05 How to Follow Jesus with Your Sexuality in a World Ruled by Desire (1 Thessalonians 4:1-8)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the fifth talk in my series on Paul's letters to the Thessalonians. Today we're going to be studying 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 1 through 8. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast. They contain all the information I would give you on a handout if I were speaking to you in person. You can find those notes by clicking on the link below this podcast, or you can go directly to wednesdayintheword.com slash Thessalonians 5. And just a listener warning today: the topic of this podcast may not be appropriate for young ears. If you have little ones nearby, you may want to pause and come back later. Thanks for listening. Paul wrote this letter to the church at Thessalonica during his second missionary journey, and he wrote this letter to encourage the young church to continue to trust him and the gospel he preached. Paul spent only a short time in Thessalonica before he was driven out of town. He knows that they are facing persecution and pressure to give up their faith, and he's writing to encourage them to remain steadfast. They're probably continuing to hear complaints and criticisms of Paul and his gospel, and Paul has been reminding them why they should trust him and continue to believe the gospel. In the first three chapters, we saw three main ideas, or three themes we could call them. The first one, their own response to the gospel is evidence of their genuine faith, and Paul is grateful for that response. He reminds them how their faith became well known and spread throughout the region, and the changes in their own lives are testimony to the fact that they have genuinely believed. Theme two, Paul reminds them that when he was with them, he conducted himself in a trustworthy manner. He didn't try to gain financially from teaching them the gospel. He worked and he conducted himself with integrity, and he reminded them that God confirmed his own authority as an apostle through miracles and works of the Holy Spirit. And then the third thing we saw was that as a church they are facing the same kind of persecution that believers have faced throughout time, and this kind of persecution is also evidence of their genuine response to the gospel. That brings us to chapter four. Paul begins, finally, then, brethren, which signifies he's moving on to a new topic. We're moving into the second half of this letter, and this is the turning point. Timothy has returned from visiting Thessalonica and reporting back to Paul about how they're doing. Overall, they're doing very well, but they seem to be confused about some issues, and Paul is now going to respond to some of those points of confusion. In the first three chapters, Paul reminded them of two things about the gospel. First, as believers, their great hope is in waiting for Jesus to return so that they might inherit a place in the kingdom of God. And second, in the meantime, their lives are to be marked now by the pursuit of holiness. And those ideas, those themes are going to show up in the rest of the letter. Paul is going to call them to hope and live their lives expressing their faith. And as he addresses these various issues, that's what he's calling them to do. He's calling them to live holy lives as believers, and then he's going to clarify some things about the return of Jesus. So in this section, Paul deals with two issues related to what it means to live your lives expressing your faith, or to live your lives as a Christian. Basically, Paul's going to tell them don't sleep around and get a job. We're going to look at the first issue today, sexuality, and we'll look at the second one in the next podcast. I have to admit, this little section is one that attracted me to teaching this book right now. It strikes me that many Christians today have completely lost a biblical perspective on both sexuality and work, especially now that we're in a post-COVID world. I know many Christians, especially young men, who have simply dropped out of the workforce and do not seem to be inclined to go back. As we try to figure out this section, it's important for us to understand why Paul would say this. At first reading, this sounds like the kind of advice anyone would give. Any father, regardless of his religious beliefs, might sit down with his children and advise these two things. Don't sleep around, get a job. What does Paul have in mind here? Why does Paul choose these two issues to talk about and what's at stake? And why is Paul concerned that they take a certain attitude toward these two issues? That's what I hope to explore in this podcast. So let's get started. Let's read four verses one and two. Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more, for you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. In his letters, Paul frequently describes the way believers should live their lives as their walk. Your walk is basically the choices you make about how you're going to live your life. And Paul encourages them to live their life in such a way that it's clear that they are following God. Paul had given them some instructions on how to conduct themselves when he was with them, but he only had a short time with them. And as we've talked about, it is not enough to just claim to believe the gospel. You have to live like it's true and seek to conduct yourself in a way that reflects your beliefs. Paul had told them some implications of their beliefs, and he says they are indeed walking the way he taught them in some aspects. He recognizes they have accepted the gospel as true and that the gospel would change their lives, and by and large they have been pursuing that course. He can see changes in their lives, and he's expressed his gratitude for those changes. The Thessalonian Church did not reject Paul like the Corinthians did. They're not entangled in a heresy like the Colossian Church. They're not turning back to legalism like the Galatians. Paul says in many ways they have accepted the truth and pursued it. On the other hand, he exhorts them that they would excel still more. I think he's saying a bit more here than keep up the good work. Their understanding is still immature. Paul was only there a couple of months, he's been gone maybe nine months or a year, and he's reminding them of the principles and implications of the gospel. This is a young church and he sees certain problems and misunderstandings starting to erupt, and he wants to address those issues before they grow too big. And here's the first one. This is chapter four verses three through eight. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. Paul starts this discussion of sexuality with this phrase, for this is the will of God, your sanctification. So before we get to what he says about sexuality, let's talk about what he means by this little phrase and this word sanctification. God wants them to become sanctified. Another way of translating that is he wants them to become holy. There's a lot of misunderstanding about what this word sanctification or holiness means. We tend to shy away from the idea of holiness because it has a very negative caricature in non-Christian thought. As a new believer, I was really confused about holiness. I thought that being holy meant you were supposed to be perfect and good all the time, sort of like the absence of sin. So I had this picture of pilgrims living a very strict and restrained kind of life without any sin. And I thought that as I grew in sanctification, I would sin less and less. If I wanted to know, am I being sanctified? Am I pursuing sanctification? Then I'd sit down and evaluate myself, kind of like having a sin meter. The idea being that when I became a believer, the sin meter was filled all the way up to the top. But then as I was growing in wisdom and maturity, the level on the sin meter would keep dropping until God finally makes it hit bottom in the kingdom of heaven. So how do you tell if you're being sanctified? Well, you look at your sin meter and you see how much sin you still have. It might be a bumpy trend with a few ups and downs, but the general direction should be downward, and if it is, that means you're being sanctified. So my rather simple understanding was that sanctification means that you look at your life and find yourself sinning less often. Of course, the big problem with that understanding is how do you read a sin meter? As I look at my life, I can see some behaviors that have changed, and I do, in fact, do them less often than before, but I also see some behaviors that I never understood were sinful before, and now I know they're sinful. So in some ways I appear to be better off, but in other ways I appear to be worse, because now I understand that some attitudes, some actions that I previously thought were acceptable and justifiable are in fact selfish and thoughtless. So how do I evaluate that? Am I better or am I worse? There's a very real sense in which you could say, I am just as much a sinner today as when I first believed. And there is a sense in which you could say, but I'm getting better. And there's a sense in which you could say, does the scale even matter? One iota of sin marks me as a sinner and not what I should be. So does it matter that I've dropped from, say, one million units of sin to half a million units? Well, I'm still a sinner. So how should we view this idea of sanctification when we believers continually struggle with selfishness, thoughtlessness, and sinfulness? Well, the more I've studied the Bible, the more my understanding of sanctification has changed. So I want to spend a minute talking about that and what holiness is really all about. And let me say that R. C. Sprohl's classic book, The Holiness of God, has been very instrumental in my thinking. It is one book that I think benefits every believer to read, and I highly recommend it. Holiness makes a distinction between the sacred and the profane. The holy or the sacred is set apart for God's use. The common or the profane is not. So God is holy, he is awe-inspiringly different than the world around me. He is different in his character, in his nature, his power, his wisdom, his compassion, his understanding. When I see him, I immediately recognize that he is different in an awe-inspiring, glorious, and wonderful way, like nothing else in this world. The word holy then is associated not only with God, but the things that belong to God. The temple is a building like any other buildings, made of stone and mortar, but it's different in that it's holy. It's God's building. His purposes are being fulfilled there. It is distinctive and different. It is not profane, it is not common, it is not ordinary, it is set apart for God, and that makes it holy. Similarly, you might have a common ordinary incense burner that you use day to day, but then you might have one incense burner that is reserved only for use in the temple. It is set apart. It is to be used only for God in his temple. It's holy. You don't use it for common ordinary daily tasks because it is set apart for use before God. Now Paul comes along and says, we believers are like that. Paul refers to believers as saints, which basically means sanctified ones. Set apart ones are holy ones. We now belong to God. We are set apart from the world and are now different than the world around us. We have identified ourselves with God, we are committed to the things of God, and that marks us as belonging to Him. In a sense, we are the new temple of God, the body of Jesus Christ. We belong to God's people now, and we are set apart for God's use. The sanctified person has not ceased to struggle from sin, rather, the sanctified person now belongs to God. As a believer, I am different than those around me. I have been set apart from them. I no longer value and strive for the things they value. Instead, I am counting on the hope of the gospel and striving for and valuing the things of God. An outsider looking at my life before conversion and after conversion ought to see a change. My life ought to look different from the life of someone who rejects the gospel. Is there sin in both our lives? Yes, but there's still a difference. I understand Paul to be saying that we are called to sanctification, that is, to embrace the truth of the gospel, to be set apart, and live like the gospel is true. When we face those big questions, who am I? What do I want? What am I seeking? What are my goals? What is worthwhile and valuable? Who am I counting on? Believers are going to answer those questions differently than those who reject the gospel. We answer them by thinking about the God who made us, the Savior who rescued us, the promises of God, and then acting accordingly. That makes us different than the world around us. The pursuit of sanctification is the pursuit of maturity and faith, of learning what is true and what is not, of living in the light of the truth that I know. I still struggle with sin, but I'm growing in wisdom and understanding and maturity. So I think here Paul is calling them to remember who God is and what He has done for them through Jesus Christ and to live in the light of that understanding. At any given moment, they may fail and fall into sin, but their response to that failure will be different now that they believe. They will repent and seek forgiveness and grace because they're different. They belong to God. God's purposes are being fulfilled in them. They are no longer committed to pursuing a life of sin. Instead, they are committed to pursuing the things of God. So in 1 Thessalonians 4 3, Paul starts, let me remind you of one of the ways that you are different. Let me remind you of one of the ways that you are being sanctified and set apart for God, and that makes you different. And the first area he tackles is sexuality. Now Paul's going to make three claims about what sanctified disexual behavior involves. In 4.3, he says that you abstain from fornication. In 4.4, for each of you to know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. And in 4.6, that no one transgress and defraud his brother in the matter. Now these statements are debated. They're not exactly straightforward. We're going to try to walk through them in order. So 4-3, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality. Or you could translate that, that you abstain from fornication. One way following God makes us distinctive is that we reject sexually immoral behavior. We don't justify it and we don't pursue it. Instead, we say that kind of behavior is not for us. Now, what would Paul consider as sexual immorality? Well, Paul doesn't explain a biblical view of sexuality here, presumably because he already explained it to them when he was there in person. Now, I don't want to get into a whole theology of sexuality in this podcast, but in this day and age, I can't assume everyone knows what it is. So I'm going to give you a very brief and quick overview. When you take the Bible as a whole, this is how I would summarize the biblical view of sexual morality. And I think this is the view that Paul is encouraging the Thessalonians to adopt. And that is, God intended for a man and a woman to enjoy sex within a monogamous, committed marriage. He expects chastity before marriage and fidelity after marriage. Now I don't want to defend and explore all the passages of scripture that lead to that understanding, but I think that the Bible teaches that sex is a gift of God, that he means for us to enjoy it within heterosexual marriage. It is a beautiful part of how we're created. Sex is meant to be monogamous between two people who are faithful to each other, and sex is meant to be enjoyed by a man and a woman who have made the commitment of marriage. And because you're going to ask, in my good for nothing, worthless opinion, I think it is impossible, it is not possible to make a compelling case from the Bible that God affirms same-sex sexual behavior. By contrast, it is comparatively easy to make the case that God disapproves of same-sex sexual behavior. When Paul says abstain from sexual immorality, I think that's the biblical instructions he has in mind. God intended for a man and a woman to enjoy sex within the commitment of a monogamous marriage. Now, in a culture where most people got married at an early age, a key issue of sexual morality was remaining faithful to your spouse. And it is possible that Paul is focusing on the specific issue of adultery here, perhaps because of some things he has heard from Timothy. And I think you'll see why some scholars think the issue here could be only adultery as we bring in the next verses. So four and five, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. That phrase translated his own body, or his own vessel, as the New American Standard has it, is perhaps the most highly debated phrase in the letter. Sometimes this word vessel can be used to mean my own body. My own body is my vessel. And some people think it means more specifically your private parts or your sexual parts. So either specifically or generally, Paul is saying, I should use my own body in a holy way. So the way I use my body should reflect God's view of morality. Now, Paul uses similar language in the Corinthian letters, and this that idea certainly fits with his writings, and that's the way the English Standard Version is gone. They translate it, your own body, and that's a very good possibility. There is another school of thought that says vessel can also refer to my spouse. Now I don't want to get into all the grammatical details, but when this word is combined with this verb, some scholars think that it refers to your spouse, not yourself, and that Paul is saying each one should treat his own wife in a holy way. In other words, treat her honorably, don't go out and commit adultery. And that is another valid interpretive possibility. From my reading, I think you can make a good case for either of these options from the context because both of them are true. Paul teaches that we should be chaste before marriage and faithful after, and we are to control both our own bodies and honor our spouses. So I'm kind of on the fence of that one. I think it could go either way. The other statement Paul makes is in six through eight that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man, but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. Okay, what does this add to our understanding and which way we would take the vessel idea? How does someone defraud his brother in the area of sexuality? We often think of sexuality as something that belongs to me. It's my body, it's my choices, it's my actions, and it's all about who I share it with. How could I defraud someone else? Our culture tries to tell us that consensual sex is a victimless crime as long as we adults agree, no one gets hurt. But Paul implies here that despite your intentions, someone is getting hurt. The very nature of sexuality involves relationships, and more relationships than the two consenting adults. When all I'm focused on is myself and my own personal experience, people get hurt. When my goal is to find the best sex ever, people get hurt. When I let my sexuality possess me instead of stewarding my sexuality, people get hurt. One of the most powerful lies we can tell ourselves is that our decisions don't affect other people. We think if the relationship is consensual, no one else is getting hurt. We think, well, if I'm not married, therefore technically I'm not being unfaithful to anyone, nobody's getting hurt. Well, that's a lie we tell ourselves. Many things we do now hurt others in the long run. Just because someone consents doesn't mean it won't hurt them. And all that kind of hurt is involved in this idea of defrauding your brother. If you sleep with your brother's wife or his future wife, you've hurt him. Consider adultery. Adultery involves betrayal. If a man sleeps with another man's wife, they have betrayed her husband and they have betrayed his wife. The relationship may be consensual, it may be between two loving adults, but they have betrayed their spouses. Both consenting adults have defrauded their spouses by adulterating their marriages. And in that culture, it would have been very important because she has now created the possibility that her children may not be her husband's children. Remember, they didn't have DNA testing back then. The marriage has been adulterated. That's where the word adultery comes from. The unique private relationship and the family that grows from that marriage relationship has been corrupted. Now the bigger issue to me is why is Paul concerned about sexual immorality here? Why is this something that goes against their sanctification? And why does Paul urge them not to go in the direction of immorality? I think that's an important question to ask because Christians have had a bad reputation throughout history when it comes to sexuality. Up until the 1960s or so, Christians in America had this reputation that we hated sex. People thought that Christians believed righteousness involved having as little sex as possible in your life, and then only when necessary to have children. Well, after the 1960s, our reputations changed to being hypocrites. We Christians were seen as handling our sexuality no differently than anyone else. We just feel guilty about it. While the world embraces promiscuity free and clear, we are promiscuous but we're hypocritical about it. We feel guilty about it. So it's worthwhile to ask the question what does a sanctified view of sexuality look like? And why is Paul's first admonition don't sleep around? Why isn't it something like give more money to the poor or study your Bible more? Why does he start with sexual immorality? Let's read three through five again. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. Now remember, there's two options in four four about how to understand his own body. It could be love his own wife in holiness and honor, or it could be use his own body in holiness and honor. And I think either option works in this context. At this point, I'm leaning slightly toward the issue of adultery, but just slightly. You could persuade me otherwise. Either understanding would forbid adultery and sleeping around. What I want to explore is what's Paul's rationale. Verses four and five give us a big clue as to how our actions are different. Paul tells us both what we should do and what we shouldn't do. What we do, we should do in sanctification and honor, and we should not do it in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God. So we are to be distincting from the world around us, accepting and agreeing with God's purposes and plans for sexuality and living in accordance with those purposes in a way that reflects those purposes. I think that's the sanctification he's talking about. I am to pursue this distinctive approach to sexuality that reflects the way God designed it. When it comes to sexuality, we are probably more easily deceived and confused than any other area of life. Everyone seems to think that although the Bible is clear, somehow their particular situation is extraordinary. Somehow we think in our particular circumstance, God's rules don't apply. Well, they may apply to everybody else, but you know, I'm unique in my artistic sensitivity, or the pressures I face, they're just beyond those anyone else has ever faced. Or my spouse has just failed to minister to my inner self in a way that no spouse has ever failed before, and therefore the rules don't apply to me. But Paul is clear here. He's speaking to a church of genuine believers, and he seems to be saying the rules apply to all of us. He says abstain from sexual immorality and instead pursue sexuality in a way that is honorable. Now let's think about honor. We all know that it's very easy to pursue sexuality in a way that brings shame and guilt and dishonor. I can pursue sexuality in a way that necessarily requires hiding, lying, and sneaking around to keep my actions secret. Why is all that hiding, lying, and sneaking around necessary? Because I would be ashamed if other people found out. My friends, my parents, my spouse, my coworkers would disapprove. My conduct is not honorable, it's shameful. As opposed to conducting myself in a way that someone would look at and say, There's no shame in that. That's appropriate, that's right and beautiful, and it brings honor. And Paul's saying, choose to conduct yourself sexually in a way that brings honor and not shame. We are to pursue holiness, God's purposes, and honor in a way that does not bring shame or guilt. Now that is a great and inspiring goal, but it's not very specific about what is ruled in and what is ruled out. So I think Paul adds this negative admonition that fills in the picture. He says, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God. And this phrase is very easy to misunderstand. Here is one thing I do not think this phrase means, but it was an idea held in the church for a long time. Historically, in one of Augustine's writings, he says, you know, in the Old Testament they had multiple wives, and we know polygamy is bad. Not as bad as what's going on today, because in the Old Testament, when they had sex, they didn't enjoy it. The only reason they had sex was to have children, so then that's okay. That makes them better than you guys because you're having sex for the fun of it, not just to have children. And the church held that view for a long time. They held the view that sexual desire in and of itself was sinful and you're not supposed to enjoy sexuality. A faithful married couple could have sex, but not because they wanted to. That would be pursuing passion and would be bad. Rather, they had to want to have children. Now, again, I do not think that that is what Paul is saying here. Augustine was a brilliant theologian in many ways. I'm just guessing, speculating, but I think because of the fact that he led a very sexually immoral life before coming to faith, he overreacted in this area afterwards. That's just wild speculation on my part, but I suspect he was so broken by his pre-faith experience, it was difficult for him to recognize how sexuality could be holy. The church has learned a good many things from Augustine, but that was not one of them. This idea that desire has no place in sexuality doesn't make sense with what is taught elsewhere in the Bible or even in Paul's other letters. To my knowledge, the Bible does not teach that sexual desire in and of itself is always lust and therefore wrong. The Bible does not teach that I should do everything in my power to squelch and ignore every sexual feeling I have, regardless. Among other passages, a thoughtful reading of the Song of Solomon rules that out. Having sexual desire is not always lust, and we do not have to always feel guilty about it. It is just not true that God made us asexual, and then Satan came along after the fall and gave us sex to trip us up. God created marriage and sexuality as a gift for us before the fall. Like many other areas where we can fall into sin, the issue is how do we deal with the desires we have? And this is a fundamental aspect of human experience. Where do our desires find their place? We all have desires for all sorts of things hunger, comfort, rest, security, prosperity. Over and over again, our bodies tell us that we want something and we must have it. We just have to. What are we willing to do to gain that thing? Lie, cheat, steal, fight, prostitute ourselves, sell our souls to a gang, mortgage our future to credit card debt, betray a friend, backstab a coworker, steal another woman's husband? Just how far will we go to fulfill that desire? Well, how we handle desire is one of the things that separates human beings from animals. How do we express our desires as God intended them to be expressed? Whenever we're confronted with any desire we have, whether it's food, comfort, security, pleasure, whatever, we ask the question, what's the right thing to do here? The desire itself may be appropriate. The desire for food is normal and appropriate, and I want to do something about it. At the same time, I have to face the fact that I can't just steal someone else's food. With every desire I have, I face the question, what is right? I might be hungry, but maybe I should postpone eating because my child needs my attention right now, and helping her is the loving thing to do. I may need to sleep, but my friend is in crisis, and the loving thing to do is comfort her right now. All of our desires have to be considered in light of what it means to be a human being who is seeking to follow God. And what Paul's saying in 4.5 is the Gentiles don't ask that question. They're driven by nothing but passion. He says, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. They are ruled by passion. Passion is their top value. If it feels good, do it, and nothing else matters. Desire rules. If I have a desire to sleep with that other woman's husband and he's willing, well then why shouldn't I? All that matters is how we feel about each other right now, in this moment, because we desire it. So their sexual choices show that they do not know God because they act on the passion itself without any consideration for the appropriateness of those desires or God's plan. So the trump card for Gentiles is desire. By contrast, the trump card for a believer is sanctification and honor. How is God's design for sexuality to be fulfilled? And what brings honor rather than shame to his purposes and plan? For believer, desires find their place in the big scheme of things. Sexual desires are not my driving, controlling, overwhelming passion. My driving, overwhelming, controlling passion is seeking God, and then everything else falls into perspective from there. So God designed sexuality for a purpose, and I want to keep it within that purpose. Sexuality is an expression of the commitment of marriage and a means of creating a new family. God gave us this beautiful gift to draw a man and woman together in a permanent, committed relationship. Sexuality is an expression of the intimate, open, and loving relationship between a husband and wife, and as much as we try to deny it today, sexuality is also the means by which they create a new family. A family grows from their commitment. Sexuality is the language of marriage. It draws a man and a woman together and it fosters and contributes to the emotional bond between them and it produces a beautiful new family. Now, Paul doesn't go into that purpose here. He's warning that sexual desire can lead me to violate God's plan for how I ought to conduct myself. Because sexuality is such a powerful and pleasurable force, it quickly becomes a test of faith. Sexuality is one of those places that challenges my commitment to following God. Everyone faces situations that tempt them to stray outside the boundaries God has placed on sexuality. And in those moments, we have to decide: do I really trust God here? Do I believe him when he said that he designed sexuality for a specific purpose? Am I willing to trust that his way is best, or will I be ruled by my own desires? Sexuality is one of those places where God says, Look, I gave you this as a gift for a reason. When you use it outside that place and that reason, you are not only rebelling against me, you are causing damage. If you stray outside that reason, you will be hurting yourself and other people, and you will be violating my intention. If you're having an adulterous affair, for example, you're not only being disobedient, you're causing damage to the marriages involved. Your actions are both unloving and disobedient. And that brings us to Paul's third statement he makes in 4 6, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. If indeed Paul has been talking about adultery here, and the focus is adultery, then the idea here is you may think you're getting away with something. Maybe your spouses will never find out, but God knows your every action, and in the end you're going to have to stand before him. You may think no one knows, and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and what happens between two consenting loving adults is just between the two of you, but God knows. Your secrecy doesn't change the rules, your hiding doesn't change God's design or plan for sexuality. God is an avenger. The other spouses may not know now, but God is their avenger. He will set things right, and this is one of those things that's going to be set right. Fundamentally, it's really easy to forget that there's going to be an accounting. We get so caught up in the pursuit of pleasure that we forget that we are creatures and our Creator is going to require us to give an account of the lives we led one day. We're not fooling anybody but ourselves. The day is coming when God will set all things right. And then he goes on, for God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man, but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. This is the kicker line. Paul's saying if anyone who disagrees with me, Paul, about this issue is not just disagreeing with me, Paul. This is not a case of Paul's word and Paul's understanding. If you want to start claiming Paul didn't know what he was talking about, or maybe he was just speaking to an entirely different culture, or what he says no longer applies today because we're so much more enlightened today and we've given up all those old-fashioned ideas. Paul's saying, let's be clear, you're not disagreeing with Paul, you're disagreeing with God. The fact is, God himself set the time and place for sexuality. We are talking about God's design for sexuality and whether or not I, as his creature, will submit to it. God created sexuality for a reason, and if I refuse to acknowledge that God has a plan for sexuality, then I am in fact rejecting God. If I don't care what God has to say about sexuality, then I have rebelled against him. I can't say, you know, I believe in Jesus as my savior, but I reject the idea that God knows how I should conduct myself sexually. Those two thoughts are incompatible. The whole point is I need Jesus as a savior because I have gone wrong in the way I live my life. I need a savior because of the sin in my life and the flaws in my understanding and the wrong in my desires. I don't get to carve out one area and say, okay, God, save me from all the rest of that bad stuff, but let me just hang on to my sin right here. I need God to change my thinking. I need his grace and his forgiveness, and I need the work of the Holy Spirit to change my understanding and to change the place of my desires and set me on the right path. And that's what Paul is warning them here. If you're disagreeing with me, it's not me. This is God's plan. All right, to try to wrap this up a little bit, what does Paul want us to take away from this passage? I think Paul wants us to see that sexual morality involves a willingness to accept God's boundaries. The fundamental issue behind sexuality is do I accept God's right to put wise boundaries on my life? Do I humbly bow to Him both inside and outside? Now just to be clear, we all fail. None of us perfectly, courageously, and consistently obeys God, especially in the area of sexuality. The problem is not, will we find these sins in ourselves? We will. The question is, when we find these sins in ourselves, how do we respond? Do we grieve over our sins? Do we throw ourselves on the mercy of God and ask His forgiveness and beg Him to take the sin and the guilt away? Or do we justify our sin, explain it as acceptable, and defiantly claim our actions are worth. Without fault, and we don't care what God has to say about sexuality anyway. The real issue is: are we willing to be corrected? Are we willing to turn from our ways and strive to see life the way God sees life? Are we willing to try to change and seek change? Ultimately, none of us has the power to free ourselves from any particular sin. But God has promised to free us through the work of His Spirit, but it can take a lifetime. You may not be able to change your sexual desires, but at some deep level of your person, you have to want to change. I know of no promise that says we're going to have an easy road when it comes to sexuality or anything else for that matter. I know of no promise that says if you come to faith in Jesus, all biblically inappropriate desires are going to vanish overnight or even change in your lifetime. What am I to do when I'm in the middle of temptation? When I want to throw up my hands and say, I can't change. Well, I know a lot of genuine believers who are in exactly that spot. They take an honest look at themselves and they say, I cannot change this. And there's a sense in which I agree. None of us can remove the sin in our lives. That's why we need a savior. Whether the sin involves sexuality, lust, greed, pride, selfishness, arrogance, or anything else, none of us can change ourselves by ourselves. We need the blood of Christ, the grace of God, and the work of the Holy Spirit. And then we have to face the fact that God's timeline is God's timeline. If He wants me to face this same struggle for the next 10 days or the next 10 years or the rest of my life, then I must face it. Following Jesus with our sexuality in this day and age is not going to get easier anytime soon. Sometimes when we say I can't change, we're really saying I don't want to change. And that's a problem. Because the bottom line is we have to want to want to change. We have to want to change. We have to start with at least the acknowledgement, God is right and I am wrong. There may be many failures along the way, but we need to see them as failures. We need to repent and say things like, I shouldn't have been there, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have walked that path. Saying I can't change sometimes means I don't want to change, and we need to get to the place where we say, I want to follow God more than I want these other things, even though I keep messing up. There has to be that bottom line of at some level of my being, I want to change, and I agree that God is right and I am wrong. Now, Paul is not saying that if you have failed in this area of sexuality, you can't be a believer. That's not what he's saying. The issue is not how perfectly obedient can you be? The issue is when confronted with the truth of the gospel, will you embrace it? It's not a question of have you earned your salvation by being sinless and perfect. Rather, the question is, is your heart open to the things of God? Are you willing to be taught, corrected, and learn? Will you admit that you are wrong and God is right or not? You have a choice to make. Pursue God and seek first His kingdom or pursue your sinful desires. And how you respond to these issues matters a great deal because it reveals whether or not the Holy Spirit is at work in your life. It reveals who you're truly following. If you're pursuing a lifestyle of sexual immorality and you don't care what God thinks about it, that is a big red flag that you have stumbled and sexuality is drawing you away from God. And these verses should be a wake-up call. If you failed in your sexuality and genuinely repented and are now actively seeking to follow what God says is true, then be comforted. The blood of Jesus covers your sins and the Holy Spirit is at work to change you. We are all called to seek the truth and act on it. We are all called to be willing to be taught the truth and let it change our behavior, our thoughts, our values, and our goals. God is good and he calls us to follow him in goodness. And God is merciful and forgives us our many failures. And we are to live in light of both of those truths. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but shows you how to figure it out. You can hear all previous episodes in this series on my website, WednesdayInTheWord.com. There is no charge, no spam, and no ads. It's all free to help you improve your study skills and understanding of scripture. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe and leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen. It really does help others find the podcast. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned. And if you can, you can tell him where you learned it. Thank you to Reggie Coates for the use of his beautiful song Tanais. You can listen to more of Reggie's music. He has a new CD out, and you can find it at heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.