Pastoral - Open Letter: Sexuality Matters

     For 8 years now, I have been in church leadership. In those 8 years, I have had the opportunity to preach many sermons on Sunday mornings. This past Sunday was one of the toughest messages I have ever had to deliver. Not because of the text, but because of the cultural climate. Many times during my preparation, I had to ask myself if I was content leaving out parts of the scripture in order to please man, or if I was willing to go against the grain to exalt Christ. Members of Providence, this is a decision we will all be forced to make in the years to come. Ray Ortlund said this a few weeks ago: “Bible Belt semi-Christianity is gone as a place to hide. The days have come when we in the South will take a stand for or against Christ.” He said this on the day that the SCOTUS ruled that gay marriage would be legal across all 50 states. This type of sweeping cultural change will force those who profess Christ, but are content with hiding in the shadows, to come into the light and profess him boldly. Culture is forcing us to make a choice, and we must stand together and proclaim that “Sexuality Matters”. If we do not, we will be denying the authority of scripture by ignoring biblical mandates, and ignoring the context in which God created sex. God has perfectly designed sex within the bounds of biblically recognized marriage, to be enjoyed by us, and bring glory to Him.

     We are part of a culture that is so prone to look for intimacy in all the wrong places. This world follows its fleshly desires as they are lead from one type of sexual sin and into another. Just spend some time on Twitter or Facebook and you will be convinced of this, just as I am. In Bruce Marshall’s book “The Word, The Flesh, The Father”, he makes a statement that shook me to my core. Marshall says: “The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God”. Marshall hits the nail on the head when he laments that this world’s search for intimacy, though manifested in the sexual realm, is really a search for intimacy with God. Whether homosexual relationships, pornography addiction, infidelity, sex outside of marriage, or any other type of sexual immorality you can think of, it is all driven by a desire to satisfy our longing for intimacy with God. Sex is remarkably sacred and ultimately about seeking the design God gave us. That is why sexuality must matter to the church. Not so we can show the world that they are wrong, perverted, and bound for hell, but so we can show the world that the intimacy and fulfillment they seek is found in the person and work of Jesus. By following Jesus, we can be reconciled to God, and God wants to show us that true satisfaction is found in him. Once we recognize that, we can begin to enjoy God’s gift of sex as he lays out for us to enjoy it in Genesis 2:24. The scripture says “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed”. The sexual relationship was so serious, that it was referred to as “becoming one flesh” in the scriptures. Sex within the bounds of biblically recognized marriage is something to be celebrated. Sex outside of the bounds of biblically recognized marriage is something to be mourned.

     In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul calls upon the Church at Corinth to mourn the sexual sin in their midst, and to remove the offender from the body. Paul’s push here was rooted in keeping the church pure and, by God’s grace, restoring the brother back into repentance. We will all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Rm 3:23), but the one who pursues Christ with all of his being, will not be able to stay in sin forever. Repentance is the posture of the true believer. The brother at Corinth was unrepentant, hence why Paul is taking such great measures to bring him back into unity with Christ and the body. It is my prayer, that none of us are living in unrepentant sexual sin. If you find yourself in that group, I plead with you, seek the Lord, repent of your sin, and be made new by God’s mercy and grace. Sexuality matters now more than ever in our culture and it is our job to ensure that God’s design for sexuality is the design that matters in the church.

Love you all,

Cory and Leah