Central Peninsula Church 6-29-25

Date: June 29, 2025
Title: On Desire
Text: Matthew 5:27-30

"For [Prince] the love of God and the sexual urges we feel are one and the same somehow. For him it all comes from the same root inside a human being. God planted these urges and it’s never wrong to feel that way. The urge itself is a holy urge.” New York Times on Prince

“[There is a divorce] in Western Culture between religion and eros. Like all divorces it was painful, and as in all divorces, the property got divided up: Religion got to keep God and the secular got to keep sex. The secular got passion and the God got chastity…But, for now, we live in a broken situation. Religion is perceived as being antierotic, antisex, anticreative, antienjoyment, and anti-this-world. The God who underwrites the churches is then perceived as stoic, celibate, dull, cold, otherworldly, and threatened by sex and by human creativity. The secular world is seen as the champion of eros, sex, creativity, and enjoyment, but is seen as anti-God and antichurch. And we are torn; how does one pick between the two?”
Ronald Rohlheiser, The Holy Longing

Secular Vision vs. Religious Vision vs. The Way of Jesus

“We should not make the bolstering of Jesus’ teaching too taught here. As if anyone who is merely tempted to look at another with lust is eternally damned. I cannot keep a bird from flying over my head, but I can certainly keep it from making a nest in my hair.” - Martin Luther

“The deliberate harboring of desire for an illicit relationship.”
Craig Keener

Consumption vs. Communion

Lust is the desire for communion diminished to consumption.

“Such depictions of sex reduce it to a performance (bodies plus behavior) that predictably yields a product (pleasure), procurable on demand without respect for particular persons or their full personhood. Such ‘sex without humanness,’ is cold, clinical, and superficial. Lustful sex makes the other person instrumental to my acquisition of pleasure.”
Rebecca Deyoung, Glittering Vices

Men, the way to avoid sexual impropriety is to deal with our own lust that resides in our heart.

“In relationship to pornography, the cure is love - treasuring what is good and what is right. But that is not something you can do just by telling yourself to do it.” Willard, Renewing the Mind

Start with Boundaries
Cultivate Broader Vision
Cultivate Deeper Love