1 CHASTITY Sermon preached by Pastor C. John Steer Autumn Ridge Church, Rochester, MN November 19-20, 2016 No. 1: Hot Potato Scripture: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 A number of years ago I appeared in a TV game show called Hot Potato. I am grateful for the experience for two reasons. First, I won enough money to buy a hot tub for my backyard. Second, it provided a title for an occasional sermon series on hot subjects that we Christians often don t like to handle. In the next three weeks we will pick up three hot potatoes. They are chastity, money and doubt. Today we begin with chastity. So let s start with THE MEANING OF CHASTITY. Chastity is a word that is seldom heard in conversation these days. It may sound like it comes from a Victorian novel. The word chastity may convey negative images especially if we think of chastity belts, which thankfully today are only found in museums. They were dreadful garments designed to prevent a woman from having sexual intercourse. The Oxford Dictionary defines chastity this way. Being chaste, sexual abstinence, virginity. Synonyms of chastity are virtue, goodness, innocence, modesty, cleanness, and self-control. The root meaning of chastity is sexual purity. This is the lifestyle that God calls his people to. Paul explains chastity in these words: 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; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-6) We learn several important truths from that statement. First, chastity is God s will. So as Christians we should take it seriously. Second, a life of chastity is holy and honorable. Third, chastity demonstrates a high level of respect for others. It is important that we understand the meaning of chastity and the desirability of chastity because all of us are called to a life of chastity at some time. Our first opportunity for chastity is when we are past puberty and until we get married. The opportunity for chastity arises again when our spouse dies or we are divorced or our spouse is physically unable or unwilling to be intimate. Some are called to a lifelong pursuit of chastity as single people. Numerous Christians view singleness as God s long-term calling for their lives and an opportunity to develop a deeper devotion to God as well as invest more fully in friendships. Jesus was single. He lived a complete and fulfilled single life according to the plan of his Father. Jesus taught that marriage is not for everyone. He shows us that some are called to live lives of celibacy because of their particular role in the kingdom of God and their place in God s world.
2 The Apostle Paul was such a single person. He was a great church planter who extended the borders of God s kingdom. Paul could not have devoted himself so exclusively to the task if he had been married. The church is filled with stories of single people who have lived lives of celibacy like missionary Amy Carmichael and author and preacher John Stott. We have many such single people in our fellowship. We are grateful to God for them and we admire them greatly. Single people in the church reflect everyone s eternal destiny for Jesus reminded the Sadducees that in the new heaven and earth we will not be married, explaining that At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage." (Matthew 22:30) Sexual purity is a very high bar to aim for and many of us have to confess we haven t made it. This has led to CONFUSION OVER CHASTITY. Some have said If chastity is a gift from God then I don t want it. So Augustine prayed, Give me chastity, but not yet. C.S. Lewis observed that Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. While Samuel Johnson wrote that Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures. But that is the wrong way to look at chastity. Just 60 years ago chastity was taught in schools and modeled in the media. Purity was considered desirable and sex reserved for marriage. But then the 1960s happened and there was a major change of thinking about sexuality. Sex came to be seen simply as an appetite like food. It needed to be satisfied and now many TV shows and movies depict couples jumping into bed at the earliest possible opportunity. There is no thought of waiting, certainly not until marriage. Moral standards of purity are ignored or ridiculed. The reigning sexual ethic of our day can be expressed in a song lyric from Sheryl Crow: If it makes you happy it can't be that bad. This worldview affirms every attempt to get sexual pleasure that does not harm others. If it feels good and we are not hurting anyone how could it possibly be wrong? This outlook has had devastating consequences. Alcohol mixed with promiscuity has resulted in an outbreak of sexual violence and rapes on college campuses causing the Regents of California State Universities to write extraordinary rules guiding young men in their lovemaking. These ensure the men get permission from the women every few seconds. This caused George Will in a famous article to declare The Regents must never have made love to anyone in their lives to assume that people act in this way. We have forgotten the freedom and spontaneity that should be part of lovemaking. This hook-up culture has resulted in an epidemic of sexually transmitted disease. This year rates of infection have hit a record high in cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. Both men and women acknowledge being confused. Women feel pressured into sexual activity before they are ready. Men aren t sure how to interpret women s signals and some men are even avoiding the company of women altogether. Forty percent of all births are now to unmarried mothers, with all the challenges that involves economically and in terms of being the sole caregiver for a child.
3 So what is the solution? The answer is to acknowledge THE BEAUTY OF CHASTITY. About a year ago I read an article in First Things. It pointed out that our society is relentlessly pressuring people into early sexual experiences. Speaking to pastors the author said, Don t expect your young people to embrace sexual purity if you don t speak to them about the beauty and desirability of chastity. That hit home with me as I realized I had never preached on chastity and I had never heard a sermon on chastity. Since then I have been reading about the subject and collecting a file on why chastity is beautiful. Here is what I ve found. First, chastity is beautiful because it is ordained by God. All God s commands and desires are beautiful and intended for our good. Jesus didn t come to harm us but to help us. Second, chastity is beautiful because it is a godly goal. Bonhoeffer observed The essence of chastity is not the suppression of lust, but the total orientation of one s life towards a goal. Without such a goal chastity is bound to become ridiculous. This truth that chastity is a godly goal is immensely important. When we embrace this as a reality in our life we are on the path to purity. It is not sufficient to prohibit sex to single people. We can t just tell them no. But when we see holiness as a desirable goal that we long to attain and we grasp the beauty of a life of chastity, then we have positive reasons for making the right sexual choices. Third, chastity is beautiful because it allows us to show the glory of Jesus. John Piper once held a conference in Minneapolis entitled Sex and the Supremacy of Christ. Piper observed God did not conceive and create sex simply to be a temptation. He had good purposes in mind. Sex exists for the great aims of God in human history. It is not a detour on the path to God-exalting joy. Along with all the rest of God s good world, sex is the path. It allows us to show the supreme worth of God. Chastity helps us to face the question of what we value as supreme. What is our highest treasure? What is our greatest satisfaction? When God takes that place in our minds and hearts, in our thoughts and emotions, then sex begins to find its true and beautiful order. God has given us our sexuality to be expressed in the covenant relationship of a marriage between one man and one woman. The intimacy between that man and women reflects the intimacy and love of Jesus for his church. But any gift that God gives, Satan wants to debase and cheapen. He wants to deprive us of the supreme joy that God intends us to have with his good gift. God wants us to reflect his own beauty. We do that not by exchanging him for something, but by preferring him over everything. We glorify God by treasuring him over all treasures, enjoying him over all pleasures, desiring him over all desires, prizing him over all prizes, and wanting him over all wants. We can have a heart that treasures this world above God or a heart that treasures God above this world. Earlier we heard a remarkable statement from First Corinthians chapter six. There Paul tells us that as Christians we are united to Christ. This union involves our body and our spirit. Therefore, illicit sexual unions that do not express our union with Christ are contradictory and drag Christ into the bed of unholy pleasure and make him a partner in the act.
4 Paul explains why this is unthinkable when he writes, Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) The point is that God owns us. He bought us with the infinitely valuable blood of Christ. So when we treat our body as if we had the right to do with it as our impulses demand, we treat the worth of Christ and the glory of God with contempt. This is why Paul urges us to Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18) Notice what Paul is saying? He sees sexual relationships with anyone but our spouse as uniquely defiling or hurtful to our body. He is claiming there is no other sin like it. He is suggesting that sexual sin is uniquely body-joining and uniquely body-defiling for sexual immorality is a sin against our body s rightful ownership. The reason is that the believer s body is under the authority of Christ the Lord. It is a temple of the Holy Spirit. This is why Peter writes, Dear friends, I urge you, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. (1 Peter 2:11) This is the reason that Paul goes on to explain that sexual sin can keep us from entering the kingdom of God. The apostle tells the Galatians "The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;... I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21) Does this mean that if we sin sexually we are doomed forever? Not at all for God is a God of grace and forgiveness. But it is saying that if we live like this without any repentance we are in eternal peril. The point is that Jesus is calling us to a better way and it is the way of purity and obedience. It is a hard way but it is a worthwhile way. A life of chastity teaches us aspects of discipline and intimacy with Christ we cannot learn in other ways. But if we are to embark on this life we need to recognize THE COST OF CHASTITY. Any worthy goal is costly and that is certainly true of chastity. Think of the effort required to excel athletically or to reach the heights of our profession. That sort of discipline and conduct is required to experience the beauty and joy of chastity. John Paul II said Chastity is a difficult, long term matter; one must wait patiently for it to bear fruit and for the happiness of loving kindness which it must bring. But at the same time, chastity is the sure way to happiness. There are various manifestations of the cost of chastity. For the teenager there is the cost of seeming old fashioned and out of step. A boy may pressure a girl by saying If you love me you will sleep with me. If she says no she might lose him and that s painful. But the proper response is for her to say, If you love me, you wouldn t violate me like that. You d respect me. I want to give the gift of my virginity to my husband.
5 Paul has these words of counsel to you young people. "Don t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity." (1 Timothy 4:12) There can also be a financial cost to chastity. There is such a thing as a marriage penalty. Your tax rate can increase if you get married. So there are couples who say Let s not get married. We will live together instead. We will save the money and maybe even give some of it to the church or a missionary and that way we feel better. Some divorce settlements can be erased if a person remarries so it is tempting to just live with someone and keep the alimony. For seniors certain pensions from a deceased spouse can be lost if a person remarries. All this causes us to ask What is the value of chastity to me? I know how much God values it but how much do I? Some years ago there was a movie called Indecent Proposal about a millionaire, played by Robert Redford, who offered a young, penniless couple a million dollars if the husband would let his wife spend the night with him. At first the couple were indignant. They would never sell themselves for a million dollars. But then they began to think of all they could do with the money and they agreed. The wife spent the night with the millionaire and of course it ended their relationship. All of us have to ask ourselves how much following Christ is worth to us. What would we sell ourselves for? A million dollars or a thousand dollars? Here s where we need to look at the cross of Christ and remember that Jesus gave his all for us. In return we give our all for him. As he gave his body for our salvation we present our body to him as a living sacrifice. We make Christ, not sex, our treasure. So how do we do this? Let s look now at THE PRACTICE OF CHASTITY. We need to have a plan if we are going to enjoy this beautiful virtue. We need to be aware of the great power of sexual desire and the enormous pressure of society to reject chastity. When I was a student in InterVarsity we were given this advice in our dating behavior. Always leave room for the Holy Spirit. So what does that mean? We begin by praying for chastity asking the Holy Spirit to help us to be pure. We make this our life s goal. We don t let anything distract us. We avoid company that would lessen our resolve. We stay away from situations where we know we are going to be tempted. We draw guidelines that are God-honoring. We don t go away for a weekend alone with our boyfriend or girlfriend. We don t ask them to stay the night. We avoid all appearances of evil. We acknowledge that immorality begins in the mind and so we guard our minds. We remember that Jesus told men that if they look at a woman and lust after her they have committed adultery. So we do what we can to expunge thoughts from our minds that would take us away from Christ. We make the decision not to watch pornography. But rather we seek to fill our minds with what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable. This mindset will help us in the practice of chastity. We acknowledge there is a price to pay for purity and we are willing to pay it. So we don t move in together during our engagement to save money on the rent because we value the beauty of chastity over the few hundred dollars we will save.
6 It is natural for a courting couple to want to kiss each other but beforehand we agree to behavior that will honor our chastity. So we don t remove any clothing. We stay away from compromising situations. If we are lying on the bed kissing it is probably not going to end there. Some people find it helpful to have an accountability partner who has the freedom to ask them how far they are going and are they maintaining their purity. Paul gives us a practical solution to sexual temptation. He tells us it is better to marry than to burn. That may mean we should move up our wedding date. Long engagements can be hard. People are marrying later and later in life and so it is harder and harder to live a life of chastity. When you are getting married at 21 it isn t so hard to wait as it is if you get married at 31. But of course marriage is not available to everyone. For some chastity may be a lifelong calling. I am glad we have a number of gay people who are part of our fellowship. They know that marriage is not a God pleasing possibility for them. Like single heterosexuals they have embraced a life of chastity. We commend all our single people who have chosen a life of purity. We cheer you on. We are so proud of you. Now let s be honest, the truth is that none of us have a perfect record sexually. We have all messed up. But the good news of the gospel is that we can be forgiven and start again whatever our past. The church is comprised of transformed sinners whom God has redeemed. Jesus promises us complete restoration. He is able to give us back our lives just as he did with the prostitute who washed his feet with her tears. I knew an attractive young couple. He had been in Special Forces in the Army. She was the all-american beauty. They were living together but then they heard the gospel and they met Christ and were born again. They began to see the beauty of living in a way that pleases God. The man moved out of their house and shared a room with a friend. They went through some marriage preparation classes. Then they came together on their wedding night and said it was like the first time. Parents have an important role in preparing their children for the practice of celibacy. In Deuteronomy we are told These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children." (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) The commandments referred to are the Ten Commandments which includes the one about adultery and coveting someone else s spouse. God designed the primary place for sexual education to be the home. This doesn t mean we have one talk about the facts of life to get it over with. Rather there is an ongoing conversation about children s bodies, the physical changes they are going through, dating, marriage, how they feel about people of the opposite gender, and responding to their questions. We Christians thank God for sex but we differ radically from our society. We do not see sex as a right or an end in itself but as a part of discipleship. When we say no to promiscuity or other substitutes for marriage we do so in defense of good sex.
7 It is not from prudery that the Bible advocates lifelong, faithful, heterosexual marriage, but out of a conviction that the freedom and loving abandon that are necessary for sexual ecstasy come only from a committed marital relationship. The sexual urge is God-given and like fire in the fireplace is a great blessing when enjoyed in the right context. In God s original creation Adam and Eve were both naked and they felt no shame. As C.S. Lewis said, Pleasure is God s idea, not the devil s. God wants Autumn Ridge to be a church that receives his beautiful gift of chastity with joy. That enjoys the pleasures of sex in the right way and offers hope and a new start to those who have strayed from God s perfect path. That is the sizzling hot potato of chastity. I have picked it up. Now I toss it to you to apply in your own life in this coming week.