Sex & Supremacy: David Powlison

David Powlison’s chapter, Making All Things New: Restoring Pure Joy to the Sexually Broken in Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, is excellent.  Keep in mind it is quite long (41 pages), and took me a few sittings with a busy schedule.

It is just recently that I’ve begun to appreciate David Powlison.  My first brush with biblical counseling was Jay Adams.  His writings seemed more polemical and extreme.  If Powlison was the primary spokesperson, perhaps lots of misunderstanding between the various camps of Christian counseling would have been avoided.  But alas, it was not so.  This quote in particular illustrates my point: “It’s about moving along a trajectory away from the dark and toward the light.  It’s about knowing where you are heading while you’re still somewhere in the middle.”  Sounds alot like pilgrimage.  And one of the early criticisms of people like Jay Adams was that it sounded like if you just repented all would be well.  Yes, if you recall that repentance is a life-long process.

So Powlison doesn’t want us to despair of change (you hear this in some people- once an addict, always an addict).  Nor does he want us to think change is easy and quick.  Over time real progress is made as we move from addressing the flagrant sins to addressing the more fundamental root sins.  It is not an easy fight, like just hitting a pitch.  It is more like football (the Jollyblogger ought to be happy) where you are fighting the line, the backs and safeties.

Okay… First, we should bring light to all that darkens sex.  Powlison breaks this down into unholy pleasure (overt sexual immorality & perversity), unholy pain (healing for victims of abuse), guilt, viewing sexual sin as a male problem (it just looks different in women), and sexual struggles in marriage (we bring baggage from the previously mentioned problems).

Second, it is a long war.  We have to lengthen our time frame.  We may knock out the land forces quickly, but there will be pockets of resistance.  In some cases, we will obliterate the navy, but spend years in the ground war.  There are no easy victory.  “First, sanctification is a direction in which you are heading.  Second, repentance is a lifestyle you are living.”  The war will not end until the great, glorious day when Jesus comes for His people (Philippians 1:6).  This is an excellent section that focuses on sanctification and repentance.

Third, it is also a wider war.  We are complex people- we can use sex to address lots of problems in our lives.  We should not look at sex as if it is compartamentalized.  He tells of a man who struggled with sex on weekends, when being single is hardest.  But it was a function of his anger toward God for not providing a wife even though he was “doing the right things”.  His view of God, self, sanctification and more.

It is a deeper war.  Temptations arise from a number of sources- an not all of them are about sex.  He mentions the desire for revenge (immorality as payback), the need to feel loved, wanted and desired, the thrill of the chase and sense of power, temptation resulting from the need for money, messiah complexes, and the incessant longing for relief from the pressures of life.

It is a subtler war.  Subtle sexual sin is far more sneaky, persistent and stubborn.  How you view people is far more subtle and stubborn than whether or not you act out on that perception.  Addressing this is often farther along the road of sanctification.  First we address high-effort, high-cost sins.  Having an adulterous affair is high-effort (lots of lies & time constraints) and if you are caught… the price is high.  He breaks these into both consenting sex and criminal sex.  You have to think, you have to plan, you have to create a fascade.  Not every Christian will struggle with these.  Then you address low-effort, low-cost sins.  An example would be using pornography.  You don’t have to manage much of a double-life, access is increasingly easy, and for most people getting caught is no big deal (though it shouldn’t be that way).  Getting caught is not as disasterous as being caught in adultery, rape or molestation.  Then there are the no effort sins from which no one is immune.  We all have memories- and no one but God knows what we replay.   Then there are the sins that come looking for you- pop-ups, commercials, billboards.  They want to grab your attention and lure you into sin.

Like I said, this was a long chapter.  And I don’t want it to be an equally long post.  I hope this whets your appetite, or at least sparks some recognition that you may need to get back into the fight against your own sin.  If you are a follower of Jesus, you are truly changed (regeneration), truly changing (sanctification) and still at war (until glorification).  We live by faith and hope: “The better I know my Christ, the better I know my need for what he alone is and does.”  Amen!