The Biblical Sexual Ethic Part 3

If you are just joining us, you are coming in on the very last day of a series we've been in called the Biblical Sexual Ethic.

You know, the word ethic means a set of moral principles.

And even if we don't think in those terms, we all live by a set of moral principles.

All of us have something that is the basis for what we believe and how we behave.

And we live right now in a culture that has changed and redefined the understanding of what moral principles should guide the way that we live sexually, perhaps more, at least they've changed more rapidly than at any time, perhaps, in human history.

And so what we've been exploring are the ideas related to how we as Jesus followers engage with a world that has very different ethics than we do in all kinds of areas of life.

But specifically in this series, how do we engage with, understand, interact with, and even live out our faith and our sexual desires in the current culture that we live in?

How do we live under the biblical sexual ethic?

Now, a few things up front.

Obviously, if you're not a Jesus follower, I know not all of us are, not all of us have made that decision.

Maybe people watching from home haven't made that decision.

Look, if you're not a Jesus follower, I would never expect you to live by the biblical sexual ethic.

Why would I expect anyone who hasn't surrendered their life to God to surrender some aspect of their life to the way that God's word says it ought to be?

That would be so unloving and disingenuous of me to try to force that upon anybody.

And so if that's where you're at, these are just thoughts.

These are just things for you to sort of think about, wrestle with, maybe, maybe talk to God about.

Even if you're not sure if God exists, just be like, hey God, I don't know if you're there, but this guy said that, and he says that that's what you say, and I'm not sure about that, and that challenges me, and I don't even like that.

And so I encourage you to do that because I believe fundamentally, at the end of the day, I believe that God loves you and he will speak to you.

The common thread in those stories that we looked at last week for each of those people was that God encountered them.

It wasn't that they were convinced by someone else, it wasn't that they heard just an unbelievable message at a church.

Wasn't that?

Right?

It was not.

It was that Jesus himself encountered them, and I believe that he does that for us.

And if you've never experienced that, I trust that you will.

Because he loves you.

But if you are a Jesus follower, if you have given your life to Jesus, then what Scripture says to us about this part of life should matter.

And so we've been exploring that, and this is kind of what we've landed on.

I'm just gonna leave the flip chart here for the rest of the morning.

This is what we've sort of defined as what we've called the biblical sexual ethic, and this is rooted in scripture, all kinds of scriptures that we have, Old Testament, New Testament of the Bible, which is something that I say this all the time.

I believe that God's word, whether you want to call it the Bible, scripture, God's word, whatever, I believe that if lovingly applied and responsibly interpreted, it's always what we need.

Sometimes the truth of God's word is not lovingly applied.

Sometimes the truth of God's word is not responsibly interpreted.

But if you can do both of those, it's always what we need.

And this is what Scripture sort of talks to us about in terms of healthy human sexuality.

Okay, so we've got a lot of things on this list, a lot of different behaviors.

And what's in these dotted lines, think of it like a road.

That's what we've said each week.

This is like a road.

This is the prescribed path that God would ask us to live out in terms of this part of life.

Now, here's what this does not mean.

It doesn't mean that if you've ever stepped outside of these lines that you are disqualified from God's love.

That isn't the case at all.

Because let's be honest, pretty much all of us have.

I've shared this before.

Um, in fact, I'll I'll talk to this in just a minute, but like I had a very long, very long struggle with pornography that started when I was in the third grade.

And it lasted until I was in my mid-20s.

And it's still something that I guard against in my life today.

Because it's it's everywhere.

Right?

And so did that struggle, did that, it was an addiction at a time in my life, did that disqualify me from God's love?

No.

Did it disqualify me from being in a relationship with Jesus?

Absolutely not.

Did it even disqualify me from being able to be used by God in certain ways?

No.

But was it a major hindrance and roadblock to my ability to have a healthy relationship with God, myself, and even the people around me?

Absolutely.

And I say healthy relationship with God, not in that God was upset with me and angry with me all the time and wouldn't like relate to me, but it it caused all kinds of unnecessary insecurity on my part when it came to God.

Right?

So, so I've outside of this divorce, I mentioned that, there's an asterisk on that one because sometimes there are biblically sound reasons for divorce.

And sometimes, let's be honest, divorce just happens, and we're not even in control of it.

I'm the product of my father's second marriage.

I wouldn't even be alive if not for divorce.

And so my point is that all of the stuff on here, some of it is horrible and awful in every way, and everyone would have agreement with that.

Some of the stuff people look at in our culture just like sort of options.

Like that's fine.

All of it, all of it is just human sexual behavior, and we live in a time when the the trend of our culture, the way in which our culture is going, is to sort of look at all of it, or at the very least, almost all of it, and more so every day, and say it's all valid.

Just whatever makes you happy, whatever you feel like, it's good.

And God loves us so much more than that.

Like he loves us so much more than that.

And so he gives us this path.

And we've we've said, think about it like a two-lane road.

One lane is celibacy and singleness, which is an incredibly valid and powerful way to live.

One of the cool things about the stories that we watched last Sunday, if you watch the full version, none of those three people are currently pursuing heterosexual marriage.

They're all they would all say that they are living single, celibate lives.

They have laid their sexual desires aside to follow Jesus, and they're not trying to replace what they've laid aside with human relationships.

They're filling what they've laid aside with Jesus Himself.

And they're living their entire lives focused on Him and what He's called them to do.

That's a powerful way to live.

The Apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, that's how he lived, and he said, Man, I wish everyone could live like I live.

Just solely focused on Jesus.

But he also recognized that not everyone's called to that.

So that's one lane of the road.

The other lane would be monogamous relationships that are focused on marriage and heterosexual marriage, and you've got abstinence before you're married, and then you've got uh monogamy when you're married, and you're sexually available to your spouse, and it's easy and simple, and there's no complications, and it all goes smoothly all the time.

Right?

No.

No.

It's a challenge.

It's hard.

This is this is hard.

And by the way, scripture speaks to how hard it is.

God knows that.

But if if done the way God asks us to do it, it can be so, so good.

You know, some people would look at this and they would see this as repressive.

They would see this as repressive, as limiting human beings, because to live this way would mean to deny certain sexual desires.

Absolutely.

But but I asked last week for us to think about this.

And if you're here, maybe you're not even a Jesus follower and you're like, I don't know what I think about this, why did I pick this Sunday to watch or come?

Um, ask yourself this question.

Take all of the emotional thoughts, take all of the sort of emotional ties that you have to some of the things on this out of the equation for just a minute.

Set that aside, table it for a moment, and ask this basic question.

If the world lived this way, would it work?

If the world lived this way, would it work?

What would the result be?

Would it be good?

Now, on one hand, you say, well, people would have to say no to some desires they have in all kinds of different areas.

But on the other side, you would say this: there would be no such thing as rape.

There would be no such thing as child molestation, there would be no such thing as sexual abuse.

There would be no such thing as a sexually transmitted disease.

It literally would not exist.

There would be no such thing as a crisis pregnancy.

There would be no such thing as single parenthood except in really tragic situations when there's the loss of life.

When I look at this, I don't see something repressive.

I see something difficult.

But I see God's goodness on display because we have a God who loves us so much that He's looked at this part of life that He created, and it's a beautiful, amazing, but often volatile and dangerous part of life in terms of its effect on us, its potential impact on our hearts.

And he said, I love you guys so much that I didn't withhold this from you, but I have I have given you sort of a prescribed path because I don't want this to cause harm.

I see God's goodness on display.

But it's challenging.

Now the last thing before we jump into the questions that we're going to answer today is we've we've made sure to remind us of this often.

We have a tendency as people.

When we mess up in this part of life, maybe we don't even view it as a mistake or a mess-up, but we we might feel like someone would convict us and say, no, if you've done that or this or you've stepped here, you've messed up, all right?

Whatever we think about it, we have a tendency to feel so much guilt, so much shame that we can just sort of go, you know what, why even bother?

Why even bother?

We feel like maybe God is so upset with us that we've already messed it up and we've somehow, we've somehow messed it up to a degree that it it doesn't even make sense to try anymore.

It's interesting because we see Jesus, who is who is God?

We see Jesus encounter so many people in his ministry that were struggling in this part of life.

And every interaction he has with those people is uplifting, encouraging, powerful.

And he gives them dignity.

And when everyone else around them looks at them and judges them and labels them, Jesus gives them a dignity no one else gives them.

This stuff doesn't freak Jesus out.

He's not caught off guard by it.

And we've said to think about this in terms of like a road, also think about this like GPS.

You know, if you've given your life to Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit, and I've said this each week, but it's a really helpful metaphor for me, and I want to keep using it because when when I have a helpful metaphor, I gotta hold on to it, you know.

Whenever I make a wrong turn with my GPS on, it never gives up on me.

It never quits, never yells at me.

But it also never stops trying to get me back where I'm supposed to be.

And it will say this phrase, rerouting, rerouting.

We have this word in our faith, repentance.

And that word has unfortunately become a negative word because it's been used by people uh wrongly.

They've used it to yell and to judge, and the word repent just means rethink, or we might think reroute.

It means to change, to turn around.

That's what it means.

And so we have this God who loves us so much, he gives us his spirit, and when we find ourselves off the path, he doesn't cut us off from his love.

He doesn't give up on us, he doesn't quit on us, he doesn't shame us, but he loves us enough that he keeps speaking to our hearts saying, hey, reroute.

Reroute, come come back.

That's how much he loves us because he wants things to go well for us.

So this is what we've been exploring.

And the last two weeks have been purely QA.

You guys sent over 10 pages of questions in.

I way underestimated how many questions would come in.

So this was supposed to be a two-week series, it's now three weeks.

Thank you guys for your patience.

Last week we focused a lot on questions that we had related to same-sex attraction, as the video that we just showed, the little preview displayed.

Um, today we're gonna cover sort of, I guess a little bit more of a grab bag, you might say.

It's not all as focused in terms of the topics.

We've got some stuff about marriage, whether or not marriage is important, how do you operate within marriage?

We've got some stuff about transgenderism, you know, just every pastor's dream, having this kind of conversation, knowing that you're gonna make somebody mad.

Um, but I do want to say this, just personally, that the challenge in talking about these kinds of things is kind of twofold for me.

You have to talk about these things kind of at a macro level because we're talking about societal issues.

And when you talk about something like that, you just have to be matter-of-fact and direct.

Otherwise you're wishy-washy.

But these are also deeply personal issues for many people.

And so just know that if if I love you, I don't love you nearly as much as God loves you.

And if anything that we talk about stirs something up and you're personally like, ah, I I wrestle with this, this is really hard, um, I would sit down with you and talk as long as you need to and listen to you.

In fact, I just got a text from from someone just before I got up here.

It's like, hey, can we talk later today?

I've got some stuff that I've been wrestling with.

And I'm like, no, not at all.

I don't have time for you.

Like, that's what I said, because I'm clearly a busy person.

No, of course not.

Yes.

Absolutely.

I know that these are deeply personal questions, especially to those who ask them.

And so in answering them, I'm gonna try to answer them as directly and matter-of-factly and truthfully as possible.

And I am answering in love, but even in doing so, I recognize that I might I might touch on something that that strikes a chord, that that touches a nerve, and and you might need some follow-up, and I'm here for that.

That's my commitment to you.

Okay?

So here's what we're gonna get started with.

I had a question about pornography, and specifically it said, hey, if you're struggling with pornography, what can you do to get out of that?

And this is not a cop-out, but what I'm going to do is actually, because this is something I have a lot of experience with in life, we're actually going to film an entirely separate conversation about that specific issue and post that this week.

So that I can go into some detail on that, okay?

And what I would say, you know, on the shorthand is look, if that's something that you personally have struggled with, there are some things you can do very quickly to help that, to sort of give you a good head start.

But there's a lot that needs to be unpacked for you to understand what that battle is really all about.

I think the big mind-blowing moment for me was when I realized that my struggle with pornography actually had nothing to do with sex.

That was strange for me.

My counselor said that to me, and I was like, Well, no.

Like, I was like, Well, when did you start looking at pornography?

I was in the third grade.

And he was like, Well, were you thinking about sex a lot in third grade?

No.

And he was like, Well, then clearly there's something else there.

And I was like, Oh my goodness.

What now I'm just more confused.

You know?

I said this story before.

I had a gentleman that I met with years ago that was very frustrated with his wife, and and we'll talk about this later with the whole being sexually available to your spouse thing, but shocker, this man wanted to have more sex.

And, you know, and he connected the lack of that in his marriage with his struggle for pornography, and in his mind it was his wife's fault.

And if she was more available, then he wouldn't struggle with that.

And I asked the guy, Well, did you ever look at pornography before you were married?

And he said, Yes.

And I was like, Well then how's it your wife's fault?

And he's like, I have no answer for that, right?

And so I just know that in going through that struggle myself, I learned a lot of things that challenged a lot of the sort of assumptions that you might have about it.

So we're gonna film a dedicated conversation about that where we can go into that.

But here's what we're gonna start with today in earnest.

Does it really matter if I get married in the legal sense?

My partner and I are committed to each other.

We see ourselves as married in God's eyes, we just won't want to do it via the government for a variety of reasons.

We get this question a lot, where people say, hey, we're committed to one another, we we might even live together, we might even co-parent together.

Like we're basically married.

Shouldn't that count?

And here's what I would say to that marriage is sacred to God.

I want to start here.

Marriage is sacred to God.

That doesn't mean marriage is for everyone, like we've talked about for some people, single and celibate is the way to live.

But marriage is really sacred to God.

He established it, like he invented it.

It's actually the only institution on the earth that God himself established.

Prior to everything falling apart, if you read the story of Genesis, marriage is the only institution that God establishes, government, even really the way we do sort of church, like a lot of those are sort of, they might be God spoken into, they might even be God recommended, but they're basically like man created, at least run by men.

And then you've got marriage that was just God creating this institution.

It's sacred to him, so much so that in the New Testament, marriage is one of the main motifs to explain our relationship with God.

And so, for example, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 2, Paul wrote, For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God Himself.

2 Corinthians 11:2

That's an interesting thought, God being jealous for us.

He said, I promised you as a pure bride to one husband, Christ.

We see this very often in the New Testament, the idea that the church, which is all the people who have given their lives to Jesus, are like a bride, and Jesus is the groom.

This is something that Jesus himself even references.

Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

It says, Once when John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came to Jesus and asked, Why don't your disciples fast like John's disciples and the Pharisees do?

And Jesus replied, Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom?

Of course not.

They can't fast while the groom is with them, but someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Jesus actually refers to himself here as a groom, and his followers like a bride.

And so marriage is this it's this motif that is used all the time in the New Testament to describe our relationship with God, that he loves us.

And he's initiated this relationship with us, and he has committed himself to us so deeply.

Marriage is something that Jesus affirmed.

In Matthew chapter 19, verses 3 through 6, it says some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question.

Matthew 19:3–6

Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason?

That was actually the law of the land at the time.

Men in that culture could just say, I want a divorce.

And they could have one.

And it was devastating the whole institution of marriage in Jesus' time.

And Jesus says, Haven't you read the scriptures?

They record that from the beginning God made them male and female.

And he said, This is this explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.

Hear that language.

Let no one split apart what God has joined together.

Jesus describes marriage.

Two people becoming one is something that God is involved in.

God has joined them together.

So marriage is deeply important to God.

Now, what that basically means is that if you are in a committed relationship with someone of the opposite sex, and you're you're saying, hey, I've I've committed to them, I look at them, I see them as my partner, like I'm I'm ready to have a house with them, you know, plan the rest of my life with them.

But do we really have to get married?

You should.

You should, because it, number one, it it honors God very much.

And marriage, marriage has always, in the history of our faith, has always been something that is not just an agreement between two people, but it's always been a commitment made between two people and God with witnesses, something that is socially and even governmentally recognized and protected.

It is for your accountability in some ways, it's definitely for your protection.

Last night I actually I got to perform a wedding, and uh perform's a weird word to describe doing a wedding.

I got to officiate a wedding, and that's very official, which makes sense.

But I got to do a wedding, and it was awesome because the two people that I was I was I was doing the marriage for, I love both very much.

Um one is this, it was Jackson and Josie Olmsted.

If you know Jackson and Josie, they got married last night.

Some of you guys know them.

Even if you don't know them, you can clap for them.

I've known Josie since she was 11 years old.

She's 24, 25 now.

I was her youth pastor.

I got to watch her grow up.

I love her to death.

She's amazing.

I see all the kids that I used to be the youth pastor for, many of which are still here and they're not kids anymore.

They're like my little brothers and sisters.

That's how I feel about them.

And Jackson, Jackson was kind of like a problem for me.

I shared this with him actually at the ceremony because Jackson is the first guy that my oldest son just ever became enamored with and thought was way cooler than me.

And so I remember a couple years ago, all of a sudden my son is like, Jackson this, Jackson that, Jackson, Jackson, Jackson.

Hey dad, can I do this?

Because Jackson says Jack, and I'm like, who is this Jackson?

I don't like him.

I feel threatened by him, right?

But then turns out Jackson's amazing, and I'm really grateful that my son has other men than me to look up to.

So I got to do their wedding.

It was so amazing.

And I know, I just sit there, I know that God is so pleased with them.

Because they're doing this in a way that, in their minds, it's just the way God's asked them to do it.

It's that simple.

And it's funny because that at the same ceremony as this other couple.

Who I love very much.

And they were engaged to be married and had a date in mind.

And then there was a house that came up that was available, and they were like, we gotta.

I mean, if you know the housing market right now, like it's not a matter of, well, let's just we'll take our time and really think about it and pray about it.

It's like you see the listing, just send a check.

That's the only option you have.

Like a house pops up, at least that's how it's been for a while.

And there, this house became available, and they're like, We we need to strike because this is the house, and we don't have time to wait, and we gotta move in, and oh, but we don't get married for a few more months.

And they reached out to me and said, Hey, could you do a private ceremony for us so that we can just be married and know that we're doing it in God's eyes the right way.

That way we can go ahead and move in, and then we'll have our ceremony later.

And I was like, Absolutely not, that's a cop out, how dare you?

No, of course.

I was like, Yes.

And I and we did their ceremony privately, it was awesome, it was amazing, and I was so blown away by their heart, which was just simply this.

We want to do it the way God asks us to do it.

We talked last week about our tendency to want to special order from God.

Because that's the world we live in, right?

We like to view God as sort of like a short order cook.

And so, you know, you go to a restaurant, you look at the menu, that that menu is the way the restaurant recommends you eat that.

But we don't like things that way.

We're like, you know, I want that, but not the way it's recommended.

I would like my own personal custom version of this.

And look, we do that with God all the time.

God recommends things, and we say to God, we gotta be honest with ourselves, kind of laugh at ourselves.

We're like, hey, God, I appreciate your recommendation.

Now, I would like to have a sexual relationship, except I would like it a little different, okay?

I'd like this and not so much of that and this, and we sort of expect God to just be coming right up because whatever makes you happy.

But last week Kim said something in that video that I have thought about all week long, and it's this idea that God cares so much more about our soul than our smile.

You know, happiness is so often a trap.

Because if you choose only what makes you happy in this moment, you often find people who aren't very happy overall in life.

Because so much of what makes us happy in this moment isn't actually what's healthy for us in the long run.

And God cares about that.

And there's something holy and ordained by God about two people committing their lives to one another, to honor the Lord, surrounded by at least a few people who know them in a way that is socially recognized and legally protected.

Now I'll say this before we move on.

A lot of times in my experience, when people want to avoid official marriage, it's for very deeply personal reasons.

Because maybe they've been married before and went really poorly.

That happens.

That's hard.

My dad was divorced before he married my mom, my older brother went through a divorce, my older sister went through a divorce.

I've seen a lot of divorce in my life.

I've had very close friends, even here at the church, that went through divorce.

Our founding pastors that started our church went through a divorce, and that was really hard.

And so I understand the idea that when you have marriage that goes poorly, it's like I don't want to go down that road again.

Or maybe you grew up in a family and and divorce happened, and you see marriage as something that is just not valuable, and I don't know if I want to go down that road because it feels like maybe you'll be in too deep.

You won't really have a way out.

I will tell you this: whatever happened in those situations, marriage itself was not the problem.

Marriage is not easy, it is hard.

But it does honor God.

And I'll just I'll put this out there.

I've heard some people also say, well, there's just so much involved, and you know, there's the ceremony and it's expensive and we're saving up.

Okay, if hear this.

If you are deeply committed to someone and you're like, I, we are committed to one another, we're all in, and and maybe you've just sort of bypassed marriage or pushed marriage back for a variety of different reasons, and its costs, and its convenience, and all that, but you have a conviction that like we we should be married, we're not doing this God's way, I'll marry you whenever you want me to, and I'll do it for free.

So literally, yeah.

Here's all you have to do.

Just reach out, email me, and say, hey, we've decided we need to do this, we want to get married, and you tell me, I'll meet, we'll meet here at the building.

Do you know how many people I've married in the prayer room for this exact thing?

We're like, we just need to be married.

I'm like, all right, you go get a marriage license, you bring it, I sign it, we do the wedding, bing, bang, boom, it's great.

Okay?

Am I saying that that's how every ceremony should be?

Like, really, no, I'm not I'm not telling you to rush into it, but I'm saying if you have a conviction and you're like, we ought to be married, we're not doing this God's way, don't freak out.

Again, this is not like you shouldn't be, oh my gosh, like God, no, just hey, reroute.

Show up.

We'll do it.

Done.

Easy.

Okay?

Just reach out if that's something you want.

Now let's move on.

Next question.

Oh, they only get harder.

Okay.

Within marriage, is there anything that's off limits sexually?

Someone just whistled.

Like, uh-oh.

That was that.

Here we go.

Um, what if we feel like our sex life has become dull and we want to liven it up?

So, within marriage, is anything off-limits sexually?

What if we feel like things have become dull and we want to liven it up?

Okay, this is going to be a deeply nuanced answer.

Alright?

So, first and foremost, within marriage, there is not much that is off-limits sexually.

There isn't.

Anything that God has forbidden is is forbidden.

Like, so that if God has said it's off limits, it's off limits.

Okay.

Alternatively, anything that would make your spouse feel very uncomfortable, in marriage, we're we're to love each other.

We're to love each other.

And if if doing something would make your spouse feel uncomfortable, um cheap, or anything like that at all, and they express that out of love for them, it should be an easy decision to say, well, then no.

Okay, now this is where it gets a little bit interesting, though.

So let's just go ahead and read 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 3 through 6.

1 Corinthians 7:3–6

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

The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.

Do not deprive each other of sexual relations unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time, so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer.

Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won't be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

I say this as a concession, not as a command.

I love that part because Paul is saying, look, I'm not commanding this, but I'm recognizing that this is a real need for people.

Now, this would be so much easier.

Can we just say this?

By the way, does anyone feel awkward right now?

Anyone?

No, honestly.

A couple of you.

Okay.

I promise I feel more.

So I would just like permission to say some things, and we've said, hey, if you have kids, we have awesome kids' areas, they should be there right now.

Um, I've actually known a lot of people who have told me we're watching from home because we feel awkward sitting in the room, but we're really interested in this, and our views online have like skyrocketed during the series.

Not because more people are watching, it's because more people are staying home to watch from home.

Okay?

Which technically means if you did that, you might be sitting in bed with your spouse right now watching this.

That might be a mistake.

Okay, so that's just more awkward.

Um, this would be so much easier if husbands and wives tended to have the exact same level of sexual desire.

But they usually don't.

And that's it, that's a challenge.

I this is a generality.

There can be exceptions.

The phrase I'm not in the mood is typically never uttered by a man.

Okay?

I I'm just being honest.

I'm never not in the mood.

Like, I could get there.

There's a lot of things I'm not in the mood for.

And if you said, hey, we gotta do this, I'm like, I know, I'm not doing it.

I'm just not.

Not today.

But I could have like run seven miles, I could have the flu.

And if Megan was like, gee, I'd be like, babe, because I love you so much, I'll soldier through this.

Okay?

Right?

It's how it goes.

So, in my experience in ministry and being a pastor, a very common dynamic is that you've got a man who's frustrated.

Again, I'm speaking in general.

It does go the other way sometimes, and I have had conversations like that.

But generally speaking, you've got a guy who wants more sex.

Okay?

And then you have this being available sexually to your spouse, and you've got, like, there's a husband right now who's like nudging his wife right now, and there's a wife right now who's so mad that I'm talking about this.

Um, but it gets difficult.

It gets, I'm being honest, it gets difficult.

Because this is not to be weaponized.

And it does get weaponized sometimes.

And it and we have to be honest about how complicated it gets, because here's a dynamic that happens all the time.

Again, speaking in generalities, men tend to become exposed to more sexually explicit things at a young age because so much pornography is targeted directly at men.

I know that women are as well.

But this is a very common dynamic that happens in marriages, and I've seen it, and I've sat with couples, and we've talked through it, where there's a man who's consumed a lot of this, a lot of pornography, a lot of sexually explicit material, maybe has a past with a lot of that there, and then uses this whole my wife should be sexually available to me to basically say my wife should fulfill the fantasies that came to me through this.

And that is absolutely not true.

So a spouse being sexually available to the other does it does not say that you should fulfill your spouse's sexual fantasies.

It says their needs.

And there's a difference between the two of those.

But they get mixed up in our minds.

And and I've I've worked with couples where one of the dynamics is that there's been a woman who has tried to fulfill her spouse's sexual needs, and there's baggage there because that meant that the woman crossed lines in her mind that she didn't want to cross, and she feels really guilty about that, and and feels wrong, and and there's it becomes very, very complicated.

And I wish there was a way to make it less complicated.

But we live in a very broken world, and we live in a very broken world sexually.

So this stuff just gets kind of ugly and difficult.

So here's what I believe we have to do if we have any hope of navigating our marriages in a sexually healthy way.

We have to be really honest about ourselves.

We have to be honest about ourselves.

And for some of us, that's gonna mean that we've got to be honest about the fact that our sexual frustrations, for some of us, not all, but for many of us, our sexual frustrations might not be actually related to what's happening in our bedroom, but our sexual frustrations might be more related to the expectations, the unrealistic, unhealthy expectations that we have about what should happen in the bedroom, fed by a culture and media that pours in so much filth that our brains have become convinced that that's what sex is supposed to look like.

And if that's not what's happening in my sex life, something is wrong when in reality what you've been exposed to is the thing that's wrong.

And that's hard.

But we have to be honest.

When we have these frustrations, we have to be honest.

And we have to say, like, where are these frustrations coming from?

Are they coming from a genuine lack of need being fulfilled, or are they coming from some other place?

From disappointment that I have because I've let my mind be shaped by a false version of sex.

I want to say this, men, pornography is a lie.

It's a lie.

And I'm not, obviously, I'm speaking to men, it can apply to women as well.

It's not real.

And if you want to know it, just read stories and interviews of women who have come out of pornography and listen to them tell you that it's not real.

And how shameful and how degrading and how hard that that is for them to overcome, and how much drug use and alcohol abuse just to cope with that.

It's not real.

And if you let that shape your expectations, all you've done is let Satan set you up for disappointment.

You gotta be honest about that.

Now, part of being honest might include this: saying, no, I actually feel like I do have genuine, healthy desire for my spouse that's not being fulfilled.

It's not being met because my spouse maybe doesn't value sex the same way I do.

And if that's the case, you have to be honest enough to have that conversation with your spouse.

And if you're that person that hears that, that's hard to hear, but you might need to be honest with yourself enough to say, hey, am I am I devaluing something that I should value more?

And why?

Like it's okay to be too tired to have sex, but it can't be the only thing you're too tired for.

Right?

It just it has to be something that we value because it means so much to us.

And so another dynamic, and this is where it's hard to be honest, another dynamic is that you know, you might have a spouse that has unnecessary holdups, unnecessary resistance to sexual intimacy because maybe they were abused, maybe they were exposed to things at a young age, and it's created all this, or who knows what.

And if that's the case, if you if you can be honest enough to say, you know what, maybe I have some unnecessary resistance that's that's causing struggle and frustration in my marriage, I need to get some counseling.

I need to, I need someone to help me unravel this so that I can get rid of these things that are holding me back so that we can come together and enjoy this.

Do you realize the first thing God ever says to people in the Bible is be fruitful and multiply?

That's the first thing God tells us.

Like a man said amen.

Who thought?

Right?

Like God cares about this.

And it's difficult and it's hard because this world that we live in has twisted it so much, and sometimes that means we've got to untwist it, and that takes time.

So we have to be honest with ourselves, honest with our spouses, and we have to be patient as we work this out.

I know there's a billion nuanced things we could talk about, so I just want to leave it there and let you wrestle with some of those dynamics.

Ask yourself those questions, see where it leads you.

Now, onto the next part of the question.

What if your sex life has become dull and you want to liven it up?

I just want to say one simple thing to that.

Be very careful with that line of thinking.

And understand that sin will never liven up your marriage.

Genesis 4.7 says, Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you, but you must subdue it and be its master.

1 Peter 5.8 says, Stay alert, watch out for your great enemy, the devil.

He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

Sin and Satan do not mess around, they do not play nice, and sin never livens anything up.

All sin does is destroy and kill.

So very often, and I'm again just saying this, if livening up your sex life means telling your spouse, hey, we should have more sex, that would be great.

Can we do that?

You know, like go for it.

If livening up your sex life means, hey, I feel like there's a disconnect here, and maybe we should get some counseling or something so that we can we can, you know, go through this and and figure this out because that would be awesome, fine.

If livening up your sex life means, hey babe, what do you think about Thursday at 8 p.m.?

Let's just put it on the calendar.

Go for it.

But if livening up your sex life means introducing anything at all that has even a hint of sin, something that's immoral, something that's inappropriate, I'm telling you, it will not liven up a thing.

It will kill.

It will destroy, it will kill trust, it will kill self-respect, it will kill intimacy.

Questions have been asked about what about introducing pornography into a marriage in order to, you know, liven it up a little bit.

I actually talked to a really respected, really, really qualified Christian counselor about this very thing, and his response was you might as well introduce cocaine into your marriage to liven it up.

Because you're basically bringing a drug into the bedroom.

It's addictive by nature, and it brings an element of chaos and uncontrol.

And he said, he said literally the number of counseling sessions he's had with people who did that, trying to liven things up, and all it did was make things infinitely more complicated and hard.

He said you wouldn't believe.

Any just I just want to say, so sin does not bring anything to life.

Sin only brings death.

Okay?

So be very careful with that whole frame of thinking about we want to liven things up.

Healthy sex in marriage is about intimacy, not excitement.

It's about intimacy.

And if you're having those thoughts, I would say first and foremost, spend time with the Lord and explore those thoughts and ask where they're really coming from.

And let that be a journey with you and God and see what God shows you.

And get some counsel on that if you want to, okay?

Make sense?

Alright, let's move on.

Two more questions.

And I know that this series, I've said this every week.

These are longer messages than normal.

So if you're here for the first time, I don't usually talk this long.

I'm a solid 40-minute guy, but these are in depth, okay?

So we've kind of structured things to work around it.

Um, this is a fun one.

What about transgenderism?

Seems like it's becoming much more common.

Is this a new thing or just something that people have always, is this simply something that people have always been, and now they have more freedom to express themselves?

So what about transgenderism?

Is it is this a new thing?

Because it's becoming much more common, or is this just the way it's always been, and now we have the ability to express it differently?

Um so I'm not like I'll just say this, I'm not an expert on on this issue at all.

Right?

And so some of the questions that came in, it's like I should have gone, I could go to college for eight years and study just that one thing, and still have a lot to learn.

But as to the question of what about this, I think we can say this sort of modern explosion of transgenderism, is it a new thing?

Is it something that's always been?

The answer is it's very much a new thing.

Now, there have always been people who are born.

It's called intersex.

It's a very small percentage of people, but basically in the womb, um, certain sexual organs don't develop the same way, and so when the person's born, it's kind of like the body didn't pick one.

It's a biological issue, not a feeling and emotional issue.

It's a biological issue.

It affects a very small percentage of people, and it's always been this way.

In fact, Jesus actually speaks about this.

Matthew chapter 19.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

Jesus says, not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it's been given.

He said, For there are eunuchs who were born that way.

Eunuch would have been a term in their culture for someone who is sexually, either they'd been castrated.

This is something that happened in the ancient world a lot.

It's hard to hear, but it did, especially with servants and households and things like that.

But but it would have been kind of a blanket term to describe people who couldn't operate normally sexually.

And Jesus says some are eunuchs at birth, some are born that way.

And again, we don't know exactly what Jesus is talking about, but there's definitely room in that language for the idea that, you know, some people are born and it's just that's different.

It's a very small percentage, and and almost in all circumstances of that, even though there's both traits there, it leans one way versus the other very clearly, and that's a whole thing.

So kind of table that, because that's not what we're dealing with in modern culture right now.

There's not been an increase in that.

There's not been an increase in the number of people who are born with that.

There's also something that until 2013 was called gender identity disorder.

It was switched in 2013 from gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria, not because of new science that came out that said, hey, actually, this is not a disorder, this is just the way people are.

It's just the social stigma of calling this a disorder was something that caused people to say, ah, we're not going to call it that anymore.

And what gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder would be is someone who, from a very young age, usually around three, four, five years old, starts to develop a deep disconnect in terms of who they are biologically and how they perceive themselves.

So you have like a little boy who sees himself like a girl or vice versa.

And and I've actually known someone who has that story that from a very, very young age, that's the way they saw themselves.

And and it is classified as an actual medical issue.

It is a it is a again, until 2013, it was called a disorder.

And and I'll be honest with you.

That is a whole different conversation.

I would have to do more research than I could even imagine to be able to speak with authority on a mental disorder.

But that's also not what's happening in our culture right now.

More people are not having that story.

What's happening right now is this giant increase in situations, and it's mainly with young people.

It does affect adults as well, but we're mainly talking about the young generation, where you're having kids who are in their teens, 13, 14 years old, who have never had issues with this, never had any type of disconnect at all, who in a very short period of time go from being completely comfortable with who they are biologically to saying I'm a different gender.

It's rapid, it's fast.

There has been a 4,000% increase in the number of young people who identify as transgender in just the last few years.

4,000%.

That is a new thing.

It's a new thing, and it's devastating.

And what I'm saying here, just so you know, is not it's not intended to offend.

But it isn't it is intended to speak plainly and truthfully.

What we're seeing happen in our culture right now, and specifically with transgenderism, and transgender ideology, we might say, is nothing short of indoctrination.

Indoctrination is when you take people and you introduce them to ideas that will lead them to conclusions they never would have come to on their own.

Some people would actually say that, oh yeah, well, faith is indoctrination, that we're like indoctrinating children right now.

And that's not true at all.

Because, you know, for most of human history, major civilizations were separated geographically and had no interaction.

The Native Americans had no interaction with the African people, the African people had no interaction with the Asian people, the Asian people had no interaction with the European people, and it wasn't until not that long ago in human history that all of a sudden, through advances in technology and the ability to travel, we were able to overcome those physical barriers and become introduced to cultures that we had never interacted with, and now we have this like melting pot today.

But it's amazing in every one of those cultures, when they would show up, there was never a culture that was like, what do you mean a higher power?

We've never thought of this before.

Every culture came to an understanding that there must be a God, there must be a higher power of some kind.

That's not indoctrination if every culture on the earth developed an idea and an understanding on their own that there must be something bigger than us.

I would tell you, racism in America is indoctrination.

Because if children don't grow up in a racist culture where they're introduced to these ideas, they don't see it.

They don't see it.

Like one of my kids, and this is actually something I don't know if you guys have had this experience that have kids.

One of my kids, um, all of my kids have had moments like this, but one of my kids specifically wanted to invite a friend over that was a different race.

And I and I didn't know which friend they were talking about.

Because it was like preschool, and I didn't know all their names.

And they're like, oh, can this person come over?

Like, well, which who is that?

I was trying to figure out if I knew the parent, if we can invite them over.

And and they described this other child in every possible way that you could describe them, except for the color of their skin.

It was like their hair, the way they dressed, you know, how tall they were.

And finally my brain clicks, I was like, oh, well, I feel like you didn't, you know, use the obvious descriptor.

And it's because, short of indoctrination, children don't see that.

They don't.

They begin to see it because we teach them that.

What we're seeing happen right now in our culture is this idea of transgender ideology, young children are being exposed to and introduced to ideas and confusion that's leading them to conclusions that they never would come to otherwise.

Because they never have.

In the history of the world, they never have.

And it's and it's it's devastating.

I don't normally talk about just social issues, but this is a major one, and we're gonna get to where this hits us personally in just a moment.

It's devastating for a variety of reasons.

God has created children in such a way that they're just naturally curious.

Right?

They're curious.

They think and they have all kinds of questions.

I mean, those of you who have young kids, how many questions do you get asked a day, right?

And so that curiosity leads them in this long journey of self-discovery, of figuring out who they are.

And it's an interesting journey.

I'm gonna tell a story right now, and it's probably because I have an unhealthy need for humor in moments where I need it.

And so just if if you go, that story bothered me, forgive me.

One of my kids, I won't tell you which one, one of my kids, when they were two years old, had an accident, as two-year-olds do, and I was changing them.

And that child of mine, I'll never tell you which one, um, happened to reach down and and felt on their body, and they went, Dad, there's a hole in my bottom.

And I was like, Yeah.

Uh that's fine.

We all have a hole in our bottom.

And they were like skeptical, going, are you sure?

And I was like, yes.

And then that child of mine, as children can do, makes things over, goes, Can you show me your bottom hole?

And I said, No.

I cannot do that.

You're just going to have to trust me.

And everyone has one of those.

Okay?

Nothing's wrong with you, you're fine.

And finally they they calmed down.

And I was like, I was like telling Megan at night, I was like, you're gonna go to school and ask to see someone's bottom hole.

And D Fax is gonna show up, and it's just gonna be this mess, and I don't know what I'm gonna do.

But that was a really innocent, funny, but really innocent example of a young child discovering something about themselves that they weren't aware of and not knowing what to do with it.

Children are by nature curious.

What the modern transgender ideology is doing to our young people, it is hijacking, hijacking their natural curiosity and self-discovery and sexualizing it at a young age.

It's like experimenting socially on children.

And it's so disingenuous.

Because actually, something that you'll hear in kind of modern transgender ideology is that gender is a social construct, that it's just something we've invented and it's completely independent of biological sex, and that's what's being spouted as kind of the basis for doing this, and that's that's nonsense.

Because again, we have all these cultures that for all of human history have been disconnected and in these different places, and yet every single time a new culture would encounter another one, never before was there a culture that's like, men and women?

What do you mean?

We have no concept of this.

Every culture is like, we got men, we got women.

We understand that dynamic.

And so you take these young children who are curious, and you hijack that curiosity, and at an age when the questions that are on their minds are things like, what flavor of ice cream is best?

And what video game am I gonna get to play when I get home?

Like those are the questions they're asking, and you ask them questions like, what gender are you attracted to?

And and do you think you're really a boy or girl?

You introduce confusion in an area of life where kids are not confused.

They're not.

Like you go ask kids, boy or girl, which one are you?

And they're not gonna be like, hmm.

They know.

And it's like taking the stability out from underneath them.

And it's it's so, so wrong.

And it's prevalent and it's everywhere.

And I know as I'm saying this, it might be clear to some of us, and we might be like, I agree, but what do we do about it?

Because we see so many kids deal with this, and not just out there, but but even locally, it's it's a it's a big issue.

Because unfortunately, it's something that isn't just happening online anymore.

It's sometimes, depending on where you're at in the country, and increasingly so all the time, it happens in the school system.

And kids are being asked to go on this journey that they're not supposed to go on at all.

In fact, Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verse 7 says, Don't excite love, don't stir it up until the time is ripe and you're ready.

Song of Solomon 2:7

When you take children and you introduce these ideas at a young age and you sexualize their natural development and identity, it it's they're not ready for that.

It distorts everything and it will lead to massive, massive issues for a long time to come.

So that's the answer to the question.

Is this a new thing or is this how it's always been?

This is not how it's always been.

You can study history, this is a new phenomenon, and it is devastating.

Now, here's where this gets kind of interesting for us as Jesus followers.

Because we have room for the idea that a person has a disconnect with who they are versus who they ought to be.

We do.

The idea that we're not the way we ought to be, that there's something that's not quite right about us, that's actually, I believe, something we innately know as human beings, and something that the sort of transgender ideology movement capitalizes on.

That knowledge that something in us isn't quite as it ought to be, and takes advantage of that and hijacks that, but we have room for that.

Because there is something naturally in us that's not exactly as it ought to be, and it's the reality that our spirit has not come to life through a relationship with God yet.

And so Romans chapter 12, verse 2 says, Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Romans 12:2

Not changing your body, not changing your pronouns, changing the way you think.

Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

See, we have a culture right now that's telling children you can transition.

And we have a God who tells us that we can transform, that we can become new creations, that we can become people who are completely and totally made new.

And it's not that we have to change everything about our body, and it's not that we have to go through surgery and completely and totally upend our entire social understanding.

It's that we simply have to recognize that something in our spirit needs to change.

And when we have a relationship with God and his spirit enters us, we are transformed and we're made right.

And so, what we have to understand is the way Satan works, the way our enemy works, the way sin works.

It is always, always opportunistic.

Satan always hijacks whatever he can to confuse us and lead us astray.

He'll hijack Scripture.

When you look at the Pharisees in the Old Testament, the very thing that Satan used to keep them from knowing Jesus was the truth of God.

He'll hijack compassion and love to where we become so afraid of upsetting anyone that we won't ever speak truth, and he will hijack the curiosity of children, and he'll hijack that natural knowledge that we have that something needs to be different and keep us from Jesus by getting us to go a different way.

And so, what do what do we do about that?

We stand on the truth.

We stand on the truth.

It doesn't mean we we like get on social media and just rant and rave and ah, whatever.

And and some people will say I'm being political right now.

This is not a political issue.

If the health of children ever becomes a political issue, we are we are in deep trouble.

We are talking about an entire generation of children.

And so what we have to do is we have to be people who stand on the truth.

We have to be people who are willing to look at children and say, you're just confused.

And you know, studies show that if left alone, children who are confused about that, they grow out of it pretty fast.

Because we we shouldn't let children make like major decisions.

Can we agree with that, by the way?

Like I've never, yeah, you know.

When my when my oldest was, and we're almost done, guys, when when my oldest was uh in fourth grade, he told me he didn't want to play basketball anymore.

He said, Dad, I want to quit basketball.

And I said no.

I said, You're not old enough to make that big of a decision, dude.

I'm serious.

He was like, he was really good at it, he had put on a lot of work, he was just frustrated for a minute.

He's like, I don't want to play anymore.

And I was like, nope.

And Megan was like, is that just because you enjoyed a lot?

I'm like, maybe.

But but no, I said, honestly, he's just not old enough to make that decision.

Like, we don't let kids get tattoos.

Because we, if like a kid said, Hey, dad, I want to get a tattoo.

I want Pikachu, I want them like, right, like, you know, whatever they're into, Pokemon, you name it, like we would clearly go, you're going to regret this decision one day.

So no.

And there's this part of our culture, and this is where I'll probably wrap up on this issue, and we're we're, I promise we're almost done.

You guys are so patient.

This series is almost done.

There's a part of our culture right now that is so foolish, and it basically says, let the children lead us.

And it's a total abdication of the fact that we're supposed to lead the children.

That's the way it's supposed to be.

We're supposed to lead our kids.

And actually, what the let our children lead us often becomes is just people with really messed up ideas taking advantage of how understanding and loving children are to validate the way that they see the world.

Because if you can get children to be like, I'm okay with this and see this child is okay with it, well, children will believe anything.

Right?

We're supposed to lead the children.

We're parents.

Be grounded in your faith.

Have a strong faith with God.

Know what's true, and love your children enough to stand on the truth.

Even if every once in a while that means that they go through a phase and you're like, look, I'm not going along with this.

I love you too much.

Like Kim said last week in the video, I love you too much.

This is the truth about who you are.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

And your desires are not always in line with what is best for you.

And and I'm gonna lead you in the truth.

I had a person ask, as we'll pray, how do we protect our kids from this?

Well, be strong in your faith, know the truth, think it through.

And I will tell you this honestly, I asked Madison, our youth pastor, hey, what advice would you give?

He says, Do not give them access, especially unfettered access to social media and online stuff, because here's what happens that natural curiosity that we have in terms of who we are, who we're developing into, you know, um, that usually cements really slowly.

But when kids get online and spend a lot of time on the internet and all the things they get exposed to, it cements fast.

And there's a pressure for them to cement in terms of who they are and make definitive statements about who they are at an age where they're not ready, but then they've made that statement and now they have to spend the rest of their life trying to live that out because they said it, they've stated it, this is who I am.

And so what we want to do is help that cement the way it's supposed to.

Long.

So be careful about their influence.

I will tell you this: this is not selfish, just have them be part of their church.

Like, my kids are here every week, they really don't have a choice.

Um and they love it.

And they're they're they they have friends and they have relationships with leaders like like Jackson, who I mentioned earlier, people who aren't just their parents, who speak truth into their lives, and it's really, really good.

So take advantage of that.

Be here.

Okay, so we've covered everything from being sexually available to your spouse to transgenderism.

Woo! Okay, here we go.

How do we close this whole thing out?

2 Samuel 14, 14.

God devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him.

Isn't that beautiful?

God devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him.

We can look at all this stuff.

And and it's it's a lot, it's a lot of ideas.

I've spent more hours thinking through this stuff than I thought I would or cared to.

I've prayed through it a lot.

And at the end of the day, I look at all of this and I say, yes, this is what God has said.

I will, you have my blessing if you operate here.

We all struggle, we all mess up, we all fall out of place at some point in time, and look, we're we've got a whole generation of kids who are being so lied to that we're going to see a lot of kids in this next generation be very, very messed up in these areas.

And what we have to cling to and remember is that God never gives up on people.

He's always devising a way to get us back when we're separated from him.

And when it comes to this part of life, whether you or someone you know or someone you love ever gets off track, God will never stop trying to reroute them and bring them back.

And we can partner with that.

We can be partners with that.

And that means, it just means we have to be patient, loving, and stand on the truth.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for this day.

Thank you for this church.

Lord, I just want to ask that you be with everyone who's here as we we think through these things, as we wrestle through these things, Lord.

Um, all the questions that keep coming in, people that are wrestling with this stuff.

God, I pray that you just give us wisdom and answering those the best we can.

We love you so much.

And God, uh, thank you for getting us through this uh this conversation.

I'm really grateful that we're moving on to something else next week.

We love you.

Amen.