Responsibility

06 Responsibility

Over the last 6 weeks during the Upper Room’s Sunday Night Live we have been talking about sexuality. We are exploring God’s written word to discover how the LORD wants us to live out our sexuality. The first sessions laid the foundation for the ones to come. Two weeks ago we discussed boundaries. When do our actions become sin. Last week building on that we discussed our responsibilities in terms of our sexuality. We looked at the three groups we are responsible to; The LORD, others and ourselves.

Our (teens and adult) sexual responsibilities begin with the LORD. The Ten Commandments begin by telling the Israelites that the LORD is their God and they will have no other gods but the LORD. (Exodus 20.1 - .17) As God’s people today this remains true! Paul, when he writes to the Corinthian church, reminds them (and us today) to honor the LORD with our bodies. (1 Corinthians 6.18 - .20) We were bought with the Blood of the Lamb. We no longer belong to ourselves but we belong to the LORD and can not take what is His and use it as we please. We are to be obedient to the LORD. We sin when we choose to walk away from the LORD and follow the evil desires in our hearts.
We are not only the LORD’s but He is the one who created sex. He created it as a gift to us. He created it to join a man and a woman into something new. (Genesis 2.24) The two individuals become one flesh. They become married people. When we misuse sex or our sexuality we are misusing a wonderful gift from God.

We are also responsible to others. When Paul writes to the Thessalonian church, he tells them not to take advantage of each other sexually but to live self-controlled lives. (1 Thessalonians 4.3 - .8) Jesus teaches us not to physically commit adultery and takes it a step further. He teaches us not to commit adultery in our hearts. We are not to view each other as sexual objects to be lusted over. (Matthew 6.27 - .30) No, we are to see each other as human beings created in the image of God and bought with the Blood of the Lamb. The words we use to describe men, women and sexual activities need to be respectful of each others. Using derogatory or demeaning terms for men and women changes them in our minds from human-being to an object. We need to respect the boundaries of others and we need to maintain our sexual boundaries as well to not take advantage of others.

Finally we are responsible to ourselves. Again, we are not our own but we were bought with a price and belong to the LORD and need to live that way. (1 Corinthians 6.18 - .20) We are called to be self-controlled and not to fulfill the desires of the flesh. Paul tells the church in Rome to clothe themselves in Christ and no to fulfill the desires of the flesh. (Romans 13.12 - .14) They are told to put aside the deeds of darkness and to put on the armor of light. One of the ways we do this is to live self controlled lives that bring glory to God. Jesus tells us that we are to control our lust (Matthew 6.27 - .30) and no longer dwell on our sinful sexual desires but control those thoughts and put them aside.
In class, our discussion was much more involved than I have the space for here. We talked about specific ways we can be responsible to ourselves, others and how others can be responsible to us.