Blog: Sexual Immorality - a podcast by Christopher Stephens

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So you clicked the link with the forbidden word huh? Come here to see what interesting things are said about the word that must not be uttered in company?! Here for the tea? Well you are in luck because the article is speaking about what it says. There are many types of immoral actions but the topic of this week deals in the arena of sexual immorality. The word Immoral is defined as not conforming to accepted standards of morality. And if we must go further morals are concerned with what is right or wrong in human behavior. So in 2019 we must ask ourselves the question “When is sex right?”. I see many views about this. Some believe sex to be a disgusting act to never be discussed. There are others who rate it as the worst sin of all. And then there are others who see it as a complex topic that changes depending on context. I tend to go with the latter.

Don’t get me wrong I as a Christian strongly believe that sex outside of the confines of marriage is sin. But I also do not have memory problems and forget that I too was guilty of the same sin that I am strongly against. But I have to decide in what way I will speak about and treat others who are guilty of the same sin I have engaged in. There is a culture that exists that shames those who have committed these sins and ignores others. And I believe that type of thought has created a great divide. There are those who have taken sexual immorality and have formed hardened hearts that often say “I may as well keep on doing what I am doing because I am going to hell anyway”. And there are those who are silently committing the sin and cannot fix it because of fear of shame imposed upon them by others. And yes there are those who read two scriptures and make silly arguments that we also shouldn’t be eating shellfish and wearing clothing with mixed materials but those folks don’t take Bible study seriously and often ignore context so we’ll keep them out of this. But I believe that I was destined to write this post as I have experienced both sides of this great divide. I have been in the camp of Y.O.L.O and I have also been in the camp of “too ashamed to do anything about it”. And here’s what I have found.

Too Ashamed: This was the first camp that I arrived in. I had literally stumbled upon sexual immorality, experienced it, felt shamed, but was now hooked. I knew that I was wrong I wanted to fix it but I did not want to talk about it with others who were not as dirty as I felt. I had a great church family but that was it, they were great and I was not. And in addition to that I grew up in an era that at times was very heavy on damnation and light on grace and salvation. There was no way I was going to seek help and be found to be a heathen. I would simply fix the issue on my own. And that is when I matured enough to be welcomed into the Y.O.L.O camp.

Y.O.L.O: You Only Live Once is the meaning… Living in this camp was very appealing to me as a human being because it meant that I could do as I desired. If I desired to engage in sexual sin with a woman or go to strip clubs that is exactly what I would do. In my mind people had already written me off and I might as well do what I enjoyed. The outcome of this was extreme yet very brief fun. There was an enjoyment in living this way but it never lasted. And it seemed the more and more I engaged in these sinful acts the more extreme things I had to do in order to experience the level of enjoyment I had from the first time. This type of living did not end well. I eventually had an alarming wake up call where God showed me how much control I actually had over my life. Spoiler Alert: I had none, He had all!

I recall 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 often being quoted and it dug in to my soul! I just knew I was going to hell! I knew God was going to do some serious damage to me! Check it out for yourselves!

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I was terrified even more because I was usually presented this scripture from people who wore H.T.T Glasses. You’ve never heard of these? Their designer and can only be worn by a select group of people they are Holier Than Thou Glasses. And when people with these glasses look at scripture they often read God’s word a bit different and present it differently. I have found a scientific way to show you all what they see when they read the same passage above.

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Amazing right?!! Certain words are highlighted, others are too small to read, and some are even crossed out or made into unintelligible characters to ignore what is being said to the individual. In addition to that with the H.T.T. Glasses 1 Corinthians 6 only had two verses! OK I’m only joking about the glasses. But what I found over time, bumping my head, and maturing a bit was this.

We have to be careful with how we deal with others and sin. No matter who we are we must remember that we do NOT rank sin. It is not our place to rank sin. Yes we do judge righteously, we don’t allow our Christian brothers and sisters to kill themselves. But we do so in a loving way. We cannot pick and choose portions of God’s word to live by and ignore. It is either all good and useful or we begin to put on our second face. Also we must be diligent students of scripture. While in the letter written by Paul he does in fact speak about sexual immorality (sex before marriage, cheating spouses, homosexuality) as being wrong it also speaks of other sins as being just as wrong. He also speaks of idolaters, theives, greedy folks, those who get tipsy/drunk, slanderers/gossipers, and robbers (those taking things by force) in the same category. And if we continue reading the letter written to a group of Christians in the very next verse there is hope for ALL! Even the sexual immoral condemned by those who rank sin.

1 Corinthians 6:11 (NKJV)

11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

Paul reminds them that they use to engage in some of those things and were heading in the same direction. Sexual immorality was not too nasty to talk about in a letter to a church. It was a real issue that real people dealt with! I am not ashamed of what God has done for me through Jesus! Because what I found was that I could not do it by myself. The more I tried, the more I messed up until my mind was inoperable! Any sane person when they are doing wrong feel guilt. And that guilt that I felt I could not do anything with it. I tried many different ways. I tried to ignore it but it would creep up on me at the most inopportune times. I tried to cover it with other things but it was strong and would rise up! It was not until I allowed God to relieve me of it that it was finally gone. I was holding onto this idea of other holy people not accepting me and missed the big picture. God is the one who has a heaven to put me in. God is the one who I serve. He is the one who can wash me, sanctify, and justify me! And He did! He can do the same for you!

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