Josh Harris has some positive things to say to young men on the topic of “Don’t Waste Your Sexuality.”

(Video length: 2:54)

Don’t waste your sexuality … in just our modern world I think that most people would say that our sexuality is our own, it’s all about our own pleasure, our own desires. And yet when you realize that all of life belongs to God, it’s for God, it really transforms your view. And so I think to waste your sexuality is to think that it’s only about this moment, or it’s only about just satisfying an urge. But our sexuality is such a rich thing … as a single person your sexuality is telling you something. It’s telling you that marriage is a good thing, it’s driving you towards something.

And so I think about young men that I interact with, and you know, trying to be godly and holy when it comes to sex can feel like such a burden, like, “Does God have a bad sense of humor? He gives me all these desires and then he says, ‘But don’t do anything with it.'” And the truth is, no, he does call you to restrain yourself and to preserve yourself for marriage, and yet you are supposed to do something with it. And what you’re supposed to do with it is to allow that desire to drive you, to say first of all, “I’m going to get my life in gear. I need to get a job, I need to start working hard to be a man of maturity and spiritual insight and discernment so that I can lead a family, a wife …

And then you get married, and you realize that your sexuality and the joy of that in marriage is something that’s constantly bringing you back to intimacy, constantly driving you to the good work involved with preserving intimacy and just bonding a husband and wife together. All these [are] different ways that God uses this gift to fulfill his purposes and to direct us and guide us, and when we engage our sexuality for him, it becomes a beautiful thing. It has purpose … and it’s not just about trying to seek some greater and greater thrill.

Look at the emptimess of our pornography-saturated world, and just how it becomes more and more meaningless. It literally is wasted and poured out for nothing. And yet when you look at God’s plan, you see not only pleasure, but delight and purpose that ultimately points us back to the giver of that good gift.