The Seven Cardinal Virtues: Chastity

Text: Romans 6:5-14

Theme: Christians must flee the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and instead walk in the Spirit.'

Let me begin this evening by telling you a story about a young man that showed lots of promise, but who's life ended tragically all because he could not control his lust.

He was a young man who, seemingly, had everything going for him. His birth was literally an answer to prayer. His parents desperately wanted a child and they petitioned the Lord to bless them with a baby. To their joy a boy was born and they dedicated that young man to God. They gave him a name that means A Little Bit of Sunshine.

his young man grew up in a Godly home, with loving parents who dotted on him and spoiled him almost beyond belief. He was strong and handsome and courageous. He had wit and a sense of humor and enjoyed a good riddle. He was undoubtedly the life of the party anywhere he went. He was a rugged outdoors-men and would probably be considered a ‘man's man.' There were times in his life when he showed flashes of true spiritual strength, but they were usually short-lived.

This young man had everything going for him, but his life was tragically cut short in the prime of his life. At the end, he found himself betrayed, enslaved, blinded, and mocked by his enemies. His name? Samson!

Samson is considered a ‘hero of the faith' in the Old Testament. But the very same Scriptures that lift him up as an Israeli hero also paint a very sad picture of a man who's life never measured up to what it could have been. The Bible is very honest about Samson's short comings. He was irresponsible, short on personal holiness, and a man who's uncontrolled sensuality ultimately brought his downfall. Samson could not get a handle on his lust.

His life lacked the virtue of chastity, which is the cardinal virtue we will be considering tonight. Let me begin by saying a few things about the nature of lust.

I. LUST IS PASSION GONE WRONG

1. most people have come to equate lust with sexual desire

a. in many cases in the Scripture, lust does indeed refer to illicit sexual desire

b. consequently, if we are not struggling with illicit sexual thoughts or behavior, we assume we are free from lust

2. nothing could be further from the truth

A. THE COLOR OF LUST

ILLUS. Throughout most of Western history, red is often used as the color symbolizing lust, as it is a ‘hot’ color, usually interpreted as sexy, strong, powerful, and sensual. Christian artists often painted their devil as being red since he was seen as lustful and the father of lust. There was a time when many cities had their ‘red-light’ districts where prostitution was confined to. A number of years ago, researchers at the University of Rochester concluded a scientific study that underscored what most women have known for a long time. If you’re looking to catch a man, wear something red. The research concluded that men aren't all that complicated when it comes to attraction toward the opposite sex. The test subjects, all under-grads, judged women as sexier and more attractive if they wore red clothes or even appeared in a photo with a red border. One of the researchers commented: "As much as men might like to think that they respond to women in a thoughtful, sophisticated manner, it appears that at least to some degree, their preferences and predilections are, in a word, primitive." On the other hand, the experiment showed that the color red didn’t do a thing in attracting women toward men. So guys, save your money—the red sports car ain’t necessarily gonna be a babe-magnate.

1. in the New Testament, the word most frequently translated lust simply means strong desire

a. the word is even used to describe a legitimate, godly desire

1) Jesus said to His disciples: “ ... I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” (Luke 22:15, NIV)

2) the Apostle Paul, told the Philippian believers that he strongly desired to depart this life to be with the Lord (Phil 1:23), and in 1 Thess. 2:17 he strongly desired to be with his friends

b. desire, even strong desire—or lust—is not inconsistent with God’s purpose for our lives

1) we see this most clearly in what the Hebrews call the Shema—their daily call to worship

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God [is] one LORD: 5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." (Deuteronomy 6:4-5, NIV)

2) in Hebrew culture the whole person was involved in desiring God

3) God is to be our most important desire—our passion—and we are to desire Him with our whole being—heart, soul and might

2. on the other hand, we know from the Bible and from experience that strong desire, or lust, can be immoral and destructive

3. when desire is either out of bounds or out of balance it become hurtful, destructive and sinful

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” (Romans 6:12–13, ESV)

a. a passionate sexual desire for you spouse is in bounds

1) but a passionate sexual desire for your neighbor’s spouse is out of bounds

2) sexual lust toward anyone but your spouse is desire that is out of balance with God’s will

b. a passionate desire for leadership that pursues a life of service is in bounds

1) but a passionate desire for leadership that pursues individual favor and personal enrichment at the expense of others is out of bounds

2) lust for power or leadership that is not characterized by a life of service is out of balance with God’s will

c. a passionate desire toward fellowship with one’s friends is in bounds

1) but a passionate desire for fellowship with one’s friends at the expense of study or personal integrity or commitment to family is out of bounds

2) lust for acceptance that never says no to friends is out of balance with God’s will

4. defined this way, no one is free from the battle with lust

B. OUR CONFLICT WITH LUST

1. passion, when unleashed and uncontrolled, becomes a lust that consumes our entire personality

a. just ask Samson

ILLUS. You’ve heard me refer to Detrich Bonhoeffer any number of times over the years. He was a German pastor who resisted Hitler, and was ultimately executed by the Nazis. His manuscript entitled Temptation gives a vivid description of our tendency to turn off the warnings of our conscience when sin's allurements wink at us. He writes: "In our members there is a slumbering inclination towards desire which is both sudden and fierce. With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh. All at once a secret, smoldering fire is kindled. The flesh burns and is in flames. It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money, or, finally, that strange desire for the beauty of the world, of nature. Joy in God is ... extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the creature. At this moment God is quite unreal to us, he loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real; the only reality is the devil. Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God. And now his falsehood is added to this proof of strength. The lust thus aroused envelopes the mind and will of man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us. ... It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God."

2. the world, the flesh and the devil all cater to our baser or sinful nature and encourage us to lust after a wide variety of things

a. power ...

b. popularity ...

c. prosperity ...

d. sensuality ...

e. and the list goes on and on

4. without a doubt, however, the word is best understood with our culture's preoccupation with sex and sensuality

ILLUS. Hugh Hefner, editor of Playboy magazine, openly embraceds the hedonistic philosophy that has overwhelmed our culture. In a Larry King interview Hefner once said, "Sex is a function of the body. A drive which man shares with animals. Like eating, drinking and sleeping. It's a physical demand that must be satisfied. If you don't satisfy it you will have all sorts of neurosis and repression psychosis. Sex is here to stay. Let's forget the prudery that makes us hide from it. Throw away those inhibitions, find a girl who's like minded and let yourself go."

a. and that is exactly what our culture has done

b. the movies, the TV, the music you listen to on the radio, and Madison Avenue advertisers have convinced Americans that recreational sex is perfectly fine

c. too many of our teenagers and young adults have bought the lie and assume that the message is true

ILLUS. Don’t take this the wrong way, but “Oh for the day” when Playboy was virtually the only pornography you could buy ... it came wrapped in brown paper and was hidden away beneath the newsstand out of sight of young eyes. Now, with the pervasiveness of the Internet we have a new pervasiveness of smut. And since the Supreme Court decision to legalize homosexual marriage the rate of sexual licence in our nation has grown exponentially. Right now some of our more sane Missouri legislators are looking at ways to curb the growing trend of “Drag-Queen Story Hour” in Missouri public libraries. In St. Louis, and Kansas City and even St. Joseph you’ve got Librarians inviting Drag-Queens in to read stories to kids. Even ten years ago this would have been considered out of bounds by any sane adult, but in a post-Obergerfell world, virtually no sexual licence is out of bounds.

5. I'm sure that if you had asked young Samson whether-or-not he had a problem with lust, he might have smirked and said, "Of course not. I just like women."

a. we like to think that this sin is not a problem in the Body of Christ, but if you think it is not a problem you're only fooling yourself

ILLUS. A lot of Christian teens are having sex and suffering painful, sometimes devastating consequences. By high school graduation 43% of kids in evangelical, confessional churches have had sexual intercourse. Of those 12-18 years of age, 65% have been involved in some other kind of serious sexual contact. For Christian young adults the numbers are even worse. According to the National Association of Evangelicals, 80 percent of unmarried evangelical Christians between ages 18-29 admit to having had premarital sex. The problem is that Evangelical singles are caught between competing forces: What they learn at home and at church and what they are exposed to in our hyper-sexualized mass culture where any kind of consensual sex is permissible, and even encouraged.

6. Samson had a problem with lust: So do many in the Body of Christ today

Galatians 5:17 "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would."

II. CHASTITY IS PASSION UNDER CONTROL

1. in both the Old and New Testaments, God’s people are expected to maintain high moral standards

a. for the Christian the other side of the coin of lust is chastity

2. like all the other virtues we’ve looked at, chastity is a spiritual discipline meant to align our wills with God’s will

a. it’s a virtue that requires radical dependence upon Christ

1) in today’s hyper-sexualized culture, chastity is a battle—especially for the Christian single of any age

2) it means a fight against the flesh which Paul explained was always “right there” in him, around him, and beside him (Romans 7:21)

3. in much of Christian literature chastity is perceived as passive restraint—almost a grin-and-bear-it attitude

a. Scriptures, however, reveal it as a positive, active lifestyle marked by courage and self-control

1) it embraces one’s sexuality as a God-given gift and He has the right to determine its proper use

2) it practices moral wholesomeness

3) it sets boundaries

4) it seeks purity in a permissive culture

b. chastity, outside of marriage, means abstinence

c. chastity, inside of marriage, means exclusiveness

1) when couples say I do to one another, they are saying I don’t to everyone else

ILLUS. C. S. Lewis observed, Chastity is the most unpopular of Christian virtues. There’s no getting away from it; the rule is either marriage with complete faithfulness to your spouse, or else complete abstinence.

A. CHASTITY IS LIVING WITH A CRUCIFIED FLESH

“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:24, ESV)

1. in this passage, the Apostle Paul refers to one of the great paradoxes of the Christian life

a. a paradox is a seemingly contradictory statement that nonetheless expresses something that is true

b. nothing is more contradictory, yet true, than that you and I died in Christ on the cross of Calvary

2. oddly enough—at least in the world’s understanding—Paul insists that he only really began to live after he died with Christ

3. in Galatians 2:20 the Apostle is referring to the power of grace that is able to transform our lives

a. and if anyone ought to know about transformed lives it was the Apostle Paul

b. Paul asserts that he died in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, by identifying himself with Christ through faith

1) because of his faith in Christ, God ascribes or credits to Paul everything that happened to the Savior on the cross

2) on the cross, Jesus perfectly met all the righteous demands of the law

a) in Christ, Paul also has met all the demands of the law

b) God now sees Paul as righteous as Jesus is

3) on the cross, Jesus paid the penalty and died under the law's curse

a) in Christ, Paul also has paid the penalty and died under the law's curse

4. this grace transforms the life of Paul

a. before meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul is a man who is a slave to sin totally unable to meet the law’s demand of perfect righteousness

5. but in Christ he is not only righteous in the Father’s sight, but he is empowered for life in this world

“For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” (1 Corinthians 12:13, NIV84)

a. it’s the Spirit of God within us that gives us supernatural ability to meet temptation head on—including lust—and to conquer it by embracing and cultivating the virtue of chastity

ILLUS. R. A. Torrey, speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life, wrote, “What a glorious thought it is that the Holy Spirit dwells in me! But it is also a very solemn thought as well. If my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), I certainly should not defile it, as many professed Christians do. Bearing in mind that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit would solve many problems that perplex young Christians.”

b. it is our privilege, in the Spirit’s power, to have daily, hourly and constant victory over the flesh and over sin

1) but the victory is not in ourselves, not in any strength of our own

“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.” (Galatians 5:16–18, NIV84)

6. ultimately, chastity is passion under Holy Spirit control

III. CHASTITY OF THE FLESH IS LIVED BY FAITH IN THE SON OF GOD

1. one of the mistakes that the Church has made in dealing with the virtue of chastity is telling believers that all you have to do is “Just say ‘No’” and then try with all your might to suppress your sexuality which is a God-given gift

a. we just assume that a teenager or young adult, brought up in a church that actually teaches and expects its members to be spiritually chaste, have the personal fortitude to resist temptation on their own

b. we forget to tell them that there are spiritual tools God has given us whereby chastity does not have to be a burden almost impossible to bear

2. lust—particularly sexual lust—is a powerful drive

ILLUS. Frederick Beuchner writes that lust is the craving for salt by a man dying for thirst.

a. but with every temptation, Christ offers us a way out

A. WAY OUT #1—EXPERIENCE THE GRACE AND FORGIVENESS OF GOD

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—” (Romans 3:21–25, NIV)

1. knowing God is basic to living a holy life

2. lust is a sin that cannot be overcome outside of a relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ

3. the Christian who has not been chaste in the past, does not necessarily have to get caught up in the cycle sexual sin

B. WAY OUT #2—FLEE IT

"Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart." (2 Timothy 2:22, NIV)

1. it's interesting that he says flee youthful lusts

a. as we get older our lusts change

b. the lusts of a 20-year-old man may not be the things a 40-year-old man lusts for and the things a 40-year-old man lusts for may not be the things a 60-year-old man lusts for

2. the best illustration of someone fleeing a situation where lust might have prevailed is Joseph in the Old Testament

a. Potopher's wife kept insisting that Joseph have sex with her

b. Joseph kept resisting

1) Joseph teaches us that when it comes to temptation, we must think long term

2) the characteristic of lust is: "I want it and I want it now"

3) I have no doubt that Joseph was emotionally and spiritually stealed against this woman's advances when they came because he knew they were coming and he prepared himself

C. WAY OUT #3—CRUCIFY IT

"And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." (Galatians 5:24, NIV)

1. dead men can't sin

2. if you are dead to sin, sin no longer has to be master over you

3. Paul insists that we are, by faith, to so identify ourselves with the death of Christ, that we become immune to the temptations of the world

a. every morning, our first act of faith ought to be to reckon ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto Christ'

D. WAY OUT #4—WALK IN THE SPIRIT

“[This] I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16, NIV)

1. the verb used here literally means to keep on walking

2. as a believer walks through life he or she should depend on the indwelling Holy Spirit for guidance and power

3. when we are under the Spirit's control, we will not, we absolutely will not, gratify the desires of the sinful nature

CON. Samson is considered a hero of the faith' in the Old Testament. But the very same Scriptures that lift him up as an Israeli hero also paint a very sad picture of a man who's life never measured up to what it could have been. The Bible is very honest about Samson's short comings. He was irresponsible, short on personal holiness, and a man who's uncontrolled sensuality ultimately brought his downfall. Samson could not get a handle on his lust. Christians must flee the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and instead walk in the Spirit.'