Consenting Adults
Tom Shrader begins an eight-week series on sex by addressing the cultural attitude of 'consenting adults' and examining what Scripture teaches about sexual purity. Drawing primarily from 1 Thessalonians 4, he argues that God encourages sex within marriage while forbidding sexual immorality (porneia) outside of it. He emphasizes that continued unrepentant sexual sin calls into question one's salvation, and challenges believers to pursue complete sexual purity as evidence of their conversion.
“If you're here today, you're involved in sex outside of marriage, and you go on and on and on and on, and you don't stop it, the Bible says you have no biblical assurance of your salvation.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Sexuality by Design (1999)
Recorded: September 30, 1999
Duration: 40 min
Themes: purity, sexuality, marriage, sin, holiness, temptation, obedience, repentance, dating couples, single adults, struggling with temptation, questioning salvation, young adult, new believer, engaged couples, parents of teens
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, Hebrews 13:4, Mark 7:21-23, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Galatians 5:19-23, Ephesians 5:1-3, Colossians 3:5, 1 Corinthians 6:18, 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
Theological Themes: sanctification, sexual purity, biblical sexuality, porneia, sexual immorality, scriptural authority, salvation assurance, christian ethics
Full Transcript
The first week in what will be an eight-week series dealing with a topic that we touch on once in a while, but certainly something we talk about periodically, but not in a concentrated level. We will now take the next eight weeks and talk about sex. Part of what we try to do in Priority Living is there are certain issues that we try to cycle through about every three years and make sure we're hitting on those because they're so dominant in the culture we live in.
Sex is one of them. We have not done this series since January of 1995, so it's been five years. So we'll go back, change some things, and really focus on this topic of sex, with the intention of ignoring none of the hot-button issues. We'll talk about sex outside of marriage. The flip side of that, we'll talk about sex inside of marriage. We'll talk about abortion. We'll spend a week on that topic. It is such a huge factor in our culture. We will talk about pornography for a week, and we'll talk about homosexuality and just topics as they relate to this issue of sex.
The Consenting Adults Attitude
Today, we deal with almost an attitude that's in the culture. It's the idea of consenting adults. They've got two people, they're 18, they can do whatever they want to do. I'm not hurting anybody. It's just the two of us here in this hotel room or in this condo or at this place. It's just the two of us.
In fact, Princeton Religion Research Center conducted a study, and they asked the question, what is your opinion about a man and woman having sexual relationships before marriage? Here's the data they discovered. Thirty-three percent, a solid third, said it is always wrong. Twelve percent said it's almost always wrong. Twenty-six percent said it's wrong only sometimes, and 23 percent said it's not wrong at all.
Now, what I want you to see is, at least fundamentally, what you have are two-thirds of the people in this poll saying sex outside of marriage is okay. I don't know what this means, almost always wrong. After all, he told her he loved her, loved him, that's probably the truth, too, and that ought to be enough. I mean, I don't know what those circumstances are. After all, we've set a date, July of 2004, come on, baby. I can just tell you, gals, I'm just telling you, you ain't going to be there, so just go ahead and get used to that. I was even surprised, frankly, by the size of this number, 33 percent said it's always wrong, but it's a dominant thing.
Cultural Examples from the Past
It's fun to go back, for me, through a lot of the studies and check notes and things we were talking about five, six, seven, even ten years ago and see how they worked their way through the culture. When we first started talking about this topic of sex, we were using, as an illustration, Steve Garvey. I don't know if you know that name, Steve Garvey. Now you see him hawking these things on, you can eat all you want and don't get fat, which is, I gained 28 pounds on that diet. But Garvey was the all-American first baseman for the Dodgers and then for the San Diego Padres.
And then it happened that dating him seemed to be producing, in a series of women, a pregnancy. And that spawned this whole controversy. There were bumper stickers around, especially over in San Diego, there were two or three of them. Steve Garvey is not my padre was one of them. And there were a bunch of them. That was Steve Garvey, the father of our country. There were a whole lot of them.
Well, in the midst of this, one of the LA papers did a story on Garvey, and this is what we focused on. And he was talking about, in this story, I think it was the second or third woman who became pregnant while dating him. And here's what he said, and I quote, "I'd like to think that in any relationship, one of two people assume responsibility for birth control, one will say I'll be responsible. In both cases, I was led to believe that I wasn't responsible for birth control." So that was his excuse.
What was significant was, at the time, Steve Garvey was being rumored as a viable candidate for statewide political office. Isn't it interesting how history just, this is in 88, 89. Ask if he thought the situation would have any effect on his political aspirations. He said, "I don't think so. I've been single for the past six years. I've dated three women over the past couple of years. It just happened that two of them became pregnant. I think that if I was married at the time, there might be some criticism."
The Narrow View of Sexual Decisions
Well, little did he know that there wouldn't be, based on what we've seen in the last few years, that you can go and you can do whatever you want to do, and it's consenting adults, and we can take the Steve Garvey, we can take it, we can go all the way to the White House, but we can do something far more productive. We can talk about you and your own life, people around you and your own life.
When we drop, and we love to do this, when we just drop pictures, little simple graphs, most people look at sex as this issue right here, a man, a woman, there it is. There's nothing else to even consider in this process. We could even take off, really, for a world view, if we want to talk about world view, take off the term sexual union and put anything in there. Most people have a tendency to look at their lives and to say, well, really, it's just here, and in this case, there's another person, and that's all that matters.
We believe, in this study, that whether it's sex or any other issue, when you look at it, it's not just the individual. It's not just looking at a topic and saying, okay, as I look around, here are the factors I need to consider. When we talk about sex, I would go on to say any other issue, but in this issue, we understand that God has a view of this.
Two Worldviews
Always at the beginning of a series, it's a great time to remind you that in this world, there are two kinds of
people, those that are Christians and those that aren't. Those that know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, those that are truly born again, those that are converted, those that have a new heart, and those who don't. The dominant world view is that we're mutually consenting adults, and it's none of your business or anybody else's business, in a sense, even God's business, what happens. The Christian says, no, all of my life is about my relationship with my Lord, and that must affect the relationships I have around me.
So that lays for us the basis for the day. There's the foundation. We're going to talk about this issue of sex outside of marriage.
Our Word for Today
Here's a word. Some of you, we're getting toward the end of the year, and you're looking for gifts, and you'll get people these little devotion calendars with a word for the day. You have in your outline the word for our day. It's porneia. It's a Greek word. From it, we get the English word pornography. It means fornication or illicit sex.
Webster uses the idea of intercourse or sex outside of marriage. But the idea in the Greek, the word porneia, is not limited to intercourse. It's any sort of illicit sexual behavior. Now, defining that becomes very important as our day unfolds.
What we want to do first is to just talk about five or six basic issues, just some facts that God has to say about sex. And then we'll come back with some strategies for you to employ as you deal in this issue of sex outside of marriage.
God Encourages Sex Within Marriage
Here's the first thing, and we need to always come back with this. God encourages sex within the confines of marriage. God encourages marital sex. God discourages extramarital sex. Very important.
And I don't want to be, and I don't think I have that reputation anyway, but I don't want the reputation as if Tom's a prude here, or that somehow sex is evil. Here you go. Get this. Sex is good. Do I hear an amen? Sex is good. Sex is terrific. Sex is spectacular. Within the boundaries that God has laid out. And those boundaries are marriage.
It is important, I think, to keep this idea fresh in people's minds. Sometimes, when we talk, and you're going to probably not like the conclusion of where we end up here in a bit, we hear things like, that's so prudish, that's so Victorian, that's so puritanical. I was reading not long ago about a church during the time of the Great Awakening who was performing church discipline on one of its members. And they were disciplining a man for not fulfilling his sexual responsibility to his wife. That doesn't sound so puritanical.
You have some distortions of this, and it's a risk, and you please need to know here, my intent here is not to be offensive. Let me show you kind of a distortion. Let me show you how you can get a distortion of this. In the church that I was raised, the view was this, that Mary gave birth to Jesus and that she was a virgin. We would embrace that, that's biblical. They go on to say that Mary remained ever-virgin. Well, that's not great news for Joseph.
Now here's what I want you to see. You got two things at work here. Number one, the Bible introduces us to Jesus' other brothers and sisters, and we know they weren't born of a virgin, and they were in no way they were Mary and Joseph. The idea of a perpetual virgin, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, but it's a myth. It's anti-biblical. That's one. I can live with that. Here's what's destructive. Now you hold up as the image a relationship as, here's a picture of the great family, and they had a mom and a dad, the husband and wife never had sex. You think that's what God designed? That's not what God designed us to do.
God says it is celebration time, within the confines of marriage, Hebrews 13:4. Marriage should be honored by all. The marriage bed should be kept pure. Part of the context and part of what the author of Hebrews is arguing for here is that celibacy is not a higher calling within the confines of marriage. In fact, celibacy within marriage, abstaining from sex within marriage, is destructive to the marriage. Very important point. By the way, that's next week. God will judge the adulterer and all who are, and here's the word of the day, porneia. God will judge all who are sexually immoral. God encourages marriage.
Fornication Reveals Heart Problems
Here's the second point. Fornication is evidence of a problem in the heart. Jesus is speaking in Mark 7, and He said what comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. For from within, that is out of a man's heart, comes evil thoughts. Here's the word of the day, sexual immorality, porneia.
I want to go on so that you don't think we're some sort of people that are hung up on sex. You're just as bad off if your sin is slander as it is sexual immorality. We're not in any way saying this is some sort of a special sin. This is worse. What Jesus does is group them all together and say all of these things, they happen out in here, their activities, their thoughts, their words out in here, but all they do is reflect a real heart problem. Your heart's not converted, or if it's converted, it's not right.
Conversion Means Abandoning Illicit Sex
Here's the third point. Christian conversion involves quitting, abandoning illicit sex. This is a passage we looked at last week, but it's such an important passage. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul is speaking to the church at Corinth. It's a bad church, a bad church, and it's struggling. They've allowed sin to come into the church. They're living in a very depraved environment, Corinth is a sick city.
Paul writes, did you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't kid yourself. Don't be deceived. Neither the, and here's the word of the day, see it again, neither the sexually immoral, the idolaters, the adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers. Again, it's a broad topic, but what he's saying is these people who are involved
In this continuing, ongoing, unrepentant basis, ought not think that they're Christians. Now here's the good news. I want to say it again, because it encouraged me last week, and I hope it encourages you this week: that's what some of you were. You used to be like this, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified. That's your past.
This is going to be a very important day for some of you.
Why Would a Christian Be Sexually Active Outside Marriage?
Why would somebody who says they're a Christian be involved in sex outside of marriage? Beyond that, why would anyone be involved in this? I'm going to give you one excuse. I don't buy it, but I'm going to give it to you: ignorance.
I had a guy in one of the studies. He's a 35-year-old stud, and he was from Tucson. He had slept with half of Tucson, and the half he slept with seemed very happy about it. We're talking one day, and we're really tearing this apart, and he stopped. It was like he was having a V-8 moment, and he said, "I sense you have a problem with sex outside of marriage."
I said, "Well, I do. I think it's wrong." He said, "I've got to tell you something. I've never heard that before." I said, "Come on, you're 35, come on." He said, "I'm telling you, Tom, the first woman I ever slept with was on my 16th birthday, and my dad set it up. I used to go out drinking with my dad, doing drugs with my dad, picking up chicks, trading girls. We did all this. I've never heard this before."
I guess I'll say yes. If you're here today, ignorance is no longer an excuse for you. We've moved beyond that.
The Danger of Liberal Teaching
It may be possible that you have deluded yourself. This is why doctrine and truth is important. It may be that you're in a liberal church or in a liberal setting that says, "Life is tough, and we're all struggling, and do the best you can. Boys will be boys, and I'm just a little girl who couldn't say no, and that's just part of life. And God, frankly, doesn't have a view on it."
Well, God does have a view on it. God says, if you continue in that setting with an unrepentant heart, you're not really His. I'll back off, because that's an extraordinarily strong statement, but what He's really saying beyond that is: you have no biblical assurance of your salvation.
Let me lay it out here for you. If you're here today, you're involved in sex outside of marriage, you're not married, and you're sexually active, and you go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, and you don't stop it, the Bible says you have no biblical assurance of your salvation. You're unrepentant. You don't care.
The Heart Issue
Look at how much you've cleaned up. There were a whole bunch of things you did wrong, but this is the one little thing, and we think the year 2000 may be the year where I start to deal with this. God says, you've got a real serious heart problem here, and you ought to be able to hear these words, and they ought to move you.
I have all sorts of guys in this study—and I don't meet with women one-on-one, so I have no idea what their response to this is—all sorts of guys who have come to this study, who have heard these words, and who have embarked on a life of abstinence. Their life has changed. They went from a guy who's sexually active one day to literally now going five, six, seven, ten years without any sexual interaction, any sexual activity at all. That's the sign, along with belief now. That's the sign of a converted heart.
If you're here and you don't know Christ, and you're sexually active and you stop, that's not your biggest problem. You're going to be a guy with a long face who's been abstinent in hell. That's where you're going. We're not talking about changing behavior to save you, although I'd make an appeal—your life will be better off without it anyway. But what we're saying is, if you know Christ, your life will change. And one of the ways, especially if you're single, one of the ways you will know it will change will be an absolute stopping of sexual activity.
The Heartbreak of Christian Singles
The time I spend talking to Christian singles is one of the most heartbreaking times in my whole life of dealing with people, because they're out there screwing around just like everybody else. And somehow, here's what they thought: "Yeah, when I was 18 it was wrong, but now I'm 28, I'm 38, I'm older." So yeah, there was something that was wrong here, but as you get older, the line seems to move out further. We'll talk about it in just a second.
God's Direct Command
Three more things quickly. Intimacy without marriage violates a direct command of God. I know, because I've played the game that some of you are playing right now, I know the defense mechanisms. I know the idea that says, "Well, that's your opinion. That's your interpretation."
Well, here's what God says in His Word. First Thessalonians chapter 4—and if I could, we don't have the whole passage up there. These five or six verses are pretty important in this topic. First Thessalonians chapter 4, beginning in verse 3, running through verse 8.
It's God's will. Now, you want to find God's will for your life? We got this: "I want to find God's will for my life. Should I buy the green house or should I buy the red house?" Let me tell you, based on personal experience, buy the house with the best roof.
When We Ignore Clear Commands
I had a guy sitting right down in this spot, having breakfast one morning, and he's diddling around trying to get to the topic, and I said, "I don't have a lot of time here. I got to go. What do you want to talk about?" "Well, I need God's will for my life." I said, "Well, tell me about it." Well, here's what I discovered: He's shacking up with one girl. He's sleeping with a girl outside of that relationship, and he wants to find out what God's will for his life is in terms of individual areas.
God's Clear Will for Sexual Purity
I had a conversation with a young man who told me he was praying about God's will for an area of growth and ministry. I can help you out. Here it is. It's God's will that you should be sanctified, that is, that you should avoid—here's the word of the day—sexual immorality.
I said to him, why would God show you where He wants you to work when He's not stuttered when He told you how He wants to live your sexual life, and you said, "Nah, God, I don't want that. What else you got?" See, this is God's will. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction doesn't reject man, but rejects God, who gives the Spirit.
The Real Source of Conviction
Every once in a while, we'll get people and they'll say, "Man, that must take a lot of courage to stand up there in a hostile environment and say this." It really doesn't. "Well, you must be pretty thick-skinned." I'm not. But if you don't like this, your argument isn't with me, it's with God. You're not fighting me, you're fighting Him.
I can't get into your life, and I can't push the buttons, and I can't tug at your heart. That's God that's doing that. That's why your immediate reaction, especially if you're single here, that's why your immediate reaction is to fight against it. Now, you may say, "Oh, it's Him. You make me so mad." No, I don't. "Yes, you do." No, I don't. "Yes, you do." No, I don't.
It's God who's making you mad. It's the Holy Spirit who's making you mad. Don't be arguing with me. It's not me. "Well, that's your interpretation." There's no other way to interpret this. Here's God's will: you should be sanctified. What does that look like? Avoid pornea, sexual immorality.
Understanding Sexual Immorality in Context
Now, we have to take that, and we have to put it in the context of Scripture. What do they mean by that? That means don't have sex outside of marriage and have healthy sex inside of marriage. That's what that means.
The Jerusalem Council's Priority
Two more things real quick. Premarital sex is ranked by God as a major moral failure. In the book of Galatians, there's a lot of history here. Let me try to give it to you quickly, just so you can see the point and we can move on.
In the book of Galatians, the church is—and I assume we understand this—the early church, the first church, was all Jewish. As the church expanded, the word went out to the Gentile. There produced within that early church a tension. The Jews were saying, "Okay, some of them, okay, we can reach out to the Gentile, but before they can become Christians, they need to become Jews." Now, we said this had a major impact on ministry to the adult male population, because they're going, "What's that circumcision thing? I don't think so."
Well, that brings us to the first council of Jerusalem, and here comes Peter and Paul. James presides over this, and it deals with this particular issue. Coming out of that, here's what they say to the church at Antioch: "Guys, use your head here. You got great freedom, but in this freedom, there's some things that we want you to abstain from. Number one, we want you to abstain from sexual immorality." He goes on to talk about all the different actions that are involved in that process.
The Acts of the Sinful Nature
Then when we come to Galatians chapter 5, if I say to you, you're here today, you're smart people, Galatians 5:22, what's that? For those of you, what comes to mind there? Galatians 5:22, fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
Right before that, Paul gives us in Galatians 5 the fruits of the flesh, and here they are: "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious, you can't miss them," and here's what's leading the list—the word of the day—pornea, sexual immorality. God says when you take—and again, it's no different than hatred or jealousy or any of the others, but it's an area to deal with.
God Expects His People to Become Like Him
Let me deal with this last point, and then we've got about 12, 13 minutes to finish. God expects His people to become like Him. God expects that if you're His child, there ought to be evidence of it, Ephesians 5: "But among you, there must not even be a hint of"—I know you're sick of this, but here's the word of the day—"sexual immorality."
Here's what we've discovered. I can come in here and I can bring—and I've said this to you before—I can bring 10 girls in here and stand them right here, and you look at them and say, "Now, which one is my daughter?" and you're going to go, "I'm thinking the one with the round face and the freckles, that's you," because she looks like you.
Imitating God
Here's what He says. In Ephesians chapter 5, Paul writes to the church at Ephesus. He's talking to them, he gives them three chapters of doctrine, he gets to chapter 4, in chapter 4 he starts to talk about the church. In Ephesians chapter 5 he says this: "Be imitators of God, walk in love just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself for you." Verse 3: "Don't let a hint of sexual immorality or any other kind of impurity be among you."
You've seen it in a husband and wife. Husband and wife, after they hang out together—I don't know how to explain it—they even start to look alike. They start to walk alike. They start to talk alike. They get a dog that somehow looks like both of them, and I don't know how all these things take place. That's what He's saying. If you are mine, people ought to look at you and see a difference.
The Evidence of Being With Jesus
Sermon on the mount. Jesus says, all of this is evident, people ought to see the good works in you and give glory to the Father. Acts chapter 4, there's a great scene. Peter's out there preaching, and he's preaching, and thousands are coming. The Jewish leaders call him in and say, "What's going on here?" They interview him, and in Acts chapter 4, verse 13, they marvel. They're stunned because they discover these guys are uneducated. They are untrained. Here's the word that Luke uses, but they realize that they have been with Jesus.
See that's what Paul's saying. Paul's saying, people ought to look at you and realize you've been with Jesus, that there ought to be God's fingerprints all over you. If we could dust you for fingerprints—
We ought to see the fingerprints of God, the fingerprints of Christ, the reality of the Holy Spirit in your life. One of the ways we're going to see this is you're going to begin to look like Him, and the evidence will be you will abstain from sexual immorality and from all sorts of impurity.
Four Bits of Instruction
Four bits of instruction. Number one, just accept sexual purity as a requirement. This is the outflow of that meeting in Jerusalem. When James sends back to the church at Antioch, Judas and Silas, and he says, "Here's what we want you to do, abstain from eating meat that's sacrificed to idols, and also from the sexual immorality that's attached to it. You do well to avoid these things." Stay away from this stuff. We don't want even a hint of this around.
Here's the second thing. Recognize your responsibility to get rid of this sexual immorality in your life. Very important. This is not optional behavior. Paul writes to the church at Colossians 3, he says, "Put to death." That is, consciously stop on a continuing basis to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature. The first thing he mentions is the word of the day, sexual immorality.
The $64,000 Question: How Far Can I Go?
Now we're getting ready to answer the $64,000 question. How far can I go? You're like me, you want the wiggle room in here. Let's put some definition to this.
Understand the importance of your body. Here's Paul's word in 1 Corinthians 6, "Flee." That is, run away. Don't mess around with it. Don't say, "I've got willpower." Run away from pornea. There is something about sexual immorality because it's so physical and done with the body and that our body is reserved as a temple for God that when we sin there, it seems to have especially a destructive effect.
Here's the question. How far should I go? I had a conversation with a guy and a gal, and we're talking about this, and they said, "We want you to know something. We are not sexually active anymore. We were, but we're not." I said, "Really? I would think that would be hard to stop." They said, "Well, really? It hasn't been." I said, "Well, how did you do it?" They said, "Well, we don't have intercourse."
I said, "Oh, well, what do you do?" Well, he said, "Last night's a perfect example. We sleep together naked," and then they started... I said, "I don't need to hear all of that." They said, "And we had oral sex, and this is what we do, but we didn't have intercourse." Was that the line?
The Epidemic of Rationalization
I don't mean at all here to be graphic, but I want you to understand the point. So everything up to penetration is okay? You have an epidemic. I'm going to talk to you about, not your high school, you've got your high schoolers, but you've got your junior hires, your 8th, 9th, 10th grade, you know what the big sexual thing is? Oral sex is huge, and anal sex is gigantic. The reason is, "I'm still a virgin." I don't mean this in any political way, but the President of the United States just said, "I had oral sex, and somehow, she had sex and I didn't, and it wasn't even sex." Now why should some junior hire have to decode what all that means? Where's the line in all of this?
I made the point before. Obviously, this is a topic that's close to my heart. I have an 18-year-old and a soon-to-be 20-year-old daughter. The 18-year-old has never had a date, so I'm not that worried about her right now. The 20-year-old has been dating the same guy almost for three years now, Nick. I'm a little more worried about that. But even in that context, that worry is tempered by the fact that I really do trust her. We've explained to her where the line is. It's way short of naked in bed oral sex.
Drawing the Line
Here's where I think the line is, and I'm going to tell it to you right now. When you're kissing and you're exchanging saliva, that's the line. That's intimate. Anybody in this room I'd do that with? That's pretty intimate. A little goosey handshaking, some of you. But I'm not going to do that. That's intimate.
Now if I'm starting to touch certain specific body parts, isn't that intimate? I think it is. I tell the girls, I don't care. You're wasting your time. I don't care if you're 13, 18, 28, 38, 58, 108, although I presume at that point, less of an issue. Anywhere in there, the line doesn't move. God is not glorified in a relationship when two people who are not married are touching each other in a way that couldn't be defined as anything other than sexual.
You can hear the mind slamming shut even now through the room, but I happen to believe that isn't that hard. This little, this baby right here, this is the toughest part of the day. That isn't that hard, because I don't even think that's gray.
The Hardest Question: What About Others?
I don't think this is gray either, but this is hard. What do you do with somebody who says they're a believer, they're a friend of yours, they're not married, and they're sexually active? Or they are married, because this principle would transfer to this. They are married, and they're involved in sex outside of marriage. What do you do with that?
Here's what you say to them. You say, goodbye. Paul writes to the church at Corinth, and there's a problem in the church. Apparently, they've contacted him, and part of the reason he's writing to this church is they have a situation in the church. Here's the situation. A young man is sleeping with his step-mom.
In this process, Paul is going to begin to write, and Paul anticipates the same thing you'd say. "Well, you don't really know the facts." Paul's saying, "I don't need to know the facts. I don't need to know the people." In fact, not knowing the people sometimes makes it easier to deal with. Here's what he'd say. "I've written to you in my letter not to associate..."
They said, "I'm with you, Paul. You mean all those people that are out there? We see them. You mean all those guys down at the Highliner, all those gals over here waiting to get picked up and running out of here on Friday night?"
Paul said, "No, no, no, you idiot. I'm not talking about the people of the world. I'm not talking about all the non-believers. If you weren't going to associate with them, you'd have to leave this world. They're part of it. I'm talking about and writing to you to not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother—that is a Christian, a sister. Not to associate with them." He goes on to say, "not to eat with them." Dining together in that culture was a sign of acceptance and fellowship. He's saying, "Here's what I want you to do. Cut it off, the relationship."
The Church's Response to Ongoing Sin
Here's the instruction. So I have a friend. That friend is involved in sex outside of marriage. I go to that friend and I say, "Do you understand this is wrong?" And that friend says, "I don't care. I love him. I really care for her. We're going to get married and even if we're not, it doesn't even matter. My generation made an anthem of this. Marriage is just a piece of paper anyway. We care for each other deeply and this is nothing more than a physical expression of our love."
You go to them, they reject you. You take another friend and they reject you. If you're in a church environment, you go as a church to them and here's what you say: "We love you. And because we love you, we don't want you to come back here again until you repent."
I want you to make sure you understand this. If somebody says, this is somebody who's a brother—this is not a non-Christian. You don't expect anything from a pagan but pagan behavior. You have to be shocked when they do things well. Now when somebody says, "I'm a Christian" and "meet my spousal equivalent. Meet my friend."
A Real-Life Example
I had a marriage application not long ago and I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I got the marriage application and I said, "Oh wow, their addresses are the same. Isn't this cute? I'll bet this interview won't take long. I'll handle this one myself. Send them on in."
"Have a seat." So I said, "Well, tell me about yourself," and so on. We got a little bit and I said, "You know what? I got through. Oh, look at this. I even yellowed this. It was odd. You have the same address. There's no chance you're living together, is there?"
"Yes."
"Really? Is that a problem?"
I said, "Well, it depends. If you want to be married, it is here, but deeper than that, it's a sin. Are you Christians?" And then, see, I said at this point, what we either have is a situation for discipline or a situation for evangelism. We don't need to bring in a wedding coordinator right now.
And so they go and they go. Here's what's sad. They go somewhere else and they marry Him, but I'm not responsible for that. I'm responsible for dealing with this. You see how hard that is? That's a very difficult issue.
Addressing Common Objections
I've heard from the singles before, "Well, that's easy for you to talk that way because you're married. And so I presume you and Susan have some sort of a healthy sexual relationship and all that goes with it. So that's easy."
Number one, this is God's view, not mine. Number two, how about sexual relations within marriage? And next week, we take a look at that issue. What about sex and marriage? We'll talk about it next week.
Father, help us see the truth of this. Those are, for some of us, we're just able to look at these words, and because it doesn't seem to affect us directly, we're there to say amen. Yeah, that's great. But I guarantee you, as we pray, Lord, there are people here for whom this is a difficult message. Would You send Your Spirit to touch their hearts?
To those of us who are dealing with men and women who say they're Christians and they're still involved in ongoing sin, in this case, especially sexual sin, would You give us the love and the compassion and the courage to tell them and show them that it's wrong? God, I pray that You would purify the body, the church, that You would give extraordinary gift of self-control to men and women who are struggling with this right now. Father, we ask You to deal with this in Your way, Your timing. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.
See you next week.