Speaking about sex clearly and redemptively is one of the preacher’s biggest challenges.
(What can a preacher say about sex without embarrassing or offending the congregation? When Bill Hybels addressed that question in LEADERSHIP nearly eight years ago, readers rated his article highly. We think you’ll appreciate his motivations and methods for speaking publicly about a personal subject.)
I once had a professor who asked, “How often do you entertain thoughts about prophecy?”
One student answered what most of us were thinking: “About twice a year — once around Christmas, and again some time around Good Friday when I hear Isaiah 53.”
“Okay,” the prof replied. “Now, how many times in a given day do you have sexual thoughts?” Silence. The professor had accomplished his purpose. How many times do you hear biblically relevant preaching on human sexuality — something people are thinking about all the time?
That question stuck with me, and when I began ministering with youth, I put his advice to work. After all, what’s on the mind of teenagers?
But as I got older, it occurred to me that I was still interested in sexuality, even though I was married and pastoring a church and years removed from the hormonal battles of puberty. I know I’m not alone, because every time I preach on a sexual matter, the church grows quiet in a hurry.
Sex is on our minds.
Anything that occupies that much of our thought life and powers that much of our personality ought to be addressed from the pulpit, because some of those thoughts are misguided and in need of God’s correction. Not to preach about sex would be to desert my post at one of the most active battle fronts in our culture.
WHY RUSH IN WHERE ANGELS TIPTOE?
I realize preaching about sexual matters is fraught with possible problems. I could offend people. I might embarrass somebody, including myself. I might even distract the thinking of those listening.
Yet I can’t ignore the topic.
Marriages are struggling because of misleading information about this subject. Young people are making mistakes because they’re getting behavioral cues from all the wrong sources. Singles are wrestling with sexual dilemmas. Sex is a subject begging for a clear Christian word.
For example, if we were to ask the married couples sitting in church on Sunday morning, “How many of you at this point in life are having a great physical relationship with your spouse?” my educated guess would be that 30 percent or less would say they have a vital relationship. If that’s true, and my study and experience would say it is, 70 percent of deacons and Sunday school teachers and trustees and churchgoers and pastors are experiencing a measurable amount of sexual frustration.
People can tell themselves, I’m not going to let my sexual frustration affect me. But some way, somehow, some time, it will seek an outlet. What I’m trying to do through my preaching and our other ministries at Willow Creek is to spark dialogue, because talking can be an acceptable outlet. I say, “Let’s talk about it. Let’s not let frustration build until someone runs off with a willing partner, because that’s a terrible way to solve the problem.” We’re committed to talking about sex responsibly as opposed to ignoring it until it causes unnecessary damage.
I preached a sermon series titled “Telling the Truth to Each Other,” and one sermon illustration told of a husband talking openly with his wife about the sexual frustration he was feeling in the relationship. That illustration telegraphed the message that it’s legal in marriage to talk about sex in that way. Frustrations don’t need to be pushed underground until they emerge in the wrong place. Yes, telling the truth can get messy and complicated, but we need at least to try. The response I read in the congregation was agreement. Talking about it from the pulpit, daring to bring sex into the open, gave them the sense that such communication could happen in their marriages as well.
My hope is that such frank talk on Sunday morning can lead to more open expressions throughout the week, so people can get the help they need. At a retreat, one man from our church stood among his friends and said, “I need your help. My wife was sexually abused as a child, and she repressed those memories so thoroughly that she wasn’t aware of them until about two years ago when everything snapped. Although she’s now receiving counseling, this has thrown our marriage up for grabs. I’m trying to juggle my church work and my kids while struggling to keep our marriage together. I’m in real pain.”
The group got up from their seats, sat him on a chair in the middle, and huddled around to pray for him. There were tears and embraces for this man, who now didn’t have to bear his burden alone. He felt able to disclose his difficulty because we’ve made it known in our church that you can talk about sexual things. The group he chose was appropriate, a small fellowship where his revelation would be heard with love and would not be misused or spread.
Besides making sex a permissible subject of conversation, my overarching concern is that people understand human sexuality as one of God’s good gifts, part of his grand design for us. I preach each week to non-Christians who are seeking Christ in our fellowship. Many have stereotyped Christians as rather Victorian — joyless, repressed people who think of sexuality as dirty and vulgar. I want them to know that sexual impulses — even strong ones — are not necessarily evil.
When I talk openly and without embarrassment about God’s wonderful design for human sexuality, speaking positively and in a God-glorifying way, that’s big news for many. It breaks open their stereotypes of dreary Christianity and accusatory preachers.
Of course, I continue on to explain that sexuality is a highly-charged, God- designed drive that we need to understand and submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ because it can be used for great good or enormous destruction.
DIRECT AND INDIRECT PREACHING
I preach about sex in two ways: directly and indirectly. If I’m going to do justice to the many aspects of human sexuality, I need to take a direct approach. I dive into the subject, develop it, explain it. That’s why occasionally I’ll devote a whole series of sermons to the subject.
For example, I have tackled such topics as sexual fulfillment in marriage, romance, unfaithfulness, homosexuality, sexual abuse, pornography, unwanted pregnancies, and sex and the single person.
However, although sex is not a taboo subject at Willow Creek, I do limit the subjects I cover.
Because I have many young ears present in worship services, I have never approached topics such as masturbation or sexual experimentation by married partners or sexual aberrations. These are doubly volatile since perhaps 90 percent of parents have never talked with their children about such topics. I don’t want to be the first to bring them up with children present. That would violate the parents’ rights. Instead, I encourage people to read suggested books on the topics or to stay after the services and talk with me or one of our counselors. And in private settings like that, people will be candid.
The second method I use in preaching about sexual topics is more indirect, what I call maintenance statements. These I sprinkle through the rest of my preaching to remind people. In the midst of a sermon on, say, the woman at the well, I’ll throw in a maintenance statement: “The woman was floundering; she had lost the meaning of faithfulness to her spouse, just as she had never known faithfulness to her Lord.”
This double-pronged approach keeps me from thinking, I handled human sexuality in that sermon on David and Bathsheba. I’m able to cover topics substantially through direct sermons and then reinforce my points continually through asides in other messages.
Even with ample reason to preach about sex, however, I still approach the pulpit with fear and trembling, because I know how difficult it is. But I’ve found help from five principles I’ve learned over the years.
PUTTING SEX IN PERSPECTIVE
Whenever I speak about sex, there is one impression I definitely do not want to leave: that misappropriated sex is the one sin the church and God cannot tolerate. I don’t want to give it that kind of press, because I’m not sure Scripture does.
When I preach about illicit sex, I do call it a sin, as I would any other sin. I say it’s wrong to break God’s sexual code. But my main emphasis is on the downside of disobedience: Not “God will never forgive you for that!” but rather “If you don’t obey the Lord in this area of life, eventually you’ll find yourself in deep weeds.” I deemphasize obeying rules for rules’ sake alone and emphasize instead the dire consequences of breaking God’s rules.
Alcoholism provides an analogy. I prefer to foster healthy attitudes toward alcohol by approaching it this way: “Do you people have any understanding of what physiological addiction is? Do you know how many thousands of times in the laboratory a monkey will push a lever to get another fix for its addiction?” That catches people’s attention. Then I say, “Do you have any idea what chemicals do to brain cells? Do you know that a great many fatal traffic accidents are caused by driving under the influence of alcohol?” Then I can say, “Now you can understand why God says ‘Don’t mess with alcohol in a way that could lead to addiction.’ This stuff will enslave you, but God wants to set you free. Isn’t God wonderful for saying, ‘Stay free of this stuff’?”
People leave that kind of sermon thinking, Thank you, Lord, for sparing me from something that could get its claws on me.
How different that is from the sermon that declares, “God says you can’t drink anymore!”People leave that kind of sermon with the thought, Well, drinking can’t be the worst sin in the world, so I’m going to do it no matter what God or anybody else says!
I approach the topic of sex similarly: “God gave us the rules for our protection. You break them at your own risk. In fact in these days, you can die from promiscuity.” I paint as vivid a picture as I can of sexuality run amuck, and I never have a problem with attentiveness at this point.People have stumbled enough to know I’m not exaggerating. It’s not uncommon for people to cry during such sermons. They know.
But then I always hit the positive side: “If you keep those benevolent rules and experience sex within God’s well-defined boundaries, it can be a wonderful gift of intimacy and ecstasy.”
Unfortunately, preaching this way isn’t easy. It’s relatively simple to preach against some sin, but I have to work overtime to develop positive and edifying messages on sexuality. For instance, preaching on “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is a lot easier than giving a message on the positive side: “How to Affair-Proof Your Marriage.”
If I’m short of sermon-preparation time and really scrambling some week, my temptation is to develop a “thou shalt not” message. But if I’m a better disciplinarian of my schedule, and if I’m truly thinking and praying about my people and how they will receive the sermon, I’ll put in the extra work to show the rewards of the righteous, inspiring people to obedience rather than castigating them for wrongdoing.
[see #3919 for Part 2]
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