Focus: Be His Echo

Foundation Scripture: 1 Peter 4:7-10 (TPT)

Prayer Points:
1. Increased Passion for Purposeful Prayer
2. Body of Christ to Echo God’s Love
3. Believers to Use Their Gifts to Glorify God
4. Powerful Sunday Service

People often ponder common questions about boundaries in relationships. Such as: Whether all sexual activity outside of marriage is a sin? What about showing affection? Isn’t it sex outside of marriage that Scripture explicitly prohibits? How can you say definitively that other activities are wrong? What if we’re in a committed relationship? Shouldn’t our physical relationship “progress” as other aspects of our relationship deepen? In this day and age, how far is really too far?

The Bible teaches that all sexual activity outside of marriage is sin, and all romantically oriented physical activity is sexual.

I submit that there is a solid argument to be made from Scripture that there is no room for any sexual relationship outside of marriage. The concept becomes more apparent when we look at what the Bible has to say about 1) sex, 2) our relationships with other believers and, 3) sexual immorality itself.

1.Let’s talk about SEX!
· As a good initial principle, we should affirm that sex itself (and sexual activity in general) is not inherently negative or sinful. On the contrary, in the proper context, it is God’s good gift.

· God instituted sex within marriage for purposes of procreation, pleasure, intimacy, holiness, and ultimately for His glory.

a. It’s part of His design for family.

b. Once married, our bodies belong to our spouses.

2. Brothers and Sisters in Christ
· How are we to relate to everyone else (especially believers), and how does that question inform the topic of premarital sexual activity?
· The simple answer is that every believer I am not married to is my brother or sister in Christ, and I should act accordingly.

· Consider verse 6. Some translations render the word “wrong” as “defraud.” To defraud someone is to deceive that person. In this context it means, to imply a commitment that does not exist by doing inappropriate things with someone outside of a proper relationship (i.e., marriage) to satisfy my own “passionate lust.” To commit sexual immorality with and against someone, far from showing the “love” to which Scripture calls all believers, is to act like those “who do not know God.” This passage calls such acts “sin.”

3. “How far can we go?”
· The problem with asking, “How far can we go?” is that if we want to positively pursue godliness, it’s simply the wrong question. What that question really asks is, “How close to the line (sexual sin) can I get without crossing it?”

· The Greek word for “flee” in this passage is an exaggerated form of the word “repent” that means (roughly) to turn and run from something.

· The question we should all ask in any area of our lives is, “How can I best pursue that to which God in His Word has positively called me?” He has called us all to pursue holiness and purity in our personal lives. That leaves little room for intentional flirtation with any sin, sexual or otherwise.

In conclusion:
· Let me close by reminding us all that while God hates sin, and sexual sin, like all sin, is destructive to us and grieving to God, there is hope and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. If we truly repent of our past sins and turn from them and believe in the atoning blood of Christ, we are not “damaged goods,” but new creations. What was red as crimson has become white as snow.