10 So Where Do We Go from Here?
It was hard for him to remember when sex hadn’t been a struggle. It was hard to remember a day when he hadn’t been hit with guilt, shame, regret, and fear. It was hard for him to remember what it was like to feel free and normal. It was hard for him.
The world of sex had been opened up to him long before he was emotionally or spiritually mature enough to handle it. In middle school he fell in with a group of boys who shared sex as their common interest. They knew little more than that women’s bodies were different and interesting and well worth investigating. Their conversations were dirty and uninformed, but they were compelling. He found himself thinking about women’s “parts” and about how to get the girls at school to show him stuff. It wasn’t long before he was stealing men’s magazines from the local drug store and hanging around the women’s dressing rooms at the local department store.
His thoughts about hanging out with girls had little to do with relationship. He was on a constant search for the girls who would “put out,” although he would’ve denied it if you had accused him. In high school he became increasingly obsessed with and addicted to sex. In it he found identity, power, and pleasure that he could find nowhere else. He had a stash of paper and video pornography hidden at home and was always on the prowl outside his home, but his parents had no idea. To them, his interest in girls was just a teenage boy being a teenage boy.
His first three years of college were made up of mandatory classes and a whole lot of drinking and sex. If not with a female college classmate, he spent the weekend at local strip clubs. He had no idea of the deep emotional and spiritual trouble he was in. He had no concept of the damage he was doing to his soul. In his fourth year of college he was invited to a party by a girl he thought was pretty hot, so he gladly accepted the invitation. What he didn’t know was that the party was sponsored by a campus ministry. It didn’t seem like much of a party, but he continued to accept the girl’s invitations to these ministry gatherings because he was interested in her and intrigued by what he heard. Although he wasn’t able to describe it, he was increasingly concerned about himself and how he was living. He felt guilt and regret as he had never experienced in his life. He began to ask questions of the people in charge, and before long he had given his heart to the Lord.
Although on one hand he was filled with joy, on the other hand he felt as if he carried a heavy burden around with him every day. He knew he was God’s child, and he knew he was forgiven, but he also soon knew that he wasn’t free of sexual temptation. There were times when he missed the old days and desperately wanted what he knew he couldn’t have. But he didn’t think it was possible to tell his Christian friends about his struggle. What would they think of him? What would they do? He decided there was no way to share with others his addiction. He would give himself to knowing his faith and trying better. He would get involved in all the activities he could, and he would hang with the right people. He would read his Bible every morning and focus on the right things throughout the day. He was on God’s side, and he would kick this thing.
But he didn’t kick it; it recaptured him. It started with titillating sites on the Internet, then increased secret viewing of pornography and sneaking out to the occasional strip club. He felt scared and defeated but would not reach out for help; there just seemed to be no way. In the midst of this, there were ways in which he did grow and his life did change. He grew in biblical literacy and theological understanding. He involved himself in the ministries of the campus church. As his heart was being torn in two different directions, he met his future wife. She was beautiful, pure, and spiritually mature. She seemed almost too good to be true. For him, it was as close as one could get to love at first sight, but it also made him afraid. What if she knew who he really was? What if she knew where he had been and what he had done? What if she ever found him looking at pornography—then what?
He decided two things. First, there was no way he was going to jeopardize the first good relationship of his life by telling her things she simply couldn’t handle. He would never open up. He would avoid the need to answer direct questions. He would hide his struggle. Second, he determined that illicit sex was gone, in his past, never to return. And he knew how he would pull it off—marriage. Clearly, God had brought her into his life to help him defeat something he hadn’t been able to defeat. The legitimate sexual relationship of marriage would liberate him from his desire to have illegitimate sex outside of marriage. He was so happy. He proposed, she accepted, and they married two months after graduation.
The first several months of marriage made him feel free from the struggles of his past. The newness, freedom, and excitement of sex with his wife in the context of marriage kept his thoughts and desires focused. He began to think that he had turned the corner, that is, until that day at the mall. Not only did he notice that attractive woman and think things he hadn’t thought in a while, but also he followed her around, hoping to see more. He left the mall devastated but still not willing to tell his secret. The next several years were a great struggle mixed with occasional times of freedom. But the draw was getting stronger, and he was living a double life. His wife had little idea or concern. The only thing that bothered her was that they didn’t have sex as often as they once had. He knew he was in trouble, but for all his belief in God’s power, he didn’t have much hope.
– – –
She had been the cheerleader, prom queen, and all-around golden girl, but by her own admission and in her own words she had been a slut. She loved to be the tease. She loved the power of seduction. She loved hearing guys beg. She loved dressing a bit provocatively, and she loved being noticed. She loved having the body that men wanted to touch. She loved being the center of attention, and if sex was the way to get to the center, then so be it.
High school was all about being the girl everyone wanted or wanted to be. It was all about sexually teasing her male classmates and making out in the car with a selected few. She liked her body and the fact that men liked it too, and she grew more and more comfortable with using her body to get what she wanted. It all seemed to be the life of her dreams until the end of college. She wanted to get married but had little idea that marriage would be the end of the lifestyle that got her up in the morning and kept her going.
Once she had the man, the pattern of tease, conquest, and seduction was over. Sex for her had not been an expression of commitment and love. It had been about personal power and pleasure. So she found sex in marriage neither exciting nor attractive. Sure, it was exciting at first, but it soon became mundane and boring.
She found herself flirting at work or in the grocery store. It was wrong, but it was exciting. She employed the double meaning, stood closer to men than she should, and dressed to get attention. More and more she felt trapped by her marriage. More and more she was distant from her husband. And that day when she kissed her fellow worker in the stockroom, she knew she was in trouble. The problem was that she didn’t know what to do. She wanted what she could not have and didn’t want what she had been given. And on top of it all, she was convinced that if she was honest about her past and her present struggle, she would lose everything. She decided to keep silent and to quit messing around, but her feelings and the temptations didn’t go away.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ and Sex
Perhaps these stories touch your story or perhaps not. The fact is that many Christians are in the midst of some kind of personal sexual struggle or dysfunction. There are many married couples in the church who do not experience the beautiful, intimate sexual oneness that God designed. There are many professing Christian men living a double life. There are many Christian singles succumbing to temptations they are called to fight. There are many Christians whose minds wander daily and whose desires regularly go astray. And many of these brothers and sisters in the faith live in fearful secrecy and silence. They know theologically that Jesus died for their sins and that embedded in his death are the promises of forgiveness and freedom, but they simply do not know how to get from where they are to where they need to be.
They know that the hope of defeating sin is the reason Jesus came, but sexual immorality isn’t just sin—you know, like lying or cheating. It’s different. It’s private. It’s shame-inducing. It’s just not something you talk about. In reality they stare at the empty cross of Jesus, and for them it seems that’s exactly what it is—empty. It’s empty of hope and help for them, so they live in silence. They minimize the depth of their struggle, and they determine that tomorrow they’ll do better. Or they’ve already given up and given in, and they hope that in the end Jesus will forgive them.
In a world that has gone sexually insane, we have to do better. We have to quit being silent. We have to help one another connect the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to sex and to sexual sin and struggle. The silence must be broken. Biblical hope must be given. People need to be called out of hiding. People need to believe and act as if change really is possible. More of us need to experience the forgiveness, freedom, hope, and courage of the gospel.
That’s what this chapter is about. It’s meant to look at sex and sexual struggle through the hope-stimulating lens of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s jump in.
1. You don’t have to be ashamed that you’re a sexual being.
We have to start here. The cross teaches us that sex is not a problem; it is a gift. Jesus didn’t suffer and die to free you from sex but to free you from sexual sin. You must never give way to cursing your sexuality, because the same One who wisely created your sexuality came to be your Savior. He didn’t come to fill you with guilt because you are sexual but to free you from your bondage to and guilt from sexual sin. Your sexuality points to his glory as Creator and to the amazing creature you are. It is something that the cross allows you to celebrate, because it is the grace of the cross that gives you the power to keep sex in its proper place in your heart and in your life.
Your problem and mine is not primarily that we are sexual beings; it’s primarily that we tend to love the creation more than the Creator so that we use God’s good gifts in ways they were not created to be used. Sexual sin and struggle are not first a matter of what we do with our body but a matter of what we do with our heart. The great Puritan teacher and preacher Richard Sibbes wrote powerfully in “The Tender Heart” of this struggle:
Again, if you will preserve tenderness of heart, take heed of spiritual drunkenness; that is, that you be not drunk with the immoderate use of created things; of setting your love too much upon outward things. For what says the prophet, “Wine and women take away the heart” (Hosea 4:11); that is, the immoderate use of any earthly things takes away the spiritual sense; for the more sensible the soul is of outward things, the less it is of spiritual. For as the outward takes away the inward heat, so the love of one thing abates the love of another. The setting of too much love on earthly things takes away the sense of better things, and hardens the heart. When the heart is filled with the pleasures and profits of this life, it is not sensible of any judgment that hangs over the head; as in the old world, they ate and drank, they married and gave in marriage, they bought and sold, while the flood came upon them and swept all away (Matthew 24:17). When a man sets his love upon created things, the very strength of his soul is lost. . . . Talk of religion to a carnal man, whose senses are lost with the love of earthly things, he has no ear for that; his sense is quite lost, he has no relish or [savor] for anything good. Talk to a covetous man, that has his soul set upon the things of this life, he has no relish of anything else; his heart is already so hardened to get honour or wealth. Though it be to the ruin of others, that he cares not how hard it has become. Therefore we are bidden to take heed that our hearts be not overcome with drunkenness and the cares of this life, for those will make a man insensible of spiritual things (Luke 21:43).
Applying to sex what Sibbes says about the heart highlights what is important. The struggle for sexual purity is not so much a struggle with sex but with the proneness of our hearts to wander, that is, with the tendency of every sinner to look for fulfillment of heart where it cannot be found. As long as you are looking for life in the creation, you won’t be seeking it in the Creator. Sex is a good and beautiful thing, but desire for this good thing becomes a bad and dangerous thing when it becomes a heart-controlling thing. The idolatry of the sinful heart is the problem. So when you ask sex to satisfy you, you have to go back again and again because the satisfaction of sex is powerful but frighteningly short-lived. Remember that asking the creation to be your savior always ends in addiction of some kind.
You don’t have to be ashamed of your sexuality, but you must guard your heart as you live out your sexuality.
2. You don’t have to deny that you’re a sinner.
So much of what propels personal and cultural sexual insanity is active, regular, long-term self-denial. Self-righteousness is simply insane itself, but it’s there in all of us. The grace of the cross of Jesus Christ means we don’t have to deny reality anymore. We don’t have to work to make ourselves and others think we are righteous. We don’t have to recast what we have done to make it look better. We don’t have to work to make acceptable to our conscience what God says is wrong. We don’t have to argue that we are okay when we are not okay. Grace means we do not have to be afraid of what will be uncovered or exposed about us, because whatever is revealed has already been fully covered by the blood of Jesus.
This means that you don’t have to deny your struggle for sexual purity. You don’t have to act as if you’re pure if you’re not pure. You don’t have to lie to yourself or others. You don’t have to work to make lust look like something less than lust. You don’t have to tell yourself that your sex life is okay when it is not okay in the eyes of God. Honesty is possible because grace is available. Facing the depth of your sexual struggle is possible because you do not face that struggle alone; your Savior is ever with you. You and I must remember that self-denial is never a doorway to personal change. The grace of Jesus Christ welcomes you to live in the courage of honesty, knowing that there is grace for every dark and dangerous thing that will be exposed. The way you deal with your struggle for sexual purity changes when you embrace the fact that grace means you don’t have to deny your struggle anymore.
But there is one more point to be made here. The Bible never presents sexual sin as being of a different nature than other sins. Sexual sin may have different social and interpersonal consequences, but it is sin, no more no less. In Romans 1 sexual sin is listed along with envy, gossip, and deceit, even with something as mundane as disobedience to parents. That is why this is important. If you begin to think that sexual sin is sin of a different kind or nature, it is logical then to wonder if the same biblical promises, hopes, and provisions apply to it.
I sat with a woman who had struggled for years with same-sex attraction, while she said to me in tears, “No one treated me as if I was just a sinner. I thought my sin was different, and what worked for others wouldn’t work for me. It is wonderful to say that all sexual sin is sin—sin for which Christ died.” Sexual sin sits inside the circle of the rescuing, forgiving, transforming, and delivering grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a deceitful, lying enemy who would work to convince you that the provisions of the cross can’t help you because sexual sin is different. In our struggle for sexual purity, each of us must reject that lie.
3. You don’t have to deny the fallenness of the world around you.
You don’t have to act as if life is easy and your struggles are few. You don’t have to act as though you live a life free from temptation. You can admit that troubling temptation leaves you weary and sometimes confused. You can cry out for help when you are tired, distressed, or have lost the fight once again. It is right at moments to be angry at what the world around you has become. It is right to be sad that things around you are as broken as they are. You should hate the fact that sex seems to infect almost everything you encounter. You must face the fact that this right-here, right-now world will never be the paradise that your heart longs for. Paradise is coming, but this is not it.
You should be sad that the purity of your heart is always under assault by the seductive voices of evil all around. You should be angry that the sanctity and purity of your marriage must be protected because your marriage is located in a world where temptation is everywhere. It should not be okay for you. You should not grow comfortable with the sorry state of things. You should be angry that God’s beautiful gift of sexuality has been so deluded and distorted. You should hate the fact that we have gone sexually crazy. And you should groan and mourn before your Savior, who hears and cares.
The words of Romans 8 are helpful to read, as Paul connects the gospel of Jesus Christ to being honest about the brokenness of the surrounding world:
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (vv. 18–39 NIV)
Paul argues here that because you have been blessed with the unshakable love of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can face the struggles of life in this fallen world with honesty and hope. Biblical faith never requires you to deny reality. Honesty about struggles within and temptations without is necessary if you are going to live in sexual purity.
4. You don’t have to hide in guilt and fear.
One of the saddest moments in Scripture is found in Genesis 3. For the very first time, you find Adam and Eve hiding in fear from their Creator. Designed for lifelong and life-shaping communion with him, they are now afraid to face him. You know right away that something horrible has happened. Hiding from someone whom you say you love is never a good sign. Hiding because of guilt and fear is a red flag that something has gone very wrong. Hiding a problem seldom leads to a solution for the problem. Lying to others about your problem never leads to their understanding and assistance. You hide when you tell yourself you’re okay. You hide when you minimize your struggle. You hide when you lie to others. You hide when you give nebulous nonanswers to people who are trying to help you. You hide when you try to cover your struggle by making yourself look more spiritual than you are. You hide when you convince yourself that you can do alone what you will only ever do with the help of God and others.
The cross of Jesus Christ welcomes you out of hiding, because on the cross Jesus endured your punishment, he carried your guilt, he bore your shame, and he endured your rejection. He did all this so that you wouldn’t have to hide from God. He did all this so that in your sin, weakness, and failure you could run toward a holy God and not away from him. He did all this so that you could live in the light and not lurk around in the darkness. He did all this so that you would find mercy and grace in your time of need. So step out of hiding and reach out for help. Your Savior endured the rejection you and I should have received so that even in our failure, we will never see God turn and walk away from us. Now, that’s grace!
5. You don’t have to fight your battle alone.
The dark secrecy of sexual sin can make you feel alienated, misunderstood, rejected, and alone. You can fall into thinking that no one will ever understand, that no one will ever want to be near you or help you. The privacy of the double life of many who are struggling with sexual sin can make them feel separated from those closest to them. If you are God’s child, it is impossible for you to be alone. Let me make this distinction: it’s not impossible for you to feel alone, but it is impossible for you to be alone. You and I must distinguish between the power of what we feel and the realities that should shape the way we act and respond.
Here’s where the message of Scripture is so incredibly encouraging. God’s greatest gift to us is the gift of himself. What changes the whole ball game is his presence. The wisdom principles of Scripture wouldn’t be worth the paper they are printed on if it weren’t for the powerful rescuing and transforming presence of the Redeemer. Without him with us, for us, and in us, we wouldn’t understand the principles, we wouldn’t desire to live inside them, and we wouldn’t have the power to do so if we wanted to. Our hope for change is a person, the Lord Almighty.
You will notice as you read the Bible that every time God’s people faced seemingly insurmountable difficulty, God didn’t work to pump up their self-confidence. Rather, he reminded them of his presence. When God called Moses to confront Pharaoh, the most powerful ruler on earth, and Moses was afraid to go, God said, “I will be with you” (Ex. 3:12). When God called Joshua to lead Israel to defeat the warring nations of Palestine, God reminded Joshua that he was with him wherever he went (Josh. 1:5, 9). When Gideon was scared to death at the thought of leading Israel against the pirate nation of Midian, God said, “The Lord is with you” (Judg. 6:12). When God called David to be king over a defeated and divided Israel, God reminded David that he had been with him and encouraged him that he would continue (2 Sam. 7:9). When Jesus sent out his novice disciples to take the gospel to a world that didn’t want it, he reminded them that he would be with them always (Matt. 28:20). And as you and I struggle with sexual purity in a world that has gone sexually insane, God says to us, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). As God’s child it is impossible to fight the battle for purity by yourself, because you have been indwelt by a warrior Spirit who fights on your behalf, even when you don’t have the sense to call on him.
But there is more. God has placed us in his church because he knows that our journey to sexual purity is a community project. We were not designed to know ourselves clearly, to identify the places where change is needed, and to fight for that change by ourselves. As Paul says in Ephesians 4:16, it is “every joint” that does its part as the body of Christ grows to maturity. If you want to be sexually pure, you need people to help you see yourself in ways that sin blinds you to. If you want to gain ground, you need people who will confront you when you are rebelling and encourage you when you are weak. And most of all, you need people who will remind you again and again of the powerful presence of your Redeemer and the lavish provisions of his grace.
You and I will never defeat sexual sin and live in restful purity if we attempt to do what we’re not hardwired to do—fight the battle all by ourselves.
6. You don’t have to question God’s patient love.
Could there be any greater encouragement for us as we are confronted with the fickleness of our hearts, our weakness in the face of temptations, the rebellion that causes us to do what is wrong even when we know it is wrong, and the arrogance of thinking we know better than God, than the gospel declaration that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? God’s love is yours forever, not because you will be faithful but because he is. God’s love is constant, not because you earned it in your righteousness but because God knew it was the only hope for you in your unrighteousness. God’s love never wanes even when your allegiance to him does, because it is not based on your performance but on his character.
Here’s the point: if you think that God’s love is at stake, that he will withdraw it when you mess up, then in your moment of failure you will run from him and not to him. But if you really believe in your deepest moment of sexual foolishness, weakness, failure, or rebellion that when you run to him, he will greet you with arms of redemptive love, then it makes no sense to hide from him or to separate yourself from his care. Ultimately, in your struggle with sex, your love for God is never your hope. Hope is to be found only ever in his love for you. Since he loves you, he wants what’s best for you and will work to defeat the enemies of your soul until the last enemy has been defeated and your struggle is no more.
7. You can quit thinking that change is impossible.
For all the preceding reasons, you are free to quit thinking of sexual sin as impossible to defeat. I cannot tell you the number of people I have counseled in the midst of some form of sexual struggle and functional hopelessness. They hadn’t yet abandoned their formal theology, but they had lost all hope that the truths of that theology would have any impact on their lives. They had begun to succumb to the depressing perspective that what they were dealing with was impossible to defeat. In fact, some of them said something like this: “I’ve seen other people defeat sins in their lives, and I’ve seen some things change in my own, but not this one. No matter how hard I try and no matter how faithfully I pray, nothing seems to change.”
But here is the truth: because what you are dealing with is sin, because that is exactly what Christ died to defeat, because you are never alone while Christ fights on your behalf, because he has blessed you with mercies that are new every morning, and because he has surrounded you with protective and restorative resources in the body of Christ, you are not encased in concrete. You can change. You can be pure. Change is not a theological fantasy. It is the bright promise of the cross of Jesus Christ. A day will come when you will struggle no more. Why not reject hopelessness and move in that direction right now?
8. You can live in a new and better way.
So if, by grace, change really is possible, then the only logical response is to get up in the morning in the courage of faith and begin to address what’s broken in your sexual life. Perhaps the following questions will help you.
Where and how do you regularly set yourself up for failure?
Where do you tend to make foolish choices?
Where do you expose yourself to unhelpful things?
Where do you tend to tell yourself that you’re okay when you’re not?
What things do you say to yourself that allow you to remain hopeless?
Where do you look wrong in the face and do it anyway?
Where and when are you most susceptible to give in to temptation?
Where are you asking physical, sexual pleasure to satisfy your heart?
In what ways do you tend to minimize your struggle?
With whom are you being less than honest?
Are there moments when you still allow yourself to question God’s love?
Now, you know that addressing these questions won’t rescue you from temptation and make you pure. But they can be used to help you understand your struggle, to begin to think about what a new and better way looks like, and to identify places where you need to reach out for help. In other words, the questions can function as tools in the hands of a God of glorious grace, who alone has the power to defeat sin in your life and mature you into a person pure of heart and hands.
You see, only the gospel of Jesus has the power to bring sanity to sexuality in a world gone crazy and, within this power, the potential for real, lasting, personal transformation. Yes, you can live a God-honoring sexual life in a world gone crazy. Yes, you really can.
Review and Reflect
1. How does human sexuality point to the glory of God as Creator?
2. How does the reality of God’s grace free us from the need to sugarcoat our sin struggles?
3. How is sexual sin both similar to and different from other types of sin? How does the cross of Christ liberate us from guilt and fear and enable hope and obedience?
4. “God’s greatest gift to us is the gift of himself” (p. 159 ). How does this reality empower our fight against sexual sin? Why is it crucial to include other people in our battle?
5. Write out your answers to the questions Paul Tripp poses:
Where and how do you regularly set yourself up for failure?
Where do you tend to make foolish choices?
Where do you expose yourself to unhelpful things?
Where do you tend to tell yourself that you’re okay when you’re not?
What things do you say to yourself that allow you to remain hopeless?
Where do you look wrong in the face and do it anyway?
Where and when are you most susceptible to give in to temptation?
Where are you asking physical, sexual pleasure to satisfy your heart?
In what ways do you tend to minimize your struggle?
With whom are you being less than honest?
Are there moments when you still allow yourself to question God’s love?
How do your answers help you define your personal struggle? Identify specific steps you can take to lay hold of help and hope.
Heart Reset
Joshua 1:1–9
Hosea 4:10–11
Romans 8:18–39
Hebrews 13:5