Sex is Stupid

I’m guessing you are somewhat familiar with what has been happening in the world of sex in the last few days.

Kenyan Olympic marathon runner Samuel Wanjiru died in the early hours of Monday morning, May 16, from injuries after a “fall” from the balcony of his first-floor Nyahururu home near the Rift Valley in central Kenya. He had just been caught by his wife in bed with another woman. It is not yet clear whether it was a suicide or if he jumped out of rage or what caused him to fall to the ground.

Samuel was some kind of a world class runner. Not only was Wanjiru the first Kenyan to win Olympic gold in the marathon, at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games; he triumphed in an Olympic-record time of 2 hrs. 6 min. and 32 sec. Other high-profile wins for the Kenyan star included the Chicago and London marathons. Wanjiru was also a former world-record holder in the half-marathon, with a time of 58:33. He became the youngest runner to win four major marathons and ran the fastest time ever recorded in a marathon in the United States.

And then there’s IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn who awoke Tuesday in a notorious NYC jail on an attempted rape charge as the outside world swirled with questions about the truth of the rape accusations and pressure mounted on him to step down.

The 62-year-old managing director of the International Monetary Fund is being kept behind bars on charges he tried to rape a hotel maid, charges that look, at least from the outside, to be pretty strong.

Add to the sex news of the week the revelation that Arnold and Marie Schwarzenegger’s marriage is ending due to a “sex” child (Wasn’t really love, just sex.) he conceived with a member of their household staff over ten years ago.

Here are three high profile people in the world who have destroyed themselves, one quite literally, over nothing other than sex. Sex is stupid under such circumstances. In fact, sex is stupid under ANY circumstance other than its God created intent, within the sacred bonds of marriage. And that is true whatever your status in life. Outside of its intended purpose it ALWAYS leads to negative, damaging and many times completely destructive ends. It is just plain stupid. So guys and gals as well, wise up. Put your passions and parts away and show some restraint and a little bit of intelligence.

One half of all men have a major problem with porn

The following is a partial list of some interesting elements I heard at a men’s seminar yesterday.

• Fathers are a poverty reduction strategy for the home.
• One half of all men have a major problem with porn.
• 11% of the children born in 1911 were into a one parent home. 30% of children born today are into homes with one parent.
• The difference between a man and a women can be seen in how they watch TV. Women want to know what’s on. Men want to know what else is on.
• 6 of every 10 families pay the monthly minimum on their credit cards.
• More than anything else men need to become disciples of Jesus Christ.
• Your system is perfectly designed to produce the results you are currently getting.
• The answer begins by getting men into the Word of God.
• Men are the world’s largest unreached people group.
• Men are not attracted to and are often turned off by flowers adorning the church setting.
• Wimpy love songs keep men from worshipping God.
• Men want to be called to discipleship rather than relationship.
• Discipleship is the process by which men become like Jesus.
• To be a disciple of Jesus is the highest honor to which a man can aspire. 

The grass is greener on my side

I am into lawns and landscaping. I am excited about having the best yard in the neighborhood. I hate weeds. I hate bare spots. I spent time on Monday of this week transplanting grass, which somehow got in my mulch beds, to bare spots in the yard. Now that is obsession gone wild.

Neighbors are always asking me how I get a yard like mine. Some of them just stand at the road in front of my house and salivate all over my yard. Well, it’s not that bad, but the envy does run deep.

This has not been a lifelong obsession of my life. It is just something I have developed in recent years. And I guess without kids at home to fill up my time I have to fill up my life with something else. Of course my first priority is my wife but my yard is right behind her.

So what is your obsession? For some it is their car. For others it a clean house, their desk at work, their looks, a good tan, physical conditioning, shopping, celebrities, guitars (that’s for Wayne), clean hands, shoes, making money, Facebook or even mint Mentos.

I think, if we would be honest, we all are obsessed about something. Here’s a question; what about if we were as obsessed about honoring God with our life as we were about our other obsession(s)?

As I said, I hate weeds. I will do anything to get rid of them. I have already applied my first treatment of weed killer. My second is coming in another week or so and in between the two I have hand pulled a large bag of “disgusting” ones. I will go to great pain to eradicate weeds.

I ask you, are you willing to go to the extent I am with weeds, or you are with your obsession, to root out anything in your life that does not honor God? In fact, if you are, would you stop at the end of reading this blog and write down the top three things about you that you feel God isn’t pleased with or would like you to change? And then write down the first step you will take in that direction.

Would you join me in becoming as obsessed about honoring God as we are about the lesser obsessions of life?

Check out the grass!

Say “yes” to a higher freedom

October 28 marks the end of a series on Pure Sex in our Sunday gatherings. The four messages of the series are available from the relaxedchurch.com website. As I mentioned a few weeks ago I have been using Ed Young’s book “Pure Sex” as my primary source for these messages. The book contains far more than I have been able to address in four sessions. And each week there are items I have to leave out, due to time, on the subject I am addressing for the week. The following two pieces are excerpts from the 28th that didn’t make the Sunday message cut.

SAY YES TO A HIGHER FREEDOM

Let me ask you something: If you were a real basketball player, which kind of game would you want to be in? One with no rules and little skill, with everyone doing their own thing? Or one with ground rules and a high degree of skill. If you had any talent at all it would be the one with rules and talent. The other game would do nothing but frustrate you, and your chances of being seriously injured would be high. The disciplined game would give you the chance to make some precise passes, sharpen your ball handling, and learn how to execute the pick and roll. If you were a real player, that’s where you would want to be. The game with no rules would inhibit your freedom to excel, but the disciplined game would give you all the freedom you need to play well.

In just the same way, you can have a higher freedom sexually when you choose to honor the rules of the game. I can guarantee you the person who decides to live inside some very simple, plain, and clear guidelines drawn by God for his or her sexuality will know more freedom than the one who ignores them. “The experience of freedom has to do with being loved and loving,” writes psychiatrist John White. “God designed you because He loved you. His purposes for you are an expression of His love to you. As you respond in love to His commands (about sex or anything else), you are set free—free to be and do what both you and God want. The more completely you are enslaved in love to His blessed will, the freer you will discover yourself to be.”

The truth is, what most think will satisfy—that is, pleasure seeking with no boundaries—will not. What the freedom lover discovers instead is that “living for pleasure is the least pleasurable thing a man can do. If his neighbors don’t kill him in disgust, he will die slowly of boredom and powerlessness.”6 It is what we are afraid will limit us that will really set us free. The truest freedom you or I could experience is the freedom that most closely conforms with our true nature—and our true nature is God-breathed and God-designed. He knows best how we are to function in the universe He made and set into motion. Say yes to a higher freedom by living inside the parameters established by God for your sexuality.

Say “yes” to a higher call

True relational intimacy is achieved by saying yes to a higher call. What is that call? To glorify God rather than to satisfy self. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, his younger brother in the faith: “Now flee from youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22). Paul’s advice was not just that Timothy run from immorality, but that he run to something better. What did he recommend that Timothy pursue? Righteousness, or rightness in God’s eyes. Faith. Real love. Peace. He also advised him to pursue those things in the company of others who loved and depended on God as he did.

If you make it your aim to pursue righteousness, love, & peace in this life, and if you surround yourself with others who are pursuing those same things out of a real love for God, I can promise you will have fewer struggles with sexual temptation than those who live to please self.

If you are a Christian, you know that your body is the very temple in which God’s Holy Spirit dwells. Your call, then, is to surrender it, along with your will, to the control and authority of Jesus Christ. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

You cannot glorify God in your body by participating in sexual intercourse outside of marriage. If you are unmarried, you glorify God in your body by remaining celibate. If you are married, you glorify God in your body by sexual fidelity to your mate. Either celibacy or fidelity. It’s that simple.

Say yes to a higher call. Determine that you belong to God—you are His possession—and that you will not unite your body with anyone but your marriage partner. Instead of seeking to satisfy your sexual desires, decide to pursue instead the characteristics of righteousness, love, and peace. When you do this, you are embarking on the best possible preparation for achieving relational intimacy. And you will be learning from the very Master of intimacy Himself.

free XXX software

Lets begin a movement of accountability in the Richmond area and beyond. Let’s start a movement that makes us accountable for what we access with our computers. And the great part about this movement is that it is free. I want to invite and challenge you to go to XXXCHURCH.COM or http://xxxchurch.com/gethelp/x3watch.php and download the free X3 Watch software onto your computer.

X3 Watch is accountability software to guard against accessing porn on your computer. In your set-up you provide the email addresses of two people who will get,semi-weekly or monthly, depending on how you set it up, reports of any questionable sites that might be accessed through your computer. I have this software on my computer and my wife and my associate get monthly reports of any questionable sites I might have clicked on. I want to challenge and encouraging everyone to take advantage of this free offer that will enable you to take a major step in your spiritual development.

Here’s an even bolder step. I would also like to develop a running list of those who are courageous enough to download the software and then contact me at steve@relaxedchurch.com and let me know that you have done so. I want to say, “These are the people who have taken the step to guard their computer use with accountability.” Come on, take the plunge. Don’t be a wuss. Show some conviction and courage. You will be glad you did.

Pure Sex and society

This Sunday (October 7) I began to address some issues related to Sex in our Sunday gatherings. Each week I will include here on my blog information, that relates to the Sunday message, that I am not able to cover on Sunday morning. Please forgive me if I might be a little too “bold” in what I have to say than what you are comfortable with. But my observation is that everyone seems to be talking about sex except the church. If God is the designer of sex and His instruction on it is of greatest importance, why don’t we discuss it?

Ed Young writes, “Far from being an isolated act with the significance of a sneeze, sex is one of the most intimate, life-altering, profound, and deeply spiritual experiences available to man. It is the most natural high our bodies can experience. Sex is a strong, strong force, and what we choose to do with it affects not only our own lives, but other lives as well. In fact, our collective view of sex can predict the fate of our very society.

Scholar D. Unwin wrote years ago in Sex and Culture, ‘In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on prenuptial and postnuptial continence.’ In other words, societies that place no value on premarital chastity and marital fidelity simply do not thrive. Unwin studied hundreds of years of history and concluded that the health and longevity of nations directly corresponded to the value placed on sexual purity. Societies whose sexual mores were strong prevailed. Those whose sexual mores were weak no longer exist. Could this be what ancient Israel’s King Solomon meant when he spoke of the “total ruin” which awaited those who disregarded God’s commands in this area (Proverbs 5:14)?

Imagine! Ancient history and modern surveys confirm what God has always said: that sex is a multifaceted gift of deep importance, and that chastity or lifelong marriage is the safest, surest, and richest setting for its expression. That’s pure sex—and it is no contradiction in terms. Pure, undefiled, undiluted sex is what God intended for us from the very beginning. If we make “safe sex” our highest aim, we will fall far short of the awesome sexual experience God has in mind for us as His children. He desires much more than that for you and me.”

I would recommend to you “Pure Sex” by Ed Young. Other than the Bible, it is the primary source of my information for our discussion of pure sex. If you would be interested in the entire Sunday messages contact me at steve@relaxedchurch.com.