…live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer for human desires, but for God’s will. For there has already been enough time spent in doing what the pagans choose to do: carrying on in unrestrained behavior, evil desires, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and lawless idolatry. So they are surprised that you don’t plunge with them into the same flood of wild living—and they slander you. They will give an account to the One who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.
1 Peter 4:2-5
The world is surprised that Christians don’t join them in their sexual sin. Occasionally some of us have found ourselves wondering what the big deal is.
Before we go any further I’d like to make myself abundantly clear: sexual sin is a very big deal. In 1 Corinthians 7:26 Paul refers to a “crisis”. I believe the “crisis” he is referring to is the rampant hook up culture of the day (See verse 2 in that chapter). It is similar to what it is happening in our own culture currently. According to the Bible, this is a crisis. But why?
In December 2009 the painting “Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo” by Rembrandt sold for 20.2 million British pounds. It was the first time in 40 years that the painting had been seen in public.
Generally when someone pays such a high price for an item, they aren’t doing so on a whim. They are doing so because they are invested in the item in some sort of permanent way.
This is the honor we all have before God: God has paid the highest price possible for us. Him doing this shows He is permanently invested in us. In doing this, God is also showing us what is normal as far as how people should be treated. We are all called upon to follow His example in the way we honor people.
If I were to purchase the painting spoken of above, I wouldn’t carelessly throw it in the trunk of my car, let it become sun stained, and possibly ripped. I would certainly hire private security in order to protect such a valuable asset. Such care is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how God expects people to treat one another.
People are worth being permanently invested in and they are worth treating with care. So much so that God sent Jesus to die on our behalf. He didn’t carelessly toss us aside. He was permanently invested in us even though it was painful for Him to be so.
All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
Isaiah 40:6-8
The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
It’s true that people are physically attractive, and there’s obviously nothing wrong with that or with noticing that. A problem happens when we start to believe that there’s nothing else worth living for outside of that sexual experience.
The verses in Isaiah tell us that not only is there something else worth living for, but that something else is something that is enduring. It will produce lasting satisfaction, not simply momentary gratification. Love matters: living in accordance with God’s Word. God Word calls us to love people: to be permanently invested in people.
If a man commits adultery, he is sending the message to his wife and his kids that, in his judgment, they are not worth being permanently invested in. He can try to rationalize it all day long, but the reality is that his sons and daughters will be in danger of believing that they will always be alone. Their father wasn’t invested in their mother. Why would they expect their spouses to be any different?
They should expect differently because Jesus has commanded us to make disciples, and there are and should be men and women out there who believe that adultery is a gross and weird abnormality that wreaks havoc on all it touches.
Unfortunately the message that adultery sends does not always fall on deaf ears even though it is a lie. The consequences of adultery include an increase in rates of homelessness and prostitution in the generations that follow.
People are worth being permanently invested in even when it’s painful or unpleasant. The Hollywood lie of a “loveless marriage” is demonic. Do not let anyone deceive you into thinking that you’re doing anybody a favor by not being permanently invested in them. Do your best to value them even when they don’t value you back. Who knows what can happen? With God all things are possible. He can and has taken marriages where there is zero love and caused them to blossom as people chose to love each other even when it was momentarily unpleasant to do so.