God's Design

Riding the bus home from work last week I was reading through 1 Corinthians and came across a sobering passage of how serious God is about sexual immorality.  In light of Valentine’s Day I began thinking of the many people that would give up their most precious gift to someone they just met at a local bar, or someone they've known for years who’s not their spouse. It made me think about how far our culture has gotten away from God’s design for us.  Television is saturated with a celebration of sex outside of marriage, glamorization of teenage pregnancy, the “New Normal” family, and many other perversions of the beauty God intended for our sexuality.  My wife and I have even struggled in our marriage enjoying the beautiful gift God has given us due to the modern portrayal of sex.  I pray this post would challenge us (myself included) to get back to God’s design for our sexuality.

The motivation behind this post is love and I pray I approach it with a humble heart because no one (including myself) is without sin. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God…” Rom 3:23. “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us” 1 John 1:8.  I don’t desire to alienate anyone from my life through this post, rather I pray it would show my desperate heartfelt desire to spend eternity worshiping God with everyone who reads.

Sexual Immorality – Who defines it?

In short, the one who defines sexual immorality is God.  The One who created us revealed His will for our lives through His word, the Bible.  I agree with those who say that the Bible was physically penned by the hand of sinful/flawed/finite men, but I also believe that a sinless/flawless/all powerful God produced the exact results he wanted in Scripture regardless of man’s intentions.  I believe the Bible when it says in 2 Tim 3:16 that all scripture is God breathed. And 2 Peter 1:21 when it says, “prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” And Isaiah 40:8 “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”

So with the Bible as the source, let’s look at what sexual immorality is.  If you read His word from cover to cover, God reveals that sexual immorality is sexuality that violates His original design. “But for Adam no suitable helper was found.  So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.’ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Jesus reiterates in Matthew 19 that a man will be united to his wife. That is God’s design for our sexuality. Examples of things that violate His design include David committing adultery with Bathsheba who was not his wife, those in the Old Testament with multiple wives, those in Romans 1 who exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones, and if I’m being completely honest, it also includes me when Jesus says in Matthew 5:28 “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus is saying that sexual immorality is deeper than our outward acts; the root of it is in the condition of our hearts. The acts that fall under sexual immorality in the Bible are much more numerous than I've mentioned, but the bottom line is we are all guilty outside of Christ.

What we've discussed so far are the various manifestations of sexual immorality. In its most basic form, the Bible says sexual immorality is simply sin against God. Like all other sins, the consequences of sexual immorality are death and eternal separation from God.  “The wages of sin is death” Romans 6:23. “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Isaiah 59:1-2. We were created to bring Him glory (Isaiah 43:6-7), the only true joy is in bringing Him glory, and I desire that each of us would be able to experience that joy for eternity.  But we can’t have that joy or bring Him glory if our sins make it so He can’t hear us.  When I look at the world around me, I can relate to what Paul felt when he said, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel”.  Like Paul, I don’t hate those who are living in sexual immorality; I desperately pray that all would be saved. And I don’t wish on even my worst enemies the words Christ speaks in Matthew 7:22-23: “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ ”

So where does that leave us? I pray that it leaves us crying out to God to save us. I pray it produces repentance in us that leads to faith and salvation in Christ.  We were born into sin and death, but Christ through his death and resurrection can raise us back to life. And once alive, I pray that we would die to ourselves daily, pick up our crosses and live for Him.  “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” (Romans 6:12-14)