BLOG: Spiritual Growth: Killing Sexual Sin, Pt. 1



WRITTEN BY MELISSA H. STRAUTMAN, LMT

Spiritual Growth: Killing Sexual Sin, Part 1
Companion blog to “Killing Sexual Sin, Part 1” from the study Spiritual Growth

Before we were Christians, we could clearly be identified by our practice of a particular sin or sins.  Jason is a drunk.  Devan is a liar.  Megan is a gossip.  Casey has sex outside of marriage.  Sin ruled our flesh despite any attempts at self-help or behavior modification.

This is the natural state of man separated from God.  This should be expected and not at all shocking.  The shocking part is that God would choose to set any of us apart for Himself at all.  Not to brush over that miracle but if that is indeed where you stand with Him right now, take a moment and give humble thanks.  You are no longer identified by your sin but with HIM.  Does the world know that?  Can they see that?

Are you so thankful for this eternal pardon, that you are separating yourself daily from every tentacle remaining of the sin that you use to love?  Praise God that you can feel and can fight that battle with the help of the Holy Spirit that Christ left behind inside of you.  You will [by God’s will and promise] emerge victorious against whatever evil sin that still remains in your human body at your death; so that you will be perfect in His sight.

But what about all the battles left to fight?

You flat out need those battles.  They are the Christian’s burden.  No one likes dealing with all the problems in life but it’s God’s design.  It’s how He keeps you humble and dependent on Him.  It’s how He grows you spiritually.  It’s how He makes sure you know victory can only be had through Him.  You will not be perfect in this life.  You will be at war; war with sin.

There are so many scriptures in the Bible that talk about the ‘peaceful’ Christian…

  • Galatians 5:22-23
  • Romans 12:18-21
  • 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

Somehow, without our awareness, we have allowed the world to take these Christian characteristics, sow seeds of confusion regarding them and tell us that God wants us to have a passive countenance about everything in our lives, up to, and especially concerning, sin.  We have to know that the Almighty God wants just the opposite.  He wants us to hack sin to pieces; just like Samuel did to sin (King Agag); with no apologies or soft-sell.  There will never be true peace in the world, in our relationships or our relationship with ourselves, until sin is completely gone and the Lord is Lord over every heart and deed.

Sexual Sin. Love it or leave it?

For the next three weeks, I am going to be writing about one of the most difficult human sins to kill, sexual sin.  Pastor Wilson has taught three extremely helpful lessons on the topic in the Spiritual Growth series.

The book of Ecclesiastes tells us how there is nothing new under the sun but I daresay that the accounts of rampant sexual deviancy in first century Greece during the Apostle Paul’s time would rival anything we’ve personally seen in our lifetime.  Nothing was off-limits sexually.  They had no shame or restraint.  In come the new Christian converts who had decided to obey God and walk away from sexual immorality.  They were distinctly different in behavior.  Imagine the societal pressure on the early Christians to conform back to their old ways of pleasure.  Paul tells the early Christian churches…

1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such WERE some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-5
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.

Paul was simply telling the early Christians who were coming out of a sex-saturated culture that they must abstain from all immorality because they now know God; unlike those who don’t know God.  Paul could have focused in on any number of sins to illustrate our growing in holiness (sanctification) but he chose sexual sin to pick on, perhaps because he knew it was so difficult and it would show a setting-apart of Christ-believers so distinctly.

Being Sharply Negative

My husband and I now refuse to watch television and movies that contain sexually explicit material because we know that it’s not good for us to be desensitized to sexual immorality.  We want our feelings toward sin to be sharply negative.  We want our kids to see that the draw of sin can be resisted.  Allowing what you think is acceptable sin to remain in your life is like an eight-year-old being saved from a burning building and then playing with matches on the way home.

Let’s revel in our salvation from sin with further avoidance.  Let’s give praise and honor to the one who made it possible instead of thumbing our noses at our rescuer.   Let’s stop asking the question, “how close can I get to sexual immorality (insert any sin) and still be okay” and let’s start asking, “how far away can I get from my sin”?  When you are toe-dabbling in what God says is sin, you show your intention is your pleasure not His.  You show that you don’t believe sin is serious.  Well if that’s so, then Christ really did waste His time that day on Calvary.

If you see yourself as a “little sinner” you will inevitably see Jesus as a “little savior” – Martin Luther

If our darkest thoughts were put on YouTube, they’d go viral for their graphic disgust.  We’d be an overnight sensation.  We must intentionally run from anything that resembles our mortal sin and give unending thanks for the grace of God that allows us any moment of safety we have away from that evil.  Sex within marriage is that safety.  Those who practice anything other (as it regards sex) will not inherit the kingdom of God*.  Those are His words, not mine.

Yes, Christians will sometimes find themselves falling away into sin (sexual or otherwise) but they will feel the sting of wrongness that leads them to repentance and a driving desire to resist even harder that sin that held such pleasure prior to God changing their hearts.  If you say you are a Christian and you don’t feel this overwhelming guilt and despair over your sin, then you have every reason to question whether or not you are actually saved.  Grief over sin is a precious, precious reminder of the hope that we have through so great a sacrifice as Jesus.


Next week we will go to Proverbs and learn how to avoid temptation and find restoration after sexual immorality.  I hope you will subscribe to this blog and keep learning all God has to teach through these lessons taught by Pastor Steve Wilson of Grace Community Church of Bowling Green, KY.  You can listen ahead to next week’s lesson here: Killing Sexual Sin, Part 2December 17, 2017.

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 * 1 Corinthians 6:9-11