Stewarding our Sexuality Podcast Episodes

Before we get to today’s content, I’d like to bring in an event to your awareness. On October 18th and 19th, ACCFS will be hosting their annual marriage conference, Cultivating Connections. This event will be hosted at the Morton Apostolic Christian Church. The event will begin Friday evening and continue all day Saturday. Space is limited, so sign up today. You can sign up at our website at accounseling.org. And now to today’s content. 

We steward so many areas of our life. We steward our finances. We steward our marriages. We steward what jobs to take, where to live, our children’s education. And yet when it comes to something like sexuality, often we just hide it or we don’t talk about it or we languish or we’re ashamed or we don’t know. 

Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Delighted to have you along for yet another episode. Today’s topic is going to be Stewarding our Sexuality. And as guests, I have Arlan and Katie Miller with me. They are a husband-and-wife team that do a lot of teaching out of this agency. 

So welcome. It’s good to be here. Arlan and Katie, we three have spoken on this topic and taught on this topic of sexuality and stewarding your sexuality on a number of occasions. But yet, I think we would all agree that we would not view ourselves as experts on the topic, nor would we necessarily want to be identified as being experts. 

But there’s a needful space here, and we’re willing to step into that space. I think that’s exactly right, Matt. This is a critical area to continue to talk, discuss, and lean into, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to share the help and the hope that’s available. The idea of purity and sexuality, and how you navigate it in the world we live in? 

I would say even three to four years ago, stepping into this space, like you referred to Matt, has greatly changed my perspective, not just as a female, not my perspective as a believer, my perspective as a parent. And so, stepping into this space, educating myself on that. And then like Arlan mentioned, just providing hope and casting a vision regarding a very sensitive topic. 

You mentioned the female perspective that we’re really more alike than we are different, even regarding this topic. And sometimes I think we can maybe separate it so much that we have perhaps some false connotations or conclusions that we make about what the opposite gender deals with. 

But this is an issue that we probably don’t have to cite too many metrics to convince our audience that we live in a sexually sensual society. It’s a part of who we are. It’s a core piece of who we are, the sexuality aspect of human nature. And there has always been a struggle to live it according to God’s design and the beauty of God’s design. 

Now, obviously, in today’s age, changes have taken place. There’s availability. There’s accessibility. There are different aspects that make it even more of a challenge. Yeah, and even to be more specific about what you’re saying is available. You can think about pornography, right? Which is in everybody’s pocket if they’ve got a smartphone, this is very available. It’s very accessible. It’s cheap and it’s becoming increasingly anonymous too, right? That’s the other aspect that without some type of accountability or some type of intentionality, this type of activity can happen in a much more anonymous way than what was possible years ago. 

We steward so many areas of our life. We steward our finances. We steward our marriages. We steward what jobs to take, where to live, our children’s education. And yet when it comes to something like sexuality and referring back to God’s original design, often we hide it, or we don’t talk about it or we languish or we’re ashamed or we don’t know. And we use a lot of different vocabulary to kind of capture that, but it does need to be.  

You really raised a nice point there, Katie, what does it look like to engage in this area of my life? To be thoughtful about it, and I would like to touch on those key words that you mentioned about anonymous and availability, Arlan, because I’d like our listeners to consider. Perhaps this isn’t an issue that they struggle with. Okay, but I think we can get empathy pretty quickly for those who languish. What is it that you struggle with? Imagine that it was affordable, available, and anonymous, right? Pretty soon we can see what kind of a monster it would turn into. 

Right. And I think that’s the piece that is really helpful to realize that word stewarding speaks to the idea that we’ve been given charge of something. And when given charge of it, we have an opportunity to either stuff it and ignore it and hope it goes away or we have the opportunity to lean into it, to be intentional, as you said, Katie, and to look for ways to bring the hope of the gospel, the hope of the Scriptures into this space as well. 

And so really what you’re saying there, Arlan, is that God intends for us to steward this. He does. He has, and I think you cited early on in the Scriptures, Genesis 1 says, male and female made he them in his likeness and in his image, right? So, we see very early that gender and sexuality was built into our frame as he created us. 

And certainly, yes, he does ask for us to steward this area, this gift. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like a gift at all. It seems like a curse and not only did he create and want us to think about sexuality from his perspective and his design, he also created the boundaries of what healthy sexuality looks like within his framework, within his biblical guidelines whether single, male, female, married, those types of relationships. 

He created that. He also created the boundaries of what healthy sexuality looks like. I think even seeing God as pro intimacy as you just explained him, Katie, is a very good first step to see that Jesus doesn’t blush at the talk of sex. He doesn’t blush at this concept at all. He would be delighted to pull up a chair and share on this topic. 

And I think that’s very different from what we naturally compute in our heads. Yeah, it’s an aspect of his design, right? And as an aspect of his design, we need to talk about it, and we need to get into it. And I think one thing that can happen with this conversation is we can pigeonhole it into just a certain little bucket that this is about pornography, or this is about no sex before marriage, or something like that, which are our aspects of it. 

But stewarding sexuality is going to be part of us from birth until death, whether we’re married, single, young or old, it may look different generation wise, recognizing that age differs in what sexuality looks like. I think the cultural influences on sexuality are important to realize as well. 

Hormones change throughout the course of time. Absolutely. As well as needs change, right, throughout the course of time. And so, I don’t think we ever quite expire from this sexual reality that we live in. I appreciate it too, Arlan, you mentioned pornography is big and that’s a lot of what we’re talking about, but it’s not all that we’re talking about. 

Society is sensual in so many ways that is never going to get blocked by our blockers. Right. You know what I mean? There’s just no way to do it. Right. And so yes, we need to open up ourselves to a larger angle view on what sexual vice might look like rather than being addicted, for example. 

Right. And I think realizing that question, am I stewarding my sexuality, applied to me when I was a single young man trying to live according to God’s design and it applies to me now as a married person trying to live in a God honoring marriage relationship with my wife. And it applies as I think about my kids and bringing them up into this. 

That question stays the same. And we have to keep it in front of our mindset. You talked about bringing up your children. Katie, what should we be thinking about sexual education with our children? What are some of those components? Yeah, a lot of this when I talk to young parents or parents in general, or grandparents even, it’s one of those really sensitive conversations. 

It’s really hard to have yet culture is not having a hard time having this conversation. Absolutely not. And so, as a parent, I look at, well, if not me, then who’s going to do it. And so, it gives me that charge that Arlan mentioned. It gives me that responsibility. There are great resources out there about teaching. 

If you haven’t had that conversation or you don’t know where to start, there are definitely great resources out there that our agency provides regarding how to teach children different developmental stages, different vocabulary to use, what’s appropriate at what age. Is my child ready to have a conversation about different biological features? Boy, girl, that type of thing.  

And so, giving that charge to parents, if not you, then who? That’s really good. And I think sometimes we think that, okay, I had that conversation. That’s over with. All right. Once and done. Got it. You’re really suggesting or painting a picture of more than that, just by the way that you delineate some levels here. This is really a longer conversation than a one-time thing. We’ll clear this up. Absolutely. The sexual component at the age of six and the knowledge I know at six years old should be vastly different than what I know at 18 years old. 

Am I as a parent taking that charge and saying, hey, I need to have these conversations. I can’t just read one book. I can’t just have one conversation like you said, and expect the child to comprehend, understand, and carry that through to adulthood. We are always having a sexual education. I mean, that pretty much is the deal. 

If we are engaging our world and going out in this sexually sensual society, we are getting a sex education everywhere, right? Whether they are ethos and thoughts and concepts about how I should be viewing the opposite sex or what are appropriate touches and not appropriate or what is sexy and not sexy, right? 

And we’re getting schooled in all of this all of the time. Yeah, and to say that the views I have towards my wife are not being influenced by my surroundings is just really kind of naivety, unless I really lean into this space and get informed biblically. 

Let’s talk about what would be some of the biblical sexual education pieces that we not only would share with our children, but we would share with ourselves. Matt, one piece I think is really important to consider within the Scriptures is a contrast to what you see out there in society. Society has done everything it can to divorce sex from the consequences from the implications of what this physical act is. 

In fact, that’s what they want to define it as. This is just a physical act. It doesn’t mean anything else. It’s just what it is, right? It just is an expectation. It’s a right. It’s whatever word you want to put in there. A very counter message to what we see in the Scriptures, where God lays it out as a beautiful aspect of marriage, where the two become one, and he correlates that in a mysterious way that it’s a mystery. 

We don’t fully understand and won’t fully understand, but in a mysterious way that represents Christ and the church, the union of God and his chosen people. It’s a beautiful thing to think about that has far-reaching consequences. And that’s not the message we hear in the world. 

Culture describes it as a self-fulfilling act versus I would say biblically, it’s an honoring fulfilling act and how that looks, whether single or married binds in covenant. Absolutely. Which is, is a Bible word, really. Right. The covenant that we have with God found between a man and a woman, bound in marriage. 

I think there’s a lot as we talk about the marriage piece where we see sexuality in marriage, and we see that marriage reflects the gospel to the world. I think another point is towards singleness, right? This is a difficult space. This can be incredibly difficult to process. 

What do I do with my sexuality when I am single? Is expressing my sexuality in sex the sum total of my sexuality? Does that make sense? And if we think that it is, then we’re putting people in an impossible situation. Right. We’re defined by that, right. If I cannot express myself sexually or if I do not express myself sexually in some way, I’m not complete. 

Right. Or I’ve missed out on some aspect. And certainly, the world is saying that. Absolutely. If you are missing out, then to be true to yourself, you need to act this way. Well, we have such a refreshing picture in Jesus, right? Who was single, who was male, like us, and always tempted as we are, and yet never expressed himself.  

He was celibate. Do we not learn in the example of Jesus that we can be fully healthy sexual beings and never have sex or be celibate? Fully human sexual beings. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s a hard space to lean into, and that’s a very difficult thing to walk through. But because it is difficult to comprehend and because it’s not convenient to lean into doesn’t mean that we should shy away from what the Scriptures represent. That’s the piece of good discernment that’s necessary. I appreciate, Arlan, that expression of how difficult it is, and because I think we do need to be real with this topic, that our brothers and sisters in Christ who live out their faith and their obedience to the Word as celibate is a tremendous calling and not an easy one.  

And Jesus wonderfully walked that as a tremendous example and inspiration for all of us. But we need to take our cue from him and not from the world because we’re going to get a very different message from the world. 

Thank you each one for being along today. We’re going to cut in on our conversation right here. We will pick up next time with Part 2 of Stewarding our Sexuality. Go to our website, accounseling.org for resources and helps regarding sexuality. We pray that those resources will be helpful as well as this podcast. 

Thanks, each one for being here. 

You know, shame wants to identify someone as the sin or keep them in that dark spot. Guilt comes with a purpose from God, to say, yes, you did something wrong. You did something contrary to God’s nature. Shame can keep people out of the light of receiving help. Whereas if we accept the guilt, repent for the guilt, and move on to a better spot there can be healing that happens.  

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the second part of our Stewarding Sexuality podcast series. Arlan and Katie Miller are in conversation with me regarding stewarding sexuality. In this episode, listen for the consequences of sexual vice, as well as the advantages that temptation brings. 

Let’s talk a little bit about what’s at stake here. You know, if I don’t steward my sexuality, what might be some of the fallout? I think one aspect that we’ve touched on here, Matt, is this idea of how we begin to relationally view individuals. With pornography, or a corrupt view of sexuality according to society’s standards, individuals begin to view others as objects or as something that’s there to serve and to satisfy us as opposed to the idea of viewing someone as a beautiful aspect of who God has made them to be.  

I think that’s a powerful point, Arlan, and really what that’s suggesting is that if we don’t think rightly about sexuality, we begin to view lots of things incorrectly. Absolutely. So, what you’ve just said here is this is not just a silo. Our sexuality is not just a silo that doesn’t touch other areas and perceptions of our life. What you’ve just suggested is how we steward this area of our life is going to have big implications how we relationally view other people, how we interact with other people. And so that’s far reaching. 

Whether I’m single or married, I feel like the relational aspect of this is very key. If I’m single and I’m struggling with purity, it is really hard to relate to the opposite gender in a way that is healthy and doesn’t define a relationship sexually and that views sexuality in a positive way. 

If I’m married and there’s a struggle within the marriage, whether husband or wife, it becomes very relationally hard to honor and to fulfill that biblical piece that we talked about earlier. So, there is an absent, isolated, hurtful aspect to many, many marriages because of an incorrect view of sexuality. 

I think that’s well said, Katie. To say that this potentially, as a vice, has great potential to hurt relationships, certainly between a husband and a wife, and have lasting consequences, but also that concept that you mentioned, isolation, we become isolated. This becomes an area of shame, perhaps, and drives us into seclusion and we flee relationships that are actually to our aid and help. It doesn’t drive us towards one another. It drives us away because of the shame and the guilt. Absolutely. Another factor that’s at stake is the biological piece here where your brain is actually being hardwired by those sensations, regardless if it’s pornography or other vices that sexually create a biological factor. 

So, you’ve just taken us from relational issues to biological. Our own brain is being changed to the detriment by repeated porn use or repeated sexual vice. Absolutely. Yeah. Some of the fascinating areas of research are looking at how brains are moldable and shapeable over time, right? And we create neural pathways in our brain based upon behavior that rewards us, right? So, acting out sexually feels good and it’s a rewarding behavior. Well, our brains begin to say, you know, we want to do that again. And you start to carve almost ruts or pathways in your brain towards this area. The more you do it, the easier it becomes a pattern of behavior. The harder it is to break out of that.  

The earlier that an individual gets into pornography, the more frequently an individual uses inappropriate sexuality, the more novel that an individual views things, those things all have an impact on them. Now, those brains can still be rewired in a positive way. The hope you mentioned that our brains can change for the better is balanced with a realistic view that this may be difficult. 

It’s not an easy fix. It’s not necessarily an easy switch. Oh, I’ll turn this off. I’m done with that now. But there are some pathways so grooved that we can expect that the journey towards health will be worthwhile. Yeah. It’s going to be a journey. Yeah. I think the wherewithal that we want listeners to understand is yes, this is going to be a journey and it’s not going to be easy. 

So, stick with people. Sometimes I think we have an altruistic view that I’m going to walk next to this person. I’m going to help this person with this battle and it’s going to be a snap. No, it’s not going to be a snap. It’s going to take a journey with a miracle every day. But certainly, by God’s grace it’s going to be able to be fixed. It’s going to be possible.  

How about spiritually too? I mean, when we talk about what’s at stake here, we’ve talked about relational issues. We’ve talked about biology in our brains, but certainly there’s a spiritual aspect. What does this mean for us spiritually? The shame that the sexual vice or the pornography puts a believer in is very dark and not wanting to relate to others, not wanting to be around others. 

I’m not going to be around believers. I’m certainly not going to be available in my mind to serve God and to be available to him in what he has me to do. Lots of times it’s hard to listen to the Holy Spirit when I am not that available to God. And so, it creates a lot of factors spiritually as well. 

You’ve touched on some really deep things. I want to iron some of these things out. Okay. With this identity thing I got a sense that you were saying that this becomes me. I am this and you mentioned shame. What more can we say about shame and guilt to help us understand this space? I think that’s an important distinction to make. 

You know, shame wants to identify someone as the sin or keep them in that dark spot. Guilt comes with a purpose from God to say, yes, you did something wrong. You did something contrary to God’s nature. God gives us guilt so that it can enact or work towards change, towards a repentance that leads us to a better spot. 

What we can see sometimes is that pattern of shame with this vice can keep people out of the light of receiving help. Whereas if we accept the guilt, repent for the guilt, and move on to a better spot, there can be healing that happens with that. I really like that distinction, Arlan. I think that’s really helpful to say that, okay, if I’m in a shameful spot, shame is not going to be helpful. 

In fact, it’s probably going to make matters worse, but I should be guilty and allow that guilt to bring out its good end towards repentance and towards a clearing of oneself and confession of sin. Right. Now, I want to pick up on something, Katie, that you mentioned, and that is people aren’t maybe as willing to step into what God’s calling them to step into, right? 

If I am immobilized sometimes by my impurity, I don’t want to be available. I don’t feel worthy to be available to God, to what he’s calling me to do. So, a request comes out and says, hey, we need somebody to step into this space, whether it be a position in the church, whatever. 

I’m not worthy. Absolutely. Especially if you’re listening to a lie of the devil that says you’re the only one that does such a thing. That you are exceptionally bad. And if you’re in the shame that you just mentioned, Arlan, that’s going to compound that problem.  

You’re a female. Males only struggle with this. It’s a very common lie, a very common misconception. What if Satan’s tactic is just to get Christians so shame ridden that they would never step into what God has called them to do? What a victory would that be, right? Absolutely. So, we do see a little bit of his tactics. 

Right. If I am not motivated to get better in this, it’s going to put me into a very bad spot. Yet in the midst of that, realize, that we don’t want to be immobilized by that fear, but realize there’s great hope no matter where you’re at, no matter how long you’ve been engaged in a sexual struggle, no matter how deep you feel like you’re in, God’s grace is big, and the gospel is filled with hope. 

And the worst thing you can do is say, oh, it’s too late for me. It applies to everyone but me. We need to lean into it and say, okay, let’s start today, right? Yeah, I like that. So, let’s talk about that hope. There is actually hope in the struggle that we have. And that’s exactly what it is. The area of our sexuality is an area of tension. It’s an area of dissonance. It’s an area of struggle for many.  

I’m speaking to the experience of many here. And sometimes I think we throw up our hands and we say, hey, what’s the purpose in this? Why? Enough already. Could this possibly be a good thing? And we have the well-known verse that many of us memorize, there’s no temptation taken us but that is common to man and that God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able but with the temptation, now this is the key part, with the temptation will provide a way of escape. And I think that sometimes we’re looking for the absolving of the temptation. We’re looking for the struggle to go away. We cry out to God and say, God, take away this dissonance in my life. And he says, I will deliver you from temptation, but I want you to walk through the dissonance. 

And that is both relief and also a difficult pill to take. And knowing that when we turn, when we say no to the temptation and yes to him, we are worshipping him at our fullest. We are saying, yes, God, you are better than that tension and that sin. And Katie, we can’t underscore that enough. 

I think what you’ve said is incredibly impactful, right? What you were just suggesting there is our yes to him in temptation is a yes, indeed. It’s a worshipful yes, it’s a fully faithful yes. It’s maybe not music, it’s maybe not a prayer. You probably don’t feel good. You probably feel absolutely horrid, in fact, and yet you are saying, yes, God, what you have to offer through Scripture, through the gospel, is better than that vice that I’m about to turn to. 

Yeah. Go to the Psalms, and you see David’s heart so clearly portrayed in the Psalms, right? And the deepest, richest Psalms, I think, seem to come in the most difficult times, the hardest times. Those areas where everything around him seems dark, everything around him is saying, give up God, be hopeless. 

And yet in the midst of that, he says, no, I’m still going to believe in God and I’m still going to turn towards him. In those areas that I do not struggle, and I’m not tempted in, I do not show any faith towards God in my abstinence. Let’s take gambling, for example. I am not tempted to gamble. So, I can drive by the Paradise Casino without a second glance. 

But that’s not worship, Matt. But that’s not worship, is it? That, in no way, garners me any merit with God, whereby I have shown my faithfulness to him, and that I agree that God is right about being a good steward of my finances. But there are places that I drive by, there are relationships, venues that when I turn from them to God, it’s quite an expression of faith. You’re demonstrating that God is worthy. And those moments are painful, and I don’t like those moments. And that’s the beautiful hope in this message that the gospel portrays, because for what are struggles for you are not for me and vice versa, right? 

We worship individually. There is great hope when it seems dark. God is still near, and he is right there, ready to reach out. And if I don’t believe that, then after a failure, I’ll linger in the failure. I’ll continue to just languish and say, well, all hope is lost. 

As opposed to realizing, yeah, I fell, but a just man rises. He falls seven times, but a just man rises again. And I’m called to get back up, to repent, to ask for forgiveness. But to move on. Yeah, okay. So Arlan, here’s I think an important point too that your comment raises in my mind. And that is, we are able at any given point in our day and our lives to worship faithfully to God. 

That is a true statement. If I am in temptation, that faith statement is me resisting it. If I have flirted with it, that statement of faith is turning from it. If I have indulged in it, that faith statement is backing away and turning from it. If I have fallen, that faith statement is reaching out in repentance and confession of sin. 

Right. You’ve painted this idea that worship can happen now. Right. And I think the contrary view to that can be this aspect where we feel that, okay, well, I failed, so now there has to be a certain amount of penance that takes place before God will even look at me again, or a certain amount of time or a certain amount of whatnot, right? 

We start to put in our terms. We will continue to indulge if we continue to think that way, right? I mean, what’s the difference between a little and a little more? Let’s run up the tab just a little bit more. I think it’s a very important piece to lean into that he’s waiting for our worship. 

He is waiting for us to turn away and to turn toward him. God doesn’t view us with our sins, regardless of what that temptation or that sin is going to be like. God views us as waiting and saying, Katie, are you turning towards me? Are you resisting? And are you turning towards me? What does that look like? 

So, I really like that, Katie. How does God view us? Is this a true statement? God does not view us for our sexual victories or failures. Is that the label on us whereby God sees us? God views us as his creation. God views us as wanting worship. He wants a hundred percent of my heart every single day and he wants me to turn towards him in all of my actions and all of my struggles and all of my failures. Because he created us, he’s waiting for us to turn towards him and say you, God, are better than any other vice, any other struggle, any other temptation. He’s waiting for us. 

I think that provides a really good way to think about my struggle. That God views me as a worshiper of him, and I can worship him because of my struggle. In fact, based on what you two have said, I might be able to worship him more because of my struggle. Right? I can actually be more identified as a God worshiper because of my circumstances. 

I think that breathes a ton of hope in all that ails us, right? And for a person listening on the other side of this mic, it might not be a sexual vice. But it’s probably a struggle of some sort, right? And with that, we’ll draw this conversation of stewarding our sexuality to a close. Thank you to our listeners for being along. 

We do not take you for granted. And we are honored that we could step into this space, this very near and dear to us topic that each one of us carries. And we trust and pray that the content shared here in this episode respected that and also drew our hearts and minds towards Christ and found him sufficient even in this area of our lives, our sexuality. 

Thanks so much for being here. Goodbye.