Transcript: Lesson 11 - What's Wrong?

Welcome, friends, we are continuing to explore God's story and our sexuality. And we're thinking  specifically in this unit about how our sin and rebellion against God affects that that story. In this video, I  want to talk just a little bit about the vice of lust. What, what does that mean? For starters, what is a vice,  this is language that I don't know about you, but we don't use very much in our culture. But when we  talk about a vice, we're talking about a disposition, a way of acting a way of sort of a way of functioning  in the world. And so this is not just a particular action, but I do. So think about this, maybe on a with a  positive example. Rather than think about a vice, let's think positively for a second about the virtue of  courage. I am confronted day in and day out with various acts that might require some level of courage.  For example, if I see somebody being bullied, whether that's at school or at the grocery store, wherever  that might be, if I see somebody, being bullied, being being mistreated by somebody, I have a choice, I  can either stand up for them, and courageously speak up or defend them in some way, or I can sort of  cowardly, in a cowardly way sink to the back. What what happens in human behavior is that when I'm  faced with these choices, if I make the right choice, and live into this courageous act, that shapes my  character, so that the next time I'm faced with a similar situation that calls for courage, it becomes a little  bit easier for me to be courageous, and to choose to do what's right and to act in that way. Well,  similarly, when we think about a vice or the vice of lust, part of what this is getting at is that our actions  become our habits. And our habits then, over time, become our character become our disposition. So  that so if you know somebody, you say, that's a courageous person, part of what you're saying is that is a  person who, when faced with these choices in life, you know which road they're going to take, or at least  you know, which road they're much more likely to take, because that's the way their character is shaped  and formed. And so when we talk about lust, as a vice, I do want to highlight that speaking about it as a  vice means that we're saying this is not just a particular action, like here, here's a person confronted  with a situation where they can say, either I see this person as an image bearer of God, or, I'm going to  lust after this person, and they make the wrong choice, they begin to lust and desire that person not just  sexually, but to think about how they can use that person, as a means to their own end. And so the vice  of lust becomes this, this disposition this, this sort of overall dimension of our character, that affects how  we live out our sexuality. Part of part of vice have lost. Thomas Aquinas says that it's a sin of weakness,  not malice. In other words, it's a sin that oftentimes people make to some degree find themselves falling  into, not so much intentionally seeking out but falling into and then repeating this pattern of lust rather  than malice, where somebody goes out and intentionally sort of has this, this bad intentions from the  start. That really guides what they do. And so part of what this helps us to remember is that when you're  thinking about your own struggle with lust or, you think about other people who struggle with lust. But  the point here is not just to come down hard on people to show them how wrong they are. But to  recognize that the the weakness there maybe that they've given into and that they fall into that then just  becomes a pattern becomes a way of life. Here I think about if you if you look at Jesus in the gospels, and  people who are identified as sexual sinners, those are the kinds of people that Jesus reaches out to those  are the kinds of people that he shows compassion to overwhelmingly so in his life and ministry. And so  the point here is not identify lust so you can just bring the hammer down on yourself or somebody else.  But to recognize that this this is this is a struggle This is a sin of weakness that people fall into, and  oftentimes just becomes a pattern in their life. Part of what lust does, is that in the words of Rebecca Konyndyk, the idea of lust reduces sex to a party of one that really what what what is wrong here is that, as  we've seen in Genesis 1 and 2, this relationship, this this sexual union, this one flesh marriage  relationship is supposed to be something that actually calls us out of ourselves, to love and to give  ourselves to our spouse. It's something that involves the totality of who we are the totality of our life.  That there's no part that we kind of say, you know what, I'm really in this for myself, and I'll include you  to some degree, but it's meant to draw us into this relationship. And so part of what makes lust so  damaging is it really says, this is all about me, I understand my sexuality, my body, my marriage, or my  singleness to be all about myself. And this is dangerous, not just because, you know, this goes against 

God's intentions. But we have to realize that this is damaging to us, because God created us in His image  to draw us out beyond ourselves to show love to really find fulfillment and peace and true joy, when we  do enter into the kind of self giving that that he calls us to. And so Augustine, again, to quote Augustine  says, "The disordered soul is its own punishment." And so what he means by that is this, you know, as  long as I'm trying to seek fulfillment and find fulfillment for myself, by reducing sex to a party of one, I'm  always going to be restless, I'm always going to feel like I'm, to some degree missing something. And  maybe that's something that I'm aware of. And maybe it's something that, that maybe I'm, I'm less aware  of, I'm not saying that you're the person who lives out of God's, who lives in a way in contrast with God's  intention is just always going to be you know, in dismay, because a lot of times part of the deceitfulness  of sin is that we, we feel very happy, we feel very, maybe okay with what we're doing. But at the end of  the day, what this is doing is it's closing us in on ourselves. CS Lewis speaks to this. In one of his personal  letters demanding Keith Mason. He talks about lust in the context of masturbation, and thinking about  trying to think theologically and morally about masturbation. This is what Lewis says. he says, "For me,  the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite, sexual appetite, which, in lawful use,  leads the individual out of himself to complete and correct his own personality and that of another, and  finally, in children and even grandchildren. And it turns it back sends the man back into the prison of  himself there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And 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 track  attractions, which no woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he's always adored always the  perfect lover, no demand is made on his unselfishness. No mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In  the end, they become nearly the medium through which he increasingly adores himself. After all, almost  the main work of life is to come out of ourselves out of the little dark prison, we are all born in.  Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is  that of coming to love the prison." While I read that, I think your main work of life is to come out of  ourselves out of the little dark prison that we are all born in. Part of what is so dangerous as he's talking  about is that, again, we come to love our self constructed prisons we come, we come to love, the sort of  vices that make ourselves the center of the world. And what is going on here is that we need to uncover  God's real purpose for our singleness, our marriage, our sexuality, which is to draw us out of ourselves,  which is to understand that sex doesn't just revolve around us or what we can get out of this, but it's  meant to be integrated into this picture of marriage and of total self giving to another person. And that's  hard. That's that's difficult. That's challenging, because it actually calls us to come and die to ourselves.  So in the next video, we're going to think a little bit more about what is the solution for this vice? How do  we move forward and understand God's intentions for us that way? So until next time, blessings