Free to Be a Slave to God

John Piper (0:05)

Our mission is to seek the kingdom first. Which means in other words, our all-consuming passion in life must be to glorify God in our bodies. By keeping ourselves free from every enslavement but one, the joyful, fulfilling slavery to God.

Dan Cruver (0:35)

Freedom from every enslavement but one. That one statement turns our usual idea of freedom almost completely around. The question isn't whether we belong to someone or something. The question is to whom. And the answer here is that the happiest place for the Christian, for humanity, is to be gladly, completely gods.

I'm your host, Dan Cruver.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper turns to Romans 6, verses 12 to 14, to show why sexual purity is finally about more than saying no to temptation. It's about being so given to God that no other desire gets to be our master. This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on February 8, 1981

John Piper (1:32)

The implication for the single person with average sexual desires is not easy. Even if a person gets married in their early twenties, a decade of preceding sexual stress has had to be coped with. And for those who remain single, whether by choice or not, the problem extends much longer. What help can we give to these people? To you, many of you. And among you, I include everybody from the age 12 or 13 right on who is not married, and yet has normal desires for sexual stimulation and gratification. And my main burden for you in that category this morning is that you glorify God in your bodies by keeping yourself free from every enslavement but one. Enslavement to God. Romans 6 16, Paul says, Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? And then in 1st Corinthians 6 12, which Tom read for us earlier, the proud Corinthians libertine, Corinthians libertine say, All things are lawful for me. And Paul shoots back, But I will not be enslaved by anything. Now, the meaning of that little interchange is this, It is possible to be enslaved in the name of freedom. That's what Paul is saying. And that's exactly the situation in our land today. In the name of sexual freedom, we are a nation enslaved to sexual cravings. If you want to know what a nation is hooked on, look and see what the masters of media use to get and hold our attention. Sex sells everything. It sells movies, it sells cars, it sells furniture, clothes, booze, news, cigarettes, sporting gear, you name it. It sells. And it sells because we are a nation enslaved to the second, the third, and the fourth look at that body in the picture.

But it shall not be so among you. It shall not be so among you because you have been set free from sin and are now enslaved to God. Therefore, glorify God in your bodies by keeping yourselves free from all enslavements but one. God. Ten words of counsel that I want to give to persons who are not married, but who have to deal with sexual desires. And many of these are helpful also, I find, still in married life as well.

Some of them have a very masculine orientation, I can't help that. I know that temptation better than I know the female temptation. Some of them are do's and some of them are don'ts, but I intend all of them to be positive in the sense that they are all intended to preserve your freedom from any enslavement but one. Slavery to God. Number one, do not seek regular sexual gratification through masturbation.

It is a tragedy that I never heard that word in church. And I can only remember hearing it once in four years of college from every day going to chapel. One time my father mentioned it to me. What in the world is wrong? How is I supposed to do anything right? How are they supposed to know?

Masturbation is self-stimulation to orgasm or climax. And the reason I say don't use it is because it, number one, will not solve the problem in the long run. It does not relieve the pleasure and the pressure very long. Number two, it becomes habitual. Number three, it produces guilt. Then more importantly, the last two arguments, it contradicts the God-given design for sexuality. Our bodies and our desires are designed for fulfillment through personal union.

And self-stimulation contradicts that purpose and inevitably produces a sense of wrongness. But perhaps most importantly of all, masturbation is inevitably accompanied by sexual fantasies which we would not allow ourselves in reality. And therefore, we start to become like the Pharisees, well scrubbed on the outside and inside full of perversions.