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Can’t Get No Satisfaction?

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When it comes to sex and money, Paul Tripp remarks, our culture has gone crazy. And while so many are “talking about these things in ways that lack sanity, Christians are strangely silent.” In this new video, Tripp sits down with Mark Mellinger to discuss the twin topics of his new book, Sex and Money: Pleasures That Leave You Empty and Grace That Satisfies (Crossway, 2013).

Money and possessions, while important, must never be ultimate. “Of course money can purchase enjoyable things and bring temporary comfort and pleasure,” Tripp admits. “But what it can’t do is be your Savior.” When we seek satisfaction in stuff, we’re asking it to be something it was never meant to be.

Tripp also unpacks what he calls the “individualization of sex”—the assumption that sex exists for my fulfillment, my wants, my needs, my pleasure. But sex, Tripp explains, is designed to connect to the most significant things of life—worship, relationship, and obedience. “If it’s about these things,” he observes, “then it can’t be about just me.” It’s vital, then, for Christ’s people to hold up the beauty of Christ-honoring sexuality along with a loving warning that “disconnected” sex is as dangerous as it is distorted.

The fundamental problem, of course, is not pleasure; it’s idolatry. As Tripp explains, “Creation is not meant to satisfy you. It’s meant to be pleasurable so that you’d run after the ultimate Pleasure who will satisfy your heart—your Creator.

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