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Living in this world, Christians struggle with sexual sin from the inside of their hearts and from the outside. On the one hand, believers find themselves living in a culture that parades sexual deviancy as if it were a virtue, an acceptable way to define one’s identity in a society that welcomes open exposure as a norm. “Come to us, celebrate your sexual identity, practice whatever makes you happy, there is no judgment,” they say. Sadly, many have listened and ruined their lives (see Prov. 7).
On the other hand, believers often feel powerless over the lust that arises from within. This shameful experience often leads many Christians to bear the problem alone, with a rather hopeless outlook that maybe this deep struggle indicates that they are not true Christians. Many believers, therefore, live in guilty silence, hoping that one day the problem will simply go away and assuming that little can be done to overcome powerful indwelling lust.
This is a problem, I add, that indicts everyone if we understand Jesus’ words, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28). Who will cast the first stone?
Believers often feel confused, ashamed, and unable to overcome sexual sin. Yet there is indeed good news for the believer in the struggle against sexual sin. The Lord has called us to holiness in how we conduct ourselves sexually. If our Lord commands this, we can trust Him that He also promises us His help, by the Holy Spirit, to lead a sexually pure life for His glory.
encouragement for the battle
Many people who claim faith in Christ struggle with pornography addiction, engage in fornication, practice cohabitation outside marriage, dress immodestly, and entertain lustful thoughts and desires. Yet it is important to observe a fundamental difference between those who live in sin without repentance and those who battle sexual sin in such a way that leads to godly sorrow that produces genuine repentance. As 1 John 3:6 states, “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning.” John is describing those who engage in willful, habitual sin with a mindset that such behavior is permissible as Christians. To such a person, John responds by saying that those who keep on sinning have never seen Christ or known Him.
What John describes above is not what a true believer thinks about sexual sin. Appreciating this encouragement is vital for making progress in cultivating sexual purity. It is one thing for someone to practice sexual immorality as a way of life but quite another thing to avoid the temptations at the inception and to turn away from the sin if committed. Here the Scriptures provide great instruction to help the believer cultivate sexual holiness as a child of God, far different from what amounts to blatantly antinomian, licentious sexual behavior.
Believers are to appreciate that the battle against sexual sin toward godly repentance is evidence itself of the sanctifying work of the Spirit. When Paul describes in Romans 7 the war in the believer’s heart over sin, he encourages the believer by reminding him, “It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me” (v. 17). Paul is not excusing sin, but he is making a distinction between the regenerate heart and the body of sin that is still present until glorification.
This distinction between the inward and outward man is important so that we are realistic about the ongoing presence of sin. We are not perfected until glorification. The believer must remember that the ongoing presence of sin does not make him an unbeliever. The fact that genuine sorrow and repentance happens in the believer’s life, in light of this struggle, is evidence of the Spirit’s work, even if it is only a small beginning (Heidelberg Catechism 114).
One cannot overestimate the importance of embracing this truth in the cultivation of sexual holiness. When the believer sins, it does no good to wallow in sin as if he is not a believer; rather, he must learn to appreciate the Spirit’s convicting work and continually return to the Lord and confess his sin. God promises that He is faithful and just, every time, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). We must believe His gospel promise. This struggle is evidence of a genuine Christian faith.
practical helps for the battle
The Lord has given us in His Word helps to cultivate sexual holiness. The first scriptural provision has to do with the specific way that the believer is instructed to respond to sexual temptation. The Bible identifies many sins that Christians must “fight” against in this life. What may not be appreciated is that there are two sins that Christians are called not to stand around and fight but rather to flee—meaning to turn the other way and run away from as fast as possible. Paul states plainly, “Flee from sexual immorality” and “flee from idolatry” (1 Cor. 6:18; 10:14). One might think, in this context, of Joseph’s running the other way upon the advances of Potiphar’s wife.
The reason that believers are called to flee the sins of idolatry and sexual immorality is that these two perennial sins led to Israel’s demise in the wilderness. The Old Testament records in abundance that these sins were of great consequence in pulling Israel’s heart away from the Lord. One only has to think of Solomon’s great fall after his many marriages to foreign women (1 Kings 11:9). Those who are aware of the consequences of sexual sin can testify to the hardening of their hearts against loyalty to the Lord and the sense of aloneness that follows.
Provided for us, then, is a straightforward, practical provision for the believer to fight sexual sin: run the other way, in the strength of the Spirit. This means that when the believer puts himself into any situation in which sexual sin is possible, its allure, met with sinful human desire and lust, is so powerful—yes, it’s that powerful—that some kind of sexual deviance will follow. To be awake and aware of these scenarios that lead to sexual immorality is a crucial responsibility of the believer. One cannot overcome sexual sin if the same settings and scenarios that open the door to the vice are not put away. This is at the heart of Jesus’ words, “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off” (Matt. 5:30). The Christian is called, by the strength of the Spirit, to flee every scenario that would lead to that which entertains the first uprisings of any lust in the heart.
Along with this help, the Scriptures provide a second provision for the believer that makes the ability to flee sexual sin possible. This provision has to do with renewing our minds in the truth of our union with Christ.
Anyone engaged in pornography should know what is happening to his mind. Experts tell us that the largest blasts of dopamine response to the reward centers in our brains come with sexual pleasure. Pornography wears out one’s reward center, damages circuitry, and shrinks the brain, ruining God’s good design of sexuality within marriage. In biblical language, David described his sin as wasting away his bones and removing his physical strength (Ps. 32:3). The good news is that ceasing from pornography can reverse this damage, and brain circuitry can be brought back to normal levels.
Christians, however, recognize that there is a provision to help us in the Lord’s call to renew and strengthen our minds as we discern His will (Rom. 12:2). As Jesus expressed: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41). To cultivate sexual holiness, we must watch and pray daily, taking into consideration that we have been joined to Jesus Christ by faith and are in holy union with Him. Paul views the truth of our union with Christ as an important deterrent to any form of sexual impurity:
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. 6:17–20)
To use our bodies for sexual impurity is to bring into our union with Christ that which is impure and profane. A horrific thought is included to deter sexual immorality: “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!” (v. 16). In Christ’s life, death, burial, and resurrection, we have been joined to Him by faith; we are brought out of the old Adam and from slavery to sexual sin, and joined to Christ, which comes with a solemn call to “consider [ourselves] dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). We are to reckon of ourselves now what is already true of us in Christ: we are new creatures joined to His body.
When we appreciate that Christ died to set us free from the bondage of our old ways of sexual immorality and joined us to Him that we might be formed into His image, we begin to find delight in the holiness and purity that He wills for us.
god’s gracious gift of your spouse
In the cultivation of sexual holiness, it is also important to remember that God has provided for us in marriage a proper setting in which to enjoy the physical and relational desires that we have in this life. This gracious provision should be a great deterrent to sexual immorality. God designed sexual desire and intimacy to be fulfilled within the context of marriage. The Scriptures state, “What . . . God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt. 19:6) and “Let the marriage bed be kept undefiled” (Heb. 13:4). Sexual immorality is a great cause of this man-made separation.
Think of the spouse to whom God has joined you in this life. Look upon this person made in God’s image. What do you see? A gift from God to you. Your spouse is loved by God and watched over by Him, and He desires that you love one another and never share that love or intimacy with someone else. What beautiful righteousness is evident from God in this design. Can we through sexual sin so easily hurt our spouse, who is a gift from God to us, and who was chosen by God for us, to cherish and love? This is an important question that incentivizes the cultivation of sexual purity.
The Lord has given you a special gift, a specific provision, that through marriage the mystery of Christ’s love for His church may be known. “Drink water from your own cistern[s]. . . . Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers” (Prov. 5:15, 17). There you will enjoy a love that is satisfying, fulfilling, and for God’s glory. Dear Christian, “flee sexual immorality.” It is God’s will for you as His redeemed child and separated from the world.