“I never realized how frivolously I have treated what sex is. I never saw it as something magnificently created. I know that sex is something that God wants us to control, but it’s out of control in my life. How did I get to the point that I both want it and loathe it at the same time?”

Matt (name changed) voiced this opinion following our presentation of “God’s Design for Sex,” which is one of our teaching segments of our Finding Sexual Sanity seminars. In that section, we try to get across the biblical view of sex and sexuality. So many Christians think that the biblical view of sex is predominantly negative: “Don’t do that until you’re married.” And then, if or when you are married, keep it under control, and don’t get too caught up in its pleasures.

How in the world did we, in the church (and not to mention those outside of the church), get to this pathetic conclusion?

Lots of reasons, but I think one thing we continue to miss: We are not doing a good job of proclaiming the wondrous gift that sex is, and so, too many Christians are falling into sexual sin and disorder as they wrestle with strong sexual desires and relational desires.

In Matt’s case, it was pornography. He knew that engaging and looking at pornography was wrong, but its pull on his mind and body was overwhelming to the point of addiction. Saying “no” to his desires, asking God for forgiveness, and forcing himself to stay away from the computer were failed strategies. His marriage was suffering, too.

It was important for Matt—and it’s crucial for anyone finding themselves caught in an obsessive (if not addictive) downward spiral of looking at porn—to discover what the underlying “idols of his heart” are that fuel all this. Sexual sin is a sign of deeper issues. And those deeper issues use sex as a means to gain what the struggler feels he or she must have in life. (Look at our blog postings on 1 Thessalonians 4 for a quick overview of the power of idols and desires. You can click here.)

Matt needed, and continues to keep needing, to pinpoint those non-sexual wants, desires, and longings that set him up to turn to pornography. Success is never measured by what we have stopped doing in our lives that brings harm. Looking at our failures is never enough to give us a desire to want to change. We need to know what is ahead—what will really give us freedom and joy. In other words, what is the thing to replace what we want to stop?

Listening to his support group talk about the beauty of God’s design for sex struck a chord of hope in Matt. He never considered that grasping a high view of sex might cause him to see sexuality as a gift from God, that God wanted him to use to its fullest delight, that God was not prudish about sex. That God had good reasons for designing its rules and boundaries, and they were not so that we would fail to enjoy it. As one writer recently described the Christian view of sex, “Not to mention the core Christian idea that sexuality is, itself, a necessary evil, and something that must be repressed.”

Really? Where do you find that in Scripture?

Matt left the support group that night encouraged that his struggle with sex had a new angle which could help him. While he still needed to actively repent of his deeper idols and engage in effective accountability with others to overcome his sin, he could now learn to look at the good reasons for God’s design for sex and begin to desire to protect something so good. Then he could begin to experience the goodness, beauty and wonder of sex with the person God gave him to do so with: his wife.

Updated 5.23.2017