7 If Sex Is about Worship, Then It Can’t Be Just about You
So where has all this sexual insanity come from? What is the root cause? Again, this insanity is not the fault of the entertainment, advertising, fashion, or Internet industries. The cause is much more foundational. Whether it’s the executive who uses sex to sell a product and increase his bottom line and personal success, the teenager using sex for another immature thrill, the old man grabbing at his nurse, the young woman who uses sex to get at the riches of an old man, the husband having sex with someone other than his wife, or the ratings-obsessed TV executive throwing sex into a sitcom even though it is not necessary to the plotline, each person is doing the same thing. In ways that they do not understand, they are part of the insanity. In fact, each is doing something that drives the sexual insanity we find everywhere around us.
All of them are taking sex as their own, acting as if it belongs to them and using it for whatever purpose they choose. Sex becomes their possession, their product, and their tool. It’s a “sex is all about me” view of human sexuality. I am deeply persuaded that the insanity of sex that marks human culture is the direct result of the individualization of sex. It’s sex for my purpose, my pleasure, according to my plan. This is what the next three chapters will address. Sex according to God’s wise and gracious design simply cannot be just about me. This individualization of sex cannot work. It will never result in sex being what God intended. It will never keep sex from distortion and darkness. It will never protect sex from misuse and abuse. Individualized sex simply cannot and will not go anywhere good.
The individualization of sex violates three fundamental biblical principles: worship, relationship, and obedience. The next three chapters will look at sex from the vantage point of these three principles.
They are two words that may seem strange when placed side by side: sex and worship. It’s intuitive to understand these two words as capturing two separate and very different worlds. But worship and sex properly understood cannot be separated. Sex is an act of worship, and the true worship of God will determine what happens in your sexual life. In fact, even the most irreligious person expresses worship every time he engages in some kind of sexual activity, whether mental or physical. Let me say it this way: in sex you are always worshiping something. Your sexual life is shaped by the worship of God, the worship of self, the worship of your sexual partner, or the worship of what you get out of sex. This means that in sex you and I surrender our hearts to something. The things we say, do, and seek in sex are all ruled by the desire for something. In this most intimate of human activities, you reveal who God designed you to be—a worshiper. You don’t put down your worship nature when you’re having sex. You and I have worshiped our way through every moment of any kind of sexual activity to which we’ve given ourselves.
Think for a moment about how your sexual life would change if you took the worship nature of your humanity seriously. Think of what a difference it would make if you always connected sex to worship. Think of what would change in your sexual thoughts, desires, choices, and actions. You see, if sex is all about you worshiping you (“I want to rule my life and do what I want to do”), it will never work as God intended. If sex is all about you worshiping your partner (“I can’t live without the love of this other person”), sex will never work as God intended. Or if sex is all about worshiping what you get out of sex (“I can’t live without what sex does for me”), it will never work as God intended. Worship of anything other than God always ends in the worship of self and the individualization of things that are designed by God to connect us to things that are bigger than our wants, needs, and pleasures.
There is a passage in the New Testament that gets to the practical core of what it means to connect sex and worship. It lays out what it means to approach your sexuality as a worshiper of God and to practically acknowledge that if sex is all about worship, it can’t be just about you. Read carefully the words of this passage:
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Cor. 6:12–20)
Paul looks at the subject of sex through the lens of four worship principles and two worship commands. Each one of the worship principles points you to your identity as a child of God:
Mastery: I have been designed for worship.
Eternity: I have been hardwired for eternity.
Unity: Grace has made me one with Jesus Christ.
Ownership: I am now the property of Christ.
The apostle’s words in 1 Corinthians 6 are as helpful and as practical a discussion of the implications of worship on the most intimate and personal areas of life as you will find in all of Scripture. I think that for years I had an unbiblical view of my own sexuality. I’m not talking about sexual sin in my life. I’m talking about a failure to have a robustly biblical view of this very important part of human existence. My biblical view of sex was limited to a catalog of things that God said I could not do. It was a boundary view of the Bible and sex. It was as if all the Bible did was define the boundaries you must stay inside. So I thought that as long as I stayed inside of God’s boundaries, sex belonged to me for my pleasure. I think many, many Christians hold this view. They wrongly think that the Bible’s relation to sex is regulatory and little else. But this legal understanding of the Bible and sex didn’t help or protect me as I thought it would.
The law of God is excellent when it comes to exposing sin. God’s law is a wonderful guide for how you were designed to live your life. But the law has no power to defeat sin or deliver you from it. The problem with viewing the Bible as a book of sex boundaries is that you don’t then seek or get biblical help for where the sexual struggle actually takes place. My problem isn’t that I am ignorant of what God says is right or wrong when it comes to sex; my problem is that even in the face of knowing what is right and wrong, I still desire and do things I shouldn’t. My problem is that there are times when I don’t care what God says is right or wrong. I want what I want. I will have what I will have. I will use what has been given for whatever purpose I choose. It is this deeper struggle that I need help with. It is because of this deeper struggle that Jesus had to come. You could argue that Jesus came to rescue sex or, maybe more explicitly, in sex to rescue you from you. Paul’s discussion roots at this deeper level.
Sex and Four Inescapable Worship Principles
The principle of mastery is the principle of principles. It addresses design, struggle, and solution. You simply cannot understand the sexual struggle and how it is solved without understanding this principle. Hear Paul’s words again: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything. ‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (1 Cor. 6:12–13). Let’s unpack the thunderous importance of these little sentences.
When Paul says, “All things are lawful for me,” he is not giving his worldview; he is parroting the misconception of people around him. Classic antinomianism would say that because Christ fulfilled the law, I do not have to live its requirements anymore. I am free from the law, bottom line. Yes, I am free from the requirements of the law in terms of earning acceptance with God, but I am not free from the law in terms of its being God’s ordained moral claim on my life as his creature. But Paul’s answer to this false-gospel worldview is even more forceful and eloquent than a mere critique of this misunderstanding of the work of Christ and God’s law. He essentially responds this way: “Even if everything were legal, I would still have a big problem, because when it comes to sex I don’t have just a legal problem; I have a mastery problem. Because of my mastery problem, even God’s good things become bad things because they become ruling things. My struggle is deeper than an ignorance or misunderstanding of God’s law. My problem is that there are moments when I am a rebel against God’s law because I have given over my heart to another master.”
Paul is saying, “When it comes to things like sex, my problem is a fickle, wandering, easily disloyal heart. I say that Jesus is my Lord, but I am daily tempted to give my heart over to the rule of other masters.” You see, between the already and the not yet, every day is a mastery struggle. Every day in every area of my life a battle of rulers wages in my heart. Every day I am tempted to shift masters. Every day I am tempted to tell myself that it is okay to give my heart to a master other than Jesus for just a few minutes; after all, in the grand scheme of things what difference will it make?
Sex is one in a list of a whole catalog of good things that can become bad things when they become ruling things. If you allow your heart to be ruled by sex or sexual pleasure or sexual power or whatever other thing sex gets you, you will not only misuse this good gift of God but also end up being controlled by it. Sexual distortion and addiction exist not because sex itself is bad but because we have put it in a place that God never intended.
So what do we do about this mastery struggle? What do we do about our fickle, wandering hearts? How do we protect ourselves from the insanity of being mastered by something other than the one true Master? Well, let’s go back to Paul’s words again.
Why does he insert, “‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’—and God will destroy both one and the other”? Here Paul recites a second popular misconception that essentially says, “It doesn’t make any difference what you do with your body because your body and what fills it will all be destroyed anyway.”
And as he did with the first misconception, Paul answers this false-gospel worldview with the principle of mastery. What you do with your body right here and right now does matter, because your body has a master—the Lord himself. You can never properly understand the gospel of Jesus Christ and conclude that what you do with your body is your business or what you do with your body doesn’t matter. Jesus gives you his grace not to free you to live as though you’re king but to live in the freedom of honoring him as your King.
Now what does all this have to do with sex? The answer is, everything. Sex is one area where I most powerfully and practically reveal what truly rules my heart. My sex life is shaped and directed by whatever is my street-level master. And I will only ever stay inside of God’s wise boundaries when he is the functional ruler of my heart. Does that discourage you? It does me! Because I don’t do very well at keeping God central in my life all the time every day. I am very skilled at convincing myself that there are things I deserve or things I cannot live without. I am very skilled at convincing myself that this little trespass, just this once, isn’t such a big deal. I don’t know how to keep my heart from being fickle. I don’t think I have the power to keep myself safe.
Here is where this first principle preaches the gospel to us. My hope in the struggle for sexual purity or any other victory over sin is found not in my perfect submission to Christ as my master but in his perfect submission to the will of the Father on my behalf. In my sin, weakness, and struggle I do not have to be paralyzed by fear or hide in shame. I can stand before a holy God, broken as I am, and cry out for his forgiveness, help, protection, and rescue. And I do not have to fear his rejection, because my standing before him is based on the righteousness of the Savior, not on my own righteousness.
But there is something else. The gospel of Jesus Christ also guarantees me help in this struggle of mastery. Jesus is with me, in me, and for me. He fights on my behalf even when I fail to have the sense or the willingness to fight. Now that’s hope!
This second worship principle, the principle of eternity, is of equal significance. Hear the words of Paul again: “And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power” (1 Cor. 6:14). Why does Paul interject this little sentence about the resurrection of Jesus and our future resurrection? The answer is that Paul knows himself, and he knows his audience. A core issue in the sexual struggle is our tendency to treat a particular moment of life as if it is all there is, all that we have. Permit me to recap.
By God’s design you and I are hardwired for eternity. That means that every human being carries around a desire for paradise. So there are only two ways to live. Either you think that this is all there is and therefore take control of your life and relationships and try to turn this moment into the eternity it will never be, or you understand that this moment isn’t your final destination but a preparation for a destination to come.
These are two vastly different ways of living. The first person tells himself that he’s only going to go around once, so he’d better get all the pleasure he possibly can before death takes him out of the game; and the other person recognizes the brokenness of the world, the temporary and unfulfilling pleasures of the here and now, and looks forward to the eternal joys of the forever that is to come. Eternity amnesia makes a mess out of sex. It puts the focus on present pleasure rather than on eternal joy. It causes us to be driven rather than patient and restful. It diminishes the eternal significance of little decisions, making life more about what we’ve been able to experience than about how we have lived. It causes us to replace the focus on God’s purpose for creating us with a focus on our personal pleasure. It makes us hope for a satisfaction we won’t find this side of eternity and to look for it in places it simply cannot be found.
It may sound weird to you, but you and I were meant to have sex (inside of God’s boundaries) with eternity in view. We were meant to know that sex will never be the paradise we are searching for. We were meant to understand that sex will never satisfy our hearts. We were meant to understand that a particular moment is more about the hardship of preparation than about the quest for personal pleasure. Our sexual lives were meant to be protected by the long view of life. Living with eternity in view is one thing God uses to direct and purify our sexual existence. Between the already and the not yet, it is far better for our sexual life to be lived on the basis of restful hope (the best is yet to come) than on fearful hunger (this is all we have; we’d better get all we can).
If you’re God’s child, the resurrection of Jesus guarantees you a future way beyond the glory of any pleasures you will experience in this right-here, right-now broken world. Again, Jesus lived with eternity in view in every way, and he did this on your behalf and for your benefit so that you would have the grace you need to live for something bigger than the temporary pleasures of the here and now, including sex.
Here, in the principle of unity, Paul puts forth one of the most precious mysteries of the gospel. Hear his words:
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Cor. 6:15–18)
With language that is shocking and sobering, Paul reminds us of something we must always remember as we deal with the relationships, pleasures, and temptations of this here-and-now fallen world. If you are God’s child, you have been united to Christ. This is not just an amorphous spiritual reality but a physical one as well. All of what makes you you has been united to Christ. Your emotionality, your physicality, your mentality, your personality, your psychology, and your spirituality have all been united to Christ.
This means that you take Christ with you wherever you are and into whatever you are doing. Union with Christ means your life isn’t bifurcated. You don’t have Christ and the spiritual part of your life alongside of everything else. He is your life. It’s Christ in and with you in the most intimate, secret, and, yes, even dark moments of your life. He is united to every thought and desire. He is connected to every fantasy and choice. He is there during every action and reaction.
So Paul asks the key question, “Shall I then take the members of Christ [the parts of my body] and make them members of a prostitute?” (v. 15). What a perspective on sexual sin! It is much, much more than a breaking of some ancient abstract law that God decided to lay on us. No, for me as a believer, sexual sin is a horrific violation of my relationship with Christ. It is to love my pleasure so deeply that I am willing to connect the Holy One to what is unholy. Paul is describing an unthinkable act of selfishness, disloyalty, and rebellion. Since I am one with Christ, and since sex creates a one-flesh bond with a prostitute, I am essentially in my selfishness willing to unite Christ to a prostitute. No wonder Paul says, “Never!” (v. 15).
I am deeply persuaded that there are few things more protective and purifying to keep in mind as you deal with sexual desire and temptation than the reality and totality of your union with your Savior. Jesus Christ is in you and you in him, even in the most secret and holy moments of your sexual life. And he is with you as well in the most unholy moments.
Does this make you afraid? Ashamed? Guilty? Paralyzed? This beautiful union with Christ, which only grace could create, also guarantees you all the grace you need to live within that reality. It guarantees all the grace you need to wage war with your desires. It gives all the grace you need to say no to what is unholy and yes to what is pleasing in the eyes of him to whom you are united. And it offers you the forgiveness you will need as you fail once again. Here is your hope: when Christ unites himself to you, he doesn’t leave his grace at the door. He brings to this union all those provisions of grace that you and I need to be what we’re supposed to be and to do what we’re supposed to do—in sex and in everything else. Your union with Christ welcomes you to be a sober celebrant. Sober, because you have grasped the seriousness of your union with Christ, and celebrant, because you understand the hope and help this union provides that can be found no other way.
Here is Paul’s capstone principle, the principle of ownership: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:19–20). First, Paul wants every believer to know that grace has claimed your body for a higher purpose than personal, physical pleasure. Your body has been chosen for a higher purpose than anything you could have ever planned or even had the ability to imagine. God Almighty, in the power and glory of his Spirit, has moved in! Now, remember, Paul is reminding you of this in the context of a discussion of the gospel/worship implications on your sexuality. As a believer, whatever you do in your sex life, you do as the temple of the Most High God. Wow! Could there be a more sobering identity concept for the believer to grasp and live out?
The next thing Paul wants you to consider is that, because you are owned by God, the temple of your body does not belong to you anymore. A new landlord has moved in and taken over the management of the building. He has claimed the building for his purposes. No longer a personal pleasure place, the building that is your body has been claimed as a temple for the worship of God alone, and everything you do and all the ways you do it must be done with this new purpose in mind.
Finally, so that you’ll take all this seriously in the midst of daily temptation, Paul reminds you of what it cost God to claim you as his own and grace you to be part of something far better than you would have chosen for yourself. The heavy price was the death of his Son. What an insult in the face of that price to act as if you have the right to do whatever you want with your body, whenever you want to do it, and with whomever.
Again, does this high calling defeat and discourage you? Know that what God calls you to, your Savior has already done on your behalf so that in your failure you can run to God rather than from him. Your standing with God is never based on the purity of your heart and hands but on the perfect life of Christ lived for your sake. Confess the places in your sexual life where you think or act as though you own you, and cry out for the forgiving and transforming grace that is yours because your Savior was willing to pay the price.
These four principles are worldview game changers. Mastery—your sex life will be shaped by who or what rules your heart. Eternity—your sex life will be shaped by whether you live for the temporary pleasures of the here and now or with eternity in view. Unity—your sex life will be shaped either by bifurcating your life into the spiritual and secular or by acknowledging that all that makes up you has been united to Christ, and you take Christ wherever you go. Ownership—your sex life will be shaped either by acting as if your body belongs to you or by acknowledging that it has been purchased by God for his higher purpose. And your sex life will be shaped either by forgetting the gospel of Jesus Christ preached by each of these principles and hiding in guilt, shame, and fear, or by remembering that Jesus perfectly did all these things so that you, in weakness and failure, would be welcomed into God’s presence and receive all the forgiving, transforming, and empowering grace you need to progressively live sexually pure in a world that has gone sexually insane.
Sex and Two Inescapable Worship Commands
Now standing on the foundation of the four sex-and-worship principles we have just examined, Paul leaves us with two simple commands. One is defensive and protective; the other is positive and missional. It is important to note that neither command makes any sense without the worship principles upon which each stands. Each command tells you practically how to live out the personal sexual implications of the identity/worldview that the four principles delineate. This passage, 1 Corinthians 6:12–20, really does have an indicative then imperative structure. Paul starts by saying, “This is who you are because this is what God has done (the four sex-and-worship principles), so now this is how to live in light of what God has done (the two sex-and-worship commands).”
I cannot adequately express how much I wish I had been exposed to the practical, moral wisdom of this passage as a young man, and I cannot tell you how sad I am presently that this passage isn’t taught with more regularity and clarity wherever God’s Word is taken seriously.
1. The Command to Flee Sexual Immorality
Here’s the bottom line of this defensive and protective command: if you are going to live out the sexual domain of your life in the way that God has called you to live, you are going to have to be willing to do a whole lot of running. You have to be willing to run from thoughts that work to paint as beautiful what God has forbidden. You are going to have to run from desires that at times seem too powerful to resist. You are going to have to run from the seductive whisper of the Enemy, who will lure you with lies. You are going to have to run from situations and locations that play to your weaknesses. You are going to have to run from pride, which tells you that you are stronger than you really are. You are going to have to run from selfishness, which would allow you to use others for your own pleasure. You are going to have to run from things you would love to participate in but would expose you to things you cannot handle. You are simply going to have to run from anything, anywhere, and from any person—all that is immoral in the eyes of your Savior. You have to be willing to run.
Paul’s call is not to medieval monasticism. We know that the greatest sexual danger to each of us exists inside, not outside, of us. We know that running won’t make us morally pure. But running acknowledges the presence and power of the sin that still lives inside us and how it makes us susceptible to temptation and, sadly, able to see as beautiful and beneficial what God calls ugly and dangerous. As you work to separate yourself from what God names as immoral, you cry out to God to do what you cannot do, that is, to deliver you from you. God calls you to do what he has empowered you by grace to do, as he does for you what you cannot do for yourself. How amazing his grace is!
The question for you is, where in your sexual life do you need to do a better job of running from what God has called and empowered you to run from?
2. The Command to Glorify God in Your Body
Paul ends with the call to live for something bigger than yourself. You have been chosen by God’s sovereign grace to live for his glory. Even in the most secret recesses of your private thoughts and desires, you have been chosen to live for his glory. Even in the most naked, private, and intimate activities of your body, you have been chosen to live for his glory. Even in those moments of the most powerful physical and emotional fulfillment, you have been chosen to live for his glory. Even in the most amazing moments of relational connectivity, you have been chosen to live for his glory. Grace has sanctified your whole life, all that makes up you. Grace has set it apart for a greater, higher purpose. Grace has given you new identity, potential, and dignity. Grace has lifted you out of the self-centered mire of the “me-ism” of sin that gives you little purpose greater than the fulfillment of the moment, so that you can live with greater meaning and purpose than you have ever lived with before. Grace gives you back your sanity and your humanity. Grace connects you once again to the purpose for which you were designed and given breath. Grace rescues you from your bondage to passions run wild and thoughts run amok to live in the sanity of God-consciousness that colors your every thought, desire, choice, word, and action. And in so doing, grace introduces you to the highest and most fulfilling pleasures that a human being could ever experience. You see, your greatest pleasures and joys are only ever found in living as you were designed to live, that is, for him.
If sex is about worship, it can’t be just about you. “Just about me” sex is sex gone insane. Sex for the glory of the Creator is sex made sane again. Sex as an act of the worship of God is sex made right again. And in this struggle of glory and worship, God meets us with his tender and patient grace. He invites us to confess, believe, and follow and empowers us in every way to live inside of his gracious invitation. So, how are you doing?
Review and Reflect
1. Explain what Paul Tripp means by the “individualization of sex” (p. 102). How has such individualization impacted your life?
2. How does worship factor into sex? Use 1 Corinthians 6:12–20 to guide your answer.
3. Paul Tripp writes, “The principle of mastery is the principle of principles” (p. 105). Describe this principle and why it is vital.
4. How can thinking about your sexuality in light of your union with Christ bring about both fear and hope?
5. Identify the two worship commands Paul Tripp outlines in chapter 7. Are you actively seeking to live out these commands, or do you chronically fail at one or both? If you see little growth in these areas, try to identify wrong beliefs you hold about God or about his Word. As you examine your heart, meditate on Proverbs 18:1.
Heart Reset
1 Corinthians 6:12–20