Sex is one of the most sensitive subjects to deal with from
the pulpit. It brings up so many powerful emotions in our people. It may also
bring up powerful emotions in the preacher. Unfortunately the church’s
response to the sexual dysfunction of our culture has too often been a polarity.
We have either kept silent—the “head in the sand” approach—or
we have yelled, condemned, and judged. One of the reasons that the church
has been so ineffective in dealing with sexual issues is that we have created
a culture of shame rather than a culture of truth and healing.
This is critical. People cannot deal effectively with their
sexual struggles alone. Yet people will not deal honestly and openly with
their sexual struggles unless and until there is created in the church an
atmosphere of grace, understanding, forgiveness, nonjudgmentalism, and healing.
This begins with the preacher. If you have never struggled with
sexual temptation, praise God! But don’t you dare speak down to precious
people in your congregation who believe that if you knew what God knows about
them, you would despise them. Speak as a loving father whose heart is breaking
for the sickness of his children. And if you know the personal struggle of
sexual temptation, then speak as someone who is on the journey with them.
You must, of course, speak appropriately and carefully, but let them know
that you understand what it’s like to live in a “pornographic age.”
Most importantly, proclaim the gospel! Sexual sin is not the
unpardonable sin. It is serious, and it must be dealt with as we open our
lives to the work of a holy God who desires to make us holy. So announce the
good news that God is able to deliver. Give hope that the patterns of a lifetime
can truly be changed. Offer the grace of Jesus who welcomes hurting and broken
people into His arms and promises never to leave them or forsake them.
Our Wesleyan message of heart holiness is a good and hopeful
word to people who live in a pornographic age. We believe and affirm that
the Spirit is able and available to actually transform the hearts and minds
of people. Let’s put our everyday ministry where our mouths are!
Several months ago on a crisp autumn afternoon, I was on my
way downtown for an appointment. I was driving my car north on the interstate,
minding my own business—having a rather pleasant drive. When suddenly,
there she was—off to the side of the road—right between the ads
for Blue Bunny ice cream and Boatmen’s bank.
Stretched across a billboard, bigger than life was the representation of a
beautiful young woman wearing nothing but a smile and a pair of high heels.
The words of the advertisement covered certain portions of her body in such
a way as to barely make the ad legal, and the advertisement was inviting me
to come to a certain club in the city and watch girls like her “perform”
for me.
Well, after I pulled my car out of the ditch—I realized
how profoundly that billboard depicts the spirit of our age. I mean it’s
not as if I was in the back room of a seedy bookstore, or even in the privacy
of my home—I was driving down an interstate highway!
Today sexual images have pervaded every corner of our society.
You can’t open a newspaper, you can’t pick up a magazine, you can’t
turn on the television, you can’t even drive down the street without
very quickly being confronted with a sexual image. In the space of 30 short
years we went from the Beatles singing, “I want to hold your hand”
to George Michael singing, “I want your sex.”
We are confronted every single day with sexual images and a
sexual philosophy that says, “Anything goes that is mutually pleasurable
between persons.” And what was once confined to secret places and unrevealed
actions now is available to every person, even children, through print, video,
and the Internet.
And yet while there is unprecedented permissiveness in our culture
and some people want to call the accessibility of sexual images and experiences
“progress,” we just don’t seem to be getting the connection
to the epidemic of sexual abuse and violence in our culture. Officials project
that one of every four girls in America today will be sexually assaulted during
her lifetime. Out of one side of our mouths we say, “Anything goes and
everything is permissible,” but out of the other side of our mouths we
cry outrage when people get hurt. Are we really that stupid?
Well, I know I don’t have to convince you that we live
in a sex-crazed culture. We live in a pornographic age. But I want to talk
to you today about sexual integrity in the midst of a pornographic age. We
must speak openly about it. Part of the problem is the silence of the church.
We pretend it isn’t an issue. We pretend it’s all out there. I promise
you, it’s not all out there—it’s in here. As Christian people,
as people whose desire is to serve God and lead pure lives, the fact of the
matter is we are struggling with sexual issues. And a lot of the time, we
are not doing very well.
Now unfortunately, for most of the history of the church, the
only response we could think of to sexual issues was to try to shame people
into holiness. Shaming each other over our sexual sin doesn’t change
anything; it only creates a bunch of shame-filled sinners. And it is easy
for us to feel shame over sexual issues. Some are ashamed because of what
they have done. Others are ashamed because of what has been done to them.
Still others are ashamed because they were led to believe that sex itself
is dirty.
The truth is, sex is good. Sex is beautiful. God created sex;
He’s the one who thought it up! What a God! The problem is that because
of our selfishness and sinfulness sex has been stripped from its rightful
place of dignity within the boundaries of the marriage covenant and made a
slave to the very worst lusts of the human spirit. And that’s why as
Christians, we need to bring sexuality back to its rightful place. The only
way that will happen is if we begin to talk openly about it on the basis of
the truth of God’s Word.
So I want you to know that as I talk about this subject today,
I do not come to you as a prophet trying to stand above the problem. I come
to you confessionally, as a person who knows what it is to live in a pornographic
age. I know what it is to deal with sexual temptation. I know what it is to
struggle with keeping my thoughts pure in the midst of a sex-crazed culture.
I’m with you here, and my desire is to help, not to condemn.
The worst thing we could do today is to try to convince ourselves
that this is not really a significant issue in the church. Much of what I’m
saying to you today is based on information that comes from an excellent book
put together by Dr. Archibald Hart, a Christian psychologist and educator.
In his book The Sexual Man (W Publishing Group, 1995), he traces the patterns
not of the general population but of what he calls “good men.” The
results of his study suggest that it’s our problem in the church as well
as a cultural problem.
Now I want to be very clear about what I mean when I use the
term “pornographic age.” I’m not really talking about certain
kinds of materials or even behavior, although that’s certainly a part
of it. I’m using the word in the same way the New Testament uses it.
The root pornea, from which we get “pornography,” is a common biblical
word. And it most often means “sexual immorality.” It refers to
an attitude and a spirit, a mind-set. So I am using the term “pornographic”
as any expression of our God-created sexuality outside its God-intended boundaries.
I think there are basically two questions that we need to deal
with today. One: “What has gone wrong to create such a dismal situation?”
Two: “How should we be responding to it?” The truth is these struggles
we are talking about are really nothing new, as the passage from Proverbs
bears out. I mean the scene that we read from Proverbs could be the basis
of a blockbuster movie today, yet it was written thousands of years ago.
Dealing appropriately with our sexuality has long been a major
dilemma for the human race since the beginning. I really believe one of the
major reasons for that is because we have separated sex from intimacy. That
separation is what is being so dangerously exploited by our culture today.
This is especially pronounced in men. Women usually learn to connect their
feelings to their sexuality, but men don’t. Most often in men, the act
of sexual release is separated from relationship and intimacy. Now part of
the reason for this is critical to understand in order to see clearly what’s
happened in our culture.
While a woman’s sexual response is triggered primarily
by intimacy and closeness and romance and conversation and warmth, a man’s
sexual response is triggered primarily visually. A woman responds to the person.
A man responds to the body. That’s why men so often become fixated on
certain parts of a woman’s anatomy. It’s why when a couple goes
away on a special anniversary weekend, she’s thinking about the dinner
conversation and sitting together watching the sunset and sharing thoughts
and feelings about each other—you know, the romance and playfulness of
it. But all he’s thinking about is the negligee he saw in the corner
of the suitcase!
(For the balance of this sermon manuscript, go to www.preachersmagazine.org.)
