My Secret Sex Sin Series

SE101506

MONSTERS INC.

3. My Secret Sex Sin

Jesus had such a way of cutting to the chase. In a day and age when no one would talk about sex privately let alone publicly he fearlessly discussed human sexuality. And he acknowledged it’s power. And he acknowledged how the misuse of our sexuality doesn’t begin by being in the wrong bedroom.

He said, the misuse of our sexuality begins in our minds. And he said it’s here that broken dreams take root, in the fertile soil of a mismanaged imagination. It begins in the secret places of our hearts and only then leads to out-workings in physical ways that are also kept secret.

That’s what we want to talk about today. Internal and external sex secrets.

External Secrets

are when we’ve had some physical, sexual contact with someone we’re not married to. A lot of people are carrying around these secrets. They’ve had some exchange, be it full blown sexual intercourse or kissing or sexual touching with someone who is not their spouse. And they are paying the price.

It’s pretty easy for us to see why Jesus would condemn this behavior. But just in case it’s not clear, let me spell it out. Russ said it: Sex is spiritual. It’s not just like shaking hands. It’s breathtakingly intimate. So when that sexual intimacy is shared with someone outside a committed union, it’s soul rocking.

o And because we know that unfaithfulness is so crushing, when it happens, we keep it secret. Some of you are carrying this secret right now. By the end of today I hope you know what to do with it.

Internal Sex Secrets

are more complex. But Jesus was very, very clear about this. He said, in my Kingdom, when people want to follow me, they commit not just to sleeping in the right beds, they commit their minds to sexual purity.

But what is lust? Lust is different from just having a passing sexual thot. Everyone has those, they’re natural as sexual beings. Lust is when we cross a line mentally. When we take all the wonderful complexity of a human being – made in the image of God – and reduce it to a body.

- It’s when a woman looks at a man who has a past and a family and dreams and reduces that man into what he can bring to her ego, her body, her boredom, her empty heart.

- Lust is when a man looks at a woman with feelings, a spiritual life, and a mind and reduces that woman into an object for sexual gratification.

Not only does this internal secret dehumanize people, it’s progressive in nature. Listen to this letter I received recently:

I lost my wife. It was complicated, I chose [porn] sites over her and it took me away from her and my son. I feel ashamed, so ashamed that I couldn’t tell my wife and see the problem myself. I degraded my very soul, it was a shameful place and I felt like I lied to society all the time...I feel like crying a river right now....it was a time bomb that would have destroyed me totally

Friends, lust has that kind of addictive power. It is a relationship-busting, love-diminishing, self-destructive, dead-end deal. That is the current condition in our society. Secret sex sins are killing us. And lets please just forget the notion that this isn’t the case in churches. It’s here. We’re struggling with this as a culture, and we bring that into these four walls every week.

So if you’re with me and you want to get on Jesus’ plan where we live for love and reject lust, you have to listen to Jesus’ remedies. Here’s what he said right after talking about the insidiousness of lust:

"If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off. It is better to go into heaven missing a few body parts than to be in hell with a complete body."

I wish Jesus would be more blunt sometimes... What’s he saying? He’s not talking about physical mutilation. He’s using hyperbole to suggest that we take radical action against sin. We starve whatever it is that feeds our secret. How do you shut off a diesel engine? You starve the fuel supply.

How do you move out of lust? Jesus says that the first thing you do is starve whatever it is that supplies your lustful thoughts. If your fuel for lust is the images in magazines, videos, movies, books, television or certain persons or practices, shut off the supply. He’s saying

- "If those images feed your lust,

o go blind to those images."

- If your arm is reaching for the car keys to drive you to a place that feeds your lust, Jesus says,