When Jesus Becomes King Of Our Sex Lives

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Thanks to distinguishing me out there living a yoga life, I guess, as they say, kind of out there every night, having fun.

And for me, or for as a single Christian, it's not what we're called to live like.

A couple months ago I went for a physical, and doctor asked me, said, Hey, you want to test it for STDs?

I'd be like, no.

You know, couldn't wait for marriage, and to, which is, you know, response was very worldly.

Um, just said, he goes, man, you're you're a young, handsome man, you know, you should be out there having fun.

And I'm just like, no, no, no, I'm just I'm waiting.

I just think the world thinks it's thinking we should just be uh having fun and not having to care in the world.

Wade Burgess does the way the morning show of Wade Burgess on Sundays every so often, and one of his first guests was Martin McClendon.

Um he asked her a question when it came to dating and marriage.

Um, and I always go back to it, it's one of the morningships that I always remember.

Um she said Neil was worth the wait.

He was worth it.

Um and so then I every so often I have to remind myself that whoever that I'm gonna marry uh that's out there for me, uh, if God has it for me, um, is that she's worth it.

Um and so the waiting, the waiting will be worth it, it'll it'll all be worth it in the end.

Um through this, even through the singleness and the loneliness, um, God's been faithful to provide that family for me, that community.

Um, I remember being invited here uh to the church with James around, and um, and then from there, you know, I've become really connected to his family and um not just his family and the church, but so many others, and um they kind of lift the burden of the loneliness and the sing and the singleness, and so much so that I I I don't necessarily think about it as much.

Um, but this community has been probably where God's just been so faithful to me.

All right, that was Richard.

He had good stuff to say.

We're gonna be in Song of Solomon this morning.

So if you want to go ahead and turn there, I want to let you know before I start, it's uh most of the sermons in the series are a little more PG 13 than they are.

G.

So if you want to take advantage of our um of our kids' church, please send your kids out that way.

Um we'll go ahead and get started, okay?

So, Song of Solomon, we're gonna do.

So here's what we're gonna do today.

We're gonna do chapter two, verses one through seven, and then we get to verse seven.

It's gonna begin talking about how we need a weight with our love.

It's not always the right time to enter into it.

And so then we're gonna jump over to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and we're gonna talk about um what's it look like when God becomes king of our lives?

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

What do our sex lives look like when he becomes our king?

All right, so let's get started.

Let me pray first.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for this book.

I thank you that there's no area of our lives that you don't care about, and you care about how we we walk our lives out sexually.

And I pray, Lord, this morning, would you come and would you speak to us?

I don't want to say any more than you want me to say.

I don't want to say any less than you want me to say this morning, Lord.

Would you challenge us where we need challenge, encourage us where we need encourage?

We want to hear from you this morning, Jesus.

Your name I pray.

Amen.

All right.

Chapter two, one through seven.

I am the rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys, as a lily among brambles, so is my love among the women, among the young women.

An apple among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men.

With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.

Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I'm sick with love.

His left hand is under my head, his right hand embraces me.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.

All right, so in chapter two, verse one, she is again, she's saying, I'm a rose of Sharon, I'm a lily of the valleys.

And what you need to know about both of these flowers is in that time they're very common flowers.

And so what she's saying is she's again expressing her insecurities like she did last week, and she's saying, I'm I'm just common.

There's nothing special about me, right?

And so she's again, she's basically saying, I feel insecure.

And this guy, again, he he's gonna flip that on her, and he says, You're not just a lily, you're a lily among brambles.

He's he's saying, You you stick out, you stand out, you you are special.

And and so I talked about this last week, so I'm not gonna go into it much, but again, this is a repeated thing in scripture.

And when something's repeated in scripture, that means it's important.

So when your friends, when your spouse, when they're expressing to you that they have insecurities, I think it's important that you speak into them.

Speak words of life, words of truth, build them up.

Verse three.

This is her talking.

She says, In the apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men.

With great delight, I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

And so she responds to him complimenting her by her complimenting him, and she's telling him that he stands out now.

Like, if you ever have I know a bunch of you guys are hunters, and when you're hunting, if you're in the middle of a forest and you're walking through, if you see an apple tree in the middle of a forest, that's weird, right?

Like you don't usually see an apple tree, it's usually in a field of apple trees, it's usually an orchard.

But to see one in the middle of a forest, that would be strange.

And that's kind of what it's talking about here.

It's an apple tree in the middle of the forest.

And if you were out there and you saw that while you're hunting, and it was actually in season, you might grab an apple and and take a bite, right?

And so that's kind of what she's saying.

She's like, You're you're an apple tree in the middle of the forest, and I like just coming under you and sitting in your shadow, and I feel safe, I feel refreshed.

And so, again, we talked about this last week too.

But we need to be the kind of person for our friends and for our spouses that they they come to us and they feel safe sharing their heart, they feel refreshed when we share with them.

Like that that needs to be the type of person that we are for them.

And are we doing that?

2-4, then.

She's he he she says, He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.

What's this banner that she's talking about?

If you go to Numbers 2-2, we get a little more info on what the banner was.

We we like to use scripture to interpret scripture, right?

So in Numbers 2-2, it says, the people of Israel shall camp each by his own standard with the banners of their fathers' houses.

And so what this is, is they were about to take a uh census of the people of Israel and count how many there were, and they're all under these banners, and the banners would probably have the name of the tribe of Israel that they were in, and then everybody from the tribe is land lined up behind that banner.

And so the kind of banner that she's talking about here, it's the kind of banner that like a military would use as they're heading into war.

Somebody would be holding a banner up and saying, These are the people of Israel, and we're we're coming to get you, kind of thing.

And so she's saying that he's holding a banner up and it's love, and he's taking her to a public place.

Like they're in the banqueting house.

The banqueting house is a place where you eat food and drink wine, and they're there with their friends, and his banner over her, he is publicly showing his affection for her.

He is he is proud to be her husband, she is proud to be his wife.

So we've talked about complimenting and encouraging your spouse, but not only should you do that in private, but what you're seeing here is you should also do it in public.

You should also compliment them in public.

And this is very countercultural.

You know, in our culture right now, I think, especially for men, for husbands, how many of you have seen The Simpsons?

And in The Simpsons, Homer Simpson, he is just, he's the most he is the dumbest husband, the dumbest dad, poor Marge.

How does she possibly survive him, right?

And that's not the only show that has that.

Almost every TV show you watch, especially sitcoms, the dad's just, he's just an idiot, and and and the mom's just putting up with him.

And so if you're not careful, what's going on in our culture can seep into your marriage and you can begin to treat your husband that way.

Like you can start to, you know, you go out with your girlfriends and you're just like, my husband's so dumb, you won't believe what he did this week.

And and if you do that, that's not good.

But what's even worse is if you do it to him in public.

So imagine maybe you went on vacation to Yellowstone last summer, and your husband starts telling a story.

You're out with your friends, you're you're eating a meal with a bunch of friends there.

He starts telling a story about your trip to Yellowstone, and you went on a hike.

And so he starts the story, he says, Yeah, we went on a hike.

I think we we started the hike in the afternoon, and you're, oh, wait a minute, it wasn't the afternoon, actually.

We actually started in the morning.

Okay, yeah, the morning.

Okay, and so he keeps telling the story, like, yeah, so we're walking down this trail, and you know, off to the right, we see about 10 deer over there, and again, you feel that that wasn't accurate.

Like, there were actually only five deer.

And so again, you button.

Do you guys understand that when you do that to your husband, when he's sharing stories, he's slowly dying inside.

And I understand, like, some men they don't like to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

There, there's there's some truth to that.

But you don't want to be that kind of wife.

Like, if he is that kind of guy and it's something very egregious, I would just wait till afterwards and talk to him then.

But just as much as that can kind of destroy your husband or your wife's soul if you do that, it can encourage them just as strongly.

Like, I would almost say, you know, women, when you if you bring them flowers, sometimes if it's a really meaningful time and you hand them flowers, they'll start to cry a little bit because they're so touched by the flowers.

I think when you compliment your husband in public, I think he's crying on the inside.

He's not actually gonna cry, it's not gonna happen.

But on the inside, you'll see, like when you start complimenting in public, he'll start to sit up a little bit straighter, and he'll it just it it it affects him that much.

So when you're out with your friends, look for opportunities to compliment your husband, to compliment your wife.

It it just packs more punch than if you do it at home.

Like it's gonna mean something to him, it's gonna mean something to her.

If you're like, man, my husband took me on a date this week, and he just he just listened to me, and he was so kind and wonderful, or he washed the dishes for me the other night.

He does stuff like that for me all the time.

He's such a good husband.

You say that kind of stuff, and your spouse is just gonna sit up a little straighter and just the love is gonna grow.

And again, this book, this is an ideal marriage, right?

And this is what we're we're striving for.

And if you want your marriage to grow and you want to grow in love with each other, this is the kind of thing you gotta do.

Do it with your friends, do it with your spouse, compliment them in public.

Um, two, five, and six, what you see here is things just start to intensify between them.

Um, they're starting to get more physically intimate.

And where I want to go this morning is 2 7.

And here's what it says it says, I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, do not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.

And this verse, this is repeated, I think, three times in the book, the same verse.

This is the word of the Lord for you if you're single this morning, that you should not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.

Because what you're gonna see in this book and what we've already seen is that the depth of intimacy that they have, it's it's it's deep.

Like they they deeply love one another.

And if if you would have sex with someone who you're not married to, and then you end up breaking up with them, it's almost like if you cut your arm off.

Like that's that's how traumatic it can be.

Because sex isn't just a physical act, sex is a supernatural act, like it's not just your body, your soul is involved too.

And when you cut that off, if you break up with that person, it's it's like you're cutting off your arm.

So let's dig into this more.

And and 2-7 doesn't allow me to do that.

So we're gonna go to 1 Corinthians and we're gonna go to chapter 6, and we're gonna look at verses 9 through 20.

I just want you to know before we get into this, I'm just the mailman today.

I'm just delivering what God said.

I like I agree with what he said, but I I'm just delivering it, and I'm hoping to preach it in such a way that if you're upset, you you're not upset with me, you're actually upset with with Jesus.

That's my hope.

I want to preach it that well.

So we'll see how it goes.

Do you know back in the day during the Crusades, when when they baptized the crusaders, you know, they would hold their sword above the head, their heads, and they get baptized.

Because what they were saying was, I'll I'll surrender to Jesus' lordship, but I I don't want my sword because I'm still gonna be a soldier and I'm still gonna kill people.

Like that's something that happened.

I think today we do the same thing, but I think we don't have a sword in our hands.

I think in one hand we have our wallet, and we're like, I, you know, Jesus, you can have control of my life, but not my wallet.

I still want to control my finances, I don't trust you with that.

And in the other hand, we have our sex life.

And we're like, I wanna, I wanna be in the kingdom, but I don't know how I feel about a king.

And so, you know, some of you, maybe you come to church because you enjoy the worship, maybe you're here because you enjoy the people, maybe you enjoy the preaching, maybe some of you are here because you just like that there's kids church and you don't have to worry about your kids for like an hour, and that maybe that's it.

And so what you're doing is you're enjoying the kingdom.

You you enjoy the kingdom of God and the people of God.

But when you become a Christian and you decide to follow Jesus, he becomes the king of your life.

And and he is now your master, and you have to submit to what he asks you to do.

And if there are areas of your life where when you get baptized, there's some stuff that you're still not willing to submit to, I would say if he's not Lord of all, then he's not Lord at all.

If he's not Lord of all, then he's not Lord at all.

And so that's really what we're gonna be going after here this morning.

Is Jesus really the king of your life?

So let's read through the passage and then we'll start talking about it.

6, 9 to 20.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor uh idolaters, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.

All things are lawful for me, but all not all things are helpful.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything.

Food's meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both, one and the other.

The body's not meant for sexual or immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

And and God raised the Lord and will also raise up by his power.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

So I then take members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute.

Never.

Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?

For as it's written, the two will become one fleshed, but he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

Flee from sexual immorality.

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

You are not your own, you are bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.

So in verse nine, it says, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Who's Paul writing to when he's saying that?

Who is he saying this to?

It's the Corinthian church.

This letter was written to the church in Corinth.

He's telling the believers that they are unrighteous.

And that they're not gonna inherit the kingdom of God if they're walking in this stuff, right?

You know, here in our church, there's probably one person who's the most righteous person among us.

That's probably true.

There's probably somebody, they're probably the most righteous person.

But even that person, the most righteous person among us, if we would compare them to Jesus and his perfect righteousness, there's still a huge gap there.

They're not even close.

Um, I think have any of you ever bargained with God and you've said stuff like, or maybe like New Year's resolution.

Every year we do a New Year's resolution, and we're like, you know, I'm gonna stop eating, or I'm gonna stop drinking, or and or I'm gonna start lifting weights.

Like you do this kind of stuff.

How how does that usually go for you?

Usually by about February or March, it's it's done, right?

And what I would put before you is I don't know that there's anybody in your life that's lied to you more than you.

You see that?

Like you're making a promise to yourself that you're gonna do that, and then you don't follow through.

See, all of us are unrighteous.

And what Paul's saying here is unrighteous aren't gonna inherit the kingdom of God.

And then he says, do not be deceived.

So none of us, when we sin, we don't usually actually think it's sin.

We've usually tricked ourselves into thinking this is okay.

So if you went to Walmart this week, and maybe you just lost your job this week and you're just in bad financial situation, you don't know how your family's gonna eat.

And so you convince yourself the only way that I can feed my family is I gotta go steal some chicken from Walmart.

So you grab a chicken and you you get out of there.

But when you do that, you're not thinking like this is sin, I shouldn't have done it.

You you've justified the sin in your heart.

And that's what all of us do.

When we sin, we're deceived, like we're doing things that we think are right, but actually, if we look at God's word, they're actually wrong and they're not gonna be beneficial to us.

And so Paul's gonna give this list of sins, and and he's basically saying all of these sins are the same.

Because of these sins, you're unrighteous and you won't inherit the kingdom of God.

Okay, so right now, it's kind of like we're on a roller coaster and we were heading up and we're about to go down.

It's about to get real.

So let's get into it.

First one it says, Neither the sexually immoral.

Sexually immoral is kind of a junk drawer word for sexual sin.

So this is like if you're looking at porn, if you're sleeping with your girlfriend, if if you have lustful thoughts for somebody that's not your spouse, that's what this is.

Okay?

And so if that's how we're gonna define this, then I have to look at that and I have to say, that's me, I've done that before.

And I think for all of us in the audience, you'd have to say, well, that that's me.

I've I've done that before.

All right, we come to the next one.

It says, nor idolaters.

That's that's when you worship idols of wood and stone.

And I think some of us, you know, maybe you've done that, but for most of us, I don't think we worship idols of wood and stone.

But if you get to the heart of idolatry and what it's really about, it's thinking that you can get value and worth from something that's not Jesus.

So you can worship your spouse, you can worship your kids, you can worship your kids' performance at sports, you can worship sports.

And what you're doing is you think that your kids can really fulfill you, and your kids and how they perform in sports can fulfill you, and your spouse can fulfill you, and only Jesus can give you that kind of value and worth.

So, again, if we're gonna define it that way, again, we have to raise our hand and be like, that's me.

I'm guilty of that.

Nor adulterers.

Adulterers, maybe some of us have struggled with this.

I would say probably a bunch of us, this hasn't been something that we've done.

But again, if you look at Jesus' definition of adultery and you go back to Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, he says that if a woman, if a man has even looked at a woman with lust in his eyes, he's committed adultery.

And if that's the case, again, we're all gonna have to raise our hands.

We've all we've all done that.

Homosexuality.

I want to skip that when I go to the next one.

We'll come back to it in a minute.

It says, nor thieves.

Thieves, I think a lot of us would say we haven't stolen before, but again, if we if we're looking at things through God's eyes and how he looks at stealing, have you been at work and have you called your friend?

Or have you been at work and have you gotten on social media and started surfing the internet and looking at your Facebook and your Instagram and all that kind of stuff?

When you're doing that, what are you doing?

I mean, your boss is paying you for that time.

You're in a sense, you're stealing from your boss.

And if we're gonna define it that way and be that harsh with it, again, we probably all have to raise our hands and say, Yeah, I've I've stolen before.

You see what Paul's doing with this list?

He he's given us a list of things that we're like, yeah, I've done that.

I've I've messed up.

I it it's yeah, I put it in the ditch.

It's not good.

Okay, so let's talk about homosexuality.

Um, I think something that we often want to do is, you know, we come to scripture and we come to a verse like this, and we'll kind of, you know, we'll say, Well, I don't, I don't know how I feel about that, I don't know how our culture feels about that, and we'll try to bend the Bible toward us, right?

Like we we want the scripture to fit our life, and we start to bend scripture toward us.

That's not what we're to do as believers.

Like, this is to be the scripture, it doesn't bend, like we're to bend toward it.

Our lives are the ones that change.

Like when something's in scripture and we get convicted about it, we don't say, well, that's wrong.

We say, Well, I'm wrong, and I need to change on that.

Um, and and so I realize this issue is something that um maybe in a couple years here in the States, I could get fined or in prison for saying what the Bible says about it.

That could be a reality.

But here's what I'm worried about more than that.

I'm okay if that happens.

I am more worried that one day I'm gonna stand before Jesus and I'm gonna have to answer for every single thing that I've said.

Everything I've said to you, everything I've preached, like he's gonna, I'm gonna have to answer for that.

And I'm not okay at coming before Jesus and being like, well, Jesus, you gotta understand our culture, you know, we were weird with it, and so I just skipped it.

I didn't want to make people upset.

That that's that's not gonna work for me.

I uh if the Bible says it, then I wanna say it as well.

So, homosexuality, the first thing I would say is uh the Greek words here, if you get into the Greek, it it's translated well, it means what it says.

If you have questions on that, I have all kinds of documents and stuff that I could email to you.

Email me this week and I can send you more information if you want to look into that more.

Another thing that people will do with this to kind of uh write it off is they'll say, Well, you know, at that time in history, they didn't have homosexuality like we do today.

Actually, they did.

Like it was pretty much just like it is today.

Like 14 of the first 15 emperors practiced homosexuality.

It it was it wasn't done in a closet, this was in public.

They they knew this was going on.

And so what Paul's saying here is that if you practice homosexuality, it's it's a sin, and and you're just like all the other sins here, just like the guy, like it says greedy here.

You did you know it's greedy was listed here?

So that means the friend that you go out to a meal with this week, and he's the guy that always forgets his wallet because he doesn't want to have to pay and he wants you to pay, that guy.

Like that sin, also you're not gonna inherit the kingdom of God because of the greed that's in your heart, right?

And so, or or the person who's it says drunkards, the alcoholic.

Like, yeah, that they're just as as uh they're just as condemned as the homosexualists.

And so here's what I'll say.

I think the church, I don't think we have loved homosexuals as well as we probably could.

I think sometimes we've almost treated them as though they have cooties.

And that's not what we're to do because what Paul's saying here is that each and every one of these sins, they're not special to him.

They all have the same consequence.

And the consequence is you're unrighteous and you cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

For each and every one of the greedy, the swindler, the adulterer, each and every one of them, they're not going to be welcome into the kingdom of God because of that.

And so here's the first thing I want you to know.

If you're somebody wrestling with homosexuality and you're here this morning, I want you to know that you're welcome here because I'm wrestling with the things in this passage too.

I'm a sinner too.

And if we're not going to welcome homosexuals to our church, I can't be welcomed either because my sins are listed here as well, right?

And so you're welcome in our church.

And the other thing is it says, notice it says men who practice homosexuality.

So it's if you're practicing this, because listen, all of us have desires, right?

We all have these desires, and some of our desires are Christ-like desires, and some of them are desires that we've got a war against.

When I married April, I had desires in my heart.

And before I'd married her, I had desires for many different women because I was a male and I had hormones in my body, right?

When I married her, though, I had to make a decision that April is now where my desires are gonna be directed.

She is now, she's my standard of beauty, she is who I'm desiring now.

And I'm gonna choose to let those other desires die in my heart.

And that's been a constant battle for me.

That didn't just happen when we got married.

That's been something I've had to wrestle through and choose each and every day, choosing April, right?

And so if this is you this morning and you're identifying as gay or you're wrestling with it, uh you might be ready to walk out of church right now.

I would please don't do that.

But and you might be able to find another church in the area that would affirm where you're at.

They might affirm you, but here's what I want you to be careful of if you do that.

Most of the churches I know that are affirming of homosexuality, they have also started, once you start cutting parts of the Bible out, it's hard to stop.

And so what they do is the way you get to heaven, they've started to mess with that as well.

And so things like substitutionary atonement.

Most churches that affirm homosexuality, they don't believe in substitutionary atonement anymore.

And that's kind of key to the gospel.

And so you can't begin to cut out parts of the Bible.

At some point, you've got to come to Scripture and say, yeah, maybe that's what it says.

Um, the other thing that I would say is you can't let your feelings rule your life.

If I let my feelings rule my life, have you guys ever driven on Grand Parkway on your way up to Katie?

And once you get into Katy, do you know what happens to traffic?

It doesn't, like traffic just starts to slow down.

I get, and there's no reason for it.

Like there's never been an accident when I've been going through there.

It just slows down for no reason, and my heart starts to get angry.

When um before I met my wife, I got really angry.

I had some road rage issues.

I didn't realize it.

I married my wife, and she was like, What is wrong with you when you drive?

Here's what I'm saying: if if I just went by my feelings and God hadn't come into my life, I really think I would have ended up being the guy that got out of my car with a baseball bat and hit somebody or got a gun out and shot them.

Like, if I went by my feelings, that's what would happen.

But our feelings aren't our God, and our feelings aren't who we are.

There's something that we feel, but we cannot allow our feelings to rule our lives.

Each and every one of us, we can't allow that to happen.

And we have to surrender our feelings to Jesus.

Jesus is either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all.

Um, let's go to verse 11 because there's good news.

So we're all unrighteous.

Did you get that?

We're all unrighteous, but here's what Paul says.

He says, Such were some of you.

So you used to be unrighteous, but here's who you are now.

You were washed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Spirit of our God.

Paul has given them a completely new identity.

He's saying that used to be who you were, but now you've been washed, you've been sanctified, and you've been justified.

He's washed you, he's washing you clean of your sins.

He's sanctifying you.

Sanctification is us growing closer to Jesus.

It's you beginning to love what Jesus loves more and more and hate what he hates more and more, and then justified.

That means Jesus' perfect life, death, and resurrection has been credited to your account.

It doesn't matter what you've done in the past, it doesn't matter how much you've sinned, it doesn't matter how badly you have put it in the ditch, Jesus doesn't look at that anymore.

If you put your trust in Jesus and you've turned from your sin and you said, Jesus, I've messed up, I can't do it on my own, I'm all in.

Whatever you want, Jesus, I'm following you, then you are now justified.

And he no longer looks at your past, but he looks at Jesus' perfect life, death, and resurrection, and he says, That that's you now.

That's being justified.

So here's what this means for us.

This means, like last night, if one of you was looking at porn, but you're somebody that you've made that decision, you've said, Yeah, I'm gonna follow Jesus, and I've I've trusted him with everything.

When you made that decision to follow Jesus, he wasn't just forgiving you for your past sin.

He knew the sin that you were gonna do in the future as well.

And that sin that you did last night, you're already forgiven for it.

You're washed, you're sanctified, you're justified.

That's who you are now.

What you did last night, that that's not who you are.

And you need to begin to walk in who you actually are.

So there was a last church I was at, there was a guy in my church.

I'd been at the church for about two or three years, and I was just knowing what I do here.

I was just trying to preach through books of the Bible, trying to be a faithful pastor, love the people well.

And so me and the other pastors, we were doing that, and and this guy comes to me after church one Sunday and he says, I need to talk to you guys.

And you could tell he was nervous, like he was he was a little bit shaky.

I knew he was about to unload something heavy on us.

And so he came that week and sat in our office, and he just starts telling us his story.

And he said, He was married.

He didn't have kids, but they were married.

And he said, Um, for the past 10 plus years, I have been living a homosexual lifestyle.

And I I've cheated on my wife more times than I don't even know how many times.

And I he said, I've been looking at porn.

And you know, when people used to share with me that they were looking at porn, I tried to say, you know, God loves you, and I try to get past it as quick as I could, but I've now realized I can't actually do that because I need to figure out how how deviant the porn is that they've been looking at.

So I began to ask him questions, just trying to figure out what exactly it was he'd been looking at.

And he he he just owned all of it and admitted everything that was going on.

And we began to walk with him, and we began to wash him and to see him be sanctified and to see him be justified.

We were there when he told his wife a few weeks later, and she was devastated, but she chose to stay with him, and they started to grow together slowly but surely he began to just start growing and getting healed and better and better.

And he he serves the church now.

He's he's uh he serves in some different ministries, and he's not perfect yet, but he's growing in Jesus.

And so here's what I would say to you if any of these sins in this list, if you're wrestling with them and you come to this church, this is the kind of place where we're not gonna let you stay where you are.

We love you too much to do that.

We're gonna ask you to grow.

We're gonna challenge you to grow, and we're gonna expect that you begin to grow.

Just like that guy grew and he started to turn from his sin and turn to Jesus, we're gonna expect that you're gonna turn from your sin and begin to run after Jesus as well.

All right, no matter the sin, that's what we expect of you.

There's nobody that's special or gets exempted from that.

That's what we expect.

Every one of these sinners, for the the adulterer, the homosexual, the greedy, the drunkards, we expect that you're gonna come to the church and you're gonna you're gonna begin to grow in Jesus, right?

Um, some of you still may not be convinced.

You might say, you know, um, I want to stay in control of my sex life.

Here's my question for you If God came to you tonight and he he physically showed up in your bedroom and he said to you, Listen, this homosexual lifestyle or the sexual sin that you're in, you've got to stop.

Like this this is destroying you.

Would you listen to him?

Would you listen to him?

And if you wouldn't, then I would say the issue is more an issue of lordship.

You want the kingdom, but you don't want the king.

And that's something you're gonna have to wrestle through, and you need to get to a point where you can make him king of your life.

Let's keep going.

It says, All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.

Um, so these are slogans that the Corinthians said.

So this all things are lawful for me.

That's something you'd hear them say often in their town.

Everything's lawful for me, I can do whatever I want.

And so Paul's kind of pushing back on that, and he says, Well, yeah, you can do anything, but it's not always helpful.

Like, not everything's gonna benefit you.

They say, All things are lawful, but I won't be dominated by anything.

And Paul again, he pushes back, he's pushing back and he's saying, and I think he's beginning to get to his point here, and he's showing them like there's some things that if you do it, you get kind of bound up in it.

It starts to dominate you.

Like if you start sexual sin, you'll become a slave to sexual sin.

That's that's where Paul's going with his thoughts here.

Uh let's read 13 to like 15.

He says, Food's meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other.

The body is not meant for sexual memorability, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

Okay, so here's what's going on in Corinth.

They're saying the food, food's meant for the stomach, and the stomach's for food.

They're just they're saying, just like I have natural desires and want to eat, I have sexual desires and I want to have sex.

And so what's wrong with it?

I eat.

I mean, I'm hungry, I eat.

I have sexual desires, I have sex.

What's wrong with it?

So the Corinthian mindset, they thought that um, you know, I get saved and my soul is saved, and then my physical body, I can do with it whatever I want.

And so literally, Corinthians were living this kind of lifestyle.

Monday night, they go to the temple, they'd have sex with a temple prostitute.

On Tuesday night, they go out with the boys and get some wings.

On Wednesday night, maybe they'd come to midweek's at Grand Parkway.

On Thursday night, they go back to the temple, have sex with a prostitute.

Maybe on Friday night, they'd actually have sex with their wife, and then Sunday morning they come to church and worship, and they didn't see anything wrong with it.

And so Paul is saying that doesn't work.

Like you, you, your body isn't like separate from you, your body is a part of you, and when you have sex, it's not just a physical act, your soul is involved in that, is a supernatural act.

And what and so, I'm sorry, lost my spot in my notes.

So that's that's what Paul's saying there, right?

And so let's carry on.

He he he develops this thought a little bit more.

He says, God's raised God, and God raised the Lord and will he will also raise us up by his power.

Do you not know that you're members of the body of Christ?

Shall I then take members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?

Never.

Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?

For as it's written, the two will become one flesh.

And so in God's economy, one plus one equals one.

Like in, and this is from the Old Testament.

In Genesis, it says, when you get married, you leave your father and mother, and you and your wife become one flesh.

You're no longer two different people.

This is what I was talking about earlier, too.

Like it's like cutting your arm off if you would break up with someone that you had uh sex with.

And our culture likes to say that sex is just physical, but we don't actually believe it.

Let me give you two or three examples of where we don't believe it.

Um, it's time, it's this season where you're sending your kids off to camp right now.

None of you would do this.

None of you, your kids would get back from camp.

And the most secular parent in America wouldn't do this either.

They get back from camp and you're like, hey, did you get to have sex with your friends?

Was it was that fun for you?

That sounds super wrong to even say, right?

Like you wouldn't do that because you understand that you're your kids having sex with people, it's not just a physical thing, like it's it's affecting them spiritually and emotionally and socially, right?

Or um, you know, a woman who was raped, maybe when she was 14, she was raped and she's 40 now and she's still struggling through it.

You're not like, what's wrong with you?

Why are you still complaining?

I mean, it's just like breaking your arm.

Get over it.

No, that's so like we would never do that because we realize that what happened to her wasn't just like breaking her arm.

Like she she is deeply hurt and deeply wounded from that, and probably needs to go through counseling to get healed from it.

Um, you know, you'll make jokes about sins you've done in the past.

Maybe you you stole from Walmart or you cheated on a test back in high school, and that that's funny, but you know, we we tend not to joke about sexual stuff because we realize there's a weight to it, and it's it's not really that funny, right?

And so I think we understand this, but I think uh I think we like to pretend that we don't because it it justifies our sin.

Verse 18 says, flee from sexual immorality.

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

This is a pretty amazing statement.

When you consider that in Ephesians chapter six, Paul, he's talking to the Ephesians and he says, Listen, you should put on the full armor of God, and he gives this list of all the stuff they should put on, right?

The breastplate of righteousness, all this stuff.

And at the end of that, he says, and you need to stand firm against the enemy.

So he's so let me just paint this for you.

If you go out to the parking lot after church today, and Satan himself is standing by your car, just big old, just big old black being, just super scary, just you just say everything you've ever seen in movies, like just the worst you've seen, right?

He's standing out there and he's like, I'm gonna get you.

You don't run.

Paul says you stand firm and you say, Satan, you get away from there in the name of Jesus, get out of here.

You stand firm, you stand against the enemy.

Now, if you walk out to the car and your ex-girlfriend is standing by the car, you run.

You run back in here and you say, Pastor, I'm gonna need to ride home, I need to get a bus, like I can't, I don't want tempted by this.

Because see, what we do is is we get sexually tempted and we like to flirt with it.

And Paul recognizes the power of sexual sin.

He recognizes the pool of it, and he's saying, Don't flirt with it, run from it, run from it.

A way to kind of understand this is, you know, back in Pennsylvania, one of I enjoy having a nice fire when it's snowing and just curling up by the fire and just relaxing it.

And when the fire is in the fireplace, it's wonderful, right?

However, if I'm sleeping and I wake up in the middle of the night and I see the fire's gotten out of the fireplace and my whole house is on fire, it is no longer wonderful.

I'm trying to save my kids, I'm calling the the fire trucks, like it's it's a complete mess.

And and sexual sins like that, when it's when it's in its place, it's wonderful, it's good, and God created it, but when it gets out of the fireplace, when it when you just when you start sleeping with people besides your spouse, it can be just as destructive as it is great when we're doing it the right way.

And so here's a question that I often get from people.

They'll say, How far is too far?

People are always asking this.

I don't like the question.

It bothers me.

And here's why it bothers me.

You're kind of asking, like, how much can I take from this person?

And that's not the goal.

Your goal is to serve them.

And so here's where here's where I think your heart should be when you're dating.

It'll come up here on the screen.

I want to treat this person in such a way that whether this relationship ends up with me marrying them or they end up marrying someone else, they're gonna come back to me someday, or their future spouse will come back to me someday and thank me because they're better prepared for marriage and and and they're they're just a better person.

They've grown in Jesus because they spent time with me.

And if that's your heart in dating, it kind of answers a lot of the physical questions for you, doesn't it?

So let's imagine you you marry somebody and you have your wedding night, and the next day you're eating lunch.

And you say to your wife, like, that was amazing.

You that I mean, sex with you was so good.

I I did not know it could be that good.

And she's like, Well, I'm happy you feel that way because I was actually practicing with all your friends up to this point, and I just know, right?

Like, you that serious problems, right?

Like, we need counseling, this is this is a mess.

But like, I think we kind of know how far is too far.

Like, you want their future spouse, if you don't end up with them, to come to you and thank you for dating them.

To say, you know, you treated them so well.

Thank you for loving them the way you did, thank you that you helped them to grow in Jesus.

They were better prepared for marriage than me because you spent time with them.

That's how we're to live as Christians, right?

So for me, I took this, and this is just God's grace in my life, guys.

I took this seriously enough that my wife is the only woman I've ever kissed.

And that happened really because of God's grace in my life.

But it happened because I I got to a point where I just I hadn't kissed a girl, and I was like, well, I've waited this long, I might as well wait for the right one, and this is a gift that I can give to her.

And so I didn't wait till we were engaged, I just waited until I knew that she's the one.

And then I kissed her.

And here's the benefit of that, and this is why I tell you, I don't like telling people this, but um, I don't have anything to compare my wife to now.

Do you understand how easy this makes my marriage?

Like, I I'm not like, well, yeah, yeah, but this other girl, she was a better kisser than my no, my wife's the best kisser ever.

She's best at everything.

I have nothing to compare it to.

I think she's awesome at everything.

You see how easy your life would be if you chose to do that, like it would go better.

I know for many of us we haven't chosen this.

So I have a friend, and when he was in college, he was in a frat.

And when he was in that frat, he did everything you think a frat boy would do.

Just slept around all that, just not good.

And so he comes to Jesus and he starts following Jesus, and he starts running from that and running after Jesus, and he eventually meets this girl.

And the girl had a similar story to mine.

Like she would she kept herself and she was waiting.

And and so the the night, it comes to the time where they're gonna get married, and she's talking to him, and she's like, I feel so insecure because you've been with all these other girls.

How can I ever measure up?

And so I'm I'm talking to him and I'm asking him, How'd that go for you?

What happened?

Like, there see what Paul's saying here is that with this list of sins, um, yeah, they're all the same in that they all like they all make us unrighteous and they all make us deserving of judgment.

But with sexual sin, what he's saying here is there's there's a little bigger weight to it.

And there's some consequences to sexual sin that you're not gonna get with other sins.

And there's a consequence for this guy.

And so he said, Yeah, she was really insecure for our first year or two of marriage.

And it was hard.

But he said, we've been married, at that time they'd been married for seven years.

And he said, at this point, at seven years, it's just not even an issue in our lives.

God has, she's seen me for who I am in Christ, and I've changed so much that's just not who I am anymore.

It never even comes up anymore.

And so if that's you, if you're somebody you've really just messed up, you put it in a ditch, and you're like, is there any hope for me?

There is.

If you begin to run after Jesus, he can heal you and he can bring your marriage back to where he intends it to be, right?

Um 6, 19, and 20.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

So this is Paul's next argument for why you shouldn't sexually sin.

And his argument is that the Holy Spirit lives in you.

When you become a believer, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in you.

You realize what a big deal this is?

Do you know in the Old Testament they had an area called the Holy of Holies, it was it was separated by a tent.

It's in the temple, Holy of Holies, and that's where God's presence was.

And the priest could only go in there once a year, and they tie a rope around the priest, so if he just got struck dead while he was in there, they could yank him out.

That's that's how intense like God's presence was.

And then we get to the New Testament, and Jesus dies on the cross, and that curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple, it's torn into, and it's not torn from the bottom to top because there's no way we could ever earn it or ever get in there ourselves.

It's torn from the top to the bottom because God did it, and he was making a way for all of us to have the Holy Spirit live in us.

So then in Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit follows tongues of fire, and and now what happens is for each of us, this is this is really good news for us.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

When you become a Christian, when you turn from your sin and you say, Jesus, I want to follow you, I give you my life, please forgive me, the Holy Spirit comes and takes up residence in your heart.

So if that's true, how much does it grieve the Holy Spirit when we sing sexually?

Like it's not like he's not there.

I think we need to think about that for a second.

Now, if it's true that it grieves him, it's also just as true that he is overjoyed when you choose to use sex in the right way.

Let's go back to Song of Solomon.

I'm gonna show you something in here.

There's a spot in this book where they're not completely sure who it is talking, but I I think I know who's talking.

I think it's God.

And it's in five, it's chat, it's verse one of five, but it's kind of the B part.

It says others there.

I don't think it's others, I think it's God.

And here's what God says He says, Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.

So if you're married and you have sex with your spouse, this is this is the Holy Spirit's excited when you're doing that.

He He is for it and He's cheering for you when you do it.

Your body is God's temple, He lives within you.

Are you making God rejoice or is He or is He grieving over how you're living your life?

Last verse here, he says, You're not your own, you bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.

And this is just recognizing God gave everything to redeem you, He gave everything so He could have a relationship with you.

And if you're a believer, you're you're his now.

He He's your master, He's your king.

Um, you know, there's a book in the Old Testament, it's the book of Hosea, and in that book, uh God comes to this guy, Hosea, and he says, I want you to marry, her name's Gomer.

He says, I want you to marry this lady that's a prostitute.

And God, you know, eventually he's like, Okay, I'll do it.

And he he marries this lady and he treats her as a wife and loves her well, but eventually her past catches up to her, and she decides, I'd like being a prostitute, and she goes back to a life of prostitution.

And he's heartbroken.

And God comes to him and he says, Hosea, you're you're not done yet.

You need to go back, you need to get her back.

And so he goes and he's looking for her, and where he finds her is she's up on a stage, maybe like this, and she's being auctioned off as a sex slave.

His wife being auctioned off as a sex slave.

And so he starts bidding on her.

And imagine what she's thinking.

She's probably like, man, this guy's probably so mad at me.

Like, I went and went back into prostitution.

I've cheated on him.

He probably wants to get me back so he can just beat the tar out of me.

He's probably so upset with me.

Well, they're bidding, he wins the bid and he gets her back, and he doesn't beat her.

He loves her as his wife again.

And that is what God has done for each and every one of us.

No matter what you've done sexually or how much you've sinned, he paid the price for it, and he's welcomed you into his family.

So can I give you just a couple tips?

If you are dating someone right now and you are struggling physically, I would recommend that you just take a 40-day break from anything physical.

And here's why.

My mom, my mom has some wisdom, and she said this.

She says, if there's no meeting of the minds before there's a meeting of the bodies, there will never be a meeting of the minds.

No meeting of the minds, before there's a meeting of the bodies, there will never be a meeting of the minds.

That was her sex advice for me.

But it was actually pretty good.

And what we're doing is we're gonna step back from the physical, and you guys are gonna start talking about your dreams, what you believe, what you hope happens in the future, and you're gonna actually get to know each other instead of just making out all the time.

And you're gonna and you're gonna see if you actually have a healthy relationship or not in those 40 days, and it's gonna help you to detox as well.

What do I mean by no physical?

Um, a good verse to look at for this is it's 1 Timothy uh 5, 1.

And basically it says we should treat younger women as sisters.

And basically what it's saying here is if you're not married to them, you need to treat them as family.

And if you're still not sure what I mean, here's what I'm saying: you you probably shouldn't do anything with them that you wouldn't do with me.

So, like you can hug me, right?

Like that'll work.

Or maybe if we're praying, we can hold hands, but that's about it, right?

Like we're not doing it, I'm not comfortable doing anything else with you.

So that's that's where we're at.

So anything the swimsuit covers, we're not touching, like, let's let's just not let's just not get physical for a bit and let's see how that goes.

If you're somebody that's a little deeper into it, and you've had a cycle in your like life of hook up, shack up, um, break up, repeat, hook up, shack up, break up, repeat, hook up, shack.

If that is the cycle in your life, I would ask you to get your phone out right now and to put in that phone, what is today the 14th?

Something like that.

Anyhow, just put next year, 2022, that's when you can begin dating again.

Because you need some time to really detox.

Because you've been living unhealthy.

And you know, every time you have sex with somebody that's not your spouse, it just dings a part of your soul.

And you need to get healed from that.

Just like a football player when they tear their ACL, like they they need, they need to rehab that.

Like if they have the surgery and they go and try to play football the next day, it's not gonna recover.

And you need to give yourself time to recover from the trauma that you have put yourself through, okay?

And and if you decide to do this, I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen.

In the next week or two, you're gonna meet some dude that looks just like Tim Tebow, he's the most handsome guy ever, and he wants to date you.

And you're just gonna have to say no.

Like, I'm waiting a year.

If you're still here in a year, we'll talk about it, right?

Something that I need you to know.

I am not saying that you cannot white knuckle your way to purity.

You're not gonna be able to work harder and get and get pure.

That will not work for you.

You have to run after Jesus.

You need to replace that affection for sexual sin with an affection and a love for Jesus, and you need to run after him.

And as you run after him and you fall more and more in love with Jesus, the shackles of your sin will begin to fall off.

But if you just try to stop doing it and try harder, it will not work.

You need to stir up your affections for Jesus, right?

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for this book.

Thank you that you speak to a topic that probably almost everyone in here is touched by in some way.

It it's affecting us, Lord, because our culture is just is is screaming messages at us.

And a lot of the messages that we're hearing, they're not from you and they're not truth, Lord.

So I thank you that you gave us your word and you allowed us to align ourselves with the truth of your word.

And and Lord, what we're asking right now is in these next few minutes, would you show us where we've gotten out of alignment with you?

What are you speaking to us this morning, and what do you want us to do about it?

I pray we'd walk out of here with some action steps of how we can begin to walk in holiness and purity with you, Jesus.

Amen.

So there are wristbands up here on the stage, and therefore they have our students' names on them.

And if you would like to pray for our students over the next week, you can put the wristband on.

Pray for them.

I encourage you to come up and get it.

If you're new to our church, there are there are little cards in the back of the seat in front of you.

We it we'd love to get to know you, we'd love to get lunch with you, hear your story.

If you could fill that out and just put it, there's offering uh, I guess, buckets back there, and you can put them in there.

If you want to worship by giving, that's what they're back there for as well.

Um it doesn't matter what you guys have done, God can forgive it.

Because I think some of you are still sitting here and you're just like, if you knew what I did, no.

But yes, like God's grace is big enough, even for your sin.

Even for your sin.

So would you guys stand with me?

Let me pray over you.

Lord Jesus, we've talked about some heavy stuff today.

And Lord, I pray that we'd walk out of here and we'd remember um three words.

We're washed, we're sanctified, and we are justified in you, Lord Jesus.

If we've turned from our sin and we put our hope in you, that is our new identity.

That's just who we are.

And I pray that you'd help us to walk in that this week.

Help us to not be people that are they're still messing around with sin, but help us to be people that are running after you and the shackles of sin are falling off.

Come and do that in our lives, Lord.

In your name I pray.

Amen.

Thanks for coming this morning.