With the advent of television’s Sex and the City, and a host of shows like it, it should be apparent that our nation is in a moral free fall. The whole idea of who we are and how we should live has become so distorted that it has corrupted our vision of what God created us to be. Rather than being the highest form of intimacy between a man and wife who are committed to each other, it has been trivialized to the point of being a game that is played with any number of partners. It has been divorced from relationship, commitment and intimacy, and is merely a sport — and one which is not even taken seriously. In the last episode of Friends, Rachel suggests to Ross that, “Sleeping together is the perfect way to say goodbye.” Evidently it is the perfect answer to almost any situation. Jeremiah the prophet asks the question, “Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush” (Jeremiah 6:15). This moral crisis is affecting every area of American life — church, family and government. It affects how we relate to each other and how we see other people.
When I planned this sermon a few weeks ago, I decided that since I was using the title of the television show as a sort of cultural tag in the title of the sermon, perhaps I should watch an episode to see what it was like. I tried, I really did. Twice I began to watch, and I couldn’t get through it either time. Mostly because it was so unbelievably superficial and shallow, but also because of its raw crudeness. It is a reflection of the extreme narcissism of our day. Vacuous is a kind word for the content of much of what fills the television schedule, and it seems to be getting worse by the day. My concern is that even good people may be getting pulled into the deception with which our culture is routinely brainwashing us. We may be the most tempted people ever to live on the face of the earth. Certainly, temptation and opportunity have always been with us, but never has it been more available. Television, movies and the Internet are available to us at little or no cost, and pornographic material is abundant and private. The point is that we have to be on our guard more than ever before.
So what should our attitude toward sex be? Should we be afraid of it? Should we avoid the subject altogether? Should we act as though what is happening to our culture is nothing to be worry about? I want to address this today by giving the biblical view of human sexuality. I want to talk about God’s original plan, the nature of what he planned and the design for his plan. Let’s look at what the Bible has to say about this topic. First of all, we see that: The Bible presents sex as a gift of God. Christians through the years have often acted as though sex is of the devil. The topic of sex has often been taboo when the Bible is quite open about it. The Bible presents moral standards regarding the use of our sexuality, but it never treats it as something dirty or evil. In fact, the Bible dedicates an entire book to the subject. Read The Song of Solomon if you want to read explicit and beautiful language between two married lovers.
I am always amused when someone tells me that the sin the devil tempted Adam and Eve with in the garden was sexual. That would be impossible since God created Adam and Eve for each other and told them to “be fruitful and multiply.” Rather than forbidding them to come together, he said that they should be “one flesh.” The Bible says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:24-25). They were not ashamed because they knew their Creator made them male and female, and it would have been unthinkable to be ashamed of God’s good and natural design for them. This is the way it was from the beginning. We were created as sexual creatures, and this is not only God’s plan, but his good and perfect gift.
C.S. Lewis in his book, The Screwtape Letters, tells the fictional story of Uncle Screwtape, a chief demon in Hell, and his nephew named Wormwood. Screwtape is training Wormwood on how to win over those who are devoted to the enemy — the enemy being God. He tells Wormwood that when demons are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy, normal, and satisfying form, they are in the Enemy’s [God’s] territory. He says to him, “We’ve won many a soul through pleasure. All the same it is His invention, not ours! He made the pleasures. All our research so far has not enabled us to produce one.” That is an important and wonderful truth. God created sexual pleasure. It is his gift. The evil one cannot create pleasure, he can only decline, distort and degrade this gift.
The book of Proverbs says, “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer — may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love” (Proverbs 5:18-19). This is the biblical view of sex.
The New Testament also encourages us to recognize and fulfill God’s good gift when it says, “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:3-5). So the Bible does not discourage this, rather it encourages it — unless you are doing a lot of praying.
The second thing we should understand is: The Bible presents sex as sacred. Something holy happens in the sexual experience when it happens within God’s plan. There is a union of two bodies and two spirits — “the two shall become one flesh.” It is a mystical experience, and those who experience this within God’s design of two people who are committed for life, and who love and respect each other, know this in a way that those who see it only as a sport will never know. This sacred act brings us together and bonds the relationship. God blesses this union because it is the fulfillment of his plan. It is through this union that we also become partners in creation with God as new lives are brought into th world.
Here is why homosexual relationships are wrong. They are not a part of the plan and design of God. A very basic lesson in Scripture and anatomy will tell you what God’s plan is. Now, and not surprisingly, marriages of all types are beginning to appear. In the Netherlands, where homosexual marriages were first recognized, three people married each other last September. And perhaps you heard about the woman who married a dolphin. Theage.com reports: “Sharon Tendler. . . said it was love at first sight. This week she finally took the plunge and proposed. The lucky ‘guy’ plunged right back. In a modest ceremony at Dolphin Reef in the southern Israeli port of Eilat, Tendler, a 41-year-old British citizen, apparently became the world’s first person to ‘marry’ a dolphin. Dressed in a white dress, a veil and pink flowers in her hair, Tendler got down on one knee on the dock and gave [the dolphin] a kiss. And a piece of herring.” As someone quipped, “Sharon now has a porpoise driven life.”
These trivializations of marriage degrade God’s intent and the sacredness of what he planned. The Bible says, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure” (Hebrews 13:4). This committed act of love is not only pure, it is sacred, for it is a metaphor of Christ’s love for the church. The Bible says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church — for we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:25-32).
The third point is that: The Bible presents boundaries for the use of sex. It is because God cares for us, and has a specific plan for the use of our sexuality, that he has given us guidance about its use. In some of the earliest writing of the Bible it says, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). There are also many laws warning against incest, bestiality, homosexuality and other sexual deviations. In Leviticus where it goes into great detail regarding sexual behavior, God said to Moses: “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God. You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices” (Leviticus 18:2-3). The things prohibited for the people of God were common practice in these other cultures. The message was that the people of God were not to be like everybody else. Likewise, just because our culture has lost it moral sense, does not mean that we can be like that. Our lives and our relationships are to be different.
Augustine, the great Christian mind of the 5th century, saw the world as divided into two cities: the City of God and the City of Man. The City of God is populated with the people of God. The City of Man, on the other hand, consists of people who have lost their way and strayed from the City of God. These were not two different places, rather they were two different states of being — two ways of living. Those in the City of Man live for pleasure. Those in The City of God live for higher pleasures as they experience life the way God meant it to be lived. We cannot be like everybody else, for we belong to the City of God. The good news is that we experience life and pleasure at a higher level than those who chose to live away from God. When we follow God’s commands we find life. Those who choose to live away from God do so at the cost of their own destruction and personal dysfunction. Do you know anyone who is going against God’s design and plan who is truly happy and finding life fulfilling? If there are such people I have not come across them. Even the rich and famous who flaunt their immoral lifestyle seem completely unable to maintain relationships. In spite of their fame and money, their lives are in disarray and they are often trying to medicate their way to happiness. There is a reason for God’s law — it is the rule book of life, meant to show us how to get the most from life. His Word says, “ God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4), and we need to take that seriously.
The Bible says, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people” (Ephesians 5:3). Those of you here today are to be God’s holy people, and there should not even be a hint of sexual immorality among you. Sex is a sacred gift of God, and this is why it must not be misused. This is why adultery is wrong. This is why sex before marriage is wrong. This is why sex outside of marriage is wrong no matter if you are young or old. This is why pornography is wrong. The apostle Paul said, “‘Everything is permissible for me’ — but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible for me’ — but I will not be mastered by anything. ‘Food for the stomach and the stomach for food’ — but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:12-20).
Here is the clear teaching of Scripture regarding sexual behavior, and the consequences of disobeying it are being lived out all across America today. I recently read a great quote from a really bad movie where Cameron Diaz says to Tom Cruise: “Don’t you know that when you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not?” It’s almost like she is quoting Paul.
So how should we live? Certainly not like prudes, for this is not the message or model of Scripture, or Jesus. And certainly not like the characters on Sex and the City, for that is as far from God’s plan as you can get. But we should live in thankfulness for God’s gift, recognizing that it is his plan for us. The Bible says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). We should live according to the way he has shown us in his sacred Word. But the Christian life is not about a steely determination to force yourself into doing the right thing. Christians should not aim at being moral, rather they should aim at being pure. Morality is subscribing to a set of moral laws, purity is about a change of heart. With morality we grit our teeth and do what is right; with purity we have a change of heart that makes us want to do what is right. Without purity there can be no sustained morality. The Christian life is not about avoiding sin, rather it is about pursuing righteousness. Paul said, “Now flee from youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22, NAS). Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). The people to whom Jesus was speaking were proud that they had kept the moral law and had not committed adultery. But Jesus said there was a higher law, the law of purity — a change of heart and mind that looks at people differently.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor during World War II. He was engaged, but never experienced the joy of marriage because of his premature death at the hand of the Nazi’s. He once said that the essence of chastity is not the suppression of lust, but the total orientation of one’s life toward a goal. Our goal is heart purity — singleness of mind and heart — the desire to please God in all we do. Our goal is to experience life to the fullest the way God meant it to be lived. We know what we want to be for God and others. Our goal is to be the right kind of person in our relationships. We want to see others as people, not just bodies. Our goal is to have integrity and transparency. Our goal is to be faithful to our husbands, wives and children, and even our extended family. Our goal is to move away from self love and move toward loving God and loving and respecting others.
It is difficult to live in this sexually charged culture and have sexual integrity. Temptations are strong, and I feel them like everyone else. Faithfulness is hard work sometimes. But I want to live in freedom. I don’t want to be a slave to my passions. There is such bondage in sin. I want to have the joy of a faithful marriage and faithful relationships. I want to be a person who is safe for other people to be around. I don’t want to be a predator, either with my words, my actions or my eyes. I want the space around me to be safe for other people. I don’t want my life to be ruled by something other than God. I don’t want to be one person in private and another person in public. I don’t want to live in shame and secrecy. I want to experience the wellness and joy of life.
The question is: Why did God make us this way? Why put this powerful force in our lives that is so difficult to control? I believe the simple answer is: Because God is getting us ready for heaven. It is the experience that most approximates the intimacy and ecstacy of the place where the people of God are headed. The Bible says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). I’m foolish enough to believe that is true.
Rodney J. Buchanan
February 12, 2006
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
