Category: Practical Theology

Lust is a thief

casual-sex-formalEvery vice distorts or perverts something good. The tragedy of lust is that it robs us of some of God’s greatest gifts.

God made us for relationships. Deep, intimate, self-giving relationships.

And one of the most intimate human behaviors God has given us is sexual intercourse. By its very designation, sex is intended to be an intercourse––about exchange and relationship.

Lust perverts all of that. Rather than seeking relationship through deep, intimate, mutual giving, lust seeks out its own pleasure. Rather than treating the body and sex as beautiful gifts to be honored and protected, lust treats them as cheap pleasure-delivery devices. “Lust is as irreverent about bodies and sex as it is obsessed with them,” says Rebecca DeYoung in her great little book, Glittering Vices.[note]p. 174. I read Glittering Vices just before writing this series, and I’m deeply indebted to it throughout. I’m sure most of this post could be a footnote to ideas that DeYoung’s book put in my head. I recommend you pick it up.[/note]

How lust is robbing us today

Casual sex, casual nudity, and pornography are eroding our respect for the body and sex. They’re training us to separate two things that God created to go together––intimate relationship and the intimate giving of our bodies. In short, these are training us to replace the deep joy of self-giving relationship with the cheap thrills that lust provides.

One research report after another verifies pornography’s devastating effects on its users’ social relationships and actual sex lives.

In a sexual relationship, we fully give our bodies to another person. When that happens outside the bounds of a marital relationship––a full commitment and joining together of two persons’ lives––we do something with our bodies that we haven’t yet done with our lives. The commitments of our bodies and our lives are out of sync. I suspect this confusion of commitments has contributed to increasing divorce rates. Take a look at this 10-minute video, “The Economics of Sex.” As sex has become easier (as the video puts it, in greater supply), the number of committed relationships has decreased.

Relationships built on lust, whether casual sex or the porn industry, rely on the premise that no one is getting hurt––that these are relationships involving consenting adults. But that notion is fiction. It denies the relation of our bodies to our minds and souls. When you involve your body in something intended for deep intimacy, your mind and soul can’t help but be effected.

Some self-examination and practices

I’m usually quick to absolve myself from most vices when I look at them in their narrowest terms. Once I start to look at the larger concepts, though, I often find those vices lurking within me more than I had expected. Some rigorous self-examination has been good for me. I hope it might be for you, too.

Our goal here isn’t to feel guilty. Our goal is to identify these vices’ symptoms or catalysts in our lives, then to begin pulling them up like weeds at the root. That will always require God’s grace and will most likely require some dedicated practices on our own part.

In the next week, will you examine yourself for signs of lust? Are there any ways that you’re treating others’ bodies or your own with less reverence and modesty than they deserve?

Two practices:

1 – If lust is really an attack against intimate relationships of mutual-giving, one of the best ways to fight back is to invest in good, mutually-supporting friendships.

Rebecca DeYoung captures this well: “The best advice, then, for resisting lust is not to get an Internet filter (although you should do that too!), but to have good friends. If we have genuine friendships in which we learn to give and receive love in a healthy and satisfying way, we will be less inclined to wander off looking for sham substitutes and quick fixes. Good friendships teach us how to respect one another, to offer appropriate physical affection, to appreciate and care for others without looking for something in return, to trust one another. Someone who knows what real love looks like, whether in a sexual relationship or not, is a person who is less tempted to find lustful pleasures a tempting option.”[note]Glittering Vices, p. 178[/note]

One further question for friendships: Where can you share openly with someone and receive accountability? Not just about lust, but about life. Before Lent is over, can you find a consistent place for openness and accountability? Look for a person or community who will ask you direct-enough questions about good and evil in your life, who will encourage and pray for you and share openly with you, as well.

2 – Examine what you’re consuming. I’ll be specific and direct for a moment here. I’ve been dismayed by the number of devout Christians––even Christian pastors––whom I’ve seen talking about The Wolf of Wall Street. One website describes a few scenes from that movie (out of many similar ones) in matter-of-fact terms [a warning, these are rather graphic]:

“A man masturbates while looking at a woman in the middle of a crowded party (we see his erect penis).”

“A man is shown thrusting into a woman from behind while she performs oral sex on another man (we see her bare breasts and side of her buttock). A man thrusts on a woman while kissing another woman. Three fully nude women (bare breasts, abdomens, buttocks, genital areas are shown) kiss and caress a man lying on a table while a crowd watching chants.”

These depictions dishonor everything about the body and sex. Rather than treating certain parts of our bodies with special modesty, they display them to the whole world. Far from an intimate act of self-giving, sex is a public act that the movie viewers are invited to watch.

If you’re consuming pornographic images like this, and you don’t believe that they’re deforming your value of the body and sexuality, I think you’re kidding yourself. You can’t have a high regard for the intimacy of human sexuality when you sit in a public theater and watch people have sex and display their nudity for public viewing. Might we consider the mere behavior of watching things like this as lustful––a use and abuse of others’ sexuality for your own entertainment? As I’ve said before, I don’t know where the line is on some things like this, but I’m certain this is well past it. If you choose to stop consuming things like this, it might mean you don’t get to see every Oscar nominee. It might mean you miss a great opportunity for cultural engagement and critique. From the earliest days of the Church, Christians self-excluded from some of the culture’s most popular activities. Why shouldn’t we expect a need to do the same today––for the sake of our souls and our witness?

You were made for deep love and intimate relationship. The vice of lust seeks to rob those from you by turning your attention to shallow and selfish bodily thrills. May God fill us all with his self-giving love and free us from lust’s selfish deceit.

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Every good church needs…

every good churchA quick note to church leaders…

We start with several assumptions about what our local church must have. A question to ask: whatever it is you’re talking about, how long has it been a crucial ingredient in the church? Is it a crucial ingredient of all good churches across the globe today?

Some examples:

  • “Any good church has to have a vision and mission statement.” How long have these been essential? More to the point: how did churches survive until the 1980’s without these? See more: “The people don’t perish without a vision statement.”
  • “Any good church has to have a good children’s and youth ministry.” How long has youth ministry been around in its modern form? The Christian Endeavor Society claims to be “the uncontested father of youth ministry.” They started in 1881. We might ask how churches managed without our modern forms of youth ministry for the first 18 centuries.
  • “A good pastor or preacher has to be good at [fill in the blank].” Whatever fills in your blank, ask if any of the great pastors or preachers of the past would be excluded. Which preachers throughout history wouldn’t be expository or charismatic enough to meet your definition? Which great pastors of history would be too blunt or controversial or introverted to meet your qualifications?

None of these things are necessarily bad. Maybe our context has made something nearly essential. But it might be good to question some of our assumptions before we say the church must have _____ to be a good church. Perhaps our options are more open than we’ve assumed.

Ironically, critics of the church’s recent history (i.e. “The church today is losing too many young people!”) are among the quickest to advocate for recent history’s solutions (i.e. “We have to have a great youth ministry to fix this!”).

For the comments: Does the church assume anything to be essential that you think we might question?

Next week: “Absent from flesh––the casualties of bodiless theology (sex, the Church, the Eucharist, and Christian fiction, for starters)“

Want to get the most out of a sermon? Are you listening for these 3 things?

sermonWhen you go to a comedy club, you know what you’re listening for. Same for a classroom lecture, a motivational speech, and a self-help seminar. But do you know what you’re listening for when you hear a sermon?

Three things you should listen for in every sermon:

1 – The person of Christ, specifically the resurrected Christ

The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”[1. 1 Corinthians 15:14, NIV] At the center of the Christian gospel and faith is the resurrected Christ. Any proclamation that can stand without Christ’s resurrection may contain a fragment of the gospel, but it’s missing its core.

In any sermon you hear, ask yourself, “Why does Christ’s resurrection matter here? What here is only good and relevant and true if Christ is risen?”

This goes for Old Testament sermons just as much as New Testament ones. No matter what part of Scripture we read, as Christians, we read it in light of Christ.[1. He came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (Matt 5:17; Luke 24:44). On the road to Emmaus, he explained to two disciples “what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets” (Luke 24:27).]

If you’re listening to a sermon about Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, ask, “How do I hear this story differently because of Christ’s death and resurrection?”

If you’re listening to a sermon about David and Goliath, ask, “What does this story mean in light of the proclamation, ‘Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again’?”[1. To see how the apostles preached the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, read Irenaeus’ On the Apostolic Preaching.]

When you find the part of a sermon that’s only true and relevant and good if Christ is risen, focus on that above all else. That part will probably lead you to two more things…

2 – A gift from God

In Evangelism in the Early Church, Michael Green says the early preachers consistently proclaimed a gift:

“The gift of forgiveness, the gift of the Spirit, the gift of adoption, of reconciliation. The gift that made ‘no people’ part of the ‘people of God,’ the gift that brought those who were far off near.”[1. pp. 211-212]

When you listen to a sermon, listen for God’s gift. What do all those gifts listed above have in common? They all come directly out of the death and resurrection of Christ. Once you’ve identified why the resurrected Christ matters in a sermon, you’ve probably recognized a gift from God.

Do you see the difference between listening for this gift and listening for self-help advice or personal motivation? Self-help and motivation aren’t necessarily bad. What they offer can be true and helpful, and a sermon might include useful tips and motivation. But these aren’t the gospel, and what they offer pales in comparison. If you’re only looking for self-help and motivation, order a Zig Ziglar tape or a Joel Osteen book. When you’re listening to a sermon, listen for more. Listen for what God offers.

That gift of God leads to one final thing…

3 – An invitation

Early Christian preachers didn’t stop at a proclamation of God’s gifts. They followed it with an invitation to the people.[2. Paul celebrated that God “reconciled us to himself through Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18), then followed with the appeal, “Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Jesus proclaimed, “The kingdom of God has come near,” then immediately followed with the invitation/command, “Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)]

Whenever you hear a proclamation of the gospel, it’s not just something to enjoy, to appreciate, to “Amen!” or nod along to. It’s an invitation.

It’s always, first, an invitation to repent, believe, and be baptized. That’s an invitation to the not-yet Christian and the lifelong Christian, alike. The first moment of repentance, belief, and baptism begins a lifelong process of repentance,[1. John Wesley called this “The Repentance of Believers“] growing belief, and remembrance of our baptisms.

Because the gift of God is a corporate gift––a gift that makes us who were “no people” part of the “people of God”––the invitation is corporate, too. When you hear a sermon, don’t listen only for an invitation to you, listen for an invitation to us. How are we, as the people of God, being made one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world?

How are we invited to share in God’s blessings, to participate in his life and work, to anticipate Christ’s return? How are we invited to go out and proclaim the good news with our mouths and live it out by our actions?

Notice how this invitation is more than an invitation to the new church Bible study or fellowship dinner. You’re listening for an invitation that’s bigger and deeper than those. Perhaps the best next step for you to take is to participate in the upcoming day of service. Do that! And also keep your ears attuned to the bigger invitation that God is offering.

Two Notes and A Frequently Asked Question

Note 1: Don’t reduce the gospel to conversion and “getting to go to heaven.”

I’m not suggesting every sermon you listen to must be a simple, evangelistic message. God’s work in Christ and our invitation to respond go well beyond a moment of conversion. Take a look again at those gifts and invitations listed above. We don’t need to assume that the only impact of Christ’s resurrection is that we “get to go to heaven.” There’s much more here!

Note 2: Not every word is equal.

If you go to hear a comedian, what’s the most important part? The punchline. You know you’re waiting for it. Everything else prepares for it, so each word is important. The comedian couldn’t just spout punchlines without his supporting material. But if (s)he misses the punchline, everything else was a waste of time, and you’ll walk away cold.

Every sentence out of the preacher’s mouth doesn’t need to be pure gospel. Some of it may be helpful teaching, or memorable illustration, or enjoyable aside. All of those can be great supporting material for the gospel. But if (s)he misses the gospel, everything else was a waste of time.

A question: “What if the preacher I’m listening to isn’t preaching these things?”

First, don’t make that assumption too quickly. Give your preacher the benefit of the doubt for a while. Are these things implicit in the sermon? Maybe they’re latent within, and you’ll have to do some more work to recognize them.

Second, if you’re in a position to do it, you might graciously ask about these things. “Preacher, I’ve been thinking about the impact of Jesus’ death and resurrection. What do you think you couldn’t have said in that last sermon if Christ hadn’t risen?”

Sadly, current trends have led well-meaning preachers away from preaching these things. They’ve seen mega-preachers like Joel Osteen replace the gospel with self-help and motivational speeches. They’ve seen popular preachers call themselves “teaching pastors” and replace the word “sermon” with “teaching” (see my full post, “No more teaching pastors!“). Be patient, ask simple questions, and give them some time.

Finally, if Christ’s resurrection is unimportant to the sermons you’re hearing, and if they don’t invite any response to God’s grace… they’re not sermons. They may be great, entertaining, helpful talks. They may even be the kinds of seminary-level teaching I’d eagerly attend. But they’re not sermons. And if patience and encouragement and listening harder on your part doesn’t change that, I would recommend the most drastic of all options: find a different preacher. Do that only after you’ve done a lot of the first two things. But do it if you must. You need to be a part of a Christian community that consistently and clearly proclaims the gospel.[1. I’m heavily indebted to Michael Green’s description of early Christian preaching in Evangelism in the Early Church throughout this post, especially regarding the three consistent marks of their preaching.]

Next week: “Every good church needs…”

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