SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Grace Church, and good morning to all of you who are joining us online, whether in one of our venues or watching at home or here in this room, we're so glad to have you worshiping Jesus with us today.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible or Bible app, you can open up to Trop Proverbs chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we are continuing our series today called Wisdom for Life.
SPEAKER_00: It's a series where we are learning how to live God's way in God's world.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've missed the last two Sundays, the first Sunday we began with the necessity of wisdom and what wisdom actually is.
SPEAKER_00: And then last Sunday we talked about our need to grow in trust of God if we're going to follow this wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: And the rest of the series is going to take a little bit of a turn, where now we get into the nitty-gritty topical reality of Proverbs, where if we know what wisdom is and we trust that God is wise, we can then start living according to what He prescribes inside of His Word, which is called the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So here's a quick recap.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what wisdom is.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom is knowing the difference between what is right and what is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That's God's way versus every other way, and then choosing to do what is right.
SPEAKER_00: So we live in a world where there is a right way of living, and God is the one who has discerned exactly the right way to live for us.
SPEAKER_00: And today, God says that in this fallen world, it is wise to be a person who avoids sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this message this morning could go one of two ways.
SPEAKER_00: There's the part where we deal with how Scripture deals with sexual sin and how we redeem ourselves from that through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There's the other section of this message, which is really about the practical wisdom of how you simply don't fall into sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so because God loves you deeply, he gave all kinds of wisdom about how you don't even fall into sexual sin first, so you can avoid the heartache and the pain that comes with it.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's what you gotta understand about the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible simply doesn't talk about sex, it shouts about sex.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of sex inside of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've not read the Bible cover to cover, then you've probably avoided most of those things because you don't learn about that in Sunday school.
SPEAKER_00: But there's all kinds of passages throughout the book of Proverbs and in the book of Romans that deals with human sexuality and how we deal with this amazing thing that God created for us, but how sin has abused it, how do we treat it with holiness and with integrity?
SPEAKER_00: See, sex is probably one of the most powerful things that God has created and then handed over to you and I as human beings.
SPEAKER_00: It has the power to create life, it has the power to bond two people together at a deep, meaningful, emotional uh aspect.
SPEAKER_00: It is a representation of this covenant that God has made with people through his son Jesus, and it's incredibly pleasurable.
SPEAKER_00: It is a really powerful thing that exists here in the world, and I don't know what God was thinking to just unleash it on us.
SPEAKER_00: We clearly aren't capable in our fallen state of handling sex with integrity.
SPEAKER_00: But what you learn as you go throughout the scriptures is that if you live and treat sex the way God intended it to, when you live the way God wants you to in terms of sex and sexuality, sex doesn't just work.
SPEAKER_00: Man, sex flourishes.
SPEAKER_00: It is its incredible benefit for every single person who lives here on earth, and it's one of the greatest joys that God has bestowed upon us as human beings.
SPEAKER_00: And sex is a powerful gift for your well-being.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us are only familiar with the consequences of sex, but the reality is God never intended you to be hurt by it, but to flourish with it, to delight in it, and to grow because of it.
SPEAKER_00: But sexual sin is real, and as a result, sexual temptation is all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's wrong to think of sexual and temptation as purely a physical thing.
SPEAKER_00: Sexual temptation is a mental and emotional thing as well.
SPEAKER_00: So here's my definition of sexual temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Sexual temptation is the desire to take physical and emotional delight outside of God's design of covenant unity, which is marriage.
SPEAKER_00: It's a real temptation to satisfy the physical desire apart from a long-term emotional commitment, which is that self-focused gratification.
SPEAKER_00: That's the surface-level pleasure-based reality of sex.
SPEAKER_00: And it's where most of society in the world spends its time.
SPEAKER_00: How can you find immediate personal gratification now, with nobody else in mind but yourself?
SPEAKER_00: Then there's the second aspect of sexual temptation, which is the desire to emotionally satisfy a part or a need, a need of your heart apart from faithfulness to another individual.
SPEAKER_00: Because every single person has a real need to be seen, to be appreciated, to be desired emotionally, to be desired physically.
SPEAKER_00: And we're intended for that emotion then to lead itself into physical contact or physical touch.
SPEAKER_00: And so that emotional need is then satisfied also with that physical need.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we placate the fantasies and the emotional reality without ever allowing it to become physical, but it doesn't mean that it's not sexual sin all the same.
SPEAKER_00: It is really, at the end of the day, the temptation to enjoy what God has made good in a way that God has never intended it to be used.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we just have to come to grips with a couple things, all right?
SPEAKER_00: And and I'm gonna be honest.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when you're in in health class in sixth grade, and your teacher made you say all the words out loud, just to just to break the ice?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna say the word we're not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00: But you do have to acknowledge the fact that you are a human being, you have a physical body, your physical body has real desires to receive pleasure, and your pleasure comes from both an emotional and a physical experience.
SPEAKER_00: And the pleasure is something we all want.
SPEAKER_00: But that pleasure is designed to be harnessed in a system.
SPEAKER_00: And when the pleasure is inside of a system, it creates more joy and more pleasure than the pleasure detached from the system that God originally designed it.
SPEAKER_00: I really believe that Christians are meant to have what I call God-glorifying, physically and emotionally satisfying, intimate sex.
SPEAKER_00: But in order to do that, it's a lot of work.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way to get that kind of sex in a shortcut, but that's what this world wants you to believe.
SPEAKER_00: You can get there by simply bypassing the rules of God's design and system and go right to the physicality of it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's really Satan's goal.
SPEAKER_00: Satan never wants to demonize sex.
SPEAKER_00: That's not his plan.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Satan wants to make sex so good, so pleasurable, so incredible.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to obsess the whole world with it, and then he wants to offer you a promise, but that promise is a lie.
SPEAKER_00: You can have the best sex in the world without the work it takes to actually have it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the lie.
SPEAKER_00: And the world has bought hook, line, and sinker into it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, right now we're standing in a room that is powered by electricity.
SPEAKER_00: We have harnessed the power of electricity for our good, have we not?
SPEAKER_00: We've learned how to turn it into a machine that broadcasts images.
SPEAKER_00: We have light inside this room.
SPEAKER_00: It's running our air conditioning units right now, keeping us moderately cool or warm, depending on our preference.
SPEAKER_00: But electricity is an incredible power.
SPEAKER_00: Inside the right system, you have warmth, you have delight, you have pleasure, you have accommodating circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: And when electricity is used well, it's great.
SPEAKER_00: But how many of you have ever shocked yourself in an outlet?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
SPEAKER_00: It happens, man.
SPEAKER_00: If you're if you're a kid, you put a fork in the outlet, you know.
SPEAKER_00: It happens.
SPEAKER_00: When electricity is used the wrong way, man, it shocks, it burns, and it hurts, and that's the same way sex exists in this world.
SPEAKER_00: It can be hurtful outside of the detached system, and this world wants you to believe that you can harness the power without using the correct design.
SPEAKER_00: And once you detach sex from the right design, the consequences of this negative power unleashed in the world are all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: There are entire industries built on sex not being a part of the design that God intended it to be a part of.
SPEAKER_00: There's the global pornography industry generating tens of billions of dollars every single year.
SPEAKER_00: Outside of that, there's the broader sex-driven economy.
SPEAKER_00: There are hookup apps, TV, MA, television, beauty, and advertising, all pushing more cons uh consumer and economics and the hundreds of billions of dollars, not to mention the illegal sexual market.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the illegal sexual market, it just about rivals the public sexual market in terms of demand and access.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's horrible consequences when sex is detached from its original design inside the world and has caused real pain.
SPEAKER_00: But we're physical creatures.
SPEAKER_00: We have desire for real physical pleasure, and we want to satisfy those desires without God's design.
SPEAKER_00: So sex is all over the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Because something this powerful has got to be talked about in a way that God has dictated, that it uses wisdom, it has design, it has purpose, and when all of those things are working in the right order in the right way, sex can be one of the greatest gifts that people have here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And if it's ever detached from the system and the design, sex is destructive and hurtful and harmful.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what we've got to understand about sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: This is why it's so enticing and why so many of us fall into it.
SPEAKER_00: Sexual sin promises satisfaction.
SPEAKER_00: That's where it starts.
SPEAKER_00: It promises real satisfaction, emotional and physical satisfaction is what sexual sin promises.
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, it only delivers death.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Proverbs chapter 5, verses 3 through 5.
SPEAKER_00: For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil.
SPEAKER_00: But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
SPEAKER_00: Her feet go down to death, and her steps follow the path to Sheol.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you open up the book of Proverbs, if you begin in chapter one, you're introduced to two different kinds of women.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who find wisdom, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the Lady Wisdom does.
SPEAKER_00: Lady wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words.
SPEAKER_00: That's Lady Wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: She calls you to life.
SPEAKER_00: But then there's this other lady, the forbidden woman, or the wayward woman, or the adulterous woman, as Proverbs often calls her.
SPEAKER_00: And in Proverbs 5, he just says out loud, where this woman will call you.
SPEAKER_00: Her feet go down to death.
SPEAKER_00: That is the direction.
SPEAKER_00: So if you follow one voice, you are led to life.
SPEAKER_00: If you follow another voice, you're simply led to death.
SPEAKER_00: And every single day that you live, both voices are speaking to you.
SPEAKER_00: And every single day you have to choose which voice you're going to listen to.
SPEAKER_00: You have the forbidden woman who's whispering sexual temptation towards you.
SPEAKER_00: And when she begins to whisper, it's almost soft and subtle and harmless to begin with.
SPEAKER_00: But the more you listen to that little sexual temptation, the louder it begins to come.
SPEAKER_00: And as she begins screaming and calling your name, the temptation builds, and you kind of find yourself getting a little closer and a little closer over to the forbidden woman until, well, congratulations, you've done what everyone's done in the history of mankind.
SPEAKER_00: You've stepped into sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: But then you have Lady Wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: She works the same way.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe calling a little bit different, not with a soft whisper, but with more of like a nudge, like your wife does.
SPEAKER_00: There's a little bit of quiet conviction going on inside your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And if you listen to that conviction, it begins to grow into what we call clarity.
SPEAKER_00: And as you have conviction and as you have clarity, you know what the next step is to take to lead yourself out of the situation where sexual sin is laying at your doorstep, and you step into life.
SPEAKER_00: Every single day, you're going to hear the voice of Lady Wisdom and the voice of sexual temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I sometimes I say that out loud, and people are like, they're unwilling to acknowledge that publicly.
SPEAKER_00: Are you a physical being?
SPEAKER_00: Do you desire sexual relationships?
SPEAKER_00: Will you be tempted sexually every day that you live in the world?
SPEAKER_00: You will be.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just physical sexuality.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, sexuality goes into the emotional and the mind and the fantasy.
SPEAKER_00: So in the world in which you live, if you have not been confronted with sexual sin yet today, then you're blind.
SPEAKER_00: Because you live in a world that thinks constantly about the bottle, the bodily physical experience of sexuality.
SPEAKER_00: And so you have to listen to whichever voice you need to, which is lady wisdom or lady temptation.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go one of two ways.
SPEAKER_00: And the lady of sexual temptation, she promises satisfaction, but she really can't deliver.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what temptation does.
SPEAKER_00: It makes promises, it makes the idea of pleasure and fulfillment possible, and it does it in a subtle way.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
SPEAKER_00: If you just look at this once, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: If you just flirt a little bit, it's not that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay if you just have that conversation privately.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody needs to know about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just one of conversations.
SPEAKER_00: Or sometimes it sounds like this you deserve this.
SPEAKER_00: It's been a hard week.
SPEAKER_00: You know, your wife, she doesn't appreciate you, your husband doesn't appreciate you, but that other person, they seem to really admire you.
SPEAKER_00: They seem to really like you.
SPEAKER_00: They seem to say encouraging things to you.
SPEAKER_00: And so you want to find yourself in their presence.
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's Friday at four o'clock.
SPEAKER_00: No one's gonna know.
SPEAKER_00: Just go down there, stand by their cue for a little bit and talk.
SPEAKER_00: That is the power of what sexual temptation looks like.
SPEAKER_00: The lips of the forbidden woman drip honey.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that means.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds really good.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds very easy, it sounds like there's nothing that's going to happen bad as a result of it.
SPEAKER_00: And while it promises satisfaction, it only ever delivers death.
SPEAKER_00: So, what it gives you in a moment, and it truly does give you something gratifying in the moment, it steals from you long term.
SPEAKER_00: It takes deep, deep consequences in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to clear the air in this room, in case you're wondering, if you're the only person, if you really are the only one in this room dealing with sexual temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what you gotta understand about Christians and sexuality.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: This is the most recent Barna surveys we could find.
SPEAKER_00: 22% of practicing Christians review viewing pornography weekly or daily.
SPEAKER_00: That's one in five.
SPEAKER_00: So if I look around this room, it's not a far leap for me to imagine that at least, I don't know, 75 people in this room, 50 people in this room, are viewed pornography at least weekly or even daily.
SPEAKER_00: 70% of men and 40% of women report consumption of pornography on some level.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just a man's issue, it's a woman's issue too.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm sick and tired of guys being feeling so bad about the fact that they're the only ones looking at porn.
SPEAKER_00: 40% of women inside the church have admitted to looking at pornography weekly and or daily.
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of people looking at sexually explicit material.
SPEAKER_00: Twenty-two percent of Christians report engaging in some form of emotional fare throughout their lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: So the voice of sexual temptation is real and present inside the church.
SPEAKER_00: And so are the consequences.
SPEAKER_00: One in five marriages, Christian marriages, say that sexual sin is a current or major source of conflict inside the relationship.
SPEAKER_00: That's one in five.
SPEAKER_00: So 20% of people.
SPEAKER_00: Sixty percent say it has been a major source of conflict at some point.
SPEAKER_00: That means the majority of Christian marriages have had sexual sin be a major source of conflict inside the relationship and marriage.
SPEAKER_00: So it would be foolish of us as a people and as a church to ignore the reality of the damage of sexual sin inside the church.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the blind leaving the blind at that point, because we don't want to acknowledge the fact that we're all broken and sinful inside of this area.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to drop that veil and actually look at the Bible and say, all right, Lord, how are we supposed to, in light of this prevalent reality of brokenness in our lives, actually engage with wisdom?
SPEAKER_00: How do we move forward?
SPEAKER_00: Because sexual temptation sounds like life, but it only leads to death.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom has a way.
SPEAKER_00: If it's a different voice you're listening to, wisdom has the way of helping you ask a different question.
SPEAKER_00: And the question is: where does this path lead?
SPEAKER_00: Sexual temptation is right in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: It's emotional, it's physical, it's prevalent, it's blaring at you, it's screaming.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can just take a moment to listen to Lady Wisdom, Lady Wisdom is going to ask you the question, where does this path lead?
SPEAKER_00: You start then to see beyond the fantasy and to reality when you can ask that question.
SPEAKER_00: What is it beyond the temptation?
SPEAKER_00: And where is that where does this path actually lead?
SPEAKER_00: What's the destruction at the end of the road?
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh being married to my wife is a wonderful thing.
SPEAKER_00: And if you know Amy, she is a very good question asker, and she's a really good listener, and she's extraordinarily strong and competent, and she doesn't take any kind of facade from me, okay?
SPEAKER_00: She wants to know real honest answers.
SPEAKER_00: And they're hard questions to answer sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the questions that my wife has asked me on occasion is uh Dan, what is it that keeps you from cheating on me?
SPEAKER_00: Those are hard questions.
SPEAKER_00: They're honest questions, but what is it that would actually prevent you from cheating on me with someone else?
SPEAKER_00: And then the first time she asked me that question, I didn't really have a good answer.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, well, because I love you.
SPEAKER_00: But really, what I need to do is look up and look beyond the fantasy of what would happen if I did, look beyond to the reality of what would happen if I did.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what happens if I cheat on my wife.
SPEAKER_00: And these are the answers I really give her now, and they're really solid.
SPEAKER_00: First is this I would discredit Jesus and I would lose my position in ministry, just like that.
SPEAKER_00: Think about the news and Christian news.
SPEAKER_00: How many pastors have discredited their church in the name of Jesus in the last, I don't know, decade?
SPEAKER_00: Dozens, national leaders fall into sexual temptation, they discredit Jesus and they lose their position in ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It would destroy my wife's heart and lose all trust with my kids.
SPEAKER_00: I would actually destroy my family through one act of desire.
SPEAKER_00: It would ruin us financially because ministry is where I am skilled and recovery of a new job would take a long time.
SPEAKER_00: So there'd be major financial consequences.
SPEAKER_00: We would lose years of good times, and that's if we stayed together, because we'd have to go through years of recovery trying to re-establish the relationship that we once had.
SPEAKER_00: I think maybe one of the most gut-wrenching things is that I'm no longer a model of faithfulness to my kids.
SPEAKER_00: I've been preaching what it means to be faithful to Jesus, to follow after Jesus, and in one moment I abandoned the way of Christ for a temporary moment of pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Clearly, their dad's not a very serious follower of Jesus, and therefore maybe it doesn't matter if I follow Jesus either.
SPEAKER_00: The consequences of our sexual sin are enormous.
SPEAKER_00: You simply have to open your eyes and your ears to the voice of Lady Wisdom and look at the end of the road.
SPEAKER_00: You can't see the immediacy in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: You have to look beyond that to its final destination.
SPEAKER_00: When you know that the end of the road leads to destruction, here's what wisdom says.
SPEAKER_00: Because you know that, wisdom stays far from sexual temptation.
SPEAKER_00: You stay far, far, far from sexual temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Proverbs 5, 7 through 8.
SPEAKER_00: And now, O sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people try to manage sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: They try to flirt with temptation.
SPEAKER_00: They kind of like the excitement, they kind of like the gratification of what comes with seeing slightly illicit material, but not maybe full-on-blown pornography, or slightly flirtatious relationships, but not full-on-blown emotional affairs.
SPEAKER_00: See, they they kind of enjoy the borderline, as we would call it, even though there's no borderline at all, because if you're going to stand at the line, if you're gonna stand at the door of the woman who is the temptress, you're gonna go in.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Bible's pretty clear about this.
SPEAKER_00: Your first act of wisdom when it comes to sexual temptation is simply to avoid it.
SPEAKER_00: Run from sexual temptation the moment it shows up.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, Pastor, that's just that's too easy.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom, knowing wisdom, is actually pretty easy.
SPEAKER_00: You know what the hard part is?
SPEAKER_00: Living wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, avoid it.
SPEAKER_00: You run from sexual temptation the moment it shows up.
SPEAKER_00: The story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife comes to mind.
SPEAKER_00: You can read about it in the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph is a young man and he's managing Potiphar's household, and Potiphar's wife comes to him and she catches him by the garment and she says, Joseph, come and lie down with me.
SPEAKER_00: And the moment that he was invited to come into her room and sleep with her, he did one thing and one thing only.
SPEAKER_00: He dropped all of his things and he ran.
SPEAKER_00: He ran away.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't reason, he didn't hesitate, he didn't hang out for a little while to see where this thing was gonna go.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe she would change her mind.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't try to talk her out of it, he just ran.
SPEAKER_00: All right, in 2009, Amy and I had been married for about a year, and I was working at a car dealership, and after work, a bunch of guys went out and we went and got dinner and drinks at a local pub called the Muddy Pig.
SPEAKER_00: And while we were there hanging out the pig, enjoying the night, having a good time, I was married.
SPEAKER_00: The two guys I was with were Single, and a group of three women came in and sat down at the table next to us.
SPEAKER_00: Now I've got two single friends.
SPEAKER_00: What are they gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna start talking, they're gonna start flirting, they're gonna start changing numbers, all this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And it was about 20 minutes into them doing their thing while I was hanging out at the table.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the third girl comes up to me and she goes, Hey, can I buy you a drink?
SPEAKER_00: And I looked at her and I said, I'm sorry, but I'm married.
SPEAKER_00: And her response shocked me.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I didn't ask if you were married, I asked if I could buy you a drink.
SPEAKER_00: That was the first time in my life I had somebody so forward make an advancement.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: But I first thought was, Joseph, run.
SPEAKER_00: And I did.
SPEAKER_00: Ran.
SPEAKER_00: I got out of there so fast because I didn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: You can clap about that.
SPEAKER_00: It's good, it's a good thing to run, but the honesty of it is I was shocked so much by what happened, and then the wisdom of God poured upon me to pres prevent me from stepping into that situation.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus, that I just had to run, physically run.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the same principle applies to any other facet of my life.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be that forward.
SPEAKER_00: It could be as simple as, man, I'm scrolling Instagram or Facebook and something pops up that's kind of interesting to me.
SPEAKER_00: Run.
SPEAKER_00: I'm walking down the hallway at the grocery store and I find a beautiful woman, and all of a sudden we start talking about something.
SPEAKER_00: Whoa, whoa, run.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: This is the reality of what it means to avoid sexual temptation, is that you don't hang around to figure out what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: You just run away as fast as you can.
SPEAKER_00: It's a really good strategy.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says so.
SPEAKER_00: The other reality of this is 1 Corinthians 10 13.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reality of temptation.
SPEAKER_00: There's no temptation that is overtaking you that is not common to man.
SPEAKER_00: With the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may find a way to be able to endure it.
SPEAKER_00: Look, temptation is common, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's common, it's all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: So is the strategy to avoid it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a common strategy.
SPEAKER_00: Run away.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't a battle that you're going to be able to win.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a battle you can hang around and think you'll never get burned.
SPEAKER_00: You just have to run away.
SPEAKER_00: So when you're faced with sexual temptation, what do you do, people?
SPEAKER_00: Run.
SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty easy solution.
SPEAKER_00: You just have to actually live it out and enact it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the wisdom of the strategy it's an easy thing to fulfill, but you have to run away.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's why God values your sexual holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes we wonder, why do I gotta just run away from this reality of sexual holiness?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, here's what I think is true about Christians.
SPEAKER_00: We are set apart to enjoy sex more than the world in which we live.
SPEAKER_00: Because we understand how much life it brings when it's used God's way.
SPEAKER_00: And if you examine the research on healthy Christian marriages and their sexual satisfaction, the research consistently shows that married couples who share a religious commitment and practice their faith together have strong marital commitment and report higher sexual satisfaction, deeper relationship satisfaction, and a greater sense of stability.
SPEAKER_00: So when we resist sexual temptation, we're honoring God's desire for sex to remain holy, and the outcomes are clear.
SPEAKER_00: If you practice avoiding sexual temptation before you're married, and then you practice avoiding sexual temptation while you're married, all the research indicates, and God's word promises, it brings about a greater sense of sexual satisfaction and righteousness inside of your current relationship.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing.
SPEAKER_00: Avoid it and run away.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing is this avoid it and remove sources of temptation from your life.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Matthew 29, verses 5, 29 through 30.
SPEAKER_00: If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.
SPEAKER_00: And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a casual comment from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus talking about the reality of temptation, the reality of sin, and our response from it.
SPEAKER_00: If sexual temptation is there, you run from it.
SPEAKER_00: If there's something in your life repeatedly causing you to feel tempted and step into sin, you have to remove access to it.
SPEAKER_00: Because the voice of the temptress is subtle and strong.
SPEAKER_00: And the more you listen to it, the more you will hear it, the more you'll grow towards it.
SPEAKER_00: But if you simply remove the ability for the woman to talk to you and lead you into temptation, you can't be led into temptation.
SPEAKER_00: So you avoid it and then you remove it from your life.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, at the end of the day, resisting sexual temptation is an act of worship.
SPEAKER_00: It's really an act of worship.
SPEAKER_00: Christ suffered on the cross for your holiness.
SPEAKER_00: He suffered for you to become a holy person, somebody set apart who experiences real life in this world.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus did not die just to forgive you, he died to make you holy, somebody different than everybody else in the world around you.
SPEAKER_00: You see how the world handles human sexuality.
SPEAKER_00: You know the consequences of it day in and day out because you're confronted with it everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: But God has made you holy through Christ to live differently on his behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what Paul says in Romans 6.13.
SPEAKER_00: Because you are holy, do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: But instead present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Christ died for your sexual life.
SPEAKER_00: He did that.
SPEAKER_00: And so every time you resist sexual temptation, it's an act of worship towards Jesus where you're honoring the suffering that he went through on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And not only are you worshiping Jesus through that, but the Bible calls you to fight against it, to stand strong against sexual temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Hebrews 12, 4.
SPEAKER_00: You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.
SPEAKER_00: When we talk about fighting temptation, fighting sexual sin, we have to resist it.
SPEAKER_00: We resist it as much as Christ suffered.
SPEAKER_00: Christ was willing to go the whole nine yards on the cross, to give his life over for you entirely, to make you holy.
SPEAKER_00: So in your battle against sexual sin, it begins by saying, Not only am I going to resist, but I'm going to resist to the point that it's painful.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much I honor the holiness that God has created in me and for me.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for those of you who are uh followers of Star Wars, tomorrow's a very important day.
SPEAKER_00: It's May the 4th.
SPEAKER_00: If you know it, you get it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for the rest of you who may not be fans of Star Wars, something happened the day you became a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: On the day you became a follower of Jesus, you joined the resistance.
SPEAKER_00: You joined the resistance.
SPEAKER_00: You began committing your life long-term towards pursuing holiness, resisting the things that break you down and tarnish the very name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So you fight to protect the holiness of sexuality.
SPEAKER_00: You fight to protect it in your own life.
SPEAKER_00: You keep your eyes focused on one person, and that person is Jesus, not just your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: Because if your eyes are on Jesus and the thing that he has done for you, the more you're willing to protect the righteousness that he has given you through the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You then live a life of resistance towards sin and sexual temptation for the sake of keeping the name of Jesus holy and glorified.
SPEAKER_00: You avoid environments that fuel temptation.
SPEAKER_00: You remove access to things that want to pull you back towards your sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: You choose accountability with other followers of Jesus and ultimately the person of God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a passive experience if you're going to resist sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's an active daily lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: As much as Jesus suffered, we are called to resist.
unknown: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: As much as Jesus suffered on the cross, we are called to resist sexual temptation.
SPEAKER_00: It's a part of our calling in life.
SPEAKER_00: And when you resist, it's going to feel like it's costing you something.
SPEAKER_00: It might cost you frustration, it might be denial, it might be internal tension, it might be immediate gratification that you have to deny yourself with.
SPEAKER_00: But when you are actually resisting sexual temptation and sin, it's going to feel like a real fight.
SPEAKER_00: And so we fight sexual temptation to honor the work that Christ has done for us on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's what Christ calls the church.
SPEAKER_00: Christ calls the church the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's our name.
SPEAKER_00: We are the bride of Christ, he is our bridegroom.
SPEAKER_00: And when you became a follower of Jesus, you became a part of his church.
SPEAKER_00: And so we pursue sexual holiness in this world as a way of staying faithful to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's how this works.
SPEAKER_00: You are not your own.
SPEAKER_00: You belong to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He bought you with his blood.
SPEAKER_00: And in a faithful, committed relationship with Christ, covenanted by his very own blood, we stay faithful to him.
SPEAKER_00: One of the ways we do that is by pursuing sexual holiness in every aspect of our life.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have to resist.
SPEAKER_00: As much as he suffered, we resist.
SPEAKER_00: We resist for his sake.
SPEAKER_00: We resist for our relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: We resist for the holiness that he has bought and purchased for us.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's where Proverbs 5 then takes a turn.
SPEAKER_00: It now encourages you to joyfully pursue sexual satisfaction with your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Proverbs 5, 15 through 19.
SPEAKER_00: Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
SPEAKER_00: Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets, let them be for yourself alone, and do and not be for strangers with you.
SPEAKER_00: Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe, let her breasts fill you at all times with delight, and be intoxicated always in her love.
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard that?
SPEAKER_00: Best defense is a good offense.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I really believe about sexuality inside the Christian marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You are given to one another to delight in one another sexually and to delight in one another emotionally.
SPEAKER_00: It's not surface level engagement, it's deep heartwork and union building sexual connectivity.
SPEAKER_00: And scripturally, scripture consistently points us towards one goal in human sexual relationships, and that's the goal of satisfaction.
SPEAKER_00: You are designed to be satisfied with one another.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Proverbs 18, 22.
SPEAKER_00: He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Every gift that you've ever been given is a gift that's meant to be enjoyed.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have a spouse, that person in your life is a gift from God and they're meant to be enjoyed, both emotionally, both physically.
SPEAKER_00: And the goal is not a certain type of sex or a certain quantity of sex, the goal is satisfaction.
SPEAKER_00: Where both individuals feel fully known, fully loved, and fully physically satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: That's the goal.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what wisdom tells you about your bride if you have one.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, is this everything you need in life to be fully satisfied is found in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But if he gives you a spouse of some kind, that's an extra gift for physical and emotional satisfaction that he's allowing you to have.
SPEAKER_00: We honor that gift, we enjoy that gift, we're intoxicated with love for that gift, and that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you are in this room and you've been on the path towards sexual sin, you've done all kinds of things in your life that you're ashamed of, that you got guilt inside of your heart over.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Scripture says we can walk the path back to, or we can even remain on the path of sexual holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 5, 20 through 21.
SPEAKER_00: Why, my son, be intoxicated by another man's wife?
SPEAKER_00: Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?
SPEAKER_00: For your ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all your paths.
SPEAKER_00: That last sentence is key.
SPEAKER_00: Your ways, internal and external ways, are in full view of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He examines your paths.
SPEAKER_00: And remember last week's passage?
SPEAKER_00: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, and he will make your paths straight.
SPEAKER_00: He sees your paths.
SPEAKER_00: He understands if you've been on a wayward path, down the path of sexual temptation, sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: He knows your history.
SPEAKER_00: He understands the consequences that you have reaped in the past as a result of that.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what he's willing to do for you.
SPEAKER_00: He's willing to examine your path, and if you begin living according to his wisdom, he'll make your path straight.
SPEAKER_00: He can realign everything in your life that was broken as a result of consequence sexual sin and make it a redeemed story that brings him glory.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what we do: we take that sexual sin, we take our sexual temptation, and you bring it to the light.
SPEAKER_00: You stop hiding it.
SPEAKER_00: You can't hide it.
SPEAKER_00: God already knows it.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta bring it out.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta confess it to God.
SPEAKER_00: You have to confess it to your spouse if you're married, you've got to confess it to another brother or sister in Christ, you've got to bring that sexual sin out of the dark and into the light.
SPEAKER_00: And then you need to practice wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: You have to run from it or you have to remove it.
SPEAKER_00: You don't really get an option.
SPEAKER_00: You have to do one of those two things.
SPEAKER_00: You run from it or you remove it.
SPEAKER_00: And then once you've run from it and you've removed it, you start resisting like it matters.
SPEAKER_00: It's out of my life now.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to go back to it.
SPEAKER_00: I can resist like crazy to keep my relationship with Jesus holy and on point.
SPEAKER_00: And believe it or not, as you do this, you'll start to find your mind and your heart rewired.
SPEAKER_00: God, through his Holy Spirit, does a miracle in your life.
SPEAKER_00: He removes the object of sexual temptation that you once had, and he begins to reorient it with a desire for him and him alone.
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that sexual temptation is always gone?
SPEAKER_00: No, it's always there.
SPEAKER_00: But it no longer commands every moment of your life, like maybe it has in the past.
SPEAKER_00: So, church, here's my encouragement to you.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to be people of sexual integrity.
SPEAKER_00: Not just because it's wise.
SPEAKER_00: Although it is wise, it will spare you a lot of heartache and a lot of pain.
SPEAKER_00: You are called to be holy sexual people because it glorifies Jesus in a very broken world.
SPEAKER_00: People can see the blessed nature of your life, the blessed nature of your relationship with the Lord, the fruitfulness of the satisfaction you have apart from other things in this world, and they want to know exactly how they can attain it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's only found through the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, there's a reality among us.
SPEAKER_00: And that reality is that sexual temptation and sexual sin have been prevalent in many of our lives for a very long time.
SPEAKER_00: We have not been people of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: But God, you have redeemed us in your Son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And although we are holy in your sight, sometimes we don't feel holy in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And that lack of holiness is the result of our sin and how we've given into it.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what I ask, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That for those who are feeling guilt and shame for their past, that you remind them that in Christ all sins are forgiven and removed from their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And that, Father, if they then choose to follow after you by exercising your wisdom, you can rework the consequences of their sins into a story that brings you even more glory.
SPEAKER_00: We ask these things in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.