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What is Sexual Immorality?

Key Bible verses used:

  • 1 Samuel 22:2
  • Matthew 19:4-5
  • 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
  • Romans 1:28
  • Jeremiah 17:9
  • Hebrews 4:15-16
  • 1 Corinthians 10:13
  • Matthew 5:27-30
  • Proverbs 6:27
  • 1 John 1:8-9

Key quotes:

  • “Sin is like spiritual leprosy. It deadens your senses so you rip your soul to shreds and don't even feel it.” John Piper
  • “Sin always costs more than you want to pay, takes you further than you want to go and keeps you longer than you want to stay.” David Shearman
  • “There's more mercy in Christ than sin in us.” Richard Sibbs
  • “For me, the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite, which in lawful use leads the individual out of himself to complete and correct his own personality in that of another and finally, in children or even grandchildren and turns it back, sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary partners. This harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides, he is always adored and always the perfect lover. No demand is made on his selfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself.” C.S. Lewis

Questions for group discussion:

  • Did you expect Alfred the Great to be mentioned in this preach? More seriously, what do you think the strengths and weaknesses were of the metaphor of the burh being like God’s Kingdom?
  • What are the differences between temptation and succumbing to temptation? Why do they matter?
  • What are the differences between occasional sins and habitual sinning? Why do they matter?
  • How does basing our definition of sexual immorality on what God has said is good (faithful heterosexual marriage and celibate singleness) help us answer the world’s questions about what we believe?
  • Which of the three areas of sexual immorality described (sex by yourself, sex with someone of the same gender, sex with someone you’re not married to) would you find hardest to justify to someone who disagrees with you?
  • How can you as a small group help each other to flee from sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:18)?

Here are some resources to help you think more deeply about each of these areas of temptation.

Sex by yourself

Sex with someone of the same gender

Sex with anyone other than your spouse