PRACTICE SEX PROPERLY

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

See that no one is sexually immoral...

Hebrews 12:16a

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

In today’s message, we find seven words that serve as its foundation.

See that no one is sexually immoral... Hebrews 12:16a

We know the writer of Hebrews is writing to the Jewish Christians in particular but this doesn’t remove the overall responsibility for all Christian believers to exercise complete sexual purity in the way that they live. Anything outside of sexual relations as God has set forth in the scriptures falls under the category of sexual immorality. Let’s look at some other passages from the scriptures on this subject:

Jesus talks about this matter frequently as He calls out sin across the four Gospels. In fact, lest someone think that sexual immortality isn’t a serious transgression, consider that Jesus included it with murder in the seventh chapter of Mark (Vv. 20-23). He also mentions specific sexual iniquities such as adultery, referring to all as evil.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul writes that our bodies belong to the Lord and not ourselves. In other words, we don’t have the right to dictate how we use our bodies and that goes for sexual behavior (6:13). This is why he exhorts the Corinthians to “flee sexual immorality” (6:18) but unfortunately, people then and now seem to run toward it instead.

So what is the prescription issued by the Word of God so to ward off sexual immorality?

Going back to 1 Corinthians, we find it in the seventh chapter:

“...since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps 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. Vv. 2-5

God designed and created sex to be a beautiful gift, something to be thoroughly enjoyed but only in the context of marriage. This is why premarital sex falls under the category of sexual immorality because a man and woman snub their noses at the Lord and fulfill their desires when they want to, rejecting His will.

Need an example of how this was practiced in biblical times?

We need only look at the story of Jesus’ miraculous conception by way of the Holy Spirit and how this impacted her betrothal to Joseph. Her sudden pregnancy was seen immediately as a violation of the engagement. The community was certain she had adulterous relations with another man and it’s important to note that engagement was treated as if the man and woman were actually married to one another before they actually wed and both the man and woman were to remain celibate until after they were married, after which time, sex was permissible, a beautiful consummation of a lifelong commitment. Given the sudden conception of a child that he knew was not his own, the scriptures tell us that Joseph decided to quietly divorce Mary.

Why could he do this?  

Because adultery was the only legal reason to break a covenant marital agreement before the marriage took place. Thankfully, the angel Gabriel intervened and the rest, as they say, is history.

Regarding sexual immorality, Paul also wrote these things:

To the Galatians, “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” 5:19-21

Here we find orgies mentioned which are nothing more than gatherings of people who are interested in only one thing: sex with one another.

To the Ephesians, “...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. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.” 5:3-7

Christians aren’t to befriend and hang out with people who choose to be sexually immoral. Both this passage and the one before it from Galatians carry the additional warning that the sexually immoral are destined for God’s wrath because of their disobedience and even worse yet, are not worthy of an “inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God”.

To the Colossians: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” 3:5-6

Christian believers are to eradicate sexual immorality and lust from their lives as these matters of the flesh are incompatible with the kind of holy and righteous life God expects and Jesus, the One Christians are to emulate in every way, never ever engaged in sexual sin or any other sin for that matter.

To the Thessalonians: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God.” 4:3-5a

God demands that Christians set them apart from the world and it’s ways, trading in sinful behavior they engaged in before coming to Jesus, sinful behavior like pagan passionate lust for the holiness that comes when we allow the Holy Spirit to lead and guide, gaining the fruit of self control (Galatians 5:22-23).

In the end translation, God instituted sex but with boundaries. As He designed, sex was to be between one man and one woman within marriage. It was intended to be a wonderful, fun, and fulfilling physical consummation of a commitment to a life time relationship, a physical yoking of two becoming one flesh which could possibly also lead to the blessing of procreation.

But as in so many cases, mankind, through its sinful disobedience, has decided to violate God’s restrictions on sexual conduct and it has done so since the earliest biblical times. It has erased the lines the Lord drew so to chase after and satisfy lustful desires in direct defiance of their Maker and Master God.

Friends, I don’t know where you stand on this matter today but if you have committed sexual immorality, now is the time to confess, repent, and recommit to being obedience to God and His commands. And then wait patiently for the day when He might bring a person to you to marry and share sex with for the long haul, a devoted sex that stands until death does the marriage part.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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