Sermon # 663
Sex and Self Control
Colossians 3:1 - 7 (NKJV) 1If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. 5Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.
Introduction: The Christian is the Bride of Christ and Jesus is the Bridegroom.
John 3:27 - 31 (NKJV) 27John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. 28You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before Him.’ 29He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. 30He must increase, but I must decrease. 31He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.
I. Arguments against pre-marital sex
· The notion that sex is just another appetite is hopelessly naïve. Sex is interpersonal-it directly affects another person and it can have consequences that reach far beyond the two people involved.
· Sex has a non-physical side. Sex out side of marriage is like buying a car with no motor. When you ignore this you are short-changing your-self
· Extramarital sex is a treat to society as a whole. (don’t you understand that every child has a right to life and the right to loving responsible parents?)
· Extramarital sex draws with it all other stimulus – fear, anxiety, lust, covetousness – with it.
· People who have had premarital sex are twice as likely to be unfaithful in marriage. Even if you marry each other you will have a problem with trust.
· Sex is a stimulus and you will look for more – it will lead to alcohol abuse, drug addiction and more sex.
· It cannot be love because love always includes responsibility – you cannot have love without the other.
ILL: Let me read you a quote from Josh McDowell’s book Right from Wrong
“…Our youth are working from a faulty concept of love. For example, 46% of our youth say that they will be more likely to have sex outside of marriage if they are in love with the other person. In fact 77% of our youth who have already had sexual intercourse – and 78% or those who regard premarital sex as morally acceptable – say that love would make them more likely to have sex
In the minds of our young people love is definitely the greatest determining factor in the decision to engage in sex. It is a greater determinant than whether they intend to marry the person. It is a greater determinant than if they could be sure a pregnancy would not result. It is a greater determinant than whether they could be sure a parent wouldn’t find out, greater even than if they felt their parents wouldn’t object to them having sex.
In the minds of our youth, love makes sex right. They believe that true love makes sex perfectly moral-even beautiful. I happen to believe that they are right – love is the biblical standard for sex. The problem,…is our youth’s counterfeit standard of love – one that permits sex without boundaries, outside God’s definition of love.
ILL: The young women looked at me and with tears in her eyes told me, “Pastor I was 12 years old when I first had sex. By the time I was 14 I had been through several ‘boy friends’ Now I’m 18 years old and I feel like I’m a warn out prostitute.”
24% of Junior High Students who attended church regularly have engaged in pre-marital sex.
ILL: I asked the Cathedral for teaching requests. One answered, “How to break the bondage of homosexual lifestyles. My first answer is “Don’t experiment with homosexuality or allow anyone to experiment on you! You become one in the spirit with anyone you have sex with!
Ephesians 5:30 - 31 (NKJV) 30For we are members of His body,£ of His flesh and of His bones. 31“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Now if a man and his wife become one through sexual union – you become one with every person’s spirit you are sexually connected with! If that person is homosexual that’s how you get possessed.
Once possessed with that spirit they have to want to be set free and it takes a lot of fasting and prayer!
Sex binds you spiritually with the other person
1 Corinthians 6:15 - 20 (NKJV) 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! 16Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.”£ 17But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your £body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
ILL: Let me give you a definition for a harlot! A harlot is anyone who sells sex for a price – and that may not be money!
II. Adultery
Galatians 5:16 - 21 (NKJV) 16I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: £adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21envy, £murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Did you notice that Paul listed adultery and fornication first – either will produce uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry sorcery hatred contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, and revelries.
Extramarital sex is a symptom of:
* lack of importance – lack of success, lack of closeness, lack of fulfillment. Unhappy people try to use sex as a narcotic.
* Sex inside of marriage can be used to – (Just as immoral as extramarital sex)
a. gratify personal desire,
b. as a weapon,
c. as a punishment
* Extramarital sex can never be complete because sex is meant to produce
* Extramarital sex always weakens martial sex.
ILL: Now let me repeat my self “a harlot is anyone who sells themselves for a price- the price may be importance, success, fulfillment, addiction – but it’s still harlotry!
III. Self Control
A. Clean your life up by giving it to Christ
2 Corinthians 5:16 - 19 (NKJV) 16Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
B. Acknowledge the power of sex
Countless people have gotten into problems assuming they can handle sex – it’s like nitroglycerin – it can explode before you know it!
C. Look ahead - what are the long time disadvantages?
D. Be honest with yourself – examine your motives
E. Make a commitment – in advance
F. Honor the Word of God and it’s Moral Codes
Acts 15:29 (NKJV) 29that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.
1 Corinthians 6:18 (NKJV) 18Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
1 Corinthians 10:8 (NKJV) 8Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell;
Ephesians 5:3 (NKJV) 3But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints;
Colossians 3:5 (NKJV) 5Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
1 Thessalonians 4:3 - 6 (NKJV) 3For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.
Conclusion:
Sexual restraint does not mean deprivation - it means happiness in depth
John 15:11 - 17 (NKJV) 11“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17These things I command you, that you love one another.
(A word to married couples)
Ephesians 4:26 - 27 (NKJV) 26“Be angry, and do not sin”:do not let the sun go down on your wrath, 27nor give place to the devil.
Remember any feelings you carry into the sexual act become part of it. Don’t have an intimate relationship while you are angry or in disagreement!
