Our Weakness, Sex, and the Gospel

Hi, this is John, and today on the podcast, before we get started, we want to give parents a heads up that we are going to be talking about something that you may not have had conversations with your children yet, so you may want to use this opportunity to listen to the podcast before you do.

We do know that several families listen to Theocast and we're thankful for that. Today, Justin and I are going to be covering weakness, sexuality, and the gospel, and how often our culture is trying to press upon us that if we hold any other position but their position is barbaric, and how is it that we can come in using the gospel and present something that is refreshing and leads people out of bondage back into joy in Christ.

In our members podcast, Justin pulls out a very interesting proverb where we are warned that if we engage in sexual deviancy, that we can carry around that shame. How do we understand that from a covenantal reform perspective, and also how the church has failed in explaining God's purpose for sexuality?

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Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the Christian life, lively as they may be, from a reformed perspective. Today's hosts are Justin Perdue, pastor of Coveted Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and I'm John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

We have a lively conversation for you today, but we're going to start with Justin's pro con. I've learned some stuff about my host that I had no idea. Today is one of these ones that I'm excited about.

We normally don't do conversations about the pro con before, but today we did, and I could not agree with him more. Our brother, JP, laid on us.

JP Morgan. Yeah, John, sorry. I was feverishly writing on my whiteboard, and we haven't even started the episode itself yet. I don't know what that holds for the future. Listener beware. It could be a spirited conversation today, and I hope a good one.

I'm going to just go ahead and kick us off and come in from the top turnbuckle with our pro con for the day. I am pro Christians exercising their civic duty as citizens of this country in which we live and going to vote.

I think it's a good thing to do. Justin Perdue. Absolutely. Justin Perdue. It's something we should do, right? As citizens of the reformed two-kingdom understanding, as citizens of the common kingdom, we should exercise our responsibility, steward that well.

So I am pro Christians voting.

Justin Perdue. You don't understand that? Go buy Van Droonen's book, Living in God's Two Kingdoms. So there's a plug for that.

The pro con is turning into all kinds of things. You get a book recommendation for free. I am con making how a person votes, for example, this coming November, a test of fidelity to Jesus, or making how a person votes a test of Christian orthodoxy and biblical fidelity.

There's a lot that I could say. I have strong feelings about this, strong opinions about this. I just think it's very clear that whenever we elevate something that is at best maybe a secondary tertiary issue, at best, and we elevate it to a level of primary importance and a test for whether or not you're in the faith, I think something is clearly awry, and I will leave it there.

Jon Moffitt I couldn't agree more. It's in this day and age with social media and news and people saying all kinds of things, there's two things that are lacking. I think we aren't using a biblical understanding of politics and our role.

Secondly, we're lacking grace.

Jon Moffitt There is a tremendous lack of grace. Jon Moffitt Let's be gracious.

Well, today is, I think, a unique conversation. Once in a while, we call in on whatever morning we're going to record, and we start having conversations about what we've been preaching, things we've been thinking about, really stuff that's heavy on our heart.

Then we think about how this can benefit our churches and how this can benefit those who are going to be listening. Today is one of those subjects that I think is a heavy subject. There's a lot that could be said.

We're going to be challenged to try and keep this within the allotted time that we have. So, that being said, I'm going to stop talking, and JP, I'm going to let you bring us in.

A Biblical Sexual Ethic and the Covenant of Marriage

JP Morgan. Yeah, and just a public service announcement, like disclaimer, this intro to topic might be a little bit longer than normal. I've already green-lighted Jon to just jump in and trample on me at any point that he feels like he needs to.

We were talking this morning about what we could discuss. We had several things that I think we were eager to talk about, and this came from essentially a sermon that I preached recently in our church.

I'm preaching in the early chapters of Proverbs, and there's a lot in Proverbs.

Jon Moffitt. We'll link it in the notes.

Yeah, there's a lot in Proverbs about sex and our sexual lives. Sometimes the church is thought of as being this sort of fruitish place where we don't talk about sex and it's taboo. Well, the reason that that's the case is not because of the Bible.

The Bible is not silent on these matters. God has revealed a number of things to us in His Word, including what we might call a biblical sexual ethic. By that, I mean that there is a framework in which we are to express ourselves sexually and we are to enjoy the great gift that sex is.

That framework, that context, is the covenant of marriage. It's one man, one woman in covenant relationship. We get that from God's Word, and we believe that it's genuinely good for us because God has told us that this is how we're to live together and this is how we will flourish.

I just want to be really clear before we even launch into this conversation. That biblical sexual ethic, it's important to say this in our current cultural moment. It is not about being holier than thou.

It is not about power or oppression because so much of the rhetoric and dialogue in our culture today is about those things. It's always kind of this framework of power and oppression. This is not about that.

This is not about imperialism or some sort of patriarchal way of thinking, but it's clear that in our culture, we've reached a moment where a biblical sexual ethic is seen as savage. It's seen as barbaric.

There's a number of ways to illustrate this. I mentioned this in my sermon intro the other day. There's a new hit song by an artist named Cardi B. It's called WAP. I don't need to go into what that even stands for.

The listeners could search it if they wanted to. It's a tough read if you look at the non-edited lyrics. There are a number of things that song says, but it's being celebrated by many as a sex-positive anthem for women.

I bring that up to even illustrate a point that it sounds insane to the modern ear that we would ever limit the expression of our sexuality or that we would ever say that there is an appropriate framework in which it is to be expressed.

The religion of our day, and maybe it's always been this, John, in the history of humanity, but the religion of our current cultural moment is certainly something like this. Look inside yourself, see who you are, go be that person, and don't let anybody stop you.

Right.

To Justin and I, I would say we wholeheartedly agree that this is not a surprise to either of us, or the Christian should not be. Because the Bible makes it very clear that through the fall of Adam, all kinds of sin shall come, and it has happened for thousands of years.

This isn't the fault of the United States. This is the fall of man.

This is fallen human culture. Here's the thing. Let's be really clear. Sex is really good. It's a great gift from God. We may talk about this some later. There has been a tendency in the church to depict sex as a less than good thing, which has been very unhelpful because that is not at all how the Bible presents it.

But sex, as good as it is, it's powerful. Any good and powerful thing, whenever we use it in a way that God has not designed it for, it becomes very self-destructive, and it produces unbelievable amounts of pain in people's lives.

You see this everywhere. If we just look around within the church and within the culture, people are hurting because of this. We think that a way that we can mitigate that pain is to stop everybody from ever saying anything about what we might be doing sexually.

Then we need to get everybody to applaud what we're doing and how we seek to express ourselves, and we need to get everybody to agree that nothing that I'm doing sexually could ever be wrong. Somehow that will mitigate pain, but it doesn't work.

I think another thing, just by way of setting this whole thing up, John, I think if you look at fallen man, within all of us, there is a haunting suspicion that God's law is right, and we don't want it to be in our flesh.

In addition to what I just said about mitigating pain, we think that we can somehow keep God's law from accusing and condemning us if we just speak really loudly over it, or we think that we can somehow escape the accusing and the condemning nature of God's law against our sin.

We can escape that by running as far and as fast as possible away from it, just screaming and celebrating our freedom as we go. It's very clear that it doesn't work. Last thing I'll say is this is where the difference between Christians and the world, the difference between the church and the world, is not that we have our house in order sexually and the world doesn't.

The difference is we understand that we do not have our house in order, and we are trusting Christ. I'm just going to say it for the sake of presentation. The difference between the church rightly thinking is that we know we don't have our house in order, and we trust Christ for that.

So we're looking to Jesus for his atoning work that is satisfied for our sin. We're looking to Jesus for his obedience and his righteousness that's counted to us by faith. Then that is the only way that we can actually stop God's law from accusing us and condemning us.

If we seek to silence God's law or to stop that accusing and condemning thing that God's law rightly does to us, any other way we will fail. It is only in Christ. He is the only answer. Jesus and his work for the Christian allows the church to stare God's law in the face.

We're going to talk a lot about the uses of God's law. We can stare God's law in the face and assess what it actually says to us about our sexual lives. Christ has paid for the failings. We've been adopted by God.

We've been counted righteous in Jesus. His holiness is counted to us. All of those things were safe, and then we strive by the power of the Holy Spirit to conform our lives to what God says is good. That's how the church approaches this issue.

There's a lot more that I could say, but I think that's a long enough introduction. Let's chop it up a little bit, man, about these things—God's law and sex and the church and everything.

Sexual Bondage, Grace, and the Church's Failure to Communicate

Justin Perdue. Yeah, I think it was a very helpful introduction. Thank you, JP. I want to say that one of the things that I see in our current culture—and when people call it savage and barbaric, this is why—we as Christians have, I think, failed in the communication of pointing out the error of sexuality in our cultures.

God tells Noah in Genesis 6 of what the sexual ethics shall be for all of humanity. This is not for Christians. This is for all of humanity that they are to procreate—one man, one woman together. And there's really only two commands given to all.

This is part of understanding two-kingdom theology. Van Drunen's book is very helpful here. But bloodshed and sexual ethic is given to all of humanity. When an inappropriate sexual culture begins to revolutionize, what they don't understand is happening is that they're falling into bondage.

And Christianity comes in and says, nowhere else in our society do we want to try and identify ourselves by a particular act. You don't really see people—you will see them identify as a human being, and then they will explain what they do as a human being.

I might be a politician. I might be a lawyer, a doctor, a stay-at-home mom, a mechanic, whatever. But we try very hard because no one wants you to accept what they do for a living, but they want you to accept what they do, which is the unacceptable.

And their conscience knows it. The law in their hearts know that it's wrong. I watched a video recently of parents who are concerned because these videos are popping up on their children's iPads, and they're really trying to make normal for our culture things that the Bible has said that is bondage.

It is enslaving. It is anti-God's nature. It is anti-God's law. So, as Christians, when we come in and speak to this, we need to understand that we are trying to free people from bondage. We are not here to condemn them.

We are here to preach God's law in its full weight. But we do so as the New Testament gives us that position of with grace and mercy, because if it were not for the grace of God, we too would fall into the same bondage.

And we, as Christians, have and often do fall into bondage to sin, which is that Galatians 6 .1 comes in and says to restore such a one with what, Justin, a spirit of condemnation? Justin Perdue. Gentleness.

Gentleness. Right. Lest ye too fall into sin. So, I would say on both sides, our culture has failed in pressing in on this, but we shouldn't be shocked. But Christianity, I think, has failed in our response, where we don't need to get up and preach angrily at these people.

We need to get up and preach with a spirit of compassion and mercy saying, oh, but you don't understand. You were trying to justify your position, and all we're saying is you're actually in bondage and you don't know it.

No, that's right. While we're talking about ways that the church has been less than helpful, before we maybe pivot to some more constructive comments, many listening to the podcast will be familiar with the term purity culture.

Purity culture was and still kind of is a thing in the evangelical church. You can think about the, especially John, what would you say. Maybe the 90s might have been the peak of this, the 90s and the 2000s.

Yeah, I Kissed Dating Goodbye when that came out.

That was a really big... Some of Josh Harris' stuff and the real emphasis on a different dating culture in the church over and against a secular dating culture and things like this. I think in its poorer moments, the purity culture rhetoric could almost be reduced to something like this, that for a younger person in particular, you are a good Christian if you have a quiet time, if you do not look at pornography, and if you don't have sex.

That is the definition of a good and faithful Christian. In that context, there's a lot of gospel-lessness and there's a lot of confusion of law and gospel for sure in that purity culture. It was and even still has been harmful to people.

Maybe that's the wrong word, maybe that's too strong, but it has been confusing and less than helpful for many. A number of people have been burned by it. Within that purity culture context, and John, I know you grew up in this, I did to a different extent, it's threatening.

It's always negative. Sex is presented as bad, dirty, and evil. It's this thing that is to be avoided at all costs. At a minimum, we can say it confuses the gospel and throws a lot of clutter on top of it.

That's right.

Unfortunately, for the first eight years of my ministry here in Tennessee, I did college and young adults, which means I did four to eight weddings a summer. All the premarital counseling that I ever, ever want to do.

I haven't done a wedding in a year, so that's kind of been a nice. I love the weddings and it's all great, but that many, as I'm sure you know, Justin, doing weddings with families can be very complicated at times.

But in these premarital counseling moments, I would have with these couples and what I began to realize is that they had never really been given the positive side of what intimacy was designed for. It was, don't do it till you get married, but that's it.

I would be counseling couples after they got married and there would be so many complications in their marriage and it would sometimes be centered around this. I've had conversations with couples where they have a hard time enjoying it because it's only been negative.

So how could something that's been so negative for 20 something years of my life now be a positive?

Exactly. We got to flip a switch and how does that work?

Right, right. So there's a failure there because we are trying to prevent something and I would say that the gospel always comes in and says, this is bondage and this is dangerous, but it doesn't leave it there unless it is always that way.

There are certain things in our life that are always bad and there are certain things in our life that are always good, but sexuality is one of these things where the context matters. The context absolutely determines whether it's bondage or joy, whether it's pleasing to God or offensive to God.

And what we get right is, hey, this is displeasing and bondage, but we never, and I think the level is fine. It really is bondage. It really is. Paul says some very pointed things about the body and what it brings upon our body and the intimacy and the danger of that.

It's not just like telling a lie. I mean, intimacy outside of marriage is very damaging, not only to yourself, but to other parties involved. When it comes to the positive, this is where we have failed as a church.

Now, I will say that there are certain pastors in the last 10 years that have tried to make it positive and in my opinion, all they did is make it dirty. It wasn't helpful. It was comedy for them. It was just a way to shock jock people into thinking, oh, look, I'm really cool because I can say the word sex in church and it doesn't bother me.

But that's not helpful either because you've opened up another can of worms that's not designed for the church. I would say the most helpful part of this when I discovered this, and I will say I'll give Tim Keller the credit here in his book on the meaning of marriage.

It was very helpful for me in trying to describe to people what is going on as relates to the word of God and the view we should have on sexuality. I will say that the way it's described is selflessness versus selfishness.

The world only gives you selfish intimacy. This is the, you can choose however it is that you want to do something and it's always you. You choose what's best for you. Well, if you look at the New Testament and Paul's encouragement to the believer that the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church, he's giving an illustration of selflessness.

So selflessness becomes the priority of the marriage, not only outside of the bedroom, but inside of the bedroom where it is not about what I must do and what's best for me, but it is about how do I make this person feel loved and cared for as Christ loves and cares for his church.

So all of marriage changes, including the marriage bed. So what I try and do even with my own children is I help them see the joy of serving and loving my wife as their mother and how they can look and anticipate how much joy there is.

Now, listen, there requires a lot of grace on my wife's side. I'm not perfect at this. I'm horrible at this, but my ambition is to selflessly love her and care for her needs in all of our marriage, and this includes intimacy.

That's just so foreign to Christianity that you don't hear that. Faithfulness to Christ and how one leads to rest and how the other often to a lack of assurance. And you can get this at theocast .org slash primer.

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The Law, Repentance, and the Gospel's Power to Free Sinners

Let me pivot this slightly. We were talking about purity culture and how bad it is, but one tendency that we all have as human beings is to swing on pendulums and overreact to things. I think something that we can do if we're not careful is we can throw the baby out with the bathwater.

It's good for us to maintain that purity and uprightness is a thing when it comes to our sexual lives. Righteousness and holiness are to be sought after, right? I think one of the big issues in this arena, like in so many others in the church—we talk about this all the time—is the presentation, the tone, and the tenor of the conversation about sex and about how we are to live sexually rather than it being this kind of condescending, exacting, threatening stuff and just condemnation being hurled every place.

It's better for us, in particular as preachers, but just as Christians in the church, to talk, to use we language, and to acknowledge our collective weakness in the fact that we all are weak in this area.

Our cravings and our lusts in this particular arena, I think, demonstrate without any question, beyond any shadow of a doubt, our corruption and our fallenness. For us to acknowledge that there is not one person save Jesus who put in the right set of circumstances would not fall sexually is important.

Lest we have this kind of holier-than-thou or this condescending tone in our discussions about this, we need to acknowledge, as others have said, that sex is the undefeated champion of the world. Nobody gets in the ring with sex and wins.

This helps us to then make sense of something like Proverbs and the language that Solomon will use to his proverbial son. In chapter 6, he'll ask the rhetorical questions. Can a man carry fire around close to his chest and his clothes not get burned?

Well, of course not. Basically, Solomon's wisdom in some senses could be summarized to his sons with respect to sexual sin. Don't go there. Don't go near it, because we all know darn well what's going to happen.

It's just like, don't get near it. But that's often not how it's discussed. Proverbs 7, John, if I can just talk about it very briefly, the listener could go and read it later on, maybe today. In verses 6 and following, there is this compelling, gripping presentation that Solomon offers to his son about, I've looked out through the lattice of my house, and I've seen this young man in the street.

Basically, he's walking around, and this woman comes to him, and she's saying all these things to him about how I've made my vows and my sacrifices today, but now I have come to find you. Now I've found you.

My husband's gone. I've prepared my bed. Let's take our fill of love until morning. Then this young man goes with her, and Solomon's words are absolutely sobering. He says, all at once, he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver.

As a bird rushes into a snare, he does not know that it will cost him his life. We could talk about this maybe for a moment. God's law is good, and it has different uses. We certainly see the first use in all of this that we would be driven to Christ.

My gosh, we have all transgressed God's law. None of us have kept it. How desperately do I need a Savior? Perhaps for some people listening, it will be in no other areas of their lives more obvious their need for Christ than when it comes to this corruption sexually.

The second use of God's law is to restrain our wickedness. Basically, Solomon says, son, if you do this, it will destroy your life. We need that. We need to be reminded that this will not go well because our tendency, brother, is always—and this, I think, is Satan's MO as well—we always see the gratification that will come if we act on the desire, but what we are not mindful of is the emptiness that follows it immediately and the fact that nothing but pain will ensue.

Sin is never worth it. I mean, that's essentially the message of Proverbs 7. This is not worth it, son. This is a much more compassionate presentation though than what you typically hear.

Justin Perdue. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that to say that there aren't uses of the law is like to play with fire and assume you're not going to get burned. The law is good. It is right. It is, as David says, he loves the law of God because the law of God can and should be used to protect us from bondage.

But the motivation to pursue God's law comes from a position of child not to gain the seed of child. This is where we get very upset. I get upset with law preachers who say, do this or else you shall not be the child of God, and it is the father's hand on the shoulder of the son saying, dear son, I love you, and because I love you, here are things that will absolutely ensnare you and lie to you and will leave you empty.

And so, listen, I'm guiding you. I'm giving you a light unto your feet. I'm giving, this is the way that the law is described. It's a light unto our feet.

It's a direction for our path. So I look at this and say Tim Cynova. And I'm telling you this because you're my son.

Justin Perdue. That's right. So the law becomes precious to the believer when they understand all is good in the sight of God. Christ is my righteousness. God does not require any more obedience. Tim Cynova.

Only in Christ, amen. Justin Perdue. That's right. I have all of the earned love of God and the earned righteousness that God requires in Jesus. Now I'm free to obey for the sake of enjoying the father.

I obey to enjoy his presence, not because I must earn something. And so I think that when we understand our hearts are full of corruption, that sexuality has plagued humanity forever. Just read the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The church is full of sexual corruption in the New Testament. Tim Cynova. Can I just say something really quickly?

A lot of times people will act like, I don't know, it's unique in modern culture that sex is a big deal or even like the church, like you and I, John, by having this podcast today are trying to make sex a big deal.

It's like, listen, I don't think sex needs our help. It has been a massive deal throughout the entire history of the world. Read the Old Testament, like you said. Think about Greco-Roman culture and its history.

Think about how sexuality has been interwoven with pagan religion since forever. Sex always has been and always will be a big deal. It sells. People talk about it. We need to talk reasonably and compassionately about it and clearly about it from God's word.

Justin Perdue. Yeah, and we know there are people who have tried to live in a cave with no outside influence for a year, and they come out saying, I still struggled with lust. Justin Perdue. That's because you were there.

Tim Cynova. That's right. The problem is not outside of you. This is where the real conversation has to go. The problem is not outside of us. The problem isn't that pornography exists or nudity exists.

The problem is within, and we have to deal with the problem within. Now, this is great that you brought up Romans 7. Just because the problem is within, you don't throw a common sense out the window. This is why you and I don't do counseling with women in a room by ourselves because we know their corrupt heart and our corrupt heart.

It's just not wise. There are certain things that we do not do. The one thing I will want to say, and I love where you're going with this, because we understand the corruption of our heart, we have to allow Scripture to correct what the world is absolutely putrefying.

When the church only points out what's wrong, that's only law. I think the gospel frees people. I think an expression of the gospel is this. We have been unconditionally loved. Mercy and kindness have been poured over us.

We then can take that and love in turn in a very intimate way that cannot happen anywhere else in the world. With you and your spouse, you have the opportunity to love in ways that is glorifying to God.

That is what we should be focusing on. Here's the negative, now here's how to turn it positive. What the world only hears is, that's horrible, don't do that. They never hear the positive.

Repentance, Assurance, and Acceptance in Christ

Justin Perdue. A brief interjection here too on something that you were talking about earlier. I think that one of the problems in the church, in terms of how this is discussed and presented, is there is a fundamental misunderstanding of even repentance and how God's law might be used with respect to that.

If the cravings of our flesh and our corruption become very obvious to us as we are being confronted by God's law and God's design, I am mindful again of how Solomon starts Proverbs 1 .7, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

What is that? In my mind, brother, that's a verse about repentance because the fear of the Lord involves knowing Him, having reverence for Him, understanding who He is and what He requires. We need to talk about what repentance is.

Biblically, it's something that God does to us. He repents us, and it's a change of mind about God and who He is and what He requires, about ourselves and our corruption and our need, and Christ and the way of salvation.

This is the difference. Ultimately, brother, if I had to boil it down, again, the difference between the church and the world, to frame it that way, is not that the church does not sin sexually and the world does.

The difference is that in the church, by God's grace alone, we have actually come to agree with Him. We have sided with God against our sin rather than siding with our sin against God. That's the difference.

What does that do? When that happens, when that change of mind happens, where do we run and where do we flee? Only to Christ. Where else could we go? I want to just stand on the tabletops and say that the only solution to the painful pursuit of fallen man to escape the accusations and the condemnation of God's law with respect to our sexuality, the only solution is Jesus, and so we hold Him out.

In this area, John, we could maybe riff on this for a little bit. Guilt and shame and disgrace don't work, but guilt, shame, and disgrace are something I would wager that we all carry around with us as it relates to this topic in a very unique way.

The beautiful thing about the gospel is that we need not carry guilt, shame, and disgrace around with us anymore because Jesus has taken all of that away. That message, that truth, never maybe sounds sweeter to a sinner's ears than when we're having this conversation.

Everything that I've ever done that I'm ashamed of and the cravings of my flesh that I hate and that I am embarrassed by at points, and I see my corruption, to know that Christ has dealt with that and that I am His forever and that I really am righteous in Him and that He has taken all of that mess away from me is absolutely essential.

I can't help but think as just a Christian, as a pastor, in an evangelistic sense, brother, this is what the world longs for. That's right. It's this kind of liberation, not the liberation that's being sought in the culture, but this.

This is liberation.

Well, I know I've counseled people where they feel as if I've already given in this much, I might as well just give in all the way. Why fight anymore? When you bring in the gospel and you bring in forgiveness and say, dear friend, you've been forgiven of that sin.

I know that you feel like you have failed and because you have failed, why even try? Just give up. But the gospel comes in and says, no, you don't have to live in bondage. God does not consider you righteous because of what you have not done.

He considers you righteous because of what Christ has done. Now let's fight again. Let's get up and fight. Let's keep fighting because there's more joy in resting in Christ than there ever would be. Then indulging in this sin.

This is the thing that's the difference is that as men who understand a covenantal perspective, a covenant of works, and a covenant of grace, this confessional idea, we know for a fact that it's the battle between resting in Christ will bring joy versus giving into the flesh will steal joy.

So every day we wake up when we fail, we go, but yet there can be hope and yet there can be joy because of the forgiveness and mercy and kindness of my God. He will come and restore me. This is 1 John 1 .9.

This is why we must confess our sins. It's not if you sin, it's when you sin. I said this a while back that God expects you to sin. Otherwise, why would he not command you to repent? He demands it of you.