"I'm a 19!"

Lie #2: You are who you sleep with (or want to sleep with) 

(or haven't slept with)

In the 2011 movie "What's Your Number?" the lead character Ally (played by Anna Farris) reads a magazine article informing her that women who have been with 20+ sexual partners statistically "can't find a husband."

Ally is disturbed by the article because, throughout the course of her life, she has had 19 sexual partners and has still not found "Mr. Right." Wanting to see how her "number" stacks up against her friends on a Girls Night Out at the club, Ally suggest they play a game where each woman writes down the number "of the guys they have slept with" and they will each try and guess who wrote it. 

While the scene contains inappropriate language and ostensibly glorifies sexual promiscuity and drunkenness, the scene also reveals the incredible emphasis our culture places on sexual names and categories. These names and categories are often viewed (both by culture and by individuals) as definitive and they shape how we see ourselves and how we believe we are to live in the world.  

Here's the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJxntxhtwQU

We live in a world that loves to define people with sexual names and categories. 

Straight. Gay. Virgin. Experienced. Prude. Promiscuous. "I'm a 19!"

Who you've slept with. Who you want to sleep with. Who you haven't slept with. All become ways of figuring out where you fit in and what sort of things you should strive for. 

For some, these names cause us guilt and shame - "I'm a 19?" 

For others, they are a source of pride and confidence - "I'm a 19!"

For some, it's not so much about what you have done that earns you your name, it's about what you haven't done. 

Some are made to feel as though they are sexual failures or inadequate because of their inexperience or the type/quality/attractiveness of the people that they have been with. 

And in a sad and troubling way, many Christians have taken this last category and flipped it on its head. People that are chaste and saving themselves for marriage are - not simply celebrated but - viewed as being the pinnacle of the teenage/single Christian life! We're made to feel superior to those who have "given into temptation" and "ruined" "dirtied" "given away" something that was supposed to be for their future spouse. 

Let me quickly clarify,

Does God want people to save sex until marriage? Yes.
Is chastity something that Christians should not only strive for but celebrate? Yes.
Does God care about who you sleep with and don't sleep with? Definitely. 

The problem isn't chastity -

the problem is we've inherited our culture's same obsession with sex, 

we just obsess about it differently 

(And if you watched the 2 hour Sean and Catherine tie the knot special you know exactly what I'm talking about. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm jealous of you. And if you do, what exactly is "grown sexy" anyway?). 

And while we (Christians) think we are fighting back and resisting the perverted, distorted tendencies of the world around us, really we are just falling into the same trap because despite all our emphasis on "chastity" and "saving ourselves for marriage" we are still looking at and organizing the world primarily using sexual names and categories. 

Sex and sexuality is still viewed as the most important way to classify ourselves and the world around us. 

But the first Christians had a very different view of the world. 

The first Christians believed that the most important/definitive/life guiding category was not found in sexuality/gender/class/nationality or any other category that the culture around them was obsessed with. The number one, most definitive, life guiding, world ordering category was Jesus. 

The first Christians believed that through Jesus, everything had changed

they no longer saw themselves like everyone else saw them,

they were convinced that they had been saved/redeemed/transformed

that they had been adopted

they were now - before (or despite) anything else in the world - God's children

(when the Apostle Paul refers to other Christians as "brothers and sisters," he's not just being cute or polite - he actually believes it!).

This wasn't because of something that they had done. It wasn't because they were really good people. It wasn't because they had it all together, believed all the right things, or had kept themselves pure.

It was because of Jesus. What he had done, through his life, his death and his resurrection. He had brought them back to God in a way that they could never have achieved on their own. In Jesus they found a break from the old world and the calling into a new one.   

Suddenly their focus began to shift. The categories that the culture around them obsessed over began to move from the foreground to the background. Suddenly, their identity and calling - what was expected of them and what they expected of themselves - was changed and transformed.  

They entrusted and gave themselves to Jesus. They left behind the old ways of thinking, the old ways of living.  The word that we often use to capture this entrusting or giving away of their lives is the word "faith." Faith isn't simply believing something exists or is real (although it's a helpful and important part), it's so much more than that - faith is giving your life to something - centring your life around something or, as it was for the first Christians, centring your life around someone. 

They lived with the conviction that the same power that brought the universe into existence was the same power that brought Jesus back to life. They believed that, in God bringing Jesus back to life, they were witnessing the breaking in of God's heart/dream/prayer/plan for the world. They called this breaking in of resurrection power "new creation," and it was something that foreshadowed, gave a taste of the world that was to come. It was something that all the evil in the world couldn't stop. That not even death could hold back. 

It was in Jesus and his agenda that they found their identity. Leaving behind the old ways of thinking, the old ways of living, and the old categories. 

Still today, we live in a world that's caught up in deception and dead-end categories.

Rather than succumbing to our culture's way of seeing and organizing the world, look to Jesus and his redemptive love and sacrifice as what makes you, you and us, us. 

Again, this is not to say that sex doesn't matter anymore, that who you sleep with or don't sleep with is insignificant. Instead, what it means is that our starting place needs to be the work and agenda of Jesus - and let that shape everything else.

You are so much more than: your number, your track record, you sexual resume or history, your virginity, your attractions, your achievements and failures and the names that our culture are so quick to label you with. 

And regardless of if you are "a 0!" or "a 19!" 

you are not a number. You are a child of God. 

Relevant Scripture Passages
John 1:12-13
Galatians 3:26-28
2 Corinthians 5:17

Discussion Questions
Q: If a movie studio was to make a movie about your life, what actor would you want to play you in the movie?
Q: What part of your life would you insist needs to be in the movie in order to capture an accurate representation of who you are and what you are like? (i.e. an experience that you have had, a conviction that you hold, a habit or trait that you feel is an essential part of what makes you, you)
Q: Think back to the clip from What's Your Number?  When the character in the movie clip states: "I'm a 19!" what did you think? How did you feel about the label that she had accepted/embraced/put on herself? 
Q: Why do you think that sexual categories (i.e. gay/straight/easy/prude/tease/virgin/etc.) are given so much emphasis within our culture as the defining characteristics of people?
Q: Why do you think that sexual categories are so often the primary way we categorize ourselves?
Q: Keeping in mind John 1:12-13, what should be the primary category a Christian see himself/herself as?
Q: How might seeing yourself as a "child of God" radically alter the way that you see 1) God? 2) yourself?

Read Galatians 3:26-28.
In Galatians 3:28, Paul lists the three major categories that people were defined by in the Roman world: male/female, slave/free, Jew/Gentile. Everyone fell into these categories and they shaped the way that one saw themselves and their calling in the world.  Paul claims that these distinct categories melt away when people have faith in Jesus, that these categories no longer become the primary definition of who they are in the world. Instead, they are defined by what Jesus has done and is doing. This is still true today. The good news of Jesus means that we are not defined by what we do (or don't do). We are defined by what Jesus has done and is doing, in us and through us!
Q: How did faith in Jesus and the liberation from the dominant cultural categories of their time infuse new purpose in the way that the first Christians lived and saw themselves?
Q: How does faith in Jesus and the liberation from the world's categories that we are so often labeled with (or that we label others with), infuse new purpose in the way that we see ourselves and live today?

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul writes that "if anyone is in Christ, he [she] is a new creation. The old has passed way; behold, the new has come" (ESV translation).
Q: In what ways has Jesus made you a "new creation"? What old things have passed away? What new things have come?