Elevate Questions on Purity

Last night we had a rather interesting night at Elevate. With Pastor Waylon on a much deserving vacation with his family, me and the rest of the amazing Elevate staff led the service and had one of our Elevate Online nights. With the last two Elevate services being on purity we thought it would be nice to allow students the opportunity to text in their questions that they might be having on the subject. And with no surprise there was an overwhelming amount of questions, far too many questions to answer in one service, so I'm taking advantage of this outlet to try and bring a little more light to some of these pressing issues.

It was no surprise to any of us that the majority of the questions asked were related to sexual impurity. It's obvious that this is the most fore front issue, but I want to start this blog off with talking about an area of purity that many students, many people for that matter, don't even see as an issue. That's the area of impure speech. There are many students and even leaders that fall that struggle with pure speech. I saw it even last night in the texting. There were many questions asking if swearing or cussing is impure and the answer is yes. Paul says it in Ephesians 5 that obscenity, coarse joking, or even gossip doesn't fit the life style of a christian. Yet this type of speech is so common even in Christians. Not only is gossip a daily part of many students lives, so is coarse joking. And that's the problem with today. We have made sex a big joke. Now I'm a big fan of the show The Office, but even there what's the big joke that Michael always says? "That's what she said." I hear students and leaders both saying that same phrase with there best Michael impersonation every week. The same with cussing. It's so common in movies, music, and TV shows that even when students say or hear it, it doesn't have the same sting as something like stealing that is obviously looked at as an impure action. But sadly students don't see that impure speech is just as big of an issue.

The next question that I want to take time and respond to is a question we received asking "is oral sex still sex?" My first response to this is to ask you a question, "does it have the word sex in it?" The problem isn't knowing whether or not it's sex, this is a matter of students trying to get all the pleasures of sex without feeling like they are actually having sex. This is a matter of trying to justify something that is wrong and you know it is wrong so that you don't feel bad about doing it. It's like listening to our great ex President when he said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," and knowing that there is a little stained dress that says otherwise. I'm sorry Mr. President but oral sex is sexual relations.

The last question that I want to talk about has two parts. We were asked "can you be pure but not holy," and "in your attempt to be pure can you become legalistic?" There are two main things that need to be understood to really find a grasp on this. First can you be pure and not holy, YES. Now let me explain. You can live a pure lifestyle in that you are a person that just doesn't enjoy impure things. You can be a person that really just doesn't enjoy doing bad things to your body so you never get drunk or do drugs. You can be a person that just really doesn't like to cuss when you talk and even be a person that really wants to wait to have sex. You can be this kind of person and do it simply because you don't want to instead of doing it because God has called us to live to a certain standard. If you only live this kind of lifestyle because your motive is it's all about you. Being holy is your motive says that it's all about God. So can you live a lifestyle that appears pure, then the answer is yes. But realize that it's your motives that make you holy. And this really takes us into the next part of the question about becoming legalistic. It's the same answer. Legalism is really just a motive. So if you're really trying to pursue purity in order to be obedient to God then it's a pure motive, but if you're pursuing purity because of how others will look at you or because you're afraid of what someone might say or think about you then it can become legalistic.

There are so many other questions I'd love to answer but as my pastor once said "it's okay to leave quality material on the editing floor."