The Danger of Sexual Sin

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All right.

Well, good morning, everybody.

It is so good to have you here at church.

If you're brand new, welcome to you.

I want to give a shout out to our Pinnacle Hills campus who is watching with us today.

For your first service, we love you guys.

You participate like you are right here in the room with us.

And I am thrilled beyond belief today to get to be at our Highway 62 campus.

Come on, let's give it up for what God's doing here.

It has been uh so exciting to watch the Lord move and to watch God use Noah and our other staff team, the amazing team and lay leaders that God has put at this campus.

We are like so excited.

For all of you at Pinnacle Hills, you don't get to see what I get to see, but we have a room full of people here.

And uh here's the incredible thing.

You may not know this, but let me like give you just a report on what God is doing, just the first three weeks of the fall here.

Uh, you have averaged as a campus just under 1,400 people this fall.

So give God praise for that.

We thank you.

And everybody watching Pinnacle Hills, we thank you.

There are uh there are a group of generous people at Springdale Fail and Pentacle Hills who have given faithfully over many, many years and been generous to this church.

And you are sitting in their generosity today.

You have a seat to sit on because of their generosity.

You have a building with AC.

Praise God for the AC today, right?

Golly, I'm tired of this hot weather.

How about y'all?

And so thank you to all of you at Pinnacle Hills today.

And I think we need to praise the Lord for one more thing.

Football season is back.

All right, that is all good.

Go go Tigers.

No.

Bobby Powell.

That is heresy in this place.

All right.

Go hogs one and oh, there we go.

All right, that's good.

That's good.

But we're glad you're here today.

If you got a copy of God's word, why don't you grab it?

First Corinthians chapter five is where we're gonna be today.

Uh, we are walking through a series.

If you're brand new, let me catch you up to speed.

We're walking through a series we're calling First Corinthians 11 dangers for every Christian.

And uh, we call them dangers because they're not out front and obvious, but they are more in the background.

Uh, they're more subtle in nature, that they they feel right, they seem natural.

Yet these are things that are uh are just a lot of trouble in your life.

Uh, we often forget this when we read the Bible, but I just want to I want to say like a very elementary statement to you today and remind you of some basics, okay?

Whenever we look at 1 Corinthians, we have a real person, that's the Apostle Paul, writing to real Christians who lived in a real place called Corinth.

We'll talk about that in a second, and they're in a real church, just like Crosschurch Highway 62, Crosschurch Pinnacle Hills, like like they're in a real church with other real people.

And I got some real issues.

And we've already talked about some of those issues of division and distraction, and they're rejecting leadership in their lives.

But today it like gets it gets a little twisted, to be honest with you.

And today we're gonna cover the nice light topic of the danger of sexual sin.

All right.

How's that sound for just a nice light day at church?

Uh no, we're honestly we're gonna jump uh into the deep end.

Let me give a warning to parents.

We sent this out on email if you get the church email, but let me give a parents to those of you here both in this room and in the room at Pinnacle Hills today.

Uh, if you have younger children, uh it's just a heads up for you.

We will talk about sexual issues today.

We're not gonna be crass in any way.

Uh, won't be inappropriate, but we will talk about what the Bible talks about.

So it's not even PG 13.

I'd say it's probably beyond PG.

Uh, this will also go for a message in a few weeks.

And so I just always try to give parents a heads up so that uh you're not in the drive-thru at McDonald's after, be like, okay, birds and the bees, here we go.

You know, and you know, here, take your nuggets and I'm gonna teach you while you eat today.

Uh, I want to give you that freedom to have that conversation on your own.

Here's what I would tell you.

I'm about to show a video.

And so if you have kids that you don't feel comfortable with being in here at either place, you can simply walk out, check them in the kids' ministry, come right back in the room, and we'd love to have you.

I had a uh a longtime friend text me last night and he said, Hey, I saw the email.

Should I have my daughter come in?

She's 14.

And I said, absolutely, wholeheartedly.

Okay, for instance, I have an 11-year-old who will be at church today.

By all means, she needs to sit in here.

So I usually, my rule is middle school and above.

Everybody else is talking to them about sex.

Yeah.

And you don't may realize that, but they hear it all the time at school, YouTube, social media.

So bless God, let the church of Jesus Christ talk about sex.

Okay.

And so we're gonna talk about that today.

And uh uh back in April and May, uh, I took a group with many of our church members, about a hundred, uh, about 80 or so of our church members, over to uh Greece.

And uh we went to ancient Corinth.

And so I'm gonna show you a excuse me, a quick video here uh that gives you a little bit more uh context as to why uh you could say like this was the Vegas of the ancient world, okay?

And so let's turn our attention to the screens.

Standing here in ancient Corinth, a city known for sexual immorality, behind the camera, you have a sea that had two big ports.

And on the other side of this temple right here, you have the market.

And basically, this was known as the sex capital at antiquity.

There were various red light districts, if you want to think about it, that perspective.

And all the way at the top of the mountain, right here, was one of the main temples to one of their guides, who was the god of lust.

And up on top of that um were various sexual slaves that it was known as worship in such a horrific, um, demonic sense.

And right here, the people in Corinth that Paul is speaking to, they are familiar with sexual morality.

Many of them are coming out of sexual morality, and this is the group that Paul is speaking to in this letter.

All right.

So again, Vegas of the ancient world.

Two ports where people are coming off the sea and they are looking for sinful things.

Okay, you've got the mountain that I just showed you there, which was a whole uh other disaster of sexual sin.

And so, what I tell you is this like sexual morality in Corinth was normal.

Okay, this is this is common.

Uh, no doubt there are some people who were saved out of sexual sin, other people still living in sexual sin.

And so if you wonder why Paul speaks so clearly and like um in in basically like speaking to them about the basics, this is what you should do, this is what you shouldn't do.

If you're wondering, like, why is he going that specific?

It's because he is living in a place that uh is is full of sexual brokenness.

So let's begin where the Bible begins, 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and we will begin in verse one.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

Here's what he says He says, It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife.

Now, let me just back up here.

Let me just underline sexual immorality.

Sexual immorality, according to the Bible, be very basic, is any uh sexual expression outside of a man and a woman within the bond of marriage.

Okay, I almost said bondage of marriage for some reason.

That's not what I meant.

Okay, within the bond within the confines of marriage.

Marriage is a wonderful thing.

That's where sexuality is to be expressed.

Anything outside of that, before marriage, extramarital, twisted marital stuff that you're gonna see right here, all of that the Bible would call sexual immorality.

Verse two, it says, and you are arrogant, ought not you rather to mourn?

Let him who has done this be what?

Be removed from among you.

So if you pause there and you say, I think I know what Paul's saying, but I'm not sure that I know what Paul is saying.

If you think it, it's what he's saying, okay?

He is saying to you that there is a man in the Corinthian church who is getting with his mother or with his stepmom.

Everybody say nasty.

Okay, like it's just jacked up, just uh just very twisted.

And uh you say, well, how in the world could someone ever do that?

Well, I'm about to teach you five principles about the danger of sexual sin, okay?

And the first one I think really honestly spreads throughout all five of those.

Uh, so let me get through those.

Number one, what is the danger of sexual sin?

Danger number one is this sexual sin breeds more sexual sin.

Sexual sin breeds more sexual sin.

If you've ever wondered why a passage like this would be needed, if you've ever wondered, man, why do people do weird, twisted, uh evil sexual things like the one mentioned?

This is the reason.

If you've ever heard a news story and it's beyond your capacity to imagine and think, like, how in the world would somebody ever do something like that?

Here's the reason sexual sin breeds more sexual sin.

Now, here's what our thought patterns, uh, thought patterns are often as it relates to sexual sin.

We say things like this to ourselves.

Well, it's just a little pornography.

I mean, it's not like I'm I'm hurting anybody, it's not like I'm actually doing anything with anybody else.

No one's going to know.

You ever had these lies whispered to your ear?

Um, or you say things like this.

Well, yeah, I mean, it's not pornography, it's just our favorite show on Netflix.

And nudity doesn't affect me.

Okay?

Or or it's a dating relationship.

Some of you are in high school, college, young adults, and uh and you're like, well, we haven't gone all the way.

And so, like, how far is too far?

And we and we ask things like that.

How far can we go before it is considered sin?

Okay.

Anybody been camping lately?

You have not, because you would die, okay?

It's so hot, okay?

But let's imagine, like, I don't even know how far from now.

But let's say we're deep into the fall and you you go camping, okay?

And anybody like to camp?

Okay.

And so I like a campfire more than I like actual camping.

Okay, I'd rather have a campfire in the backyard, go sleep in my bed in the AC, all right?

But we got we got a campfire.

And uh, have you ever poured water on a campfire as you've left the campground?

And you hear that extinguishing?

We often feel that way about sexual sin of we're like, we're so tempting, we're like, okay, if if I can, if I could just give in, it'll it'll go away and it will extinguish.

And I would just, I want to be honest with you from the word of God today.

That is the opposite of what happens.

It it's the exact opposite of when you think that it will extinguish, it actually spreads.

And it's like putting gasoline on the fire.

Everybody, uh, everybody take out your hand like this, like just make a fist, okay?

Do this at Pinnacle Hills as well, put it out before you.

And then everybody, this is really, really intense.

Just open your hand.

Okay.

I describe this this is sexual sin.

Whenever you step into sexual sin, you lose your grip and you lose control on what happens in your life.

You lose control of the consequences, you lose control of the story, you lose control of what may happen next.

That is every single time you step into sexual sin, it's like opening your hand, okay?

Sexual sin breeds more sexual sin.

Let me give you danger number two.

This is a hard one.

You have no idea where sexual sin will lead and what the consequences will be.

That's the whole picture of the campfire right there.

You have no idea where sexual sin will lead and what the consequences will ultimately be.

Uh, as you can probably imagine, uh, as a pastor, I have met with countless people who are at the end of the road of sexual sin.

This is where this church is, and this specific situation is.

I imagine no one thought, like, man, surely no one would be depraved to this level, or you'd be getting with your mother or with your stepmother.

Okay.

Look at verse three.

He continues.

He says this, he says, For though absent in body, I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced what?

I've pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.

When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to do what?

You are to deliver this man to Satan.

Everybody say hardcore.

Like that's hardcore, right?

You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

Why?

So that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Now, you let's just pause there.

You say, well, Nick, what is this passage actually saying to us?

It is giving like uh, think of it like legal terminology that the church is supposed to take action upon the person who is living in sexual sin.

The church is to, look at me, the church is to deliver you over to Satan.

This is language that is basically saying this you are to kick the person out of the church.

You say, Well, gosh, that's that's pretty harsh.

Why are you supposed to do that?

The the point is for the Christians to make a a clear statement.

This is not right.

You don't need to be in that, you need to get out of that sin, and we're not gonna tolerate it here.

You are not welcome within this gathering.

You say, Well, what's the point of that?

Are we just like to be supposed to be mean?

The point is not at all to be mean, the point is actually to show grace and say, Listen, what you're doing will destroy your life.

It will destroy your life, and and the church is a visible representation of the judgment of God saying, Listen, as long as you're in that, you cannot be here because you you will affect other people, and you you are going on hypocritically like nothing is wrong in your life, and and you you must turn.

And so the point is not to be mean, the point is that they would experience the judgment of God through the judgment of the people of God, and ultimately that they would say, What am I doing with my life?

I gotta get out of this, and I need to come back to where I need to be with the Lord.

That makes sense, everybody?

I mean, it's a hardcore passage right here, okay?

Um, it is to serve as a wake-up call.

If if my friends who are Christians are telling me that this is wrong for my life, that this will ruin my life, then maybe they're right, and I actually do need to stop doing what I'm doing.

Are there people coming to mind in your life right now that, like, golly, man, I I need to confront him?

I know he's in an affair, I know she's in an affair, I know, I know like they're addicted to pornography, I know they're sleeping around before they're married, like, and I need to go to them and I need to say, listen, this is this is going to ruin you.

Could it be that God is going to use you as an instrument of grace in somebody's life through confronting their sexual sin?

Look at danger number three.

Sexual sin separates you from fellowship with God and fellowship with others.

It separates you from fellowship with God and uh fellowship with others.

Now, to be clear, any sin breaks fellowship with God.

I'm not here, let me be clear.

I'm not saying you're losing your salvation.

Okay, that's not what the Bible teaches.

What I am saying is you break that intimacy with God, you you forfeit the closeness with God.

Anybody make your wife mad this week?

Okay, it's not like you got divorced, it's not like that the marriage ended, but there was definitely like a broken fellowship.

There was definitely maybe a night on the couch.

You know what I'm saying, guys?

Like, and that there needs to be a re-establishment of intimacy, a re-establishment of the relationship.

The Bible says that we grieve the Holy Spirit of God when we step into any any kind of sin, but sexual sin has a cost beyond just breaking fellowship with God.

It also breaks fellowship.

According to this passage, it breaks fellowship with other believers in Jesus.

And so I want you to look at this passage.

Uh, we often just read the Bible like through the lens of our own life.

I think this is a lens, everybody at Pentacle Hills and at 62.

Listen, we view this passage through the lens of us as a church, of us as a body of believers collectively.

What do you do when you have a friend who's caught up in sexual sin?

Again, addicted to porn, having a secret affair, sleeping with their boyfriend or girlfriend before marriage.

Be the kind of friend that lovingly confronts them in their sin and calls them up.

Man, God's got more for you than that.

God's got a wonderful plan for your sexuality, and this is not it.

You tracking with me so far?

Keep on reading.

Look at verse 6.

He speaks to the church.

Paul's like, listen, your boasting is not good.

Do you know, do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened, for Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

Let us therefore celebrate the festival.

I'm gonna underline that word.

I'll come back to that.

Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Let me explain what this means.

That's a little bit confusing passage right there.

What the passage is saying is this is that the person who is free to live in outright and open sexual sin within the church is practically boasting within their life and within the church that their sin really doesn't matter.

That's right.

So the person that walks in, and by the way, this is beyond sexual sin.

And we'll see that here in a few verses.

But the person who feels casual enough to just like walk into church, like open in sin, other people know it, nobody does anything about it.

And for them just to walk in and say, Well, it's not that big of a deal.

The Bible says this, that there's an arrogance.

It's an arrogance that I can do whatever I want to do.

There's there's no consequences, there's no judgment.

And the Bible is clear here.

The Bible says this a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

You say, What in the world does that mean?

Are we in a baking class today?

Like, what are we talking about here?

Okay, the point is this what's the spiritual point?

If sin is tolerated in the church, then eventually it will overtake the church.

That's the point of 1 Corinthians chapter 5 right here.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

If it's tolerated within the body of believers, then it eventually will spread and it will take over the body of believers.

Here's danger number four.

It's related to this principle right here.

Your sexual sin never just affects you.

Gosh, this one's so big, y'all.

Your sexual sin never just affects you.

I would say it to you this way: this is the primary lie of the enemy related to sexual sin.

Here's what Satan will tell you.

It's not that big of a deal.

No one is going to know.

It's not hurting anybody.

It's just a little.

It's not like we went all the way.

It's just a casual little flirtation.

Like if my marriage was what it was supposed to be.

You ever heard these lies from the enemy?

He just talks and talks and talks and talks.

And then once you bite and you're hooked, then he turns on the other side of it and he accuses, he accuses, he accuses.

This is the working of the enemy right here.

You ready for this?

Tempt, tempt, attempt, attempt, attempt.

And then when you bite, he goes, You idiot, you idiot, you idiot, you idiot.

He accuses, he accuses, he accuses, he accuses.

So here's my advice to you.

On whatever end of the spectrum you are, stop listening.

Okay.

So if he's tempting you, refuse.

If you're already in sexual sin, or maybe you've messed up recently in some other kind of sin, and and he's accusing you, say, no, no, no, I am blood bought with the blood of Jesus Christ.

I will not.

I shouldn't have done that.

I repent of that.

I'm coming back to the Lord, but I will not listen to these accusations any longer, okay?

What is this whole conversation about leaven in a festival?

I told you to underline that and I was going to come back to it.

It is speaking about the baking of bread here and how a little leaven affects the whole loaf, as we just talked about.

Ancient believers would celebrate what was called the feast of unleavened bread.

And uh, this was an Old Testament thing.

During this festival, you would remove the yeast from your house.

Okay, so if you had yeast in your house, you would take it out of the house.

And it was a visible spiritual picture to the family that sin needed to be removed from the people of God.

Isn't that a cool, like, little little note there?

Yeah.

That I'm taking the yeast out of my house because sin needs to be removed from the people of God.

Sin needs to be removed from my life.

Sin needs to be removed from our family.

And what do we find that Jesus does for us?

Jesus is our Passover Lamb who has taken on the sin of the world.

Some scholars even even view this passage through these leans, through these uh lenses, that this was a reference to the Lord's Supper.

Okay, we take the Lord's Supper uh every once in a while at our church.

And uh some scholars believe that this is a reference, like you should withhold the Lord's Supper from those living in outright open sexual sin.

Like that is part of the judgment from the body of believers to the person.

You cannot do what you're doing any longer.

Now, the the idea carries on.

Look back at the passage, look at verse nine.

Covering a lot of uh verses today.

He says, I wrote to you in my letter not to sexual, not to associate with sexually immoral people.

This is key.

Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world.

The greedy or swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.

Verse 11.

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of what?

The name of brother.

If he is guilty of sexual morality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one?

For what have I to do with judging outsiders?

This is going to shock some of you.

Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

Okay.

Verse 13.

God judges those outside.

Purge the evil person from among you.

Now, the Bible gives uh three aspects of clarity here.

So I'm gonna give you some clarity on what this is actually meaning.

Write these down.

Number one is this.

This is not talking about how the church is supposed to treat non-Christians.

Is that clear?

When the Bible says, purge the evil person from among you, it's calling the person evil who, listen to me, who calls himself or herself a Christian, but lives in outright open sexual sin or really any sin whatsoever.

They live a completely hypocritical life, thinking they can they can live however they want to live, do whatever they want to do with whoever they want to do it with, and then they come into church like nothing's going on.

Anyone know anybody like that?

Don't elbow a person next to you unless you need to, okay?

We've all known people like this.

Dude, that guy that I work with calls himself a Christian.

He's at his church every Sunday, or he's in our church every Sunday.

And man, I I see what he does on the business trips.

I see how she acts in the meetings, I see what they do at blank.

And he's this is a call to deal with people who call themselves Christians but live in outright open sin.

This is not targeting talking about the person who is lost who doesn't know Jesus and he's checking out the church.

So if you're here today at Pinnacle Hills, if you're here today at 62 and you say, Nick, I'm not a Christian, man, I'm just checking this stuff out.

Somebody invited me today, and maybe you know, I I know I'm in sexual sin according to what the Bible defines, sexual sin, or I'm in one of those other sins that you just listed in the laundry list of sins.

Um, so here's the question like, you guys about to kick me out?

Like you may be wondering that, honestly.

Like, if if what you're saying is true, then I'm not welcome here.

And what I would say to you is this the Bible's not talking about you here.

The Bible's talking about people who consider themselves Christians and are acting like they're lost, not people who are lost and are trying to figure out if they want to become a Christian.

Yeah, that's a totally different thing right here.

And so what you need to hear today is this there's a God in heaven who sent his only son, Jesus Christ, who is the Lamb of God who takes away all the sin of the world, and God can forgive all of your sin today.

He stands ready to forgive you completely.

And this church, listen to me, this church stands ready to walk alongside of you as you walk outside of your sin and walk away from your sin.

Here's a second bit of clarity on this passage.

This is specifically geared at Christians and extends beyond sexual sin.

It's geared at Christians and it extends beyond sexual sin.

You realize what else is mentioned here?

Those who are greedy?

Anybody greedy at church?

Those who are an idolater, like those who worship other things when you're like, well, I don't have like a little Buddha statue in my living room that I bow down to.

Yeah, but do you worship your career?

Do you worship a God of money?

Do you do you here's one?

Do you worship your kids in their athletic sports?

Oh gosh.

Hello.

Um do you revile others?

Do you swindle others?

Do you get drunk?

You say, well, I'm not, I'm not having an affair.

It's not like I'm really having an affair, Nick.

Yeah, but you get drunk every single night.

Nobody knows it.

Maybe just your spouse knows it.

The Bible is addressing you here as well.

Quite confrontational passage today, is it not at church?

Um, here's the third bit of clarity.

When you become a Christian and join a church, you willingly open up your life to examination.

So when you become a Christian and you join a church, you willingly open your life up to examination.

This is part of the reason.

This passage is part of the reason why it's so important for you to find a local church and invest your life deeply in the church.

It's why it's important for you to be in a small group where other people know you, who know what you're walking through, who know what you're struggling with.

What's me?

Who knows your deepest, darkest stuff?

This is part of the reason.

If you were here last Sunday, we talked about who in your life have you given permission to speak into your life about the hard things.

So uh here's a question for every single person here.

If you call yourself a Christian at both campuses, here's what I would here's what I would ask you.

Do you want to grow as a Christian?

Like, do you want to grow as a Christian?

Um if the answer is yes, you need other people.

Some of you trying that solo growth method, and you got a stunted growth.

You'll never be what God wants you to be outside of a relationship with other people.

Uh you're you're you're never going to measure up on your own outside of other people.

And so there uh there's often a wrong mentality towards what the Bible actually says about being judged.

Anybody ever heard people say, well, I don't want to go to church, it's full of judgmental people, right?

I get that.

Um here's uh here's uh what I would just tell you.

The the church is full of people who will just judge me, is the wrong attitude.

What does the Bible clearly say here?

We don't judge people outside the church.

So honestly, I tell you, stop being burdened with what people who don't know Jesus are doing.

We are sometimes so burdened about their sin and burdened about, well, man, they're they're just running far from God.

By all means have an evangelistic heart, but I'm not gonna be burdened like the same way I'm burdened for those inside the body of believers who are living in outright open sin.

Who are we to judge?

One another.

Like this is a family thing, like we're together in this, and it's not a judgmental spirit like looking down from your nose, like I can't believe you are doing that.

It's more like a loving, like, hey, bro, you gotta get out of that.

You gotta stop this.

Like that can't happen.

Do you see what this is doing to your family?

Let me forecast the next three years of your life.

It's gonna be, you know what?

Like it's gonna be very, very bad.

Let's move, let's move forward, let's be done with that.

I'll help you.

You realize that's what that's what some people who are stuck in sin in the church they need to hear from other Christians in the church.

Let me help you.

I will walk with you, I will help you out of this.

I listen, I also was in X, Y, and Z.

And this is how God brought me out, and and I want to help you learn what I have learned in the process.

Why do some people stay at arm's length with the church?

No doubt.

This is this is some of you at Pinnacle, some of you here today, and you just kind of live like this.

There's probably a multitude of reasons, some of those we discussed last week.

Could it also be today's passage is the reason?

You don't want anybody close enough to see your stuff.

We all we all got stuff, including the preacher and that guy back there.

You know what I'm saying?

Hey, he's he's amening for every one of us looking in the mirror.

To the person who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.

There is a spiritual maturity realizing you got some stuff and you need some help with your stuff.

And again, if you if you live like this for the rest of your life, you'll have a stunted spiritual growth.

You will you will remain short spiritually.

Can I say it that way?

I had a woman come up to me after the service last week and she said, Hey, this is my name, you know.

It's good to meet you.

You're taller in person.

I was like, praise God.

Praise God.

I don't want to ever hear that, okay?

Not the tallest guy.

Spiritually, if if you never allow other people into your life to deal with your stuff, you'll have a stunted growth.

A stunted spiritual growth.

Here's danger number five.

We'll close with this.

It's gonna be a weird one for you to write down.

Danger number five is the belief that you can actually fight sexual temptation.

This may surprise you, okay?

Did you realize the Bible doesn't tell you to fight sexual temptation?

We we often think about that way about all these other kinds of sins of like, okay, man, I gotta stand my ground and I'm gonna fight this and I'm gonna get through this, and we're gonna push through this.

The Bible doesn't say that at all, which I think says something very enlightening about sexual sin versus other sins in your life.

Turn turn one page over in your Bible to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and I want you to look all the way down at verse 18.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

You can look at this in your journal as well.

Here's what the Bible says.

Flee.

Flee.

What does it say they'll say together?

Flee from sexual immorality.

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

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

Somebody needs to hear this today.

You are not your own.

You're not your own.

For you were bought with the price.

So glorify God in your body.

As I said uh a moment earlier, um, I I've walked with a lot of people who are at the bottom of the cliff of sexual sin.

They've uh they've made decisions uh that are bad, and at the bottom of the cliff, it's always broken.

It's never put together, it's just messy, it's broken.

And uh one story in particular sticks out to me several years ago, and uh, and it was a friend of mine, and uh, and this friend had uh had an affair, and uh this was probably we had had an initial conversation, and then we had a second conversation.

I can still tell you, like I was in my bathroom in our house, on the phone with him, and through tears, he said this.

He said, Nick, again, he's crying, he says, run from sexual morality.

Run from sexual morality.

The lie from the enemy is that you can you can face it and you can fight it.

Uh, the lie from the enemy is this you're strong enough, this doesn't affect you.

This this is what I've I've told my my own kids.

You're not the exception.

Nor are you.

I, the pastor of Cross Church, am not the exception toward sexual sin.

Okay.

Do you know what spiritual maturity looks like related to this kind of thing?

Here's what spiritual maturity looks like.

Here's how you know am I growing in my walk with Jesus?

And is am I progressing?

Here's what this looks like.

I'm not gonna go to that place.

I'm not gonna watch that show, can't watch that movie.

I can't handle it.

I'm not gonna go to that place with that person because there's an attraction there, and I don't know what I'd do if I met them on the wrong time, wrong moment, and I just I just know myself.

I have no intention of sinning, but I also know I'm capable of bad things.

Anybody besides the preacher know you're capable of bad things?

Okay, some of y'all lying, it's a different sermon altogether.

We'll get to that later.

Okay.

We're all capable of doing wrong, sinful things, and I know that I'm capable.

If I'm ever caught in the wrong moment, it could happen to me and it could happen to you.

The Bible says there's something unique about sexual sin, it affects you in unique ways.

Uh, you say, well, I don't know that I agree with you when the Bible says, you know, like, you know, you sin against your own body.

Okay, let me let me do a little test with you.

Anybody got sexual regrets?

Anybody uh bind your life to somebody else in your past and you still regret it to this day?

It's just different.

Sexual sin is just different.

And so the Bible says here is that as a follower of Jesus, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of God resides in you, so run from sexual sin.

Why?

Because Jesus bought you with the price.

And so, for some of you, like as believers, it's a day to come back in alignment with your identity.

If you've not been where you're supposed to be, okay, let the grace of God carry you back to where you need to be today.

And let and let the word from the church be this.

Come on out of that.

Like, don't live in that any longer.

God stands ready with open arms.

I think related to sexual sin.

We often think like this.

Well, if I come to God, he's gonna be like this.

And you realize that anytime we repent and and and we come back to God, it's like that Luke 15 prodigal son thing.

There's a reason why when Jesus told the parable, remember what the Father does?

He runs to the Son.

So God doesn't have arms folded, he literally is sprinting and pursuing you.

Remember a few weeks ago, with his goodness and with his mercy.

That can happen in your life today as a follower of Jesus Christ, and that can also happen today if you've never trusted Christ.

Today is the day that this can be your story, that God loves you, Jesus died for you, and today the blood of Jesus literally can cover every sin you've ever committed, sexual sin and beyond.

Made new, made clean before God.

Gosh, what an offer is that, right?

It's only grace, it's only the gospel.

So maybe you're here today and uh and you're caught up in sin.

Maybe you're the only one that knows it, but man, you you like, you're on the edge of the cliff.

Man, let the grace of God uh be loud in your ears today.

It's time to flee.

I invite you to just come and get on your knees, both here in the Pentaquils today.

If uh maybe you're here today and you say, Nick, man, I have been fighting and fighting, and I've been losing and losing.

And maybe today you need to take heed of the word of God.

Man, you just need to run.

Don't try to be spiritual.

Run.

Don't try to fight it.

Run! Get out of the situation.

Like that is the word of God for your life today.

Uh, this is no doubt many, hundreds of people both here in Pinnacle Hills today.

You've got friends or family members who are trapped in sexual sin or other sins.

And man, you're burdened beyond belief for them.

I'm gonna invite you to just come and get on your face at the altar.

Maybe bring your spouse or your kids and say, hey, let's pray for whatever their name is.

You just lift their name up here at the altar today.

Maybe you're uh you're just living in brokenness of some sort.

Maybe it's not even your fault, maybe it's other stuff that people have done to you.

Invite you to just come to the one who, the only one who can heal you.

I want you just to bow our head and close our eyes as we wrap up our service today.

Please, no one moving or leaving right now.

Our staff at both of our campuses is making their way to the front of each isle.

And today, if you're here and you've uh you've never trusted Christ, then I would tell you this: today is the day to be saved.

Today is the day where God Himself, through the blood of Jesus Christ, can cover all of your sin.

Men and women of our team are spread across the front of uh both of these sanctuaries right now.

And all you got to do is this.

If that is your life, you're ready to receive Christ in just a moment.

As soon as we start to sing, I'm gonna invite you to just come and you just grab the hand of one of these men or women.

All you gotta say is this I need to give my life to Jesus, and they will lead you to faith in Christ in a very private manner.

You're not coming up on stage, you don't have to talk in a microphone.

But if that's you, would you come?

If you're a follower of Jesus and maybe you fit into one of those other categories, I'm gonna invite you to come, just kneel at the altar.

If you need one of our staff to pray with you about something in your life, uh we realize people carry all kinds of burdens.

A lot of it has nothing to do with anything we've talked about today.

This altar is open for you.

These uh staff is open for you.

They are open for you uh to pray for you, and we'd love to do that right now.

Let me pray for us, and then we're gonna stand and sing together.

Lord, as we end our service today, we pray that you would draw people to a relationship with Christ, that you would draw people to get right with you in various aspects of our lives, and that we trust you to do that work, and it's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen.

If you have questions about what you have heard or would like more information about your relationship with Jesus, please email us at info at crosschurch.com or visit our website at crosschurch.com.

At Crosschurch, our mission is to reach Northwest Arkansas, America, and the world for Jesus Christ.