Sexual Wholeness | Ps. Keith Pittman

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando Podcast.

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It is so, so, so good to see every single one of you.

I'm really, really glad that you're here.

And I'm I'm really excited for today's um message.

As I as I alluded to earlier, the subject matter that we're going to be engaged in today specifically is one that that I've been approaching with a little bit of anticipation, excitement, not quite sure of how I was going to feel as we engage on this very important topic.

See, over the past couple of weeks, we've been in the study of the Church of Corinth, pulling largely from the book of Acts, in addition to obviously Paul's letters written to the Corinthian church, zeroing in more on 1 Corinthians, but but incorporating 2 Corinthians where appropriate.

And our heart's posture is kind of twofold.

First, our our theme first was found in Ecclesiastes 1.9, and I'll summarize it real quick.

That ultimately Solomon was saying to the community at large is that there's nothing new under the sun.

It was meant for us to recognize that God's word is so beautiful and powerful because it takes an unimaginable God and makes him knowable.

But when we begin to look into God's precious word, we begin to get his mind, his will, his heart, his emotion on a variety of topics.

And as we do these things, we recognize that there's a lot of similarities in what we see that was happening in the biblical text and what is happening with us today.

So there's nothing new under the sun to help us recognize that while there may be expressions and things that make us feel super uncomfortable and challenged and perplexed, that when you look in the biblical narrative, you'll see these themes have existed before, which means that there is a biblical response to those themes.

Today, specifically as we engage in this topic on sexual wholeness, I also want to do it with a great deal of sensitivity.

So I want I want you guys to hear me very closely.

Like I realize that sexuality is a very deep and personal and powerful part of our lives.

And when we look at it in the lens of today's context, it's become very multifaceted, it's become very complex, it's become very nuanced.

We we live in a time of confusion, and I think we all can admit that, where we are interacting with others, and others are interacting with us, and and how does a church respond to certain things that we're seeing?

And and do can you be a Christian if you engage in certain things?

These things have created a discourse that's not new to us, but as we're walking through it and we're in relationships with people, how do we do this in a life-giving way?

And I want you to understand that I also get the sensitivity around these things.

There's a lot of pain, a lot of trauma, a lot of behaviors that we'll be addressing today that can sometimes create a little bit of shame if the enemy has its way.

It can create moments where we begin to question our value if the enemy has its way, but that is not the intent today.

Today's intent is for us to engage God's word and have an encounter with a loving God who is meant to bring healing and hope while presenting the truth.

God's word is not meant to restrict us, but is to lead us into a place of living the fullest life that He has designed for us.

So today, as we engage this topic, I hope that we can look at it through the lens of not legalism, not fear, the big bad world is not coming to get us, but really to get the mind and heart of God around this so that we can allow him to inform us instead of allowing the world and culture to do that.

Can we get a good amen to that?

Okay.

Um, as you are turning in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, um, while you're turning, I want to give you a little bit of context as to what's going on at this time.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

The Church of Corinth, as we've mentioned over the past couple of weeks, was a church that, as I like to theologically frame it, was a hot mess.

They they had a lot of chaos that was happening in their community.

Part of the confusion and the mess that was happening in their church was they were riddled with division.

They they began to attach themselves to their favorite leaders in the community and even beyond that.

So there was a lot of division that was happening in that church.

And so naturally, Paul is trying to address that and say, hey, we got to be unified.

I know that we may have our different preferences, but can we be united as a body of believers?

We talked about that in week one.

Week two, we we talked about cruciformity, this idea that takes this life of being cruciformed and taking the idea of the crucifixion and allowing our lives to be formed around it, a surrendered life that allows our lives to be transformed because of what Jesus did on the cross.

We we addressed that last week.

And so now we're going into the next segment that Paul begins to address, which is sexual immorality.

And the context and why he's addressing it, because it's a big issue in that community.

But specifically the thing that stood out to him was that what was going on in that community is that there was a man who was sleeping with his mother-in-law.

And so from Paul's perspective, he understood that there was a literal law against this in the Roman context, and there were laws against this even in the Judaic context.

But inside of the church, that behavior was being celebrated because for the believers in that church, they they had come to understand that freedom in Christ meant free to do whatever you want without consequence.

So, Paul, when he hears that people are engaging in this, this be kind of came the linchpin that allowed him to kind of pull the cover back on all of the sexual immorality that was happening in the community.

He's like, I'm confused by this.

You guys have taken the concept of being free in Christ, but now you've made yourself a slave to a bondage that's going to keep you from living the way that God had intended it.

So he begins to address that in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and you can see how direct he is in it if you'll take some time to look at it.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

But it's with that context that he begins to continue to massage the point of what it looks like to live in sexual wholeness, and that conversation continues into 1 Corinthians 6 and 7.

But starting here at verse 9 and chapter number 6, this is what Paul is saying.

He says, Don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Don't fool yourselves.

Those who indulge in sexual sin or worship idols or commit adultery or are male prostitutes or practice homosexuality or are thieves or are greedy people or drunkards or are abusive or cheap people, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

Some of you were once like that, but you were cleansed, you were made holy, you were made right by God by calling on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of our God.

But you say, and now I'm saying this in quotes because this was their retort to this, you say, I'm allowed to do anything, but not everything is good for you.

And even though I'm allowed to do anything, I must not become a slave to something else.

But you say, food is made for the stomach, and stomach is made for food.

This was their way of saying, like, hey, at the end of the day, we're all sinned, we're all flawed, we're gonna do what we do, and Jesus is gonna redeem us at the end anyway.

Again, this was their argument back then.

Paul says, this is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.

But you can't say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality.

They were made for the Lord.

And the Lord cares about our body.

And God will raise them from the dead by his power, just as he raised the Lord from the dead.

Don't you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ?

Should a man take his body, which is a part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute?

Never.

And don't you realize if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her.

For the the scripture says that the two are united into one.

But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

Verse number 18.

So run from sexual sin.

No other sin clearly affects the body as this one does.

For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.

Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God?

You don't belong to yourself.

For God bought you at a high price.

So you must honor God with your body.

That's God's word for us today.

As we prepare to go into prayer, I wanted to highlight something really quick.

When you read Paul's letter to the Corinthian church, you'll find that about nine times he uses this rhetorical phrase, don't you know?

Or some variation depending on which translation of the Bible you are reading.

Don't you know?

Don't you understand?

Don't you realize ultimately what he is saying to them, and if I were to contextualize it for us, he's ultimately saying, Man, this is common sense.

We we all know this.

I'm telling you something that we all are aware.

I'm not telling you anything that your lived experience hasn't already revealed this to you.

So he's appealing to their greater understanding just from their own lived experience.

It was common knowledge of what he was addressing.

You guys know better than this.

You you see the fruit that comes from this stuff.

Come on, guys, you understand what I'm not telling you something that you don't know is ultimately what he's saying.

He's trying to engage their spirit as well as their mind.

Today I want to unpack aspects of this, and uh I want to go ahead and give you this asterisk for this message that that if you're new to our community, we also have a podcast called After the Message, and we will sparingly release.

We have eight people that are happy about that.

Um but we will be doing, I don't want to fully say part two to this message, but I'll be expounding in more detail as well as continuing the conversation from this.

And so we're just beginning to scratch the surface of this incredibly powerful topic, um, but we'll also be expounding on that.

And so Pastor Nate and I are gonna record it tomorrow.

It'll probably be a longer version of it.

Um, and I think it's typically available on Thursday.

So again, it's available where all of our content is available.

Um, so again, this is part one, and there will be another dimension added to it that we will be recording tomorrow.

So um for part one or one A, if I could call it, today's message title is simply this: Sexual Wholess.

Let's pray and let's get into it.

Lord, we thank you so much for your presence.

We thank you for an opportunity uh to engage your word in community, recognizing the truth that meets us with grace and love.

It meets us where we are, and it doesn't provide uh condemnation, but it gives us an opportunity to recognize what your truth says about us.

Allow your spirit to do a deep work on the inside of us and ultimately allow us to continue to be conformed into your image, with your word serving as the standard.

Father, I pray over every precious soul that hears this uh message, whether it's here in this room now or in the future, that we hear it with the heart that it was intended, to be an opportunity for us to engage your word with grace and with truth.

So, Lord, I just pray that you give us open eyes that we can see you.

I pray that you give us open ears to hear your truth and open hearts to receive everything that you have for us.

It's in Jesus' name.

Amen and amen.

You know, as I've been um pastoring for many years now, and and even now in this therapeutic space, I recognize that that every household has certain topics that almost become off limits.

Certain things it becomes uncomfortable for us to discuss because if we begin to engage in this, it can basically ruin the whole night.

It can it can ruin a moment.

And I think every household has a version of that.

And what I want to do is I want to invite you a little bit into the Pittman household and be very um honest and transparent with you with the most controversial subject and the dynamics in our household.

There are a lot of things that we try to grapple with head on.

We don't shy away from a lot, but there's certain things that when it comes up, it's like, do we really have the energy and the grace to deal with this right now?

For us, there's nothing more controversial in our household than this game right here.

I don't know about you in your house, but as for me and my house, there is nothing that will break up a family union more than a game of Uno.

I know that may seem funny to y'all, and I'm glad y'all can laugh at my pain.

But there have been moments in my household where I'm looking at children whom I would give my life for while simultaneously wanting to take their life.

There have been real moments when you're playing a game and it seems so deeply personal that you begin to find yourself like using authority in the wrong way.

Like, you know what?

So what?

You know what?

Move out then.

Like you just find yourself like, I don't even know how we got there, but somehow it works its way in because this game has a way of invoking uh a lot of emotions.

And I think the biggest challenge with it is that not only do we have our own family way in which we play it, but but then you have people that you play with, and everybody has their own rules.

And so sometimes my kids will play with their friends, and then they'll try to bring new rules into my house.

The devil is a liar.

Let me tell you that.

There's instances where we're playing a game, and and and somebody in our household may come up with, like, hey, dad, I'm gonna hit you with this draw, this draw two.

Boom, smack it on the table.

I'm like, all right, cool, let me let me see if I got something that can counteract that.

But the crazy thing is, I'm trying to play the way that the creator had intended the rules to be played.

So I'm looking at the instructions and recognizing there's certain things I can do, there's certain things that I can't do.

But interestingly enough, for my kids who are heathens, if I were to play this draw two card, my son would be like, hey, but I'm gonna hit you with this draw four.

So now we have an issue.

Can you stack a draw four on top of a draw two?

This is what Paul was addressing the vision in the church.

Because there's some amongst us that absolutely you can, and there's others that are saying, absolutely not, and that's where the confusion starts.

So now we have these cards that we all have our own rules to it, and in the Pittman household, we we are real savages.

Do you guys know what this card is?

It's the blank card, which means you can write whatever you want on this.

So because there are moments when I don't love my family, you know what we write on here?

Draw 25.

So when you play this card, you're intentionally playing it in a way that says, I love you, but I want to crush your soul.

This has caused many fights in our household.

Quite honestly, Megan's the only one that if you give her a draw 25 card, you may not eat.

So you just gotta play.

This game will not stop here.

So it gets so chaotic and crazy.

So so here's the thing that I began to recognize is that when we have these contentious battles, then we begin to kind of look and everybody's pulling from their own interpretation of the rules.

And there's literally like memes and threads where people are talking about how their friendships were broken up because of a game of Uno.

Something that is meant to be fun, something that is meant to be enjoyable, something that is meant to be so loving, it's created such chaos and turmoil that the people are like, man, I don't even talk to that person anymore.

Why?

Because you can learn a lot about a person's character by the way they play Uno.

You can see right now, like if they skip in a whole lot, then let them know that they're skipping responsibilities.

Like, we're adding doctrine to all kinds of stuff.

So it got so chaotic that the creators of Uno had to step in and say, Listen, we understand that you all have your own house rules, but we want to bring some clarity to this and bring it all together so that we can play the game the way that it was intended to be played.

They began to list out some instructions, and you would have thought they were saying that Jesus hadn't risen.

People lost their collective minds.

Look it up.

People said, Who are you, creator of Uno, to tell us how to play the game that you created?

How dare you tell us how we're supposed to play the game that you created?

We got it from here, thank you so much.

We know how to play the game better than you want us to play the game, thank you so much.

We didn't ask for your feedback and input.

I mean, again, all you are is the creator of it.

All you are is the one who is trying to orchestrate a way that can foster consistent peace so that way, no matter which household you go into, the rules can be the same and there's no chaos, and no one has to get stabbed in the streets.

Like you, so what you wanted the rules to be that, but we have our own rules that we want to play by and we're not concerned the damage that it's causing.

Wait a minute, are we still talking about Uno?

I believe this is the exact same way that sexuality is specifically in the church.

Because now we've got a place where we have so many different interpretations of what's okay, of what's approachable, of what we should do, what's permissible, what's not permissible, that that now when we begin to engage God's word on the subject, we are finding ourselves saying, Who are you, God, to tell me what to do with my body?

Who are you, God, to inform me on how I'm supposed to engage the thing that you created for me?

Thanks so much, Jesus, but I I got it from here.

I know what's better for me, then you know what's better for me.

You can keep your feedback, we're gonna keep moving forward.

Even if I don't recognize that the behavior that I'm engaged in is actually creating more brokenness.

I don't even see it, I'm so immersed in it, but no, thank you.

I got it from here.

This is not only what was happening in the culture then, this is what's happening to us now.

And so now when we find ourselves coming into this, trying to come back into alignment with God's instructions around the subject, it feels like things are being taken away from us, and we're trying to wonder why.

This is what Paul was speaking to.

That when Paul began to engage the concept of sexual wholeness, he was trying to bring a community of people that were used to playing by their own rules and trying to lead them to a place that was going to produce health and wholeness.

When Paul uses the words sexual and morality, it's actually the Greek word that is translated pornea, where we get the word pornography from.

And what the definition of pornography, even though for us it's kind of landed in one specific camp, but the biblical understood definition of pornography at the time of Paul was deviating from anything outside of God's plan for sexual wholeness.

In Corinth, they had a whole lot of things going on, and it wasn't a private issue.

This was not something that was bound by the religious people, that this community had so many different backgrounds, so many different religions, so many different expressions.

And it's hard for us to wrap our minds around it.

But back then, that they even had religions that that promoted promiscuous behavior, that promoted engaging in sexual practices that were against the will of God.

And so they even had a temple to Aphrodite, which was the goddess of love.

And so a part of worship unto her was going to the temple and then connecting with a temple prostitute.

That was what worship looked like.

So you can imagine that as Paul plants a church in this community, and that you have people that once were worshiping Aphrodite, now coming into the body of believers, and they're bringing all these traditions, they're bringing all these cultures with them, and they're looking at worship as an expression of their sex and sexuality, and the more fluid you were, the more in touch with yourself you were.

But Paul is saying this is so against the direction and the idea that God had initially had established.

As new believers were coming into the area who weren't exposed to some of those sex practices, they were deeply confused because they were saying, like, I know that we're supposed to be the church, but we look just like the world that God supposedly was rescuing us from.

We we looked identical to everything else.

So, so what part does my traditions and and my preferences and my behaviors play versus the things that God is saying, like how all of these things work together?

And so people were struggling to separate their former life and integrating it into their faith.

This sexual immorality was not a quiet issue.

And to be very clear, when you read the way that Paul addresses this issue, it wasn't vague.

So I want to give you the context of the Church of Corinth.

I shared this, I believe, in week one.

But when the letters were written, again, everyone didn't have literacy, so the person that was delivering the letter would stand in front of a congregation, much like we are now, and they would read the letter off clearly.

So when Paul is addressing, hey, there's one of you who's sleeping with his father's wife, there wasn't like, yo, I wonder who he's talking to.

It was like, that's you.

Like you knew exactly, you knew exactly who he was talking to.

And so, as uncomfortable as that may make us feel, imagine how that dude felt.

It was very clear that that Paul is talking about us, and some scholars and theologians believe that the reason why the early church didn't address it is because he was a person of prominence, that he was a person of influence, that he was actually a big giver in the church.

So the truth got compromised because they didn't want to disrupt the conveniences that they were.

Getting from people.

Does that sound familiar?

So Paul was still addressing this and ultimately informing us that we need to address it as well.

Paul recognizes that these practices were conflicting with their witness in the community, and it was a serious threat to the growth of the church, but ultimately for individuals experiencing wholeness.

Paul brings it all together and he says, flee from sexual immorality.

Flee from these things that are outside of God's will and God's best for your life.

Flee from it, run away from it, do everything you can do to get away from it because it's not going to produce the fruit that you think it's going to do.

For the time that I have remaining, I want to unpack a couple of points at a at a 30,000 feet level, and we'll go deeper into this on our podcast, but I do want to give us some context as some things that I think will be good for us to walk away with and our time today.

Here's the first thing that I want you to write down.

We are sexual beings.

We are created to be sexual beings.

This is absolutely the way that God has designed us.

From the very beginning, when God created Adam and Eve, he designed them to be sexual beings with a divine purpose.

Genesis chapter 1, verse 27 says it said, God created man in his own image.

Genesis 1:27

God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply.

Subdue the earth and rule over it.

Genesis 2, 2, chapter 24, says this.

And the thing that I love is so beautiful is it says that before sin entered the world, it says that Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed.

Adam's just letting it all hang out.

He's just living his best life, naked and unashamed.

Like there was no shame, there was no barriers, there was no insecurity, there were no fears, there was no condemnation, that they were living a life of total and complete freedom.

Here's why I'm zeroing in on this specifically, and that seems like that would be the obvious write-in, but here's why I'm saying that.

Because I want to make a recognition of the damage that the church has done in this area at different points.

The truth of the matter is we live in a world that is not the perfect world that Eden was intended to be.

We live in a fallen and broken world, and I'll get into that in just a moment.

But a lot of times, as a result of the brokenness that we see in community, the church was trying to figure out a way to contain it.

So through different generations, they began to have the ways that they talked about sex almost in a way that they vilified it.

So then the purity movement became, and it was all intended to help to make sure that we live lives of biblical values, but at the expense of making sure that it seemed as if we were vilifying sex altogether.

So what happened was a person's identity, their value, and their worth was connected to their ability to abstain.

And if you didn't abstain, then your value was shot, and now these people are walking around feeling like they're not good enough for God, they're not good enough for anybody else, and then that creates behaviors that are connected to the shame that's there.

These are things that have been perpetuated in church culture because of purity culture and this idea that if you make a mistake, then your value is somehow stained.

They completely have missed the mark.

But what Paul is trying to do is ultimately to redeem the idea of what does it mean to be united and connected with someone, understanding that no, it's it's healthy, it's normal for us to have these desires, but we have to make sure that we put them in their proper context.

We are created to be sexual beings.

God has given us these things for a reason.

But here's point number two we all have brokenness.

There's not a single person that is in this room that doesn't have brokenness in some form.

All of us have experienced things that are the consequence of the fall.

Again, looking back at Adam and Eve in the garden, that they that God had given them an option, that you're living in this brilliant ecosystem where I'm making the tree of life available for you.

And what the tree of life had, in addition to just this ability to live a life where death didn't exist, but it also meant living a life surrendered to God, watch this, and allowing him to define what is good and what is not good on his terms.

But then we had the other alternative: the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

To break it down to make it as simple as I can, what that meant is, God, I know that you want to define what's good and evil on your standard, but I'd much rather eat from the tree where I can define what's good and what's not on my terms.

That is what happened.

That's a reenactment of what happened in the garden.

So when Adam and Eve decided, hey, we want to make decisions on our own terms and define right from wrong on our own, and as a result of that, sin, brokenness, and death has entered into the world.

The Bible tells us in Romans chapter 5, verse number 12, therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, in the same way death spread to all people, because all have sinned.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

In other words, we inherited a sinful nature and a sin-filled, broken world.

That's our reality.

The fall corrupted God's original design, and it is corruption began to get expressed in a way that we call sin.

Sin simply means to miss God's mark, to miss the standard, that God has a way that He wants us to function, and when we fall short of that, that is called sin.

The Bible tells us in Romans 3.23, for all has sinned and fallen short of God's glorious standard.

No one is exempt.

And so when there's brokenness in our world, there's things that we experience, that begins to manifest itself in varying forms.

And Paul provides lists on different times to help us to understand some of the expressions of the sinful nature that we all have inherited.

Sinful expressions such as greed, such as slander, such as sexual sin, such as idolatry, such as adultery, fornication.

He has these lists of things that he makes available, but every time Paul provides a list, he always adds other things into the mix.

Even when he's talking specifically about sexual immorality, he'll always bring other things into the mix.

I believe he intentionally does this, is because he wants to keep the super religious people from focusing in on one thing.

He's like, no, no, no.

All of it's included.

So even though we're talking about sexual immorality, let's not get it twisted.

We all got things that we struggle with.

Maybe you're greedy.

Maybe you got some other areas of your life that you need to work through.

So don't get yourself on a high horse because your sin looks different than someone else's.

We we all got things that we're wrestling with.

But because Paul was talking to the church of Corinth, and this was a specific issue, he begins to zero in on this.

And because of the brokenness that we've inherited, it begins to express itself in a lot of different ways.

For Corinth, they began to express their sexuality in unhealthy ways, and in ways that broke Roman laws and ways that broke God's law.

There's a whole chapter where Paul focuses and talks about the whole principle of the Lord's table.

He talks about communion.

Everything Paul does is intentional, and we read from it all the time of Paul explaining that this is what communion looks like.

We come to church, and it's this is the body that's been broken for you.

Take and eat, this is the blood that's been shed for you, drink it, you've been redeemed.

But in the Corinthian context, when he had to redeem what it was, is because that had turned into this weird thing where people were coming to church, getting drunk, and having sex parties.

Imagine hearing that from Paul's perspective.

Something as sacred as the Lord's Supper, they were bringing other cultural nuances in it, and it became a lot more messy.

So Paul is like, we we gotta get it together.

You guys are expressing yourselves like people who don't love God and who don't know God are expressing themselves.

I want to pull it back together.

So when we're talking about our brokenness that expresses itself in many different ways, it's it's it's clear that sexual immorality has become so perverse in the church.

Paul even addresses this earlier in his writing.

Hey, I'm not here to critique the world, the world is gonna be the world.

Listen to me, Christians.

We can't be surprised when the world acts like the world.

It's not our responsibility to critique the world.

I'm always so concerned and also surprised when we are like, man, the world's acting like they don't love Jesus.

Yeah.

Can you believe they did this?

Yeah.

Like, we're not expecting that from them.

It's when we are doing it.

So Paul's like, I need to pull it into the church.

I'm not talking about what's happening there, I'm talking about what's happening in the church.

And here are some of the things that are happening in the church.

You know, a recent study from Barna says that 64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women engage in pornography on a regular basis.

The reason why this is such a significant deal is because secular studies have revealed that when we engage in pornography, it literally rewires our brains.

It rewires the way that we connect with other people.

It literally rewires the way that we see other people.

And watch this, it turns people from being subjects into objects.

And you're no longer a person with a mind, a will, emotion with family.

You are an object that is meant to satisfy a need, and that begins to hardwire the way that we see people and the way that we're able to have our needs met.

That creates a trauma dynamic.

Then you roll over into the other data that I've just come across.

It says that one in five women will experience sexual trauma.

One in 71 men will experience sexual trauma.

These things are not isolated in a vacuum, but when these things are experienced, they begin to create shame and brokenness and all other dynamics, and they're trying to find ways to reconcile the behavior, and so it can express itself in a variety of ways that Paul has listed out.

What I want us to understand as a body of believers is that no matter where someone is, it is not our place to critique and judge them and tear them down.

There's always a backstory connected to it.

We look to God, but we also do our part with helping to understand the trauma that people have experienced.

This impact has resulted in depression and anxiety, difficulties with trust, and what does intimacy look like, people who struggle with shame and guilt and distorted views of self-worth.

I don't have any worth anyway, so it doesn't matter who I sleep with.

And whether that's a verbal narrative or just an emotional one that's characterized in our behavior, it begins to run its course of it doesn't matter, my value has already been degraded.

These things begin to help us understand how we've gotten to where we are.

But there is hope, there is reconciliation.

Even for people that are struggling with varying forms of addiction, there are resources and things that are available.

And I want anyone in this room to know that no matter what you have experienced, whether it's trauma, whether it's addiction to pornography or other things, that this is a safe place, one, that you're loved as you are, but we also want to walk alongside you.

That if you're struggling with any of these things, that you can come and talk to one of us on staff, and we would love to help you take your next step because sometimes we need to bring it to light so that we can begin to walk in the healingness that God has made available to us.

Can I get a good amen to that?

Here's the third thing.

We want to move a little bit quicker now.

We're running out of time.

The third thing is sexual wholeness has a context.

Sexual wholeness absolutely does have a context to it.

We understand that we're sexual beings, that God has created us to be sexual.

He wants to us to engage it.

It's meant for us to enjoy, it's meant for appropriation, there's meant for so many different things, but it does have a context.

First Corinthians chapter 7, verses 1 through 3 says this.

1 Corinthians 7:1–3

Now, regarding the questions that you asked in your letter, yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations.

I'll be unpacking that more in our podcast.

But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.

The husband should fulfill his wife's sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband's needs.

The sexual context, the rules of the Creator, when he created sex for what it is, the sexual context was between marriage between a man and a woman.

That was the context that God created sex to be expressed through.

When I lived in DC, um, there was a milestone moment for me that that changed everything for me.

I feel like there's this different moments in my life that I feel like I've arrived as an adult man.

Like there are certain things that I somehow have seen, like, hey, when I get to that point, I've made it as a grown man.

And one of those things was when I get a house that has a fireplace in it.

I don't know why that was such a big deal.

It may be connected to TV shows that I saw, but there's something about a fireplace that I felt like, man, like when you get that, you've made it.

Like it feels like you're like a hunter and a gatherer.

Like it meant a lot.

So when we got our house, um, the house that we had had this amazing fireplace.

I mean, it was it was electronic.

You you hit a button, it turned on.

It was it was like a bougie fireplace, but nonetheless, it kind of fits my vibe.

Remember, that's so Corinthian of me.

So, so we have we we had the this this fireplace, and and and I remember like when it would get just a little bit of a chill in the air.

Because you know, they have all four seasons there, so we're like waiting for our moment.

Like, is this is this fireplace weather?

Like it get to like 68 degrees.

It's like, yes, it's cold enough for fireplace, right?

Like we turn that thing on, we would have the air extra cold just so that we can turn the fireplace on.

It became like it was on all year round and in that in that season because there's something like about the smell, the warmth, the comfort that it created, it was very beautiful.

And when you look at the premise of it, it's like this fire is keeping the entire house warm.

We would have, we would have so we would sit and drink cocoa and watch Chris movie, like everything seemed better because we were warmed by this fire.

But but when I talked with the previous owner and I was talking to them about how this house is a little bit older, it's like one of these brownstone homes.

It was beautiful, but at the same time, like it was modernized on areas on the inside.

I was like, man, like like how did y'all pull this off?

And they're like, oh, like we we actually had a house fire where the fireplace wasn't properly wired, the the fire broke its container and it burned the entire second floor, so we had to renovate and gut it, and now we're able to have the old structure, but we have this new engineering that holds it all together.

And I said, You mean to tell me that the fire in its proper container can warm the entire house and bring unity and community?

But when it breaks it, it has the ability to burn everything down.

I'm not talking about fire anymore.

God gave us sex as this beautiful thing that is meant to connect us as a family.

Not us as a family, me and my wife, but you call, you know, you know who your other is.

Let's not get weary.

This is not Corinth.

Let me clarify that before somebody tweak this and like, oh, look at this.

Wow, pastor says crazy things.

We're all supposed to no, no, no.

Context determines meaning.

We all understand biblically that God creates these guidelines on what healthy expression of sex and sexuality looks like.

And the context that He provides it to keep the fire contained that can make a house warm and beautiful and inviting, is in the context of marriage between a man and woman.

Every other expression is the fire breaking its container and it has the ability to burn everything down.

I know it doesn't feel good to hear that.

It doesn't necessarily feel great to say it.

But there are certain things that when I look at my grandchildren, they want to be so free, they want to love, they want to run out into the streets.

But I'm like, if you keep running into the street at some point, you may get hit by a car.

Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't happen.

So we're gonna put some boundaries in place so that it doesn't get out of hand.

This is what God was doing with sexuality.

We we need to make sure that it's in its proper container of marriage between a husband and wife.

Here's the fourth thing I want to I wanna hit on this, and we're gonna keep moving quickly.

The fourth thing is this we have to be people that look to God.

Let's look to God, let's not look to culture.

Let's not even look inside ourselves, let's not look to social media.

God don't look to social media.

Like, don't look to these things.

We are to look to God.

But when I say look to God, that means that we're to look to God to not only have our needs met, but also to inform how we're supposed to move forward.

Sexual wholeness is oriented around seeing God as our true source of our deepest longings.

Psalm 63:1.

Psalms 63:1

I want you to write this down.

It says this, O God, you are my God.

I earnestly search for you.

My soul thirsts for you, my whole body longs for you.

In this parched and weary land, there is no water.

What the psalmist is communicating is that no matter what is around me, that I need to be in intimate relationship with God because everything healthy flows from that place.

That when we see God, we need to see him as the source of our identity and also our fulfillment.

This is what Paul is ultimately reminding us.

That Paul says, Did you forget that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?

That God dwells on the inside of you.

And in the same way that God dwells on the inside of you, there are some things that he just doesn't want you to do, and he uses this language of like, but so would a temple do these things?

Would something that's sacred before God not have any boundaries on it?

No, we need to look to God to ensure that he is the one who's informing us.

I I I got this statement that I want you to write down because I think it's very important.

It's going to come up on the screen.

God nourishes my spirit, forms my soul, and informs my body.

When I'm in a relationship with God, it nourishes my spirit.

When I when I surrendered my life to Christ and I got filled with the Holy Spirit, there was something that came alive on the inside of me that is indescribable.

He nourishes my spirit.

I am filled.

But then he begins to form cruciformity.

Last week, he begins to form my soul, my mind, my will, and emotions.

That as I'm filled and quenched in the spirit, it begins to form the way that I see things, form my soul, sitting under teachings, going to church, worshiping together.

It's forming my mind and honing it in a way that now I see God as something that I'm drawn to instead of something I'm trying to abstain from.

He forms my soul, but he also informs my body.

That when I read God's word, he's also telling me what to do.

Not in a controlling maniacal way, but in that same way that when we have relationships with other people, we understand the concept of loyalty.

Think about you in your own relationships.

Think about you in your own marriages.

Imagine if you're married to a spouse and you love them while simultaneously saying, Hey, I don't care what you do.

That's not loyalty, that's not a committed relationship.

This is why God always uses the illustration of marriage to define his relationship with man because he's trying to help us to have an understanding of, hey, when you're in a relationship with me, I'm gonna be loyal to you, and I want you to be loyal to me.

Allow me to nourish your spirit, to form your soul, but also inform your body.

Here's number five.

We're gonna go past this real quick.

God loves you.

We talked about a lot, and it may have been triggering and activating for some of us, but but God loves you.

Perceive that.

Hear that.

And I want you to notice there's nothing after that.

I'm not saying that God loves you if God loves you when.

God loves you.

Period.

Some of us are carrying shame, and some of that shame is because of things we've done and because of things that have been done to us.

But God loves you.

Period.

The Bible tells us this in Romans 5.8.

But God proves his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That means that when Jesus went to the cross, he went to the cross fully aware of every sin that you're ever going to commit.

When we read Hebrews, we begin to understand that He was not, his sacrifice wasn't limited, but it broke space and time.

So he's uniquely the only one that was able, that when he died on the cross, he died for our past, present, and future.

Only Jesus could do that.

So when it says, while we were yet sinners, he took it to the cross.

In fact, the Hebrew writer says that the joy that was before him, he endured the pain of the cross.

That means that while he was going to the cross, he knew you were going to make the same mistake over and over again, and he said, I'm still gonna do it.

God loves you, he loves you as you are because the idea is that there's no condemnation.

No matter what you are currently going through, no matter what you have gone through, I want you to know that you are loved, you are forgiven, you are holy, but you are also empowered by the Holy Spirit to live a life of sexual wholeness.

But God's love is unconditional, but it's also transformational.

Unconditional, but it also produces fruit.

That's transformational.

You know, as we prepare to close, I'm I'm I'm finding myself that I need to circle back on this game of Uno that I have with my family.

Because I realized there was one game that we were playing specifically where it got really heated, and and and I felt like I was the one that was being attacked.

I felt like collectively my family decided that I was the enemy of the household.

Every chance that they got, they were coming for me and exclusively me.

I would be lying if I were to say that there were moments that I didn't take it personal.

And and I can't I would be lying if I were to say that, you know, I read enough Bible that it says that God cares about the small things.

He cares about if a bird eats or not, he certainly cares about how I feel when it's Uno game.

So I said, Lord, I just need you to turn the tables in my favor.

I just I just I need something.

Give me something.

So I pulled from the deck.

And I got this bad boy right here.

Reverse.

That may seem like a really insignificant card.

But reverse literally switches the direction.

It shifts the momentum to go in a different direction.

At one point, everything was shifting to me, and I kept receiving the bookends as they're stacking draw fours on draw twos like complete cannibals.

Like it was all landing on me.

But then here I am, I pull from the deck and I get this reverse.

And I have been sitting on some things led by the Holy Spirit that was going to begin to turn the tables in the opposite direction.

Remember that draw 25 I mentioned earlier?

I had that.

I put that down and I looked into my son's eyes and I said, I hope this crushes your soul tonight.

I hope that you can't sleep tonight.

It came back around, I hit him with again, a draw four.

Take that, take that.

Like came back around again, hit him with another draw four.

He's getting upset right now.

And then I hit him with a note, move out tomorrow.

Like I was just stacking and stacking and stacking it on him because of one card that reversed the trajectory of the game.

All I needed was something to reverse it to shift the momentum completely.

The Bible tells us that Jesus went on the cross.

And what it tells us in 2 Corinthians 5, it says, The one who knew no sin became sin so that we could be made righteous.

The wages of sin is death, and the cards have been stacked against us our entire lives.

But then Jesus came in and said, Let me reverse this thing a little bit that you are no longer cursed, but I'm going to make you righteous because of what I'm going to do on the cross.

You were no longer condemned.

I'll take the condemnation on your behalf, and now you're going to be made holy and righteous.

And I'm going to hit you with my spirit.

I'm going to give you this anointing, and I'm going to use this brokenness for my glory.

And the enemy is wondering, how did I find myself in this position?

Because Jesus did it.

That Jesus reversed the curse that took place in Edom.

While Adam was hiding behind a bush, naked and unashamed, Jesus hood on a He hung on a cross, naked, but fulfilling the promises of God and making us righteous, he reversed the curse.

So no matter what you have endured, no matter what you're enduring, no matter what you're going through, I want you to understand that Jesus played the card that the enemy can never take, and he reversed the curse.

We have victory that is found in Christ Jesus.

So no matter what you struggle with, no matter what your burden is, no matter what the enemy is trying to whisper in your ear, you have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

You are whole, you are righteous.

And because of God's power, because of his spirit, he loves you where you are, but he transforms you to who you're becoming.

With every head bowed, Lord, I thank you so much for your presence.

I thank you for your grace.

I thank you for your mercy.

I thank you for your loving kindness that we can even through the lens of grace and love engage in something that is culturally uncomfortable, but nonetheless it is still found in your truth.

Father, I just pray over every precious person that if there's areas of condemnation and guilt and shame, that we rebuke that in the name of Jesus, it is covered under the blood.

That Father, I recognize that even in Christian and church contexts, that we've weaponized passages of scripture to dehumanize people and to demean them, and we rebuke that and we ask, Father, for repentance.

Lord, what we're asking to do is simply bring the truth into the light so that we can be healed from it, we can be redeemed from it, and that we can begin to walk in a path that's going to bring wholeness and healing and hope.

That Father, you didn't create us to live lives of sexual immorality.

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, which means that the power of God dwells on the inside of us.

So, Father, I pray that we recognize that it's not about moral perfection or living something perfectly, but it's about surrender and wrestling with it faithfully.

So we surrender it to you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for joining us to learn more about Celebration Orlando, a church devoted to reaching the lost, equipping the found, and helping the hurting.

Follow us on social media using the handle at celebrationorl or visit our website, celebrationorl.org.