I read an article the other day that really disturbed me. It was about a young lady who was sorry that she had maintained her virginity until marriage. She said that if she had it to do all over again, she would have slept with who she wanted, and not gone through the stress and mental anguish of protecting her purity. You can read about it here:
Shocker!
First, there aren’t a lot of people today who actually maintain their virginity until marriage. Second, I don’t know very many who made it, that wish they hadn’t.
So I began to explore this topic. There have been several articles that have come out recently in regards to virginity, and purity, and the stress that we place on students by constantly encouraging them to remain pure. But I think we are missing the point altogether. Yes, we have focused way too much on sexual purity. But we have failed by telling students that it was their responsibility to maintain their purity.
We have taught them that it is God’s responsibility to save their soul, but it is their responsibility to save their body.
“I’m saving myself for marriage”
Here are some very important keywords:
I’m
Saving
Myself
Isn’t this the entire premise of the law? I’m constantly working to please God, I have to perform in order to gain His affection and approval. We have separated sex from salvation.
“Jesus I trust you to save my soul from hell, but I’ll guard my body until my wedding day.”
And teenagers across this country are struggling with both sexual purity and lack of identity that is leading to depression and suicide more than any other time.
Why? Because it’s too much to handle.
The law is always going to produce in me the desire to do what I know I should not do. Usually because somebody somewhere never stops preaching about it. You know what the number one message I heard growing up in youth group was? Don’t have sex. Don’t look at porn. Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!
As a youth pastor, I fell into the same trap. I finally realized one day that these poor students were struggling enough as it was to keep the wrong thoughts out of their head, and then they came to church and I reminded them of those thoughts!
We glorified sex so much and so great that the act became greater than the God who created that act. We preached a law that caused them to do what they did not want to do.
That’s what the law does. It tells you not to do something so much that that’s all you can think about doing.
Do you know what grace does though? Grace begins to tell us who He is so much and so often, and who we are in Him, that that becomes all we think about. It’s exactly the opposite of the law. Grace is full of promises, and identity, and the greatness of the God who can’t wait for students to partake in EVERYTHING that He created for them - including sex.
And we are not echoing that grace as leaders. We are echoing the law. Jesus is saying, “Come away with Me,” and we are preaching, “run away from sex.”
Run away where? We’re not sure. Just as long as it’s not sex.
What if life in Christ was an adventure to be had, rather than experiences to avoid? What if maintaining sexual purity until marriage wasn’t even an issue because we were so busy living the life Christ died for us to live?
We have to stop trying to fix students with spiritual experiences, and pledges, and start teaching them how to live a lifestyle of relationship with Jesus. Why? Because sex is an experience. Getting high is an experience. Getting drunk and partying is an experience. If Jesus is just another experience, then students will always jump between the multiple choices. And along with that comes endless guilt and condemnation.
When living in relationship with Jesus becomes a lifestyle, every experience finds it’s fulfillment. And it’s no longer that we have to fight to maintain our purity, it’s that He fights for us, as we rest in Him.
Unfortunately, there are many, many people in this world who probably resonate with the author of the article I mentioned earlier. And they have good reason, because they were taught about a Jesus much less powerful and much less relational than He really is, a Jesus only powerful enough to save them in the afterlife, not in the here and now.
We have to get this right for the generations to come. We must glorify God who sent His Son to save us from ourselves. The God who makes a way when I cannot do the good I wish to do.
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