1148 - Is Masturbation a Sin? What Christian Men Need to Know

As a starting point,

let's just talk about kind of the whole like, is it sin question, right? This is something that we've really, we talk about a lot here, obviously.

And a lot of people seem to be fine to say that pornography is clearly sin.

And I think what's interesting about that statement is what is it that actually makes pornography clearly a sin? Like, have you ever thought about it? I think if you've grown up churched or you're in the word on a regular basis, you've probably built a bit of a moral compass that says, yeah, watching pornography, okay, probably not a great idea, right? But why? This is the question.

Sex outside of marriage, that's a sin.

But why? Why is it a sin? And I think this is where the church at large has really failed the body of Christ, but especially young men and young women.

We've been very clear on the do's and don'ts.

This is bad.

Avoid this thing.

It's sin and good.

I think of my three-year-old son.

That's all he can understand at this age of life.

But at some point, he has to have some reasoning because if he doesn't understand why it's a sin or why it's a problem, he might eventually start to choose something different.

So I'm actually going to hit on this example a little bit further because it'll dovetail nicely into the masturbation conversation.

Why is sex outside of marriage a sin? Okay, two reasons.

So if we look at God's design sexually, often the church is very focused on the term sexual immorality.

Now, rightfully so, because biblically, this is the language we see in 1 Corinthians 6, 18, flee sexual immorality.

Ephesians 5, verse 3, make sure that none of you have a hint of sexual immorality in your life.

That's biblical language.

But it helps sometimes to first understand okay, there's things that are sexually immoral we need to avoid, but what is sexually moral? And the best way to define that, in my opinion, is through two concepts, intimacy and commitment.

Intimacy and commitment.

I want you to imagine if your romantic relationship with another person was a physical body.

And the two legs of that body were called intimacy and commitment.

The idea in God's design is that the level of intimacy you experience in a relationship is matched by the level of commitment that exists in that relationship.

So in other words, the legs of the relationship are always the same length.