What Sex Outside Marriage Says About You
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - This week we are talking with speaker and author
00:00:07.780 | Paul Tripp.
00:00:08.660 | Paul is the author of a really helpful book
00:00:10.540 | titled Sex and Money.
00:00:12.820 | And Paul, one of the themes throughout the book
00:00:14.440 | that you make, and it's an important one,
00:00:16.340 | is that sexuality is never secular.
00:00:20.020 | Sex is always spiritual.
00:00:21.980 | Sex is always worship.
00:00:24.660 | Explain this dynamic for us.
00:00:26.940 | - Well, in order to understand the worship nature of sex,
00:00:30.140 | again, you have to go back to how we were constructed.
00:00:32.880 | Worship is not first an activity.
00:00:36.480 | You know, many Christians, when they hear the word worship,
00:00:40.160 | they hear Sunday morning, a service, a gathering,
00:00:44.120 | or if it's a real cool church, Saturday night.
00:00:46.420 | What's important to understand is that worship
00:00:49.040 | is first my identity before it's ever my activity.
00:00:54.440 | I don't just worship on Sunday.
00:00:57.040 | I really worship my way through every moment of every day,
00:01:01.800 | every situation, every location,
00:01:03.780 | every relationship involves worship.
00:01:06.600 | I mean, you could argue that if you took apart
00:01:08.840 | the motivation of human beings,
00:01:10.440 | the only thing we ever do is worship.
00:01:12.120 | Now, what does that mean?
00:01:13.160 | It means that something is always Lord over my heart.
00:01:18.160 | Something is always controlling my heart,
00:01:22.840 | the heart being the seat of my thoughts,
00:01:25.400 | the seat of my emotions,
00:01:28.000 | the seat of my will and my choices.
00:01:30.920 | So it's the control center of my humanness.
00:01:35.200 | So it's impossible for my life not to be ruled by worship.
00:01:40.200 | For example, the words that I say to the people in my life
00:01:45.920 | are controlled by what I'm worshiping.
00:01:47.760 | Think about this.
00:01:48.600 | If I'm worshiping pleasure
00:01:50.960 | and you're in the way of my pleasure,
00:01:53.080 | I'm going to say angry words to you.
00:01:55.480 | But if I'm worshiping God
00:01:58.840 | and you're in the way of my pleasure,
00:02:00.880 | I'm going to be patient, kind, and forgiving to you.
00:02:03.720 | I mean, that's the difference.
00:02:04.660 | And so it's impossible for me to take off my worship nature
00:02:09.660 | when I'm pursuing human sexuality.
00:02:14.800 | It's structured by what I'm worshiping.
00:02:17.520 | Now, let's be practical.
00:02:19.240 | If I'm worshiping myself,
00:02:22.080 | I'll use you for my pleasure and I'll hurt you.
00:02:24.780 | If I'm worshiping sex, I'll deny boundaries
00:02:28.720 | and go wherever sexual pleasure leads me.
00:02:31.140 | If I'm worshiping the other person,
00:02:33.480 | I'll try to find satisfaction in that person
00:02:37.340 | that I'm never able to find and hurt them and hurt me.
00:02:40.960 | If I'm worshiping God,
00:02:42.760 | then I'm going to love the boundaries he set for me
00:02:46.160 | and I'm going to love my neighbor as myself
00:02:48.400 | and sex will live the way it's supposed to live.
00:02:50.800 | - That's good.
00:02:52.540 | So what would you say to an unmarried couple
00:02:54.620 | who is presently living together?
00:02:57.620 | - This will sound harsh at first, but let me explain.
00:03:01.320 | I would say, "God's smarter than you."
00:03:03.580 | And when you say, "No, I'm not going to stand
00:03:06.760 | "inside of God's boundaries,"
00:03:07.800 | you're actually saying,
00:03:08.640 | "I know more about me and this thing than God."
00:03:12.000 | Now, God knows that sex is only safe
00:03:18.180 | in the context of a long-term committed relationship
00:03:22.160 | between a man and a woman called marriage.
00:03:25.700 | Now, there may be mysteries to that
00:03:28.280 | that I'll never understand,
00:03:30.240 | but I submit myself to that
00:03:31.880 | because I understand God as creator knows me,
00:03:35.680 | God as creator knows sex,
00:03:37.880 | and he knows that it's best expressed,
00:03:41.800 | it's best beautified and protected
00:03:44.880 | and made holy inside of these boundaries.
00:03:48.840 | What right, how arrogant would it be for me
00:03:52.760 | to say, "No, I know better."
00:03:55.380 | - Yes, amen, thank you, Paul.
00:03:58.100 | That's Paul Tripp, the author of the book, "Sex and Money."
00:04:00.620 | It's a very, very helpful book.
00:04:02.140 | You should check it out.
00:04:03.580 | And you can get everything you wanna know
00:04:05.260 | about this podcast at our landing page.
00:04:07.660 | Go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:04:12.660 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:04:13.980 | We'll be back tomorrow with guest, Paul Tripp.
00:04:16.280 | (upbeat music)
00:04:18.860 | (upbeat music)
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