow a bunch of rules by the grace of God.
Every other religion said you have to do certain things to appease the gods. Give money, make war, pray for hours, reach ecstasies, gives sacrifices, spill your own blood, do good deeds, even horrible things like burn children to death. Only these things would make the gods do what you want them to do.
But the God of the Bible says we can never do enough to impress or please Him. There will never be enough good deeds to outweigh our sins. Instead, God sent Jesus to live a perfect life, doing exactly what God wanted, so He could take God’s wrath against sin in exchange for anyone who would believe in him. This freed us from the bonds of man-made religious laws that only served to manipulate us and make us feel either guilty or prideful.
And so they say to Paul, “But you said that since we’re Christians we don’t have to obey any laws! We can do whatever we want! We have freedom in Christ! You said God accepts us as we are and will never reject us no matter how much we mess up! And you said that we don’t need to follow any of the Jewish Laws either because we are under the new covenant. So we’re doing that!”
And Paul says, “Yes, you are free in Christ, but not everything is helpful. Yes, you are free in Christ, but these you are doing aren’t bringing you more freedom – they are dominating you. You are no longer free when you do these things, you are making yourself a slave again. ” You see that?
The Emptiness Trap
When we turn away from God’s design for our lives we will feel empty. That emptiness will create an appetite that will eventually become all consuming. We will gorge ourselves on all manner of things trying to fill that emptiness, to satisfy that appetite that can only be satisfied by being in a right relationship with God and others.
This is the trap. We feel God’s way is too constricting, too hard. Satan offers to satiate that appetite an easier way – through violence, gluttony, sexual sin, stealing – and it works for a moment, but what happens is that appetite grows. And as a Christian, after we have succumbed to temptation, we realize we have grieved the Holy Spirit, ruined our reputation, lost our reward, invited God’s discipline, made innocent people suffer for our selfishness, tainted our ministry and testimony, left a stumbling stone for those who would follow us… and that shame can either cause us to fall before God and ask for forgiveness and restoration – which He will give… or will drive us away from God, separating us from Him further, and our church, and our friends, and His Word, and His voice… causing our appetites to grow and grow because now we feel truly terrible.
Which, again, either causes us to turn to God or, in many cases, cause us to not want to feel anything. When we feel empty we’re willing to try anything – and when that doesn’t work we try hard not to feel anything. So we self-medicate, fall into destructive behaviours, and our life falls apart.
Maybe you’re not all the way down this road, but I promise, this is where unconfessed, unforgiven sin leads. To a destroyed, corrupt, hard, and calloused heart that refuses to feel.
Our Response
The remedy is the Gospel. The Bible says we need to realize that we were not designed merely to fill our appetites. “‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.” Our body, our lives, are not given to us merely to pursue our own pleasures, but for God. Colossians 1:16 says that all things were created through Jesus and for Jesus, and that includes us. We will only find true fulfillment, joy, and peace when we realize that they are not found by us though this world – but in Him.
Verses 15-18 talk about the invisible, emotional and spiritual dangers of sexual sin, but we’ve covered a lot of that already.
The way we escape these out of control appetites is in verses 19-20 which say, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
This is the gospel condensed. We gave our bodies to sin and became salves to sin, but Jesus bought us back at a great price. We celebrate it every month at communion – that He gave His body and shed His blood in exchange for ours. He saves us to Himself. He makes us born again so we can live forever. He cleans us up so we can be temples of His Holy Spirit. But this was at the price of His life, freely given for all who would believe.
Our response to that amazing grace is threefold:
First, we need to acknowledge our sin and the danger of it. Sin isn’t fun or funny. It isn’t little. It creates spiritual death, no matter how small we think it is, and it’s destructive power is incredible. So we acknowledge that we are sinners, that we hate sin, repent from it, and ask God’s forgiveness of it by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Second, we accept that forgiveness and believe that we have been cleaned. It’s not because of any feeling we have or a tingle in our spine, but because of the agreement that God made with us because of the covenant of the blood of Jesus. If you repent and believe, you will be saved. If you ask forgiveness in His name, you will be forgiven. And from that point on we live as Christians. The Holy Spirit takes residence in our hearts and speaks to us in words that cannot be expressed.
And third, we glorify God in our body. In other words, we no longer live for ourselves, but trust that Jesus’ way is better. He is our Saviour and our Lord. When He says something is good, it is good. When He says something is dangerous, we avoid it. When He says go, we go. When He says stop, we stop. Jesus redeemed us, bought us back from death and Hell, so our bodies are no longer ours. They are His. And He can do with them as He pleases.
It is to this we appeal when we are tempted, when we face sin, and when our appetites get out of control.
We pray: “Jesus, this is sin and I know you hate it, and therefore I do too, and I want to avoid it. I accept that this has no more place in my life because I am yours. Help me to flee temptation as you taught me to pray. And Jesus, my body is yours. My mind, heart, and soul too. Do with them as You will. You gave me these appetites, so help me fulfil them your way, so you get the glory and I can experience more of you.”
Why There Are So Many Different Bibles (Carnivore Theology: Ep. 96)
What’s the deal with all the Bible Translations out there? Why so many? Which one is correct? Does it matter?
Podcast Audio:
Resources We Shared:
Understanding English Bible Translation by Leland Ryken
Life Church YouVersion Bible App
Tim Challies: Translating Translations
Tim Challies: 7 Great Study Bibles
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