Are you a Christian who is currently involved in a sexual relationship outside of the marriage context?  Do you have Christian friends who openly admit that they are involved in sexual relations and they aren’t married? Are you living with your boyfriend or girlfriend and don’t see anything wrong with it? Do you consider your parents just “out of touch” and “unrealistic” because they insist your behavior is destructive and sinful against God? If you said yes to any of those questions I want to challenge you to rethink your position, and encourage you to make some changes in your life immediately.

There once was a time when a man was required to establish trust with a woman’s family long before he would be allowed to have any private communication with her.  In many cultures, once the man is accepted by the family and only then he is permitted to take her hand in marriage and subsequently move into together, have sex, and possibly have children.  This idea of courtship has been witnessed in cultures that have had little to no contact with the outside world.  This has been practiced for thousands of years by people of varying religious and cultural backgrounds, and is by no means monopolized by conservative western thinking of the past few centuries.

So, what does that have to do with you? We live in a highly sexualized culture.  Our favorite TV shows are full of sexually suggestive themes.  The magazines that we read are slammed full of articles on how to be sexy, and how to present yourself in a sexy way. The way we dress is far more provocative than ever before. It only takes 10 seconds to boot up your computer, run a Google search, and have pornography displayed on your screen, and no one will ever no unless they check your internet browsing history.  There is little to no accountability, and why should there be?  Sex is normal right? Looking at pornography is normal behavior for men right?  Someone once told me that “any man who says he does not currently look at porn on the internet is a liar!”

There is also a large number of people who are living with their boyfriend or girlfriend full time. Many of them share a bed together and may even have children together.  They usually say that they are essentially married or have plans to get married sometime in the future once they can afford it.  Some even say they have no intention of getting married at all.

Would you believe me if I told you that you are engaging in a lifestyle of unrepentant sin if you are having sexual relations outside of marriage? If you are a Christian, you should be ashamed of the idea of sinning against God, you should want to change and please God by obeying his commands. Don’t take my word for it look at this passage of scripture and think about what God’s design is for marriage, sex, and cohabitation:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh Genesis 2:24

5 Ideas for you to consider straight out of Genesis 2:24

• “A man shall leave his father and his mother”  You can’t leave somewhere(your parents house) if you aren’t there in the first place (an argument against cohabitation before marriage).  It is OK for young people to live with their parents as they attend college and enter into the work place.  There is also nothing wrong with leaving your parents place once you start making decent money.  Independence is great, I personally moved out of my parents house when I was 18.  Living with your parents is great too! Just understand, the Bible does not permit cohabitation prior to marriage, that is not God’s design and to do so is a clear violation of His Word. The scripture here also identifies God’s design for marriage, between one man and one woman.
• “and be joined to his wife” Another way of saying this is, he no longer is under his mother and fathers household, he is now establishing his own household and it begins when he becomes “joined to his wife”.  The word “joined” in the Hebrew means to cling to something, to stick to something, with the idea of never being separated. God’s design is for the marriage to be joined together in a fashion that it can never be separated and returned to it’s original condition prior to it being welded together. What happens when two sheets of paper that are super glued together are pulled apart? They are both damaged and cannot be salvaged to their original condition. God ordains marriage and his intent is for the covenant to be honored between the husband, the wife, and Himself. 
• “and they shall become one flesh Genesis 2:24”  Notice the “and” at the beginning of this part of the verse?  Are you seeing a timetable here? God does not permit sexual relations outside of marriage.  God expects the man and woman to first be married and then and only then does He permit them to have sexual relations.  I’m not going to provide you with a bunch of statistics  that show the likenesses of you getting a divorce if you end up marrying this person you are fooling around with. Those statistics exist and I encourage you to seek them out.  I am far more concerned with encouraging you to live a life that glorifies God through joyful obedience to His will for your life! Living a lifestyle of sexual sin does not bring glory to God, and is a flagrant and outright act of disobedience. God not only expects you to hear His word, He also expects you to do it!If you don’t believe me, read what God says in James:

²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. ²⁴ For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. ²⁵ But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. James 1:22-25

• It is a tremendous pleasure to be able to become joined together with your husband or wife, and to be united both spiritually and physically.  Life is fun married.  Sex is fun within the marriage context.  Having your own household that you are responsible for is fun.  Having children within the marriage context is a tremendous blessing.  There are cultural aspects to all of these principles too.  I know people in the local Slavic community who feel tremendous pressure to get married at a young age.  If people are in their mid 20’s and still not married their parents get really worried.  Hang in there!  It’s all in God’s time, not ours.  While there is no guarantee that everyone who is single will get married (like the Apostle Paul) there is absolutely no reason to disobey God’s commands and get involved in sexual relations outside of marriage.  I encourage you singles to remain committed to obeying God’s purpose for your life.  For those of you who are dating and really want to have sex, take some steps to deescalate the physical passion in your relationship before it goes too far.  Make a commitment to not touch each other (kiss, cuddle,etc) until you both have your heart set on God.  If you can’t resist each other any longer, get married (assuming you are both Christians). If you are living together outside of marriage, move into separate housing situations until you get married officially.  Yes, it matters to God and you should want to obey Him if you are Christians!

• Common excuses used by Christians who are having sexual relationships outside of  marriage or live together and aren’t married: