Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With?

1 Corinthians 6:9-20

Don’t answer this question out loud. How did you learn about sex? Think back to it - how did you find out about that stuff? Ope, pay attention to the vibe shift that just happened in the room, because we’re going to come back to that. Over the years, I’ve met a lot of people with a lot of different experiences. I have friends whose parents sat them down for an awkward but complete conversation. I have other friends whose parents just pretended that stuff never happens. We don’t talk about it, we don’t acknowledge it. And then there was lots of stuff in between. I know people whose parents slid a book under the door - read this. Don’t talk to me about it - if you have questions, no you don’t. Just read it again. Don’t talk to me about it. Other people were just given a boundary line - they were told very forcefully, very strongly - just don’t do it. NO! BAD! And that’s all the education they got on that topic. I remember with my generation there was a lot of assuming it was someone else’s job to teach this stuff. Parents assumed they would get it at school, like sex ed in health class but you know, health class in school would teach you what everything was called - the mechanics, but not the morals of it, they assumed the church was going to teach that, but then youth leaders assumed “well, that’s an uncomfortable conversation - I’m sure Parents want to take the lead on that in the home.” Talking about sex makes people uncomfortable, and so it’s a little bit like a hot potato. Passing responsibility from person to person - hoping we don’t get burned. But then the only one who gets burned is the kids who never learned anything! Some of us were those kids. Some of us HAVE those kids all grown up.

For the last couple of weeks we have been in this series called “Can I Ask That?” and we’re talking about hard questions and faith. And I think for most of the series, we were thinking about God with the question “Can I ask that?” God, is it okay if I even ask these questions? And we’ve gotten into some really good stuff - but every week, even though those are challenging subjects, I’ve never been afraid to get up here and answer the questions. They can be tricky to talk about, but they’re not scary or awkward - but then I get up here and I say How did you learn about [pause, whisper] s-e-x. Even in the way we phrase the question, we are acknowledging that it’s uncomfortable. Look at this - look at the title of this week’s sermon Why does God care who I sleep with? Here wait - let me fix it for you “Why does God care who I “SLEEP” with? [wink twice] And so to start - I just want to point at the elephant in the room. This is not just “can I ask that, God?” but “Can I ask that, with these people sitting next to me?” Can I ask that, without being judged? Can I ask that, without feeling ashamed? Can I ask that, without anger falling on me? And this goes beyond the funny haha, “sex is awkward” jokes - some of us in the room genuinely carry a lot of baggage with this topic. Past experiences of pain and brokenness, or struggling with lifelong singleness, or struggling with sexual desires that we do not want. Some of us have sins that we regret, some of us have sins that we DON’T regret. Some of us feel foolish or ignorant. And so before we even start, I want to come alongside you. We are going to go after the answer to this question together. My goal this morning is to be honest, transparent, and kind. I want to give you clear teaching, but we are also going to walk with compassion and understanding. For those of you who know me as your pastor, if you can trust me to have this conversation - I promise to hold that trust carefully. And every week of this series we have found that there is a question underneath the question - and this week we are asking, “Why does God care who I sleep with?” and what I’m excited to show you today is that underneath that is the deeper question of “why does God care?” You see today, I have the privilege to share with you a story about a God who enriches our lives. And it happens to a little church in a busy town called Corinth.

So if you want to grab your bibles - we’re pretty much going to hang out in one major passage today, and it’s in 1 Corinthians, chapter 6. If you’re new here - I always love to mention that we are a BYOB church - bring your own bible. If you don’t have one - hey, that’s okay, we’ve got a book shelf on the back wall, and if you’d like, feel free to take that home. That will be our gift to you - we want everyone to be able to get into God’s word for themselves.  But of course, the easiest version is to look it up on your phone - take God’s word with you wherever you go. While you’re looking up 1 Corinthians, I need to tell you about this town. [put the zoomed out map on the screen] Now, for those following along on the podcast or at home. We are looking at a pretty zoomed out map - you can see Italy up in the top left corner, and Corinth is on this tiny little strip of land between two bigger land masses. Let’s zoom in on that for a second [close up picture]. That strip of land was a massive commercial hub. It’s only like 5 miles wide, and Corinth was positioned so that it controlled BOTH ports on both sides. So it’s like a port city, but in both directions. Huge land trade, even bigger water trade. Now, here’s why that matters - People would come to this town to make a name for themselves - there was an abundance of work, money and many different cultures all mingling together. So the city had a LOT of young people, travelling for work, making a lot of money while separated from family and values in an extremely sexual culture. In the city of Corinth, they worshipped Aphrodite and every night temple prostitutes would go into the city. Sex and sex culture was big business, and there was a steady stream of sailors and traders constantly coming through this town. And it’s not just about the location - Greek culture was EXTREMELY sexual. I think some people in the modern world thing that the sexual revolution happened in the 1960’s - we’re moving forward into a future of sexual liberation and freedom. But what’s actually happening is that we are simply rediscovering what they USED to do back then. 

You see this in language. Most of our sexual words have their root in greco-roman language. I’m not going to go into details, but pedophilia -  comes from the greek word “paidos” (which means child), the word erotic comes from the greek word “eros”, Nymphomania comes from “nymphe” which means bride or young woman, Pornography comes from the word “pornea” which is greek, necrophilia, bestiality - all of these things have roots greco-roman culture. And it wasn’t just that they did these things, but these things were normalized. Nobody blushed. Nobody thought it was awkward or inappropriate - indecent, it was just normal life in the Roman empire. It was so common that “corinth” became a verb. To be “corinthianized” meant you were changed by the city, and you would have sex with anybody and everyone. It’s kind of like when a kid goes off to college or whatever and they change and so some people might say, “ah, they went woke” or in the other direction its like saying someone got super into conservative politics - they got “red pilled.” If you said, someone got “corinthianized” that meant they were just doing anything and everything sexually. And this was the reputation of the city where Paul put a church.

And so he writes this letter to the church to help them out, and in chapter 6, verse 15 it says, [read v.15-20]. I think when we start these conversations the first response is always, “ugh, do we have to?” It’s so uncomfortable. It’s so awkward. It’s going to make people feel bad, it’s going to make people feel judged or whatever - can’t we just not? But Paul answers that question - NO! We have to talk about this. No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. If we want to be Christians, if we want to follow God - we have to figure out how to deal with sex and sexuality - because no other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. You know, growing up - and I do want to pause and mention that my parents are amazing. I love them very much, and they did a great job raising me and my siblings. I don’t blame them for any of my stuff - and I’m sure if I had asked questions, they would have told me answers. But I never asked, so they never telled - we had one of those houses. But here’s the problem - not talking about it, doesn’t make it go away. There’s always a teacher - it’s just that instead of a loving mother or father, it’s sitcoms and comedians. It’s movies and social media and peer pressure from the other kids at the lunch table. That’s where I got my sexual education from. My expectations, my assumptions about what was good, what was bad, where the lines went - came from TV shows like Friends or That 70’s Show or How I Met Your Mother. At church, all we ever got to was “no sex until marriage” and then we passed the hot potato, we don’t want to talk about it. And the truth is, because of the hot potato effect, I grew up with a real lack of knowledge. And I think that’s part of why I am the way I am now. I want to be so clear, and empower parents and encourage people to have honest and open conversations - but I grew up with a lack of knowledge and it led to bad things in my life, struggles that I wish I could have skipped. I had a lot of questions - not just about sex, but about all the other stuff. How far is too far physically in a dating relationship? What about masturbation? Pornography? And what I found, what all of us find out eventually - on this topic, silence is costly. If we don’t have clear teaching, we’re going to get answers from somewhere. Without a teacher, there will be a substitute teacher. Sometimes we make it up in our heads - where we think the boundaries go, sometimes it comes from the people around us, sometimes it’s trial and error. And sometimes it comes from just the worst possible place - did you know that full 25-31% of the current generation say they learned about sex FROM pornography? In 1 out of 4 high schoolers, the substitute teacher is actual pornography. Which, in case you don’t know - that’s not real! It’s not healthy expression. And so these children are learning unhealthy habits because of our silence. If we can’t figure out how to have these conversations - there’s a cost. Paul says, “no other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does.” 

And so the conversation continues and you think, “all right, all right, I get it - it’s important, we need to talk about it, but why is it SUCH a big deal? I feel like Christians make a bigger deal about these sins than other sins. The phrase I hear all the time from folks is, “it’s just sex, it’s not that big of a deal.” It’s a natural desire, it’s a natural thing - why do you have to put all these restrictions around it? Just chill out and let people do what they want. And actually, to find the answer to this we need to back up a couple of verses, verse 13. In Paul’s day, in the city of Corinth there was this expression. They would say, ‘food was made for the stomach and the stomach was made for food.” And they’re not talking about food - right? They’re looking at the human body and saying, “this is what it was made for - so that must make it okay.” It’s natural, so you can do whatever you want. In Corinthian culture, they had a patriarchy - which meant there was one rule for men - power. It was just whatever men were powerful enough to get away with. It didn’t matter if a man was married, if he wanted to have sex with another woman - that was fine, it’s natural - go for it. That’s what your body is made for, food is made for the stomach, right? I hear this a lot in arguments around homosexuality. They’ll say, “well, it’s not a choice. It’s how I feel naturally. I was born with these desires.” And to that we can say, “that’s wonderful - but a desire being natural does not make it moral.” And I don’t even need to point at homosexuality, I’m a heterosexual man. I have broken heterosexual desires. I am married to an amazing woman, and I think she is so beautiful. But there are beautiful women all over - if I see someone that I am attracted to, that’s natural. Perfectly natural, and in Corinth they would encourage me in that. That’s what your body is made for, food is made for the stomach, eh? But does my desire being natural, make it okay? Of course not! I am wholly and deeply committed to my wife, I reserve all of my desire for her.

And Paul responds to that [read v.13]. That verse really is the pivot of this whole message. The Lord cares about our bodies. The messaging we get from the rest of the world tries to downplay sex. Your body doesn’t matter, do whatever you want with it. What I want you to catch today is that in order to follow popular sexual ethics - you have to lower your opinion of yourself. Lower your value. Treat yourself and your body as less. You have to care less. But to follow God’s way - you have to raise your opinion of who you are. As a man, you have to stand up straighter. As a woman, you have to put some pride into your spine. You have to look at your body and say, “I gave this to God. and he cares about me because I am valuable to him. I’m going to use my body ONLY in the ways he has blessed.” And this isn’t just about sex - this affects the clothes that we wear, the food we put inside, the exercise we do or don’t do. God gave you this body, and he wants you to treat it like a valuable gift, like fine china. The world wants you to treat it like disposable dishware. But there is no part of you that doesn’t matter to God.

And again the conversation continues, “okay, fine - so it affects us AND God cares about it, but why? Why does God care? Why is it a big deal?” To find the answer, we’ve got to back up another couple verses. Little sidenote, I hope you’re picking up the method here. When you’re reading the bible, if you have questions - sometimes you need to read the stuff before or after it in order to understand. We jump right in to chapter 6, but there’s a reason I gave you all that stuff about the city of Corinth - in order to understand, we need the context. If you get stuck or have questions, one of the first things you can do is read the stuff before or after, see if that helps. So backing up to verse 9, [read v.9a] Also, just - do you see the repetition? Paul is using this phrase over and over, “Don’t you realize" - it’s in verse 9, 15, 16, and verse 19. He’s trying to get us to see something important. [read v.9-11]. Why does God care? Because you were made to be holy. Because God wants you to be holy and to inherit the Kingdom of God. 

God cares who you sleep with, God cares who you have sex with - because God wants to enrich your life. Because God wants to elevate you. God wants to make you HOLY. Look, I’m not going to get up here and judge people who are not Christians. The rest of the world, they’re out here TRYING to figure out the standard. And it breaks my heart, because they keep trying to figure this out WITHOUT a Holy God who loves them and wants what is best for them. They keep drawing and re-drawing the lines, using the phrase, “as long as…” Have you heard this? As long as it’s consensual. As long as they’re happy. As long as they’re old enough. As long as she never finds out. As long as there’s not a power dynamic in the workplace. As long as it’s not hurting anyone else. And what I want you to see today is that ‘as long as…” is a minimum standard. That is a mentality that is searching for the bottom, but today God’s word challenges us to reach for the top. Because the bottom, keeps getting lower. They’re not making up new ideas, they’ve had them since Corinth, they just rebrand the minimum. Used to be that people would get married - one man, one woman - but now we have polygamy, they’ll call it ethical non-monogamy - which is an oxymoron. Throuples, it’s like a couple, but there’s three. Used to be pediphilia was the bottom, but they rebranded it, now they’re called M.A.P.’s Minor-Attracted Persons. They’re out here searching for ways to find the bottom of human depravity and they’ll never find it. The world is begging you to act like your body doesn’t matter, like YOU don’t matter. But God wants to enrich your life. God wants to elevate you. Redeem you. Make you HOLY.  God cares about your body because it’s a part of who you are - and God wants all of you. When we accept Jesus into our life - that means we are forgiven, we are cleansed, we are washed clean, we are holy. And so whatever sins you’ve got, whatever past you brought in with you this morning - whatever ways you were using your body that is not what God teaches - Paul says, “you used to be like that - but now you are holy.” You used to reach for the bottom, for the lowest standard, but now God has carried you to the top. You are more valuable than a minimum standard. Jump back to the end, to verse 19, look at what it says again, [read v.19-20]. Hold on - God bought you with a high price? - what was that price? 

Jesus’ death on the cross. God cares about your redemption, God wants you to inherit the kingdom of God SO MUCH, that he gave his only son, who died for your sins so that you could live HOLY. He gave up his body, so that you could live a holy life with yours. You know - when  I started out in ministry, I used to tip toe around this issue. I’ll just touch on it a little bit, hint at it - I don’t want to be too blunt. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. I don’t want to be seen as judgmental. But no! Jesus died for this. Paul says no other sin so clearly affects the body. The world wants less for you, God wants more for you. The longer I have served as a pastor in God’s church, the less I care about offending you all, and the more I care about obeying him. He says you are valuable. He says you were made for more. And if he says it, then it is true. You ARE valuable. You ARE redeemed. You are made to be HOLY, and that includes what you do with your body. Washed clean with your sin left behind you. And that deserves more than our half-hearted obedience. Jesus offers a more excellent way. Will you trust the redeeming work of the cross to work on your sexual desires?

And so I’m going to close this morning with these four chairs, which represent four different stories we carry into this place. To those of you who are single, celibate and waiting. Some of you chose singleness for yourself, some of you did not. But one of the truths of the new testament is that Jesus and Paul walked the same road you walked. Jesus was single and celibate. Paul was single and celibate - their whole lives, and they lived beautiful, full and rich lives. And the message of singleness in the church is that marriage is not the ultimate goal for all people. The gospel, Jesus in your life, that is the goal for all people. Whether marriage or singleness is your calling - your mission is the same, to show people what Jesus is like. Single people have a place in God’s kingdom, and sexual desire is not the ultimate fulfillment. Jesus knows your story. Intimately.

This second chair is where those who are grieving and lonely sit. Whether you have been widowed or maybe have lost a spouse to divorce or something similar. Jesus knows your pain too. As he hung on the cross, Jesus looked down and saw his own mother. His mother Mary who had been widowed by that time. She had no one to care for her, and while he was hanging on the cross - Jesus cared for her. He nurtured her. He made sure his disciple John was going to take care of her as she watched her only son dying on the cross. So Jesus knows what loneliness and grief carried looks like in life. If you are single and grieving, lonely and missing what used to be - Jesus knows your story. Intimately.

This third chair is where the wounded and the abused sit. To those of you who had the innocence of sexual contact stolen from you, and you wonder if you can ever get it back - Jesus walked that path too. After he was arrested, he was stripped and ridiculed. Tortured, mocked in a public place. But Isaiah tells us “by his wounds, we are healed” - by the abuse he suffered, we can experience full healing. If you are sitting in the chair of sexual wounds - sitting with your invisible scars, your unspoken brokenness - Jesus knows your story. Intimately.

This last chair is for those who are wrestling with unwanted desires and frustrations. For anyone who is wrestling with sexual temptation, to those who are ashamed - there is a seat for you. I would put myself in this seat. I’m happily married, but I still carry brokenness in my sexuality. We all do to some degree. Part of my story, that I don’t talk about a ton, part of growing up with a lot of ignorance is that when I got to college, I didn’t know what to do with pornography. I rationalized it, it’s no big deal, I lowered the standards for my body - and I became deeply addicted. Now that is something I surrendered to Jesus years ago, over a decade ago. I’ve been porn free for 12-13 years now. But I’ve been married for almost 15 years, and that’s another part of my story. What I brought into my marriage, and the pain that that caused. I surrendered my sexuality to God, and he brought healing into my life, and into my marriage. I have a friend named Brad, he’s another pastor in our network. He has an incredible testimony, I asked if I could share this. He’s married, with three kids. A few years ago, he owned the fact that he was struggling with same sex attraction. He realized this about himself, and it sort of blew up his life. He had to make a decision, to follow Christ, to surrender his sexuality or to pursue his own desires. Blew up his church a little bit, he took some time away, sort of an emergency leave of absence. Here’s the part that’s incredible. The Zero Collective, the network that we are a part of, they stepped in. They said, “brad, you’re going to take a sabbatical. We’re going to get you some counseling, you and your wife, some marriage counseling as well. We’ll cover the preaching, we’ll take care of the church while you figure this out. We’re going to walk alongside you through this time, as you make this decision.” And after a few months, Brad chose Jesus. He chose to surrender his sexuality, to honor his commitment to his wife. And she chose to stay with him, and they’ve been working through it. And their family is in a healthier place today, three years later. And I think when some people think about LGBTQ folks, we want to pretend that they are somehow worse than the rest of us. But if you think a married man using pornography and masturbation as a crutch to avoid awkward and challenging conversations with his wife who is not interested is somehow better than a young man wrestling with his attractions but surrendering it to Jesus - you’re missing it. Brad is a brother in Christ who loves Jesus so much. I want to love Jesus as much as he does. I’m honored to sit next to him in this seat. He surrenders his sexuality, I surrender mine. That makes us brothers. 

And one of the most revealing parts of Jesus’ life is what he did after the resurrection. Jesus went back and found each of his disciples, each one of them buried in their own shame, each one hiding, who had run away, hidden away from Him. Denied him. And what did he do for each of them? Person by person, he chooses to redeem and restore what had been lost. Hebrews 4 tells us Jesus is able to empathize with us. There is not a single temptation that we navigate that Jesus himself did not navigate and overcome on our behalf. Jesus knows your story. Intimately.

I don’t know which chair you would sit in, but here’s what I DO know. We have a savior who desires to meet us in that place. Who desires to redeem your story. To redeem your desires. To lead you to wholeness and flourishing. And so in just a moment, we’re going to go into our final song, but before we get there I want to give you some time. Just a little bit of silence to answer this question: What does it look like for you to fully trust Jesus with your sexuality? What does it look like for you to surrender, to offer it to him in trust? What does it look like to trust Jesus fully with your body?  And while we have this moment of silence I just want you to pray. Ask God - what part of my life do I need to fully surrender? Married people - are you surrendered? Wives, are you looking out for your husband and what he is going through? Are you walking alongside him in his desires? Husbands, are you helping your wives to feel safe and protected, honored and respected in your marriage? Are you letting brokenness become a wedge between you? Single folks, whether you are eagerly waiting in anticipation, or grieving what you have lost - what do you need to surrender in order to see Jesus sitting next to you in this seat? You are so valuable to God - let him enrich your life. Bring this question to him: Jesus, what part of my sexuality do I need to surrender to you, today?