Transcript
Well, if you’ve grown up in the church or you’ve heard people talk about God and sex, you’ve probably heard them talk about sexual purity with this idea that God wants you to save sex for marriage and be sexually pure. But there’s been some problems with that phrase.
Uh, you know, I think a lot of people feel like being sexually pure means being righteous before God. And when we read the scripture, that’s really not consistent with what the Bible says. The Bible says that we are righteous before God because of Jesus Christ. And so what I think is more helpful is to use the phrase sexual integrity.
Now, what does integrity means? It means that I am undivided as a person, that I’m a whole person, that my character is consistent with what I say I am. And so if we say that we are followers of Jesus, if we have become pure through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, then we wanna live in a way that has integrity, which means that my sexuality and my sexual choices are honoring to God. I think this idea of sexual integrity is so much more powerful than purity. It’s not an either or thing, like either you’re pure or you’re impure. It’s really a journey of what does it look like for me to surrender my sexuality to God? And that’s not just my behavior, my choices.
That’s also how I think what I do with my wounds, whether or not I let the Lord really shine light on the lies that I believe God has called all of his followers to be people of integrity. You think about the scripture, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. That’s everything. And that includes our sexuality.
You may be thinking, I could never be sexually pure because of things you’ve done in your past or because of things that you struggle with. And this is a beautiful hope of sexual integrity, is that Jesus changes your identity, he changes your perspective. And then we’re on a journey of against surrendering that to the Lord of what does it look like to, to walk with more integrity. It’s not a, I either am pure or I’m not. It’s, I’m on a journey of continued surrender. And I really think that gives hope for all of us, that none of us have discounted God’s plan for us, that we all can walk towards fulfillment in Jesus Christ.