Summer in Proverbs | Sexual Wisdom

Transcript

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Hey, I'm Kevin. Thanks for listening to our message. We strive each week to bring you relevant, practical, biblical teaching that meets you where you are. Hope you enjoy the message.

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Today is one of those messages that as I'm working on, as I've decided, hey, we're gonna I'm gonna preach through Proverbs during the summer. I was like, I didn't think about this message. Um because all week long I'm thinking, well, if this person's here, or if this not person, but this group of people would be here, this would be good. And if I was just talking to teenagers, I would thank you. I would handle it a little bit differently. Um, and it's a mixed crowd. So I'm just trusting that whoever is here today is supposed to be here. Um, and this is a message that often uh will cause uh some bring some questions out, and um uh and I I go at it with much prayer behind it. Um it's Proverbs chapter five. To begin with, I want to go back to uh when I was probably in fifth or sixth grade, and my dad uh yeah, thank you. That's what I was looking for, Kay. Um when when my dad had to talk to me um about what we would used to say the birds and the bees, um, I was grateful. I was the second son. Uh my older brother uh crossed that threshold before I. And uh my I remember when Scott was in sixth or seventh grade, my dad took him to a conference. And uh, because I remember my brother had to miss a basketball game or a practice, something like that. And my brother was just devastated that he had to miss a uh basketball game to have to go to this conference to learn about something that he really didn't care about that much. And uh my dad, I think, learned from that experience because he just came in to my bedroom one night and said, here's a book, you need to read this. And uh and uh when I finished that book, I probably had more questions than answers. Um, and I don't fault my dad. I really don't. Um talking about sex is difficult. Um, every generation struggles to know how to have that conversation. Um, kids with their parents, parents with their kids, grandparents, um, friends. It's it can be a uh uh a difficult conversation. And I have to tell you, the church that I grew up in wasn't much better than my dad putting a book on my bed and saying, read it. Um I have to, I never heard a message growing up my entire time from my pastor who I adored on on sex like I am today. Um I picked up, I picked up from adults in my church that sex was prohibited, that sex was dangerous. You better be careful. Don't do it. It was a church that encouraged us not to go to dances, don't go to homecoming. Every time I went to a homecoming dance or prom, I was stared at on Sunday mornings, at least it felt that way, by my youth leaders, wondering if I had gone too far. I was told if you go on a date, you put your Bible between you and that girl. So if any any anyone tries anything, you have to go through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John before you get to her. And that's the world I grew up in. And I as I was looking at Proverbs chapter 5 this week, Proverbs 5 does not say that sex is bad. It doesn't say it's it's dangerous. It says that it could be if you walk outside of the boundaries. It's saying that sex is so powerful in our life that it deserves our wisdom. It deserves for us to seek the wisdom of God. I love the fact that in Proverbs 5, the Father is once again speaking to the Son, and the Father isn't embarrassed about it. As a matter of fact, he he speaks more boldly than many of us probably would to our sons. He's not angry about it, he's not afraid of the conversation. He's simply saying, son, before life teaches you this lesson the hard way, I want to teach you first. For those of you with with young children and uh or even students, that is such a wise message. Before the world teaches you, let me teach you. I want to teach you some stuff. And it's so important that we have student leaders that you can trust. My wife grew up in an all-girl Sunday school class in her youth group, and her Sunday school teacher told the girls that they should experiment sexually before you get married, so you can make sure that you're pleased and happy with one another. It's pretty, it's it's so, I mean, Lisa was all over me when we were dating. No, no, no, no, no, she was not. Cut that out. So glad for the five-minute delay on the camera. Um fortunately, she had a she had parents that came along and said, No, we want to teach you. We want to teach you first before the world teaches you. Um, the father isn't embarrassed about this. It's a father, this is how I picture this. It's a father sitting beside his son, or maybe sitting on the edge of his bed and saying, Hey, can we talk about this? Because I love you so much, I don't want you to learn this from the world. I don't want you to learn this from the culture. I I want I want to teach you about this. So let's go to Proverbs chapter 5. This is probably one that those of you who carry your Bibles or you don't, you're trying to find it on your phone because you're like, I can't believe he's gonna talk about this. Let's I better I better follow along, and I'm glad. I'm actually using the new living translation today. Um, it's uh it's it's it's more PG uh rated. Proverbs chapter 5. I'm gonna read the whole chapter. My son, pay attention to my wisdom and listen carefully to my wise counsel. You will then you will show discernment, and your lips will express what you've learned. And here we go. For the lips, and this keep in mind for for ladies and females, this is a father talking to a son, but this could very much be a mother talking to a daughter if you if you ship shift some things around in the thinking, okay? So for the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But in the end, she is as bitter as poison, as dangerous as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps will lead you straight to the grave. For she cares nothing about the path to life. She staggers down a crooked trail and doesn't even realize it. So now, my sons, listen to me. Never stray from what I am about to stay. Stay away from her. Don't go near the door of her house. If you do, you will lose your honor and you will lose to merciless people all you have achieved. Strangers will consume your wealth and someone else will enjoy the fruit of your labor. And in the end, you will groan in anguish when disease consumes your body. You will see, you will say, How I hated discipline. If only I had not ignored all of the warnings. Oh, why didn't I listen to my teachers? Why didn't I pay attention to my instructors? I have come to the brink of utter ruin, and now I must face public disgrace. He pauses. And then he says, Again, I'm throwing this in there, my son, drink water from your own well. Share your love only with your wife. Why spill the waters of your springs in the streets, having sex with just anyone? You should reserve it for yourselves, never share it with a stranger. Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her breast satisfy you. May you always be captivated by her love. Why be captivated, my son, by an immoral woman? Or why fondle the breast of a promiscuous woman? For the Lord sees clearly what a man does, examining every path he takes. An evil man is held captive by his own sins. They are ropes that catch and hold him. He will die for lack of self-control. He will be lost because of his great foolishness. Do you know the Bible is far more positive about sex than many people think? If you think about it, Genesis begins with marriage. Adam and Eve. Song of Solomon celebrates romance and intimacy. Proverbs 5 actually tells a husband to enjoy his wife. Paul says that husbands and wives should not deprive one another. And then in the very end of the Bible, we have revelation that gives us this picture of a glorious wedding. I want you to hear me clearly say today that God created sex to be celebrated and enjoyed and spiritual. And then Satan came and he took this powerful and gracious gift and he twisted this wonderful thing just enough, just a little at first, and then more and more and more until today I can barely believe where we are. Hollywood didn't create sex. Pornography didn't create sex. God did. Social media gives terrible advice when it comes to this subject. As I was preaching this week and just thinking about all these thoughts on television shows that Lisa and I watched, there were a number of times that I heard this, and maybe I hear it all the time, I just was more sensitive to it this week. Friends with benefits. And I don't know why it just kept coming up, but it was friends with benefits. And I was like, that's not even close to God's path. It's not even close to what his idea was. It's the enemy taking a good thing, a beautiful thing, and twisting it so it becomes something dangerous and damaging and perverted. I remember hearing this somewhere. Fire in a fireplace warms a home, but fire on the living room floor burns the house down. You see, the problem isn't the fire. The problem is when you take the fire out of the boundaries of the fireplace, that's when it becomes dangerous. And sex is like that. I love how Proverbs 5 walks us through. He says, Notice, and this is one of the things I noticed first. Like, don't do this, this is too far. Or like the whole, oh, first base, second base. I don't even know if they say that anymore, but when I when I was a kid, you know, first base, second base, third base. And I guess, well, home run. The father doesn't say, you can go to first base or second base. Don't steal third. He doesn't do that. He begins with wisdom. He begins with wisdom. He says, My son, pay attention because I love you so much. I want you to get this. Because every, and this is something that maybe should be on the screen. Every sexual decision is actually a wisdom decision. Some of you are sitting there saying, Man, I wish I could have heard this. Every sexual decision you make is a wisdom decision. First thing I want you to see today, if you're taking notes, sex is a gift. I want you to hear me clearly say this. Sex isn't dirty. Sex isn't dirty. It isn't embarrassing. It isn't something that God tolerates and allows. It was his ideas. It was his idea. The enemy's strategy has always been one of two extremes with any gift that God has. Any gift that God gives you. There's two extremes that the enemy will take and try to pervert it. The first thing is he will make us ashamed of the gift. The enemy can come in and with the gift of salvation, he can make you ashamed of it because you don't deserve it. And you're not good enough, and you'll never be good enough. And the whole time the Spirit is saying to you, but you you don't have salvation because you deserve it. But Satan will come in and try to convince us that you don't deserve it. You see, he takes that good gift and he perverts it a little bit and tries to convince us that you don't deserve it and you'll never be good enough. The other hand is he can take that and he can abuse God's gift and make us prideful of it. And so so we can look down on other people. Like, well, I'm a Christian, I would never do that. See, both both are just the enemy coming in and twisting God's good gift. That's what the enemy loves to do that. He loves to take the, he loves to take the gift of like sexuality and twist it just enough. So you're either ashamed of it or you become prideful of it, or you become say, hey, it's nobody else's business what I do with my sex life. I'll handle that my own. You see, it's a gift, it's a gift, but if the enemy is allowed to come in, he'll twist it and pervert it, and he'll either take it one way or the other. Either way, either way, he's after it. The second thing I want you to see today is every gift that God gives us has boundaries. Every gift has boundaries. I don't know if you noticed or not, but last Sunday, and maybe you noticed again today, that we just had our parking lot paved, or not paved, but uh sealed and restriped. And uh last week, before anybody had driven out, it looked so beautiful. I mean, if a parking lot can look beautiful, um, I wanted to text Google and say, go take a picture of our building now because the parking lot looks so good, you know. Um and and we had those stripes put in because that gives us boundaries of where we park. And you do so well. But do you know in about five months it'll be covered in snow and you won't see those yellow lines? And I don't know if you've ever remembered, Paul, you'll know because you notice things like this. It'll look like a derby out there. Like without the lines, we don't know where to park. I mean, we park in that spot almost every same Sunday, just like you come in and you sit in that same spot every Sunday. But if you cover the boundaries, you can't even tell where the rows are. It's like I think I'll just park here. I think I'll park here. Oh, this is about where I usually park. It'll it'll look like a it'll look like a derby out there. You see, when people have freedom without boundaries, it gets crazy. Boundaries are not the enemy of your freedom. Sexual boundaries are not the enemy of freedom. Boundaries are there to protect your freedom. God is saying, I've created something wonderful for you, and I'm trying to keep something wonderful for you. I'm trying to preserve something wonderful for you. As a parent, if Lisa and I would talk to our girls about this, they would probably do the same thing that your kids would do. They would kind of roll their eyes. And still today, if we joke around with it, Kayla will kind of go, some of you, some of you might even think that, you know, I'm I'm too old to talk about this. Never this old pastor, he doesn't know what it's like, you know, to grow up in this century. And I admit I didn't grow up with Snapchat or Facebook or uh whatever. The other, what's that other one? What? So I don't even know that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instacart. I didn't grow there you go. I didn't grow, I didn't grow up with smartphones. I didn't I didn't grow up in a time where where you could just open up your phone and you're one clicker, however many clicks away from free pornography. I did grow up, some of you guys will like this, I did grow up with sports illustrated bathing suit issue in January, the third week. I'm just saying. But human hearts haven't changed. Human hearts haven't changed, and I promise you this. If you'll build a strong sexual boundary today, someday you'll look back and thank God you did. The third thing, and the final thing. Ignoring boundaries, ignoring boundaries can create profound consequences. Ignoring boundaries can create profound consequences. No teenager, no unmarried person, no one, no one wakes up on a morning and says, I think today I'd like to ruin my future. It doesn't begin like that. It begins with little compromises along the way. Or it might be a conversation that you should have with your spouse, but you have it with another person of the opposite sex, or it might be a lunch date that you shouldn't have. I want you to know that Julie is on staff here, and Julie and I will not even drive in the same car to go to the same spot because I don't ever want anyone to see me with another woman where my wife should be sitting, unless it's my daughter. There have been times that there have been times. And Tammy, it was the same way when Tammy and I worked together. There were times that Lisa would have to come to the church instead of us going to pick her up before the three of us would go out. Because it begins with little compromises. A little compromise. Maybe it's a, it's a, it's a, well, I'm going to look at this website that I heard about. Or maybe it's maybe it's a compromise of just a fantasy that goes on in your mind. Or maybe there's an emotional attachment. The father in Proverbs is saying, don't wait until you're standing on the cliff. Don't wait to have a boundary until you're already too far. Stay away from the edge. A young man that grew up in this church many, many years ago, he was talking to me after he had become an adult and married, and he said, Pastor Eric, one of the things that I remember most about what you said one time on this subject was he said, I think when it comes to sin, you should draw a line in the sand of where you're not going to cross, and then take five steps backwards, and you'll never regret. Say, this is, I am not crossing that line right here. So I am not going to get that close. I'm going to take five steps back, and I'll never have a regret. I want you to know I wrestled with this message, especially I wanted to be appropriate more than anything, and I wanted to honor God. But I wrestled with it a lot because I didn't know who was going to be here. And I really did not want anybody to hear me just say, don't. Just don't. Because Proverbs is not saying that. Proverbs ends this subject with joy and delight. It's a good thing. I paused when I read Proverbs 5.18. Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. May you always be captivated by her love. The Father isn't just saying, don't commit adultery. Just have really good sexual boundaries. He's saying, experience the joy that God designed for you. I haven't felt good this week. And this morning, I when I got up from my chair after having my morning coffee, and I was kind of walking a little old, and uh and and Lisa came up and she gave me this huge hug, intimate loving hug, and she rubbed my back, and I rejoiced in the wife of my youth. It wasn't a sexual thing. It was just something that I thought, I'm so glad that I have the wife of my youth. I want to talk just briefly before I close to a group of people that are probably sitting in this room today that um that have some sexual regrets. Just call them that. Maybe some of you have been through some really painful experiences with relationships, and a lot of them maybe were started out of uh sexual mistakes. Um maybe there's some people even today in this room, and according to statistics, I'm sure there are that have an addiction to pornography. I want to talk to a group of people that maybe have crossed boundaries. I want to talk to a group of people that this subject has wounded you severely, that you've been sinned against, and it hurts. And even the fact that I would say sex is beautiful or sex is a gift from God, you might be sitting there saying, It sure doesn't feel that way to me. Because you you were you were on the end of the twisting of it of the enemy. I want you to know today, from my shepherd's heart, Jesus did not come only for the sexually pure. Jesus didn't come for those who just had just did everything right. He came for the sexually broken. He came, he came for those who have regrets. He came for those who've misused it. He came for those who crossed boundaries, and he came for those who have been wounded by this. He didn't come only for the sexually pure, he came for the broken. And I want you to know he can restore what sin has damaged. I want you to know and hear me say this. He forgives what shame keeps replaying in your mind. He forgives. And he gives you a new beginning. Washes just as clean as can be. I know it doesn't erase the pain, I know it doesn't erase the memories, but it's a new beginning that when you say shame doesn't stand a chance against me, this is not gonna hold me down, this is not gonna break me anymore. No matter where you've been, wisdom can start today. I want to make one more plea to any of you who are not married. The dominant culture message is sex isn't anyone's business, and you should just follow your feelings. The problem is with that, I would, I would never tell my children to follow their feelings. As a matter of fact, unless I knew the heart of a person, I don't know if I would ever even give the advice, follow your heart. I would, I would probably always say, never follow your feelings. Because feelings and emotions can't be trusted, especially in a romantic setting. I want to tell you something. In my life, if I if I would have followed my feelings, I can't imagine how many times I would have quit my job over the years. You two. You can't trust your feelings. I can't imagine how how many times I would have punched somebody in the mouth if I followed my feelings. I can't imagine how many times I would have ran my car into somebody if I would have followed my feelings. I can't imagine how many houses that I would have bought every time I felt like I wanted a different house. I can't imagine how many times I would view pornography if I would have followed my feelings. I can't imagine how many times I would have cheated on my taxes had I followed my feelings. I can't imagine how many times I would have lied to my wife had I followed my feelings. Oh my friend, Proverbs is a far better message. Train your desires with wisdom. Train your desires with wisdom. One of God's most awesome and precious gifts is our sexuality. It is so powerful of a gift that God has used it to shape the picture of a covenant life, a marriage, a groom and a bride, a picture so beautiful that he has drawn this picture of the groom coming back for his bride, the church. I love this picture. I know some of you think, I don't know how the whole church is the bride. It doesn't make sense. I get that. But I love this idea. Part of the reason, part of the reason is I at a marriage, I love it when I say to the couple standing before me, who gives this woman to this man? And the and they say, her mother and I. And then the groom always just stands there. He doesn't know what to do. We've gone over it in rehearsal, but he doesn't, he forgets, he's just smiling like he just said me. And I I say to the groom almost every time, I said it to Jim, go get your bride. Go get your bride. I said it to Max, go get your bride. And one day, one day, God our Father will say to his son Jesus, Jesus, it's time. Go get your bride. Go get your bride. And when he comes, if I'm still on earth, I want to be ready. I want to be ready for when the groom comes. I want him to find me free from shame. I want him to find me forgiven. I want him to find me free from guilt. Ready for his return. Ready to take me home. Man, thank you. Thank you for being so quiet and gentle and smiling at me today. Let me pray. Holy Spirit, I know you're working in the hearts of people today that had no idea what they were going to hear when they walked in this room. I hope they've heard how much you love them. I hope I hope they have heard how much you care for them. I hope they've heard that no matter how broken they may be, you put us back together. And you create this beautiful work of art. There's nothing more beautiful than the gentleness of a little baby. So pure, so clean, so undisturbed. But I have to say, Lord, the thing that the thing that compares to it the most in my life is when I see a person that has been broken because of life, because the cruelty of the pain of life. But when I see that person restored and transformed, they're just as beautiful. So I pray today that as we sing and as we continue to focus, my heart's cry is that you will continue to bring healing to those who are wounded today. That you would bring some boldness to those who have heard a message that may be getting too close to stepping out of the boundary. And I pray that no matter how much the culture and no matter how much friends and people pull them away, that they will determine once again, nope, not me. Not me. Maybe there's some forgiveness that needs to happen. Lord, begin anew and afresh. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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