I want to come back, believe it or not, to a message that I broke off several weeks ago. We have been in our study in the Book of Ruth in the mornings. But as you know, across the summer we did a series called the Christian Mind and the Age of Technology. I’m on part four today of my message Tech Savvy, and I’ll probably do a part five, maybe even a part six.
I hope I’m not testing your patients. I think this is pastoral practical. It’s a front burner issue. We’re dealing with technology, the worldwide web, smart technology each and every day. It enhances our lives in so many ways, but it also can become a conduit for sin in our lives.
We have been looking at being tech-savvy. I’ve based my remarks just roughly on Romans 12:1-2 because we’re told not to copy the world. We’re told to be careful in the world to bring theological thinking to all. We touch see and taste. We’re doing that with technology. We’re bringing theology to bear upon technology. We want to be tech-savvy, biblically speaking.
I’m going to use Romans 12:1-2 as a launching pod and get back into my extended sermon, miniseries, whatever you want to call it. Look with me at Romans 12:1-2. I’m actually reading from the New Living Translation, not my usual custom. I’m a new King James guy. But I like this translation in regards to some of the passages we’re going to read in this sermon today. Follow along, Romans 12:1-2.
Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you, give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
I’ve always enjoyed the ministry and writing of Erwin Lutzer. When I got my hands on his autobiography a couple of years ago, I was excited to learn something more of his life. As we come back to looking at this issue of tech-savvy and bringing theology to bear upon technology, I was reminded just recently of a story in his autobiography. He has his back in the mid-’90s and he has just hooked up his home computer to the worldwide web.
He’s gone online. Now in the autobiography, he says that that night, after doing that, going online, he had a disturbing dream. In the dream, he was victimized by demons that were trying to pin him against a wall. The only way he could break free was to invoke the name of Jesus. Now I’m going to let him tell the end of the story. Here’s what he says, “When I awoke, I was shaken by this frightful experience. I knew immediately that it was a gift from God. God was in a fact saying, you now have in your home something that Satan can use to try to destroy you.”
What a warning. We all need safeguards to keep us from the availability of pornography. That is a timely reminder. That episode, although strange in the life of Erwin Lutzer is a timely reminder. Because you see, we have a Jekyll and Hyde relationship with technology as Christians. Don’t we? We acknowledge on the one hand that smart technology, the worldwide web, social media, it’s a tool.
It’s a tool that we can use to enrich our lives, to learn, to stay in contact with one another, to bless others, even to expand the Kingdom of God through messaging the gospel through media. But while it is a tool that can build us up, it is a weapon that can be formed against us. The enemies of our souls, human and demonic, can use it to hobble us and hurt us spiritually.
There are glaring dangers. There are present temptations that come with the use of technology, whether it’s your smartphone or your home computer. I’ve been trying to strike that balance in my series of reflections entitled Tech Savvy. We’ve been looking at technology from several angles. We looked at it as a question of thanks. We’ve looked at it as a question of time. We’ve looked at it as a question of triviality. We’ve looked at it as a question of truth.
Where we left off the last time we were together on this subject, it was a question of temptations. Yes, it’s a tool we can use for our own benefit in the advancement of God’s kingdom, but it is a weapon. A weapon that can hurt us. For some time, we’ve been looking at this issue of temptation. I covered several subjects and I’m going to cover one more today, spill over into the next time we’re together and actually look at a couple more temptations before moving on to look at the worldwide web in relation to a question of thought, togetherness and tyranny.
But what about temptations? We looked at the fact that the internet, smart technology contempt us to self-promotion, contempt us to seek human approval, contempt us to envy materialism and covetousness. I want to pick that thread up of one more. I want to concentrate on today. It contempt us to lust and sexual sin. I’m really going to focus today and part of the next time we’re together on the issue of pornography.
Pornography dominates the worldwide web. There are 42 million porn websites which totals 370 million pages of pornography. You don’t need me to tell you this is an issue. If we’re going to think about technology and temptation. Well, this one’s as plain as a pimple on the end of your nose. It’s the temptation to lust, to commit sexual sin through pornography or salacious entertainment and movies.
In terms of victims and harm, this may be the greatest of the temptations posed by the worldwide web. Pornography and salacious images are the very wallpaper of the internet. You know through experience. Even as you seek to avoid it, it pops up, it chases you. This is the wallpaper of the worldwide web.
Our culture is drowning in a sea of immoral pictures, philosophies and pleasures. Our culture, our families, our singles, even our churches are being carpet bombed day-by-day by the purveyors of perversity. You know what? Their preferred delivery system is technology and the worldwide web and smartphones.
Speaking on the seventh commandment, Kevin DeYoung says this, “Our lives are awash in sexuality. Sex is on the television, in the movies, in our music, on the side of buses and in our books.” Don’t we know it, folks? He goes on, “Sex is all around us in the mall, dripping off every beer commercial and two stories high on billboards. Of course, sex is on the internet.” You see, technology has fast tracked immorality.
Sex is on the internet. Pornography and sex related sites make up 60% of daily web traffic. Think about that. Over half of all websites visited on a given day across the world are pornography websites of internet users. He says in the United States, 40% visit porn sites at least once a month and the number increases to 70% with the audience being 18 to 34-year-old man.
Among children, ages 8 to 16 with internet access, 90% have viewed pornography online and the average age of exposure is as early as 11. The seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery is not just being broken in our country, says Kevin DeYoung. It’s being smashed to pieces. The hammer that’s being used to smash it to pieces is technology, smartphones, computers.
We need to awaken to that fact. If you want to get your head and hands around the scale of this family CF Media wants us to know that pornography worldwide is a $97 billion industry. That’s staggering. In the United States, that’s a $13 billion industry. According to statistics, that means that its revenue exceeds the combined revenues of professional baseball, football, and basketball franchises.
It betters the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, NBC. It betters the larger revenues of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix combined. I mean, that’s just staggering. There is a tsunami of sexual pictures and perversity washing over our culture. As one writer says, “Lurking behind every screen in your home and on your phone is a portal to devastation.” It’s true.
That’s why as we look at technology and the question of temptations, we can’t avoid this one. This is the elephant in the room. Now let me say this. This is not a new problem. Pornographic material, salacious images, that’s not a new problem. You know what? We need to always remind ourselves of the words of Solomon. There’s nothing new under the sun.
Pornographic images and issues bedeviled the people of God under the old covenant in Israel, they went to whoring to use the words of the prophets after other gods. Many of those pagan daddies were gods of fertility and tied into the worship of those gods of fertility was temple prostitution. Sculptures and images that are pornographic in nature can be found in that ancient world.
Then you come from the old covenant to the new covenant, and again, it’s not a new problem. Christians just like you and me in the first century and the second century and beyond have dealt with this issue. Think about Paul writing to the Thessalonians where he has to tell them to avoid, to run from sexual immorality. It’s not God’s will. Paul writing to the Corinthians has to remind them to run, to flee from sexual immorality. He has to remind them that their body is for the Lord and it is not for sexual immorality.
Take the city of Corinth alone as an example of what we’re talking about. This was a city that had a temple dedicated to the God of love, Aphrodite. It was served by a thousand temple prostitutes to worship her, involve sexual immorality. It was a temple bedecked with statues and images of sexual organs and sexually explicit material.
In fact, to Corinthian eyes was a term used in that day of someone being laid into sexual sin. This isn’t new. This is the struggle of the saints of God and every age. But I’ll tell you what is new. The internet, smart technology that becomes a conduit, a vehicle for a tsunami of material. That’s what’s new. The accessibility 24/7 with the click of a mouse and little legal regulation. Anonymity, that’s what’s new.
You don’t have to cross town into some seedy area under the shadow of the night. You can do it in the privacy of your home, in the seclusion of a hotel room when you’re by yourself with a smartphone on your hand. Affordability, that’s what’s new. Much of it’s free and tailored to fit any budget. Acceptance, that’s what’s new? Porn is mainstream. To talk of it, to watch it in our society hardly raises an eyebrow.
In fact, we’re being told by politicians and influencers that it’s a source of harmless fun. In fact, it’s a form of artistry. In fact, we’re told by sexual therapists it’s good for sexual intimacy among couples. In fact, it’s a commercial success for single women. It’s a career path. Folks, that’s how far we’ve fallen. That’s how sick our society has become. That’s what’s new.
In fact, I just over the weekend was reading a great little book on sexual morality and a biblical view of sex by two British authors. It was interesting. They quoted an article from the London Times where it was being argued that we need to rethink our sexual values in terms of the internet because on the one hand, everybody’s doing this over here and in the other hand, we’re trying to live some old morality, decided the old-fashioned.
This writer, to just cherry-pick some of their comments, says this, “The time has come to recalibrate the expression sex scandal.” In the article, she’s reading about a sex scandal in British life. Here’s what she says about the hullabaloo all around this sexual scandal. If it teaches us anything, it’s high, old and silly and out of touch. It makes half of society look. The internet has left the old morality way behind. Frankly, in order to be credible, we need to find new rules of engagement.
I mean, given the behavior of people on the worldwide web regarding pornography, what they watch at home, why would they be scandalized by some sexual scandal in public? She’s got a point, wouldn’t be my point, wouldn’t be my preference. Certainly not. But her point is this. We need to change the rules of engagement given the acceptance and mean, streaming of pornography.
I want us to think about this issue. I want us to remind ourselves biblically that this tsunami of tech driven pornography is devastating and sinful, devastating in that it challenges the glory of God. It undermines the gospel and the picture that sexual union is in relation to Jesus Christ and His church. It objectifies and abuses women. It reduces the beauty of sex to some mere physical transaction. It accelerates divorce. It destroys marriage. It exploits children. It violates innocency and it leaves young men incapable of being naturally aroused.
It’s devastating. We haven’t begun to reap what we have sown. It’s sinful. It’s sinful. I just want to say right out the bat to myself, to you and everyone listening, this sin of pornography is something we need to repent of and run from. Should we be tempted to embrace it? If you have fallen, you need to repent immediately. It’s a violation of the seventh command. You shall not commit adultery. No sex before marriage. No sex out of marriage. No sex beyond marriage.
In fact, Jesus takes that to another level, doesn’t He? In the Sermon in the Mount chapter 5:27-28 where He says, “You’ve heard it said, don’t commit adultery.” I want to remind you that if a man undresses a woman in his mind or a woman undresses a man in her mind, if you lust after someone, you’ve already committed adultery in your heart, this is a violation of the seventh commandment. It’s outside the will of God, 1 Thessalonians 4:3.
It’s outside the will of God. Avoid sexual immorality for this is the will of God for you. It is not the mark of saintly behavior. This is not how Christians act. Listen to what Paul says in Ephesians 5:3. Let there be no sexual immorality and purity agreed among you. Such sins of no place among God’s people. Obscene stories, foolish talk, coarse jokes. These are not for you.
In fact, persisted of and unrepented of it brings damnation. It brings damnation. This isn’t the behavior of the believer. This is the behavior of the unbeliever. Hebrews 13:4, marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. Listen to the finish of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 when he ratcheted up understanding of God’s commandment in relation to adultery.
It’s not just the physical act, it’s the mental compromise. But listen to what he goes on to say in verse 29 and 30. If your eye, even your good eye causes you to lust, guard it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your hand, even your stronger hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.
Now listen to these words. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than to lose your whole body in hell. Implication is we need to take this sin seriously. We need to do whatever we can to prevent us committing this sin. But if this sin is persisted of and unrepented of, it leads to damnation. It’s not the behavior of a believer. It’s a violation of the commands of God. It triggers his wrath and condemnation.
To that end, for a few moments, we’ll pick this up when we’ll get back together again. I want to help you protect yourself when it comes to pornography. We need to have a plan of action. James Mattis is one of the great generals of the Marines. When he was over the Marines in Iraq, they realized they were dealing with asymmetrical warfare. The enemy was among them, the enemy posed as their friends.
He had to remind his troops nose under his command to be vigilant, never let their guard down. Even an Iraqi soldier supposed it’ll be fighting alongside them could be an insurgent, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s famous for this statement to his troops in Iraq. He said this, “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”
You know what? That’s what we need to bring to bear upon this subject. There’s satanic insurgency going on in our communities and in our culture. There’s traps all around us. There’s dangers all around us and we need to have a plan. I’ve come up with the word protect and have turned it into an acrostic. We’ll just cover two or three of them today and pick this up again.
But the word protect yourself. Number one, pursue your spouse, actually. Number two, rehearse the consequences of sin. Number three, own the fact that your body belongs to Christ. Number four, trust yourself to an accountability partner. Number five, eliminate opportunities for sexual temptation. Number six, confess your sin. Number seven, treasure Christ above all.
Let’s make a start. P, pursue your spouse sexually. One of the best ways to fight unholy lust is to fight it with holy love. A God defined a God-given across centered shaping of your love for your spouse. At this point, I’m speaking to married couples who I’d say to our singles, you need to keep yourself for what I’m about to talk about. Let’s start back in the Old Testament. The writer of Proverbs 5 is about to give his son the birds and the bees lecture.
Then he talks about sex as a gift from God as a means of enjoyment. But he locates it exclusively within the exclusivity of marriage. Here’s what he says to his son, “Drink water from your own well.” Okay. “Find yourself a wife. Stay with her, stick with her. Find your satisfaction in her. Drink water from your own well. Share your love only with your wife.” Why spill the water of your springs in the streets having sex with just about anyone? You should reserve it for yourselves.
Never share it with strangers. Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. She’s a loving dear, a graceful doe, let her breast satisfy you always, may you always be captivated by her love. Why be captivated my son by an immoral woman or fondle the breasts of a promiscuous woman?
Similar message over in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul’s addressing a whole bunch of questions that have come his way from the Corinthians. Some of them have come out of a very checkered past. Morally speaking. We read in chapter 6 that many of them had given themselves the sexual immorality but neither watched and justified and dwell by the Holy Spirit and now they’re to live lives of holiness.
But perhaps given their past, some of them believe that one of the paths to protect themselves against sexual immorality is to abstain from sexual intercourse altogether. Perhaps some of them had fallen into legalism and we’re thinking, you know what? The sign of super spirituality is never to satisfy yourself physically or sexually with your spouse.
Whatever the case is, Paul addresses it and he tells us here in verse 1. Now, regarding the questions you asked in your letter, yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations, but because there is so much sexual immorality, each one should have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband. Now listen to these words. The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs.
The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife. Do not deprive each other of sexual relationships. That’s a command. Do not deprive. Don’t hold back. Don’t withdraw sexually within marriage. Do not deprive each other of sexual relationships. Each couple has sexual needs may be expressed in different ways given maleness and femaleness.
Men are microwaves, women are crockpots. You get it, but don’t deprive each other. Work on that side of your marriage. It’s part of the joy of marriage and it’s a protection. The reason you shouldn’t deprive one another unless for a season is that afterward you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Look, I’m not going to get into the depths of that. I think both those texts speak for themselves. You know what? Proverbs 5, drink water from your own well. Don’t be sleeping around. Keep yourself for the one with whom you must keep the covenant. Satisfy yourself there. Work on your relationship. There’ll be different seasons you have to work through with aging and everything else.
But couples work on their love life and the physical side of that, which is a good gift from God. One of the benefits of that is it’s a protection. It’s God’s protection plan where to find satisfaction in each other. We’re not to deprive one another of this good gift. Here’s the point. Husbands and wives need to protect and please each other sexually through anticipated, affectionate, pleasurable and regular physical union.
The absence of this, the weakening of this, the irregularity of this in a marriage is dangerous, unhelpful because it gives Satan room to work. That’s not an excuse to sin, it’s just a recognition of the danger. Maybe basically put, Paul is saying that the grass won’t look greener on the other side of the fence if you water your own garden. The grass won’t look greener on the other side of the fence if you water your own garden.
I don’t remember who it was. They’re not going to hazard a guess. But I remember being in the company of pastors when a national figure told us a story about being in a hotel, speaking at a conference. As he got into the elevator, a woman get into the elevator with him and by her dress, by her demeanor, by her actions and movements, it was clear that she was soliciting this man.
He hit the button, get off at the next floor, wasn’t his floor, get off the next floor. When I threw the double doors of the elevator, turned to that woman and said, “You know what? No, thanks. I get the real thing at home.” It’s a great answer. It’s a good path. It should be the case. We got to work on the real thing at home. Not the illusion, not the lie, not the deceit.
Pursue your spouse sexually to the single. Keep yourself for your spouse sexually so that you might drink water from your own well someday, satisfying. It’s a blessing. Number two, rehearse the consequences of failure. Rehearse the consequences of failure. This is the fight against pornography. I know that first and foremost, we should do what is right out of love for God in an act of worship towards God. But I would make an argument there is nothing wrong with also being driven or defined by fear.
Hebrews 11:7 says of Noah that he was moved by godly fear to the saving of his household, the holiness of God, the coming judgment of God, the consequences of sin visited upon a world. It moved him to action, kept him faithful. Doesn’t Romans 6:23 tell us? There’s wages attached to sin? Think about that. Every sin comes with a price tag. That’s certainly true of sexual sin, whether in physical adultery, mental adultery, pornography, lust, chat rooms, salacious movies.
My friend, listen to me as I listen to myself. It comes with the price tag. Let’s look at the cost. I’ll give you one example. If you go back to Proverbs 6, from 5, 6, and 7, the wise writers addressing the issue of marriage, singleness, sexuality, and he addresses towards the end of chapter 6, the cost of adultery in all of its forms, the cost of sexual compromise.
Here’s what he says, “Excuses might be found for a thief who steals because he is starving. But if he is caught, he may pay back seven times what he stole, even if he is to sell everything in his house. But by contrast, not so. The man who commits adultery is an utter fool for he destroys himself. He will be wounded and disgraced. His shame will never be a erased. The woman’s jealous husband will be furious and he will not show mercy when he takes vengeance. He will not accept compensation nor be satisfied with the payoff of any size.”
Did you get the contrast? Some poor guy, he’s hungry. Down at night he steals. Doesn’t justify the stealing. Okay. We’re not where we are today where you can loot to some form of reparation. Nothing like that in the Bible. Proverbs 6, even if you’re hungry and destitute, you don’t have a right to steal. But you know what? Someone might understand that, but they’re still looking for repayment and the guy repays seven times and he gets past it and justice has been served.
But the implication for adultery is, “Hey, in a way you never get past it.” In this day and age, back in the Old Testament where the husband could wreak vengeance, man, there’s no compensation. Point simply this, sin will always take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay. Pursue your spouse sexually. Rehearse the consequences of failure regularly.
Think about grieving the Lord who redeemed you. Think about dragging his sacred knee into the mud. This is a list of consequences that actually Randy Alcorn wrote to himself in an article called Consequences of a Moral Tumble. I think you can find it online. Consequences of a Moral Tumble by Randy Alcorn. He said, “You know what? As a pastor, husband, father, son, I grieve the Lord. I drag his name into the mud. I lose the trust and respect of my wife. I hurt my beloved daughters, Karina and Angie.”
In fact, Karina came to a church I pastored in Santa Clarita, beautiful girl. Can you imagine her being despoiled by the distrust and failure of her father? I could also form memories and flashbacks. It could plague my future intimacy with my wife. I could contract the physical sexually transmitted disease that I could pass on to my wife. I could forfeit the effect of years of witnessing to my father who has his guard up and his distrust of evangelicals.
I could cause pregnancy with the personal and financial implications, including a lifelong reminder of sin. I could bring shame and hurt to my fellow pastors. It’s longer than that. You get a taste of it, don’t you? You got to keep rehearsing that. You got to keep looking at the price tag. In his book, Born Fighting, Jim’s Webb tells the story of the Scots Irish, my people.
In fact, their story begins in the middle of Europe with the Celts and the Celtic tribes that come through Scotland and Northern Ireland into America. One of the fascinating things in the book is the way the Celts fought. When the battle lines were drawn, the Celts came to the battle line across from their enemy. But the interesting thing was they brought their mothers, their wives, and their children and put them behind them. Can you imagine that?
You have across the battle line the enemy, then you have the Celts behind them, their wives and their children, their families. Why? It was a motivation to fight. It was a prevention against cowardice. It was a call to courage because failure was not acceptable, because failure meant the raping of their wives, the pillaging of their homes and the enslaving of their children. They knew what was on the line.
You know what? Sin brings momentary forgetfulness and sexual passion rises. You and I must have the presence of mind to rehearse the consequences of that next click of that phone call, of that chat on the chat room of the pay for view in the hotel room. Pursue your spouse sexually, rehearse the consequences of failure. Finally and quickly, own the fact that your body belongs to Christ. Own the fact that your body belongs to Christ.
We saw that, didn’t we, in Romans 12:1-2, present your bodies as a living sacrifice to Christ. We’re told in 1 Thessalonians 4 to take possession of your body in the context of avoiding sexual immorality. Explicitly it’s addressed in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 as in this day, in our day, the world wants to view sex as just a physical act, an appetite, something divorced from any deeper meaning. Crudely, sex is the pleasurable swapping of bodily fluids by two clashing bodies.
In fact, when Paul deals with this issue in 1 Corinthians 6, he uses a phrase out of that culture. The stomach is for food, and many commentators think he kind of draw in it. The stomach’s for food, the body’s for sex. Just as food is an urge that needs to be satisfied. That sexual desire is an urge that simply needs to be satisfied just like you’d satisfy your hunger with a good dinner.
When you’re got sex passion, just hook up with someone. It’s just a passing meaningless thing. Paul says, “No, no, that’s not true. You can’t divorce the physical from the spiritual in the Christian life. There can’t be that duality that the body’s evil or unimportant and the spirit’s good and important. No, God is going to redeem our bodies. He’s going to raise our bodies.”
In the 1 Corinthians 6, he reminds us, our bodies are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We’re the temple of the Holy Spirit. That’s an amazing statement. In fact, the Greek word for temple is the word that speaks of the holy of holies. There’s two Greek words. One can speak of the temple structure all together and the other speaks of the holy of holies that he’s using the word for the holy of holies, where the high priest went in once a year, met with God over the mercy seat, where the Shekinah glory of God dwelt and resided.
What a thought that the believer is a portable temple of God’s presence in the world. That wherever we are there is holy grind. God is to be worshiped and honored and His kingdom extended through all of our bodily functions and actions. “Yield your body,” says Paul in this letter, “As an instrument of righteousness, because it was once an instrument of sin.” It’s powerful stuff.
But there’s one thought that comes out of it. I’ll just close with. In verse 15, with that in mind, Paul says this, “Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ, that you’re indwelled by him through the Holy Spirit. You’re in union with him and in union with all the members of the body of Christ? Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ and join it to a prostitute?”
Never. Don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? Paul’s point is this. Whatever you can’t imagine Jesus doing, you shouldn’t do because Jesus indwells you. You are the temple of God on earth, united to Christ, then dwell by the Holy Spirit. That should make an impossible, Paul argues for us, to join our bodies to any kind of sexual sin or to use our bodies for any immoral sexual satisfaction.
Okay. Times beat me. I’ll let Kevin DeYoung say it better than I can. Here’s what he says, “Union with Christ also means moral responsibility.” Look at 1 Corinthians 6:15, Paul’s language is circumspect, but his argument is quite shocking. Since we belong to Christ and we are members of his body, therefore, when you engage in sexual immorality, whether it’s prostitution or adultery or sex before marriage or some other sexual sin, it’s as if the members of Christ are engaging in sexual sin.
To put it bluntly, if you shack up with a prostitute, it’s like dragging Christ into bed. When you put your sexual organs where they don’t belong, you’re putting Christ where he doesn’t belong. That’s staggering, isn’t it? That’s sobering. That’s sin preventing. Where you put your sexual organs, where they don’t belong, you’re putting Christ where he doesn’t belong. Sexual sin is terribly serious, because it’s a sin against your own body, a sin against the body of Christ.
If you can’t picture Jesus with a prostitute or Christ in front of porn or Jesus sleeping around, then you shouldn’t picture yourself in those circumstances either, because you’re a member of Christ. You belong to Christ more than that, you are joined to Christ. If his body is pure, so should your body be pure. That’s his argument.
I just led my mother to rest. I continued to recall holy memories and conversations with her. When I was on this text, I remember this as I close, many a day when I was running out the door, grab my coat as a young Christian, she would shout from the kitchen where she spent most of her life, “Philip, don’t forget, wherever you go, Jesus goes.” That’s profound and yet it’s simple. Wherever you go, Jesus goes.
Whatever you do, you drag His honor and glory into it. Flee sexual immorality. Father, thank you for our time this morning in several texts. These are the waters we swim in. We live in a Corinthian culture where we’re battling for purity, where our souls are being fought over, where our marriages are in danger, where our promises to our spouses are being challenged.
Oh, God, we thank you for technology. It’s a tool, but it’s also a weapon formed against us. It’s making sin easier and more accessible and more pervasive. It’s making it more attractive. It’s spreading lies in very alluring ways. Lord, help us to protect ourselves. Help us to pursue our spouses sexually. Help us to rehearse the consequences regularly. Help us to own the fact that our bodies belong to Jesus Christ.
May we yield them as instruments of righteousness. May our bodies be a vehicle by which the presence and power and beauty and glory of God is known and made manifest in this world as temples. For we pray and ask these things in His name. Amen.