Surrendered Sexuality | Dr. Juli Slattery

He designed our sexuality, our expression of sex, to be a symbol of who we are in marriage covenant with. And so reframing that and getting the help you need, getting the support you need in community can make an incredible difference. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, author and speaker Dr.

Julie Slattery gives a clear call for Christians to surrender their views, questions, and pain about their sexuality to God. And if that sounds strange, Consider that he is the one who created our sexuality in the first place. Our featured resource today at buildingrelationships.us is the book by Dr. Slattery, Surrendered Sexuality, How Knowing Jesus Changes Everything. Again, go to buildingrelationships.us.

Gary, you have seen an awful lot of changes and confusion in the culture through the years, and I don't think there's any bigger change or more important change. than in this area of sexuality.

Well, I certainly would agree with that, Chris. You know, things that I never ever dreamed we would be talking about in regards to sexuality.

So I'm excited about our program today, and I think our listeners are going to. really find a lot of practical help. Many married couples struggle in this part of their marriage, so this is going to be a great program.

Well, let me introduce our returning guest, Dr. Julie Slattery. She's a clinical psychologist, author, the president, and co-founder of Authentic Intimacy, which is a ministry helping people make sense of God and sexuality. She's the host of the weekly podcast, Java with Julie, and she's authored or co-authored 14 books, including God's Sex and Your Marriage, Rethinking Sexuality, and the featured resource today, Surrendered Sexuality. Julie and her husband Mike have three grown sons.

They live in Ohio, and you can find out more about her and that featured resource, Surrendered Sexuality, at buildingrelationships.us.

Well, Dr. Slattery, welcome back to Building Relationships. Always good to be with you. Thanks for having me, Doctor Chapman.

Well, you've been working full-time in the space of Christian sexuality for thirteen years now. Talk about the issues the church is facing right now and how we're doing in addressing people's struggles in this area. Yeah, I feel like the average church leadership sees this issue as sort of like a whack-a-mole game. Like there are so many issues that come up on a regular basis throughout the week of people struggling with pornography, addictions, betrayal. Sexual abuse recovery, all of the questions around gender and sexual identity.

It's really everything. And so I think the average Christian leader feels very overwhelmed of how do I meet all of these needs when we've kind of inherited a tradition of not talking about sex in the church.

So a lot of people feel like you have to sort of go from nothing to how do we deal with so much confusion and so much pain.

So it's pretty overwhelming, I would say, for a lot of Christians who are navigating some of those very things in their own marriages and their own families and really asking. Where is God in the middle of of all of this? Yeah.

Well, I think you're right about that. Of course, you know, having worked on the church staff for so many years, I've seen this in our own church. It's something, however, we have to wrestle with in the church. We have to deal with. And I'm really glad you've written this book.

It's entitled Surrendered Sexuality. Unpack that word surrendered. What does that mean? Yeah, so over the years of ministry in the space, I found that Christians try to deal with the tension of their sexuality and their faith in a lot of different ways.

Some of them will compartmentalize and they'll say, Hey, this is just a part of my life that I really don't know what to do with.

So I'm just going to kind of put it in a nice little neat box over here, never really talk about it or address it. And then. Give the rest of my life to God.

Some other Christians, they really try to control their behavior. Like, maybe if I have enough self-discipline. Perhaps if they're struggling with lust or pornography, I need all the filters on my devices. And that works for a time, but they're really never getting to the root of the struggle. And then we see a lot of other Christians that are sort of compromising in this area, just saying, well, you know, God understands.

We got to change with the time. People are living together instead of getting married. It's not that big of a deal. And really, what we see in Scripture for people who are followers of Jesus Christ is he doesn't want us to do any of those things. He tells us to bring ourselves to him, to offer ourselves to him.

The mess in everything. You know, Romans chapter 12, verse 1 is a very common verse that. We talk about and we don't apply it to something like sexuality, but what does it really look like in light of God's mercy and greatness? to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.

So that's sort of the theme of the whole book of what would it look like if you took your struggle with sexuality and instead of trying to fix it or ignore it, brought it to the feet of the Saviour. and ask him to begin doing a work in you. Mm. Why do you think the average Christian has difficulty actually surrendering their sexuality to God or even talking to God about it? Sure.

I think there are a couple reasons. One of them is we don't talk about sex very openly in the church. And if your pastor isn't talking about it and there's really no place in church to wrestle with it, then we kind of had the assumption that God doesn't want us to talk to him about it. Maybe he's squeamish about it, or maybe he's just waiting for us to get our act together.

So the silence in the church historically has really made people who struggle with sexual issues feel like there's no place for me here, or this is so shameful, I can't admit it out loud.

So that would be a first reason. I think a second reason that. Is perhaps even more important to talk about is that we don't trust God. Like we don't know Him well enough to trust Him with something so personal. Our longings, our desires, our shame, our wounds.

And that's why the subtitle of the book is How Knowing Jesus Changes Everything. Because you can't trust God if you don't know him. And there are a lot of... People who are Christians who know the Bible, but don't know God in such an intimate space where this feels like God. God, I give this to you.

I trust. That you have my good in mind. And instead, I think a lot of Christians are weary of what would God ask me to do if I really surrendered this to Him. Hmm. Yeah.

How have you seen sexuality sometimes create a wall in a person's relationship with God? Yeah, I'm sure Dr. Chapman, in your ministry, you've seen this too. But there's so many ways this can happen. It can be.

a wall of doubt. Like, where was God when I was being abused? And if he didn't protect me, how can I? How can I trust him now? Or it can be, I just don't understand the goodness of God's design.

I know the Bible says sex should be between a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage, but. That doesn't seem like a good plan compared to what our culture's offering. Or it can be a wall of shame: I just can't stop looking at pornography, or I just can't stop. Stepping into relationships that become sexualized, I can't stop my desires and longings. And so I don't feel worthy to bring this to God.

So those are some of the most common walls. But in my experience, maybe it's because I'm in this space 24/7, but I rarely meet a Christian who doesn't have some kind of wall. You know, even like the effects of purity culture, like the conversations around sexuality were very simplified and it makes people wonder about God's goodness and can I really trust him?

So I think it's more common that sexuality is a barrier than we think. Yeah.

I saw you on a podcast, Julie, and you said some people are going to freak out about this. And I got a little closer to hear what you were talking about. But you started talking about the marriage relationship and bringing God into your sex life. And it's like, we think that God looks the other way, you know, when we go off and do this other thing as married people. And you said, there's shame in there and there doesn't need to be.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely, Chris. You know, when you think about it, I really believe that sexuality is a spiritual battlefield. And it's that case in our marriages too. Like Satan wants sex to become a barrier between you and your spouse.

He wants it to become the thing that divides you instead of the thing that unites you. And we know that we cannot. Fight spiritual battles in our own strength and wisdom. And I know in my own marriage, it took many years before I realized like we actually should be acknowledging the presence of God here and asking for his help and asking for his wisdom. And that's made a huge change in our marriage.

And I've seen it make a huge change in other people's marriages when you start recognizing this as a spiritual battleground and you start claiming the name of Christ and the presence of God with you to fight that battle. Let's talk about the surrender process that you describe in your book. You began with the topic of identity. Why is identity so key? Yeah, boy, I think a lot of Christians expect that the first thing we're going to talk about is behavior.

Because that's usually the way we talk about sexuality. Stop doing this or that or the other thing. But when we read the scripture and we see the change that Jesus makes in us when we give our lives to him, the very first thing that Jesus changes is he changes our identity. Um in some cases he gives people a new name. Completely re reshaping who they are as people.

But for all of us, Paul says, if you are in Christ, you are a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come. And Paul spends so much time in his letters to the church, like particularly Ephesians, in talking about you're not who you were. Like, praise be to God because he predestined you. He chose you to be holy.

He invites you to the table in the heavenly realms. Like, he talks so much about how. Jesus has changed who we are. He's given us his righteousness. And what I've found over the years is that it actually is Embracing that identity and calling out the lies of what we believe about ourselves.

That gives us The power to change your behavior. And when you do it the other way around, you just keep. getting discouraged and falling back into the same patterns. And so, you know, I've really learned that for a lot of us, sexual issues are at root identity issues. That's where the enemy loves to plant lies, and that's where the truth of who Jesus is and what he's done for us really sets us free.

Yeah.

Well, you mentioned four identity traps. That Satan often uses, I'm sure.

So let's talk about those. Sure, yeah. These are specific to our sexuality, but man, there are a lot of traps. The four that I write about in the book, the first one is the self-discovery trap. And that's kind of a new trap within the last maybe 25 years where we've kind of ignored.

God is our creator, the one who made us in his image, who spoke us into being. And instead, we become sort of this postmodern society that. It says, look inside yourself to find what's true about you. Like, look at what you desire, what you long for, who you're attached to and attracted to, because that is going to be the greatest guide to fulfillment for you. And the scripture tells us that that's not true.

We actually can't trust our internal thoughts and desires because we're flesh, and it says instead to look to God. And align our understanding of what's true and what wholeness means by looking at him. And so that's a big one that is particularly predominant, particularly among the younger generation. And we're seeing statistics come out, for example, that among this younger generation, almost 30% are identifying as some form of LGBTQ. And a lot of it is because they're getting pressure to say: if you want to know who you are, look inside, discover yourself, instead of looking up and trusting what God says about us.

So that's the first one. The second two are really the same coin, just two different sides, and that's defining ourselves by. Kind of a standard of moral behavior. And so you've got a shame trap. That boy, I failed, I keep failing, I keep sinning in this area, or a performance trap, which is sort of more what we see the Pharisees like in the New Testament, where you can start to feel self-righteous.

Like, hey, I don't struggle with pornography, or I've never stepped out of my marriage. Why don't these other people get it together? And we begin building an identity based on following rules instead of what Christ has done in us. And then the fourth trap I talk about is the relationship trap. And this is believing that your worth comes from somebody else loving you.

And if you are not married, if you're not in a healthy marriage, like there's something wrong with you, and that marriage is the thing that's going to complete you. And all four of those traps will keep us stuck in a spiral of doubt and sometimes sexual sin because it's what we believe about ourselves. Yeah, I think a lot of those traps that you mentioned, Julie, are things that our listeners will identify with because they're so common in our culture. A big part of your message is always to help us think differently about the purposes of sexuality. Why is that so important?

Yeah, because when we just talk about behavior And this is how God wants you to act. Related to your sexuality. There are a lot of Christians who will be like, Yeah, okay, I get that the Bible says that, but I don't understand how a good God could say those things. And so you have a lot of people that are really deconstructing from the Bible and Christian truth because they don't see the biblical sexual ethic as The best way to live. And this is again particularly true, I think, in younger generations that have been so discipled by the culture to think that sexuality is about.

Expressing myself and having the freedom to show somebody I love them with my sexuality. And what I've seen happen often, Gary, is that the church doesn't counter the world's philosophy of sexuality. They just Christianize it.

So the world says your sexuality is about showing romantic or erotic love. It's responding to how I feel. And the church is saying, yeah, it is, as long as you're attracted to a heterosexual who's not married and you can get married. And what we actually find in the scripture is that God did not create sex primarily to be an expression of romantic love. He created the act of sex To be a sign and seal of committed love or covenant love.

And so if we don't challenge the narrative of what the purpose of our sexuality is for, There are an awful lot of people who don't see the purpose of the biblical sexual ethic, like what is it protecting? And so that's a deep conversation. It's one that I spent a lot of time thinking about and researching and writing about. It really is one of the the cores of the things that I teach at Authentic Intimacy, that if we don't start making the connection between sex and covenant, We really are Leading people into confusion because they don't understand how a good God could put. limits on how we express our sexuality.

So explore that whole thing of covenant sexuality again for our listeners. What do you mean by covenant sexuality? Sure. So, a covenant is a very unique relationship, and it's a word we don't often use in our culture.

So, a lot of people don't know what that means. But it's a relationship that is based on commitment. It's not based on you do this, and I'll do this. Like, we just have an agreement, and as long as things go well, we'll stay together. A Christian marriage is saying, In good times and bad times, rich or for poor, sickness and health, whatever.

I will be faithful to you. And it's based on my word. And that's the kind of relationship that the Bible tells us God has with us. It's not fickle, it's not a contract, it's a covenant. And so God has designed marriage to be.

An earthly covenant that helps us understand his covenant love for his people. And so God created sex and the act of sexual intimacy to be. Almost like a sacrament.

so that a married couple with their bodies Are you saying, I give myself completely to you. I give myself in faithfulness to you. And so that is why the week before your wedding, before you make those covenant vows, sex is wrong. But once you make that covenant vow. It is a holy thing to work at and to enjoy.

So, again, when people don't understand that. they have a lot of confusion of why would God say that two women can't have sex or get married? Or why is it wrong for me to have sex with my boyfriend? We love each other. What's wrong with two consenting adults having sex?

So that's sort of the framework that we need to go back to and teach over and over and over again. Yeah.

So covenant rather than contract. Really? Yes. Contract. I'll do this if you do that.

Yeah.

If it doesn't work out, then fine. You know, yeah.

Well So what specifically needs to shift in our thinking in today's world? Yeah, boy, you know, Christians need to understand that the world doesn't just have a different sexual ethic. than God. It has a different definition of the purpose of sex. And I can't hammer that home enough.

Like, even for married couples to understand. What covenant is, and that we work on sexual intimacy within marriage because we have a covenant. We don't stay married because we like having sex together. And so the world has it completely flipped. And that's why, you know, even as you.

listed the titles of the books that I've written. I've written so many books on sexuality because we're so confused about having a biblical framework for how we think about our sexuality. Julie, we use the term sexual sin a lot in the Christian framework. You know, we focus on sin. What is sexual sin?

Yeah, so sexual sin broadly is anything we choose to do with our sexuality. that is outside of what God created it for, as we talked about just a minute ago about covenant. But when we look at how we can sense sexually, we really see four primary ways. The first way and the most common way is for us to Have sex or a sexual expression with pornography or an image apart from covenant.

So we take. The expression of sex, we take sexual intimacy apart from that covenant relationship. And the scripture would call that. fornication or porneo or adultery.

So that's the most prominent way. The second way is when we use somebody sexually. And this could be obvious when you engage with a prostitute, or again, pornography, you're consuming someone for your own sexual benefit. And I would say that that can actually happen in marriage. In marriage, somebody can say, well, I'm legally married to you, so therefore I can take you.

against your will, or I can coerce you or manipulate you and not treat you as a human being made in the image of God. And so when we use sex in a way that consumes or uses another person, The third way we can sense sexually is when we ignore the gendered component of our sexuality. And again, this is very a very hot issue in our ta in our time. But when we say, well, covenant is all that matters, it can be two men that have a covenant. But when we see in Scripture time and time again Moses said it in Genesis.

Jesus repeated it. In the Gospels, and then Paul repeats it again in Ephesians. The purpose of sex is a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife. And so you just see all those gender terms right there: man, mother, father, wife, it matters. And then the fourth way we can sense sexually is when we don't take our covenant seriously.

And we hop from covenant to covenant. And we take it lightly. Like there's reasons for divorce in the scripture, but a lot of times we're leaving marriages and covenants because we fell out of love or our needs aren't being met. And the scripture would say that is not how God designed us to behave within the covenant of marriage. Yeah.

I think when we look at our culture, what you've just described is very, very current and particularly, as you mentioned earlier, in a younger generation, but not always in a younger generation, because older adults also fall into this.

Now, you know, I think as Christians, there are those who will realize that some of the things they're doing are not right. They go against God's plan. And so they really try hard to stop these sexual patterns. But why why is it often ineffective to simply try to stop sexual sin patterns? Yeah, because Dr.

Chapman, our sexual patterns are so intertwined with some of the other things we've talked about. It's intertwined with our identity. Um for example, if You've been addicted to pornography for many years. Satan has you stuck in such an identity of shame that the research even shows the more shame you feel, the more likely you are to continue to struggle with unwanted sexual behaviors. And so you fall back right into it.

You're like, I knew I would. I always do. And so it impacts our identity. And it also is affected by the way we think about the purpose of our sexuality. There's so many patterns that can trigger sexual struggle and sin.

And so the average person who's just trying to defeat sexual sin by themselves. outside of community. outside of really getting the help they need, is likely to find themselves just falling back into that pattern again and again. And then they go to church or they listen to a program like this and they feel more guilty and more shameful and they feel helpless because they feel like they've tried everything, but nothing seems to make the difference. Surrendered sexuality is our topic today on the Building Relationships with Dr.

Gary Chapman podcast. Dr. Julie Slattery is joining us and that's the title of her latest book, Surrendered Sexuality. You can find it at buildingrelationships.us. And don't forget you'll find more simple ways to strengthen your relationships right there at buildingrelationships.us.

Sheila, before we took the break, we were talking about many times Christians especially who will make an effort to break sexual patterns that they know are wrong and they know they're not scriptural. But that self-effort often does not lead them to victory, let's say, in this area.

So what's the alternative? That is, you know, to just trying to modify your behavior. Yeah, the the alternative is really what we've been talking about, which is surrender. which is bringing your whole self to the Lord in desperation and just saying God, I helpless. I need you.

I Help me. I've got nothing. Um and alongside that this is so important, doing that in community. Which as I say that, people are like, no, that's too much. But here's the thing.

You know, I've talked to people who have been stuck in sexual shame and sin for decades. And they tried all the halfway measures. They tried just putting the filters on their computer. They tried just kind of vaguely telling an accountability partner. And they haven't gone all the way to surrender.

And They're hopeless. But when they surrender and when God gets them. I am nothing in myself. whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, I want to save my marriage.

Whatever it takes, I want to change. God begins to do a profound work from the inside out. And I have gotten to witness just so many people in marriages. Who are transformed when they get to that place of surrender? Because the thing is, Self can't cast itself out.

I can't get rid of the flesh with the flesh. I have to be filled with the power of God and the Spirit of God and I have to be surrounded by the people of God to really begin to change some of these sin patterns that are so ingrained in me.

So you're you're saying that we consciously Surrender our sexuality to God, reach out to Him. or his power, his help. in breaking these sexual patterns. Right. Yeah.

And it's a one-time deal, but it's not just a one-time deal. It is, I want to change the trajectory of my life. I'm going to stop trying so hard to get myself together. And I'm going to admit how desperate I am. And it's a different posture in our prayer and our worship, and it's a different posture as we reach out to other people.

So you're saying there is value in reaching out to other people? Sharing this with fellow Christians. Oh, 100%. I have never met somebody who healed. by themselves.

Now maybe there is somebody, but I've never met them. Like it's always required the combination of that authenticity with God and that authenticity with at least another Christian, if not a group and counselor. Like we need community around us. That that's demonstrated in another whole area in our culture, right? With like like Alcoholics Anonymous.

Where they meet with other people and share openly their area of need. Yeah, yeah.

Some of the Healthiest and strongest Christians are those who have been in groups like that. Like Alcoholics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery, Pure Desire groups, because. Because of their struggle, they've been forced to be in the place where they hide nothing. And they learn to depend on each other and depend on the Lord, and they grow like crazy. It's really exciting to see.

Isn't that partly because the enemy wants isolation? He wants you to believe you're the only one. You're the worst person in the world, et cetera, et cetera. You get in a group with other people who have the same kind of struggle. It's like, I'm not so alone with this.

And that's that's part of the power of it. Oh, 100%, Katrish, you're so right. You know, until we get to that place we feel like we have to pretend, even with our spouse, like there's somebody listening right now who has had an ongoing struggle and you've never even told your spouse and you're terrified that they're going to find out. And the enemy will tell you, man, if I tell somebody, I'm going to lose everything. But freedom comes when we step into the light.

Freedom comes when we have the courage to say out loud the thing we're struggling with and we reach out for the help we need. That's when God begins to redeem and save. And sometimes, Julie, you alluded to this a little bit, if we share it with our spouse, if we've been keeping it secret and we'd share it with our spouse, there's going to be some trauma. There's going to be some response. But that's a necessary part of the healing, right?

Right, it gets messy. And you might think, oh, I don't want to bother them or I don't want to go through the mess. There's no way to heal without going through the mess. And the more you prolong it, the worse it gets. You talk about how critical it is that we surrender our sexual brokenness.

Uh what do you mean by that?

So our sexual brokenness is really talking about the things that have happened to us. Not The things that we've done. Our sin is what we've done. Our brokenness is the trauma, the abuse, the betrayal, the wounds that we carry. And there often is a combination there.

For somebody who has experienced sexual trauma. or betrayal they are more likely to struggle with sexual sin. And so sometimes it feels like a big Pile of spaghetti, you don't know how to sort it out. And this is why it's so critical to also acknowledge that Jesus cares about our wounds. And there are a lot of Christians who are trying to get their behavior right, but they've never invited Jesus in to address.

their deep wounding around sexuality.

So this is a huge part of surrender.

So when a person then tries to change their behavior without addressing this sexual brokenness. What happens? Yeah, sometimes they feel just stuck. Um Jay Stringer wrote a book a few years ago that is really I highly recommend. It's called Unwanted.

And he's a therapist who did some research connecting people struggle with unwanted sexual Kind of challenges like lust, pornography, sexual addiction to the unhealed wounds that they had suffered in the past. And he started drawing connections. Like your wounds matter. Your wounds play out into some of your sexual struggles. And so there are a lot of Christians who, again, are just focused on why can't I get rid of this sin?

but they don't realize they're being triggered again and again because of the wounds that they've never acknowledged or addressed from their past. Yeah.

You know, I've experienced that so many times in my counselling. of people not really dealing effectively with what has happened to them in the past, and particularly if it's in childhood or adolescence that these things happen to them. They've just Tried to close the door on all of that without really dealing with it.

So it's so important. And for those people, they probably need a counselor to help them walk through that. Would you say, would you agree with that? Yeah, I would agree with that. We need a safe place to process what's happened to us and and our culture one of the safest place is a Christian counselor.

So I would definitely encourage that along with A few supportive friends who can be encouragers and prayer partners with you as you go through that. Julie, let's uh talk a bit about uh parents and grandparents. who want to influence their children or their grandchildren in a very positive way in this whole area of sexuality. What what do you suggest to parents and grandparents? Yeah.

Number one, a lot of prayer. You know, like I said, this is a spiritual battleground, and prayer paves the way. Work on your relationship with your children and grand and your grandchildren. Like relationship is what helps you understand where they are, how to connect with them well, listen more than you talk. because that builds trust.

And then Another thing I would say is Except the fact that your grandchildren in particular, and maybe your children. are thinking about their sexuality from a cultural framework rather than from a biblical framework. And so they've been discipled by this culture to think that. Healthy sexuality is the expression of who I love and what I feel. And so you may interact with your kids or grandkids who are in this younger generation who don't understand why God would say marriage has to be between a man or a woman, or what's the big deal if it's two consenting adults.

And if you just keep repeating the rules, they're not going to get it. It's really critical that you help them see that. God's Word actually gives us a different Understanding of what human flourishing is and the purpose of our sexuality than the culture does. Because There's a disconnect if you're working with one. worldview and they're working with another one.

Yeah.

And I think oftentimes, parents and grandparents in our culture today. really don't know how to Bring up. topics like this, especially like with teenagers. But the teenagers are thinking about it.

So you're either going to get into their world and join them in the conversation of their thoughts or you're going to just stand on the outside and let the culture have the positive impact, right? Oh, that is so true. Um yeah, I the culture is actively discipling. Kids today and teenagers today and young adults. And so if we don't engage with that same And a fervor in Repetition of having conversations about sexuality in the Christian home in the church.

There's really no There's no chance that our kids even understand that God has a different way of seeing this than the world is telling them. And there are lots of great resources that can equip you in that. But my encouragement. along with yours, Dr. Chapman, is you've got to lean into those conversations.

Well, in in our world, many people see the church as shaming people about their sexuality. I is that a fair critique? Boy, it's a complicated one. Um, you know, I'm thinking about as you say that. There's a passage in First Corinthians chapter five where a church was.

there was somebody in the church engaging in incest. And Paul rebukes the Corinthian church and says, You're not even ashamed of this. Like what's wrong with you guys? Wake up And so there is a place where we have to call right and wrong, and we have to address sexual sin. And I think sometimes we're so afraid of the label of shaming that we're not willing to stand on truth.

But on the other side of this, I think there has been historically a lot of hypocrisy around sexuality, like treating it as if it's a worse sin than any other sin. You know, rejecting people. again, just expecting their behavior to change without ministering to them and loving them and discipling them. And so, you know, I think we can't paint with broad brushes, but we do have to be very sensitive to make sure that we're pursuing people with the gospel first and we're discipling them towards what God says about sexuality instead of hitting them out out at the gate with what's wrong with you? Like you're a sinner.

And we need to have the humility. Yeah.

We are all sinners saved by grace, and that we all have sin struggles. They might not be sexual sin struggles, but every single one of us knows what it is to wake up. every day with the sin struggle that we need to lay at the feet of Jesus. Yeah, and we can love people with whom we disagree on these issues, right? Yeah.

Because we're to love everybody. God loves everybody. Yes. And we want to emphasize the importance of knowing God and having a relationship with God because that changes everything, of course.

So people who disagree with us on some of these issues sexually are not going to become Christians by us simply telling them how wrong they are. Yeah, I think that's so key, Dr. Chapman. There's a difference between how we need to have these conversations in the church with other believers. Versus with people who don't claim to have a relationship with Jesus.

One is a discipleship conversation and calling each other to follow Jesus and confronting one another in love. The other one is just simply sharing the good news of who Jesus is and how He saves us. And sometimes we get it the opposite. We want to judge the world and condemn the world, and we look the other way with our own sin. But.

Conversations about sexuality with unbelievers are not effective. We need to be talking about who Jesus is. Yeah, that's the first step, right? Yes, yeah.

Well, let's come back to marriages. How are marriages affected by one or both spouses surrendering their sexuality? Boy, it's different in every marriage situation. And this is true not just with sexuality, but if you have a husband or a wife. who get completely to the place of God, I give up.

I am yours. Would you fill me with your spirit? Which you Every day just show me. how to love my spouse, how to lay down my sin, how to confess my sin. How to rely on you?

In a, you can't say every case because some people have hard hearts, but in the vast majority of cases, you see a profound difference in. that marriage and in the spouse. It's just it becomes a conviction of wow, my spouse is changing so much. Look at how they're pursuing God and they're loving me so different. Like, I need to let go of my bitterness.

I don't have to re. Defend myself all the time anymore. And so there is usually, in most cases, Kind of a boomerang effect of when we surrender, it might take time, it might take months. The other person is seeing the Holy Spirit in us and Jesus in us. They're being loved in a different way and they're being invited to be vulnerable and to work on some of their own struggles in a different way than when we're just operating in the flesh.

Julie, we alluded to this a little bit earlier, but talk about the struggle with same-sex desires. I mean, we have to acknowledge there are people that have same-sex desires. How do you have you seen women overcome these desires? Yeah.

Yeah, for sure I have. One thing, particularly when we're talking about female sexuality, It has been shown to be very fluid. throughout a woman's life and largely based on attachment. And so, for a lot of women, not all, but a lot of women who experience same-sex desires. It's usually because they feel safer with women.

I often, not always, but often there's been trauma in the past. I don't trust men. I attach to women more easily. Another woman just gets me emotionally. And so it's not necessarily just that you overcome it, but it's you begin to learn to reframe that.

that uh that I'm attached to women, I feel safe with women. It's not that I'm destined to always be sexually with another woman. And Gary, this is why it's so important that we reframe our understanding of the purpose of our sexuality. God did not design this to be a response to who we feel close to. He designed our sexuality, our expression of sex.

To be a symbol of who we are in marriage covenant with. And so reframing that and getting the help you need, getting the support you need in community. can make an incredible difference. And I know several women who experience same sex attraction, who are married to men and have really learned to build a sexual relationship with her husband. Uh and understand that Again, I'm surrendered to what God wants for me.

I'm not a victim to always just responding to what my body tells me I want. Yeah.

But it's a long journey and it does require that that surrender and that commitment. Because even those who are attracted to the opposite sex In marriage, can often be tempted to get involved with someone else, right? They have to resist that same pull. Yeah, or just I'm not attracted to my spouse anymore, so we stop having sex. Yeah.

You know, that's the wrong way to look at it. You don't have sex because you're attracted to your spouse. You work on being attracted to your spouse. You work on your sexual relationship because you're married. And uh so that that hits everybody.

Yeah.

We talked a bit about this, but talk to the person who isn't a Christian. What would you say to them about their sexuality? Yeah, first of all, I am so glad you're listening and that you've hung with us this long. You know, what I would say is there are two vastly different worldviews related to our sexuality. One is that we We are the created.

And that God has created us for a purpose. And eternally, that purpose is that we would know him and trust him, that we would be bonded to him in covenant with him. And when we have that relationship with God through Jesus, it changes everything. It should change how we spend our money and how we treat people. And yes, how we see marriage and sexuality.

But the other worldview says that you aren't the created, you're the creator. And you get to decide your own morality. You're the ruler of your own life. And that is what it is to not trust God. And ultimately, you get to a place where you realize, like, I can't be God.

I'm stewarding my life, and it's not leading me to fulfillment. And so, my encouragement to you would be: don't think so much about your sexuality first and foremost. Think about do I believe that I was created? Do I believe that there's a God who knows me, who loves me, who cares for me, who doesn't want to judge me, but wants me to trust him with my life? And that is the most important decision you can make.

Yeah.

Fundamentally, the Christian faith is a relationship with God, and as you said, that changes everything. As we close our conversation, let me ask this. Is there hope? for real change. for those who feel stuck in their sexual struggles, whatever those struggles might be.

One hundred percent. I have the faces of people going through my mind right now. That I've had the privilege to see profound change from addiction to freedom, from we're separated. We think we'll never be able to repair the damage that have been done to we love each other deeply, we're on mission together. Like God is the Redeemer and He is the healer.

And it's usually not a quick process, but it is a commitment to the ongoing journey of surrender and asking God to redeem what has been broken.

Well, we strongly believe that, and we've seen it over and over again.

Well, Judy, let me thank you for being with us today. This conversation is one that Christians don't often have, and what you're doing with your life and what you have learned through the years is helping a lot of people. And I think this book today we're talking about is going to be a book that a lot of our listeners are going to want to read because I think as they do and reach out to God, they're going to see real changes in this part of their lives.

Well, amen, and thank you so much for letting me share and for your faithfulness through the years, Dr. Chapman. Dr. Julie Slattery has been our guest today. You can find out more about that book, Surrendered Sexuality at buildingrelationships.us.

The subtitle, How Knowing Jesus Changes Everything. Go to buildingrelationships.us and you can also find some excellent resources at Julie's website. Authenticintimacy.com. And next week, We're going to the Psalms to learn how to experience God's affection. Don't miss a conversation with Glenna Marshall in one week.

Before we go, let me thank our production team Steve Wick and Janice Backing. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.