Upholding Purity in an Impure World

Today's episode contains portions from the following programs:

"The Beauty of a Pure Life"

"Passionate about Purity"

"The Culture's Discipling Your Kids about Sex. Are You?"

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Dannah Gresh: Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You know, the Bible’s perspective on purity has gotten a bad rap as repressive and outdated, but really, nothing could be further from the truth. A commitment to moral purity can be a huge step toward personal revival, deep joy, and true freedom.

Dannah: Sure can be! This is one I’ve lived out on the hot pavement of life, my friend! And I can tell you, purity is a wonderful and magnificent call of God. 

Are you living a life of purity? What exactly does that mean? Is the Bible’s teaching on it outdated? We’re going to go there today!

I’m Dannah Gresh, and I’m so glad you’re here for this episode of Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

Purity is beautiful. Of course, some people hear that word and think it sounds restrictive or legalistic. But today we’re going to have an honest, in-depth conversation about why purity matters so much. Why it’s good and right and true. 

As followers of Jesus, what we are called to be looks pretty countercultural to our world. Not only now and the way our culture is going, but even back in Paul’s day. In the Bible, he describes so much immorality and evil. In Titus chapter 3, verse 3, Paul says the people who don't know Christ are "slaves to various passions and pleasures.” Here’s Nancy and Mary Kassian to pick up on that thought. 

Nancy: If you say that today, you're considered intolerant or unloving, but it's true. People who don't have Christ in them live for their flesh. They live for their fleshly passions. They're slaves to that.

And against that backdrop, Paul, in the book of Titus, calls us to a lifestyle as believers that is polar opposite.

Mary Kassian: It is polar opposite. And in our culture, as you said, virtue, that's almost a dirty word. That's almost a word that is, "Oh, who would want to be virtuous?" or "Virtue is bad." I saw, I believe it was last Christmas, where there was a t-shirt that said, "A little bit of naughty is nice." That naughty is actually the new nice, and unless you are naughty, or unless there is a little bit of impurity or there's a little bit of sexual looseness about you, then there's . . .

Nancy: . . . something wrong with you.

Mary: There's something wrong with you . . . terribly wrong with you.

Nancy: So, in the context of this culture back then, and now, that thinks that way, Paul says in a world that celebrates promiscuity and lack of restraint, when it comes to sexuality, we ourselves came out of that background.

We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures . . . but when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us. [He washed us.] (Titus 3: 3–5).

Mary: Yes. And that's that whole picture of purity washing. We know what pure and impure means. We talk about it all the time. There are the soap commercials that the soap is oh so pure. And even in our eating, we talk about clean eating, where we're eating healthy, good food and not food that contains contaminates or carcinogens or food that's bad for us. So we have an understanding.

Nancy: That's popular, but not so popular when you talk about the heart or the soul.

Mary: No, not so popular when it comes to that. But that whole picture that Paul uses, that cleansing that Christ washes us, washes us sparkling clean and gets rid of all the dirt, gets rid of all the impurity, and actually presents us as His spotless bride. It's an amazing picture.

Nancy: And because we have been made pure in Christ, positionally pure in Him, washed by Him, Paul says then you should have practical purity. Your lives should look different. You should be different. You should care about not living in a way that is impure but living in a way that is consistent with a holy God who has saved us to be His saints.

Mary: I love that word that you used—positionally pure—because I think that's an important point, even as we're talking about purity today. We need to go back to remember that we are 100% clean and pure because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

Nancy: We have been declared righteous.

Mary: We have been declared righteous, and it's through nothing that we have done. It's not based on my behavior. It's based on the finished work of Christ on the cross. So I need to understand that even if I have issues in my life, and even if I'm wrestling with impurity and impure thoughts, that I have been made clean, and my whole Christian life is going to be a process of living up to that position that I have in Jesus Christ.

Nancy: And that matters.

Mary: It does matter

Nancy: But you can't just say, "Okay, I've gotten saved, but I can continue living the way I have been, the way the world does." That's unthinkable in the New Testament context. In fact, you see some of these very stirring verses in the book of Titus about how the unbelieving world is characterized by impure lives, but followers of Christ are supposed to be pure. Why? Titus 2:14, "Christ gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who were zealous for good works."

He saved us to be like Him, to be His pure possession, to be free from the slavery of lawlessness. And he says we're to be above reproach, and we're to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. And we are to live self-controlled upright and godly lives.

Nancy: So one way that Christian women make a difference in our world and make the gospel believable is by standing out, by being different—not in a self-righteous way because it's not our righteousness at all, but in the way of His righteousness. And the goal in all of this is not to make us look good, but it is to shine a spotlight on the purity of Christ and how good He is.

Mary: And that's what we do when we have purity in our lives. It's like we're a walking advertisement, a billboard just announcing how beautiful and how precious Jesus is and telling things about His character about His purity and His goodness and how wonderful that is.

Nancy: And that He really does change lives.

Dannah: Purity in your life is actually putting Jesus on display. That’s what we’ve been hearing from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Mary Kassian. 

Now if you know me, you know I’m passionate about the topic of purity. I love teaching about it. At a Revive conference, I had the chance to share a little bit of my heart and some truths I believe God wants us to embrace. Here’s why purity matters so much:

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Ladies, here’s the problem: we cannot display and adorn ourselves with the gospel when we look as addicted, as broken, as impure and as ashamed as the rest of the world! They’re not going to want what we have if they don’t see it working.

Today, I want us to dig into Titus. We’re going to read verses 11–14 in chapter 2. I found three things in here that challenge us for this day and age—the condition and the state that we are in with impurity.

It reads: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age . . . waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:11–14).

There are three things that God put on my heart as I looked at these few verses—that don’t seem to be that packed with truth about purity—but, oh, they truly are! And the first one is this: Purity is a process, not a condition.

When I wrote my first book, in the year 2000, on the topic of purity, you were a hero in the Christian community if you were talking about purity. Not so much anymore. I get letters all the time, people asking me, “Could you just not use the word ‘purity?’”

Sometimes it’s their moms, who deeply want their daughters to sit under my teaching or read my books, but they just think the word “purity” is so irrelevant. I use the word “purity” because this Book uses the word “purity.”

Sometimes they say, “Purity is so outdated!” Listen, God’s standards about sexuality were never in style! (laughter) But here’s the thing that breaks my heart: Many of the women that write to me say, “When you use the word purity, it just makes me feel so impure. It hurts me.”

So I want to take just a moment to address those hearing my voice this very moment who feel very impure. There’s good news for us! The word purity is not synonymous with virginity or abstinence or never having seen pornography.

The word purity is not where we begin. Psalm 51 tells us you were born sinful. You may have never been pure. Purity is not something you can lose; it might be something you never had. The Greek word used here in this passage in Titus means, “pure, clean, without fault, chaste, exciting reverence, sacred.” It is a word that came from a word that means “holy.”

Do you know what that means? It’s not just those of us that have been stained by the pain of sexual sin, but every single one of us that should feel overwhelmed at this word when it appears in the pages of Scripture . . . falling on our faces before God crying, “Mercy!” We should feel a little uncomfortable.

But the good news is this: The way that the word purity is used in verses 13 and 14, where it says Jesus Christ purifies for Himself a people” . . . I see two things in that. First, I see that it is a process. Jesus purifies us. It’s something that’s a work that’s happening, an ongoing motion, a movement, a direction, a pursuit. It’s not a beginning place—it’s a process. You might call it “sanctification.” We have a word for it.

But here’s the beautiful thing I see, the second thing: It’s not something that we ourselves can do. So maybe you just need to stop white-knuckling it, friend. You are never going to stop that thing. You are never going to say “no” to that person aside from setting yourself in the presence of Jesus.

Jesus purifies us. It’s His work in our lives! You must put your sweet, broken heart in His hands to do His work. You cannot do it yourself.

And that brings me to the second point; I feel really, really strongly about this. If we are to succeed in training ourselves and others to live in purity, we must foster communities dominated by God’s grace—not the rules about sex.

Impurity grows in an environment dominated by rules. Let me share with you some startling realities. While most church-going men who are regular in attendance are slightly less likely to look at porn than the unchurched, men who self-identify as (and this survey used a specific word, a specific sect, of our evangelical churches that—if I said it today—many of you would equate with legalism) men who attended those churches are ninety-one percent more likely to look at porn than unchurched men. There’s a traceable link between legalism and isolation that feeds sexual secrets.

Women, we’re not off the hook! Only seven percent of women who had an abortion while attending church felt there was one person that they could talk to, in their churches, about their dilemma. Only seven percent of the women in our churches . . .

I can only imagine, what would happen if we would foster a community of grace so that these women felt like, when they found themselves in a crisis pregnancy, they could come to just one of us? Ladies, how many of those babies could we have saved!?

A commitment to life mandates that we foster an environment of grace for women found in crisis pregnancies.

And here is something that our world is really struggling with, and we really need to deal with in the church. According to recent research, seventy-three percent of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals felt the Christian church was unfriendly to them.

What would happen if we started creating a safe place for our brothers and sisters struggling in this area by admitting that the ground at the foot of the cross is level. There is no “worse” sin. None!

Paul instructs in verses 11 and 12 that, “. . . the grace of God . . . [trains] us to renounce ungodliness and . . . live self-controlled, upright . . . godly lives.” Now, I’m not talking about “cheap grace.” He’s not talking about cheap grace. He’s talking about grace that’s strong enough to carry the truth, but gentle enough to hear a confession.

Do we have that in our churches? I think we’re very quick to instruct; the “thou-shalt-not’s” flow quickly off of our lips. But are we quick to confess our own struggles, so that we can create an environment of grace, declaring that the ground at the foot of the cross truly is level?

The word here for “grace”—it’s not that it’s spoken without solid access to truth, but Paul cannot think of Christian truth and conduct outside of God’s grace. They were tightly woven together!

Ladies, I want to tell you how Bob and I have attempted to create an environment of grace for own children in our home. We tell them about our past. We told them about our sin. I remember when I took my oldest son, Robbie—in eighth grade—out for ice cream to tell him about my past.

Girls in his class had begun reading my book on purity, and I knew that he might hear my story before I could tell him. I just simply said, “Robbie I want to tell you why I love talking and teaching on the subject of purity. It’s because when I was a teenager, I did not walk in purity. I know how much it hurts, and I don’t want other people to know that hurt. But if they do, I want them to find the healing of Jesus much faster than I did!”

And my sweet Robbie—oh, he’s a teddy bear. But he sat there in all of his eighth-grade awkwardness, not knowing what to say. And I said, “Robbie, I kind of need to know what’s going through your head right now.” He looked at me, and he just simply said, “Mom, that’s why Jesus died for you!”

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Yes, create an environment of grace. It is what teaches us to say no to ungodliness and impurity. Well, that was just two of the things I expounded upon about purity based on that passage in Titus 2. But we’ll be sharing that whole message on an upcoming episode of Revive Our Hearts, or you can visit ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend to get a link to it right now and hear the rest.

And, Nancy’s book Adorned: Living out the Beauty of the Gospel Together is all about Titus 2. It’s available to you this month as a gift when you donate any amount to Revive Our Hearts. Your support of the work God is doing through this ministry means so much to us, and sending you a copy of Adorned is one way we want to thank you. Just go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode to give. 

Well, my friend Erin Davis had the delight of talking with Dr. Christopher Yuan recently, and he issued a sort of challenge—to bring the conversation about purity into the open. Let it be your living room conversation with your children. The culture has such a pull on our children, and those outside voices are going to be what they hear if we’re not constantly teaching and talking with them about God’s design for purity. Here’s Erin Davis with Dr. Yuan, explaining more in this conversation. 

Erin Davis: I became a Christian in the nineties, which was kind of the pinnacle of the true love waits, purity culture movement, which I think had a lot of benefits. Because of that I waited until I was married, and I'm so grateful. But there was a lot of emphasis on the don'ts and not a lot of emphasis on the gospel. And so, I'm so grateful for the emphasis that you actually you and your parents, which I love that part of this, you developed something called the Holy Sexuality Project. When I think about developing some curriculum with my parents, I'm not sure I would pick sexuality as a topic. So, I would love to hear that story and about that project and what the Lord's doing there. 

Dr. Yuan: Well, first of all, you're exactly right. I mean, there is this awkwardness and weirdness between child and parent. But my parents and I have been talking about sex for the past several decades. So nothing's off the page anymore.

Here's the thing Erin. You mentioned in the nineties there was the true love waits and they would have purity rings. Now, here's the goodness. People are kind of trying to throw the baby out with a bathwater. Purity is good. Holiness is good. When we make it a little bit legalistic, that's where we can bend. 

And the other problem is this, Erin. We need to teach our kids, “No, don't do this. Don't do that.” But we can't stop there. That was half the message. We need to teach not only God’s no, but God's yes. We can't build a Christian life just on God's no. What is God's yes? This is where we need to have a robust theology of sexuality, which I saw missing. 

There were a lot of resources in books kind of focusing on why this isn't important. But we need to also know what is God's yes, not just God's no. So I wrote this book, Holy Sexuality in the Gospel, which is teaching on homosexuality, chastity, and singleness, faithfulness in marriage. It’s teaching God's no and God's yes. I think that's what was missing. Well, this book is for adults, but man, we needed something desperately for teens. 

And if I could also add, I felt the approach from the ways before was another program. Let's develop something to show the youth. Erin, I was not a Christian when I was in the nineties. I was born in 1970. So, I'm probably older than you. But during that time period, they looked for a youth group, all these resources I think they were helpful and beneficial. But here's the issue. A program today is not going to be the answer. The once-a-year thing, maybe even twice a year, what we need is not a program to show the youth group or in the classroom. We need to be having it in the living room in the family, and what I believe as the true answer is home discipleship. 

So, parents are having these conversations every week, honestly, almost every day. Why? How much are our kids being inundated? Once a year? Twice a year? Once a month? Once a week?

Erin: Multiple times a day. 

Dr. Yuan: Daily. 

Erin: Absolutely 

Dr. Yuan: From their schools, from their peers, from Tik Tok, from social media, which by the way, let's just get rid of those. I mean, let's limit those. You don't need those. So we need that. But when you look at all the resources, all the resources for youth groups, and those I'm not saying are not good, but even better is a specific resource for home discipleship. A youth pastor does not replace the parent; the Christian School teacher does not replace the parent. No one replaces the parent. 

Erin: Amen.

Dr. Yuan: So, we can just see that and have these conversations. I feel like this is the first resource of its kind. Here's a wonderful story. Really short. A pastor went through this lesson, and he was like, “I gotta get this done before school starts.” He has a freshman in high school, junior in high school. He said, went through it once a day for twelve days in two weeks. And that lesson one, his fourteen-year-old was like, “Dad, this is so awkward. I'm talking to my parents about sex.” Like I get that right. 

Erin: Yeah.

Dr. Yuan: We're talking real, totally awkward. And then at the end of lesson twelve, this father asked at the very end, “So do you guys still feel awkward or weird talking to your parents about sex?” 

His son said, “No, Dad, not at all.” 

If we can tear down that wall of fear of awkwardness that's on both sides—parents feel weird, kids feel weird—if we can tear that down, because the kids don't feel weird talking to their peers. The kids don't feel weird talking to their teacher or their school counselor, which don't talk to counselors. Or they're really okay to get online and get in the chat rooms. 

Erin: Absolutely. 

Dr. Yuan: They need to be having those conversations on a daily, weekly basis at home with their grandparents with their parents. Our goal is not just to have a twelve lesson thing, but to actually start this trajectory that will continue on beyond high school, into college, even into the young adult years to have these conversations at home.

Dannah: I hope you’ll take that challenge to keep the topic of purity and God’s design at the forefront of your home. 

You can hear more from Dr. Christopher Yuan and me on how to talk to your children about sex. We both share a common burden to bring this conversation back to the living room where parents can be in the driver’s seat of teaching God’s truth to their children. So, we’re joining forces on September 17 for a parenting workshop to equip you to do just that! 

Learn more about it in the links of today’s episode of Revive Our Hearts Weekend! You’ll find that by going to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, and clicking on “Upholding Purity in an Impure World.” 

I hope this has been an eye-opening look at the importance of purity and living life the way God intended. It’s a difficult topic, especially in a world and time where we’re constantly being bombarded with lies on this issue, but it is a conversation we must have. 

Revive Our Hearts always strives to bring women the truth of the gospel to help them live in freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. And not only are we doing this in English! Are you aware of the different language outreaches we’re involved in?

Check out ReviveOurHearts.com/languages to see the variety of language resources we offer and the ways God is using this ministry throughout the entire world. 

Next weekend, we’ll be back with another episode of Revive Our Hearts Weekend—this time, talking about loving your husband. We’ll be answering the question, “What does it look like to love him well?” I hope you’ll join me for that conversation.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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