Talking about Sexual Purity with Your Children, part 1

I was recently asked to talk about how to talk about sexual purity with your children.I suppose because I have nine children myself, this is an important subject for me to think about. It's tempting however to want to ignore it.It seems a little awkward to talk about, honestly.And so it is tempting to ignore issues like this and hope your children get it right, but as a father, and as parents, we can’t do that. We have a responsibility to bring our children up in the instruction and discipline of the Lord, which means God expects we will take the initiative to teach our children what God wants for their lives, even, and maybe especially in areas like this.We certainly have lots of biblical teaching and even examples about the need for us to do this.It’s not like this is one of those areas where we don’t have much to go on. There are many places we could look in Scripture to get an idea of how to go about this. I think probably the most obvious place to go would be Proverbs, to be honest, but I thought, instead, we might turn to Ephesians, chapter 5.And ask, what can we learn from Paul about teaching our children God’s design, God’s plan for sexual holiness? And we are going to look specifically at verses 3 through 14, where we find 8 basic principles, I think, that will help us as we go about teaching our children what God has to say sexual purity.We'll start with one today.First.Paul talks about sexual purity.I don’t want to belabor the obvious but as you can see Paul feels this is a subject he needs to speak about. Because here, we see he says, “But sexual immorality and all impurity… must not even be named among you.” This church needs instruction, and it’s not just this church that needs instruction. Paul speaks about this subject in almost every one of his other letters as well.And it’s not just Paul either.I think if you work your way through pretty much every book of the Bible, you’ll find almost every one has something to say in terms of principles at least about sex and sexual purity. And while I tend to be a shy person to talk about issues like this, and there are others who almost think it is unspiritual ever to talk about it, obviously we need to talk about it.Because, Satan’s got a great strategy going on, when it comes to sexual sin, in that, sexual sin is an especially deceptive sin, and so, obviously, people need truth, which, is why it is so crazy, that usually the people children talk the least about these kinds of things with, are those who have the most wisdom about it.Obviously, ultimately, God is the one who brought our children into the world, but as parents, we are the means he used. Which means, there’s this eternal soul that is in the world now, and it’s because of you and as you are the one God used to bring this soul into the world, He’s given you a special responsibility to care for it and instruct it.I mean, we all feel that responsibility when it comes to physical things.We can’t just send our children out into the world without at least food and clothes. But, obviously, spiritually, that’s true as well.We have a responsibility for their spiritual protection, and this is only more urgent than even caring for their physical needs, in that, there is an actual enemy who hates them and wants to destroy their soul, and one of the primary means he uses to accomplish that, without a doubt, is sexual temptation.Which is why, we need to talk to our children about what God has to say about sexual intimacy.In appropriate ways of course.While they are young we don’t want to give too much specific information, as we want to help them enjoy their childhood, but at the same time, we don’t want to be naïve either, and allow them to just to be trained how to think about all of this from the world, without us, you know, helping develop a biblical worldview.That’s first.We need to talk about this. But how? We'll continue looking at what we can learn from Paul, tomorrow.