Living to Please God pt 2 -
God and Sex
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
Earlier this year the Washington Post conducted a very interesting experiment. Three days after world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell had sold out Boston Symphony Hall, with ordinary seats going for $100, they had him do some street busking near a
He played the same beautiful music, on the same rare Stradivarius violin. How would it be received in such a different environment?
Over the next 45 minutes over a thousand people streamed past. 27 of them thought that the music was beautiful enough to warrant a donation, contributing a total of $32.
In an environment where people were not expecting such beauty, and were too busy to really stop and listen, the quality of the music was almost wasted. In an environment where people were really paying attention and were eager to listen, the quality was very much appreciated.
The same music, but a different environment.
That is a key idea for us to keep in mind as we continue our exploration of the book of 1 Thessalonians.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. 7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
Is it O.K. to talk about sex in Church?
Yes, because the Bible talks about sex! The letters of the New Testament were intended to be read aloud in churches, so of course it must be O.K. to talk about publicly.
In 1 Corinthians
An article in “The Age” newspaper last year[1] reported that many teenagers and professionals are unhappy with the inadequacy of sex education within schools, which often only looks at the biological issues and does not address many of the important issues and questions surrounding sex. A survey of 830 girls from the ages of 13-15 by author Kaz Cooke asked where girls got their information about sex from. 49% got their information from friends, 46% got it from schools, 21% from magazines and 19% from home. A
The Church has a responsibility to provide good information about sex. If God has taken the trouble of providing that information for us in the Bible, why wouldn’t we pass it on to people who need to hear it?
Our passage today talks about the importance of avoiding sexual immorality. In other words, there is a morality to sex. There is a right and a wrong to it. We are being told to avoid wrong sexuality. Well, who decides what is right and wrong about sex? There are lots of people with lots of different opinions about that. Christians believe that only God has the right to set moral boundaries. It is God who determines right and wrong. So…
What does God think about sex?
Sexuality was created by God, therefore it must be good!
The only sexual relationship God intended was the exclusive, lifelong, loving commitment between a man and a woman. In this context, sex retains all of it’s inherent goodness.
(Note – all of those ingredients are important!) – Whiteboard – good!
Any sexual relationship outside God’s intention falls short of that goodness.
Because we are all corrupted by sin, we are all tempted to stray outside the boundaries God has established for sex.
What did most people think about sex back then?
Jews had clear rules from God about keeping sex pure.
Romans had very relaxed laws about sex except for in certain situations, but they didn’t like to talk about it! They didn’t really care what you did as long as you did it privately.
The main issue with Romans was whether or not a person was preoccupied with sex. This was seen to be a moral flaw. Men who were seen to be too concerned with sex were labelled as effeminate, which was the greatest possible insult to a Roman. In fact, one of their greatest generals,
For the Roman, sexuality was just about satisfying animal urges, nothing more. So sleeping with a person was less significant socially than having dinner with them, as long as you were discreet.
Greeks operated under the same laws, but were much more sexually overt.
Gnostic teaching
Gnosticism is a term used to describe a number of philosophies and religious ideas that were becoming popular at this time in history and are still influential today. The Bible clearly condemns these ideas, one of which is that the body and soul are separate. According to Gnosticism, the body is evil, the soul is divine. This leads to…
2 extremes:
Deny bodily pleasures
We need to be freed from the physical world and it’s pleasures, so we will deny all physical urges and pleasures in an effort to release the mind from physical gratification. In extreme forms, this took the shape of self harm in an effort to punish the evil body and free the mind from it’s sensations.
Indulge bodily pleasures
If the body is evil anyway, why not do with it whatever you like? It doesn’t matter, only the mind matters.
That is, God does not want us to simply follow the values and lifestyles of the people around us. We are to be different. We are set apart as God’s people, and so we must care about what God wants for us and what will bring Him the honour that He deserves.
that you should avoid sexual immorality;
So it’s in the area of sexual right and wrong that God wants us to demonstrate our “different-ness”.
(Remember, God’s view of sex is pretty different to the accepted views of the day)
4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honourable,
First of all, we need to learn to control our own sexuality. Studies have shown that as children are reaching puberty earlier, the rates of sexual activity among children in their early teens is rising dramatically. We all naturally have sexual urges, we need to learn to control our own bodies in a way that is holy and honourable.
5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;
Does this mean that we should not be passionate lovers? This is where unfortunately the Church has been influenced by the world’s view of sex. Just like the Romans, some early Christian leaders and writers viewed sex as an animal passion that did not fit with a life of holiness. It should only be tolerated for the purposes of reproduction. In fact it became quite popular to make sexual intercourse between a man and wife as unstimulating as possible in order to avoid the trap of being overly passionate. Some Christian teachers thought like the Gnostics that the body was evil, and nowhere is that more evident than in the area of sexuality. In fact, the female body – sensual as it is and tempting to men – was seen as being particularly evil. Women in general became a temptation and a snare to men.
Nowhere does the Bible encourage this sort of attitude. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul encourages a healthy sex life between husbands and wives as the best deterrent of sexual immorality.
This verse says that we should not cast of self-restraint and just do whatever our urges demand. Sure, if you don’t know God and you can get away with it, why not? But if you do know God, you know that this is not how you should live. Boundaries are there for a reason. They protect what is good, and they protect us from what is not good. Don’t act as if you don’t know God or the boundaries He has established.
6 and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you.
Straying outside the boundaries has a number of consequences. First of all, it robs us of the goodness of sticking with God’s plan. Sex outside God’s intention will not be the blessing to us that sex inside God’s intention is. Regardless of what our physical urges, society’s values or the clever marketing of porn peddlers, God’s plan is always best. These verses contain 2 more important reasons to stay within the boundaries.
First, having sex with someone other than your husband or wife is to rob someone else. It robs your current or future spouse of their sole ownership of you, and it robs the other person’s current or future spouse of their sole ownership of that person. The Bible says that if God’s plan for us includes marriage, then our bodies belong to our spouse, whether we are married to them yet or not. Sexual experimentation or sampling before marriage does not make us a better lover in marriage, it steals from our future lover. It diminishes the precious gift of your body that you give to a person in marriage.
Secondly, God says that a time is coming when sins will be judged. In Greek and Roman society there was very little in the way of sexual accountability. In Judaism there were strict rules, but frequently people escaped punishment for a variety of reasons. Even in clearly proven cases, the penalty of death could not legally be carried out because they were under Roman rule. Paul says that God is going to judge all sin one day.
7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
As in every other area of life, there is forgiveness and restoration when we fall short of God’s standards. God can heal us in the area of our sexuality, just as He can heal us in other areas of life where we have been damaged by sin.
But where we have a choice to make about what we will do, our responsibility is to choose to live a holy life. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that he is not imposing his standards on people, he is emphasising God’s standards. He reminds us that God gives us the Holy Spirit who reminds us of God’s commands and prompts us to obey them. To reject this teaching is to reject God.
Conclusion
Today we have stuck to the big picture in talking about God and Sex. It really is a huge topic, but we have pretty much stuck to the basics. Sex within God’s boundaries is healthy and good. Outside the boundaries, sex is degraded and there are unpleasant consequences to our actions.
Further Study
To learn more about good sex as God intended, there are plenty of good books and courses on offer. Make the effort to invest in your marriage!
There is no subject that Mike is not happy to discuss from a biblical point of view – just ask!
[1] http://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/think-sex/2006/05/28/1148754861223.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap3
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