SPEAKER_00: But uh today we're gonna continue on in First Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: We are in First Corinthians six, twelve through twenty.
SPEAKER_00: And I am gonna read it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but before we go on, um this passage, you're coming to this passage.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna come to the Bible, like when we read scripture.
SPEAKER_00: You're coming with all of you, right?
SPEAKER_00: You are coming with your beliefs, you're coming with your experiences, you're coming with your trauma, you're coming with the understanding that you have built over the years of life that you have had so far.
SPEAKER_00: So you will have opinions, you will have reactions, you will have things that you like and don't like about this passage.
SPEAKER_00: But this passage is good news.
SPEAKER_00: It may be challenging, it may be convicting, but at the end of the day, this is good news.
SPEAKER_00: So before I even start, I want us to take just a couple of seconds, partially because I need it, and also because I think we all need it, to think about what is happening and be aware and commit to being aware of what's happening inside your brain, your body, your heart as we go through this today.
SPEAKER_00: And this is we're not condemning anyone for any reaction that they have.
SPEAKER_00: What we're doing right now is I'm hoping that altogether we're gonna commit to growing, to the process of growth, which is uncomfortable sometimes, and we're gonna commit to being sensitive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm actually gonna pray, and then we will read, and I'm probably gonna pray again because we need it.
SPEAKER_00: Gracious Holy Father, you have created and formed and shaped each one of us.
SPEAKER_00: You are eternal and you have seen all things and you have been present for all things, and God, you will continue on until the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Holy Spirit, as we approach your word with reverence, but also with junk that exists inside of us because of the sin that is in this world.
SPEAKER_00: God, I just ask that you would lay us bare.
SPEAKER_00: I ask that you would allow us to open our hearts, to crack through the armor that we've created because of the hurt that we've experienced, because of the lies that we believe, and just that your Holy Spirit would break through today.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the opportunity to gather as a church body.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for this time that you've given us.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for this day as cold as it might be for spring.
SPEAKER_00: And we just ask that you would be so present that you would you would just dig deep into our souls and that you would expose the truth about who we are, the good truth of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In your precious name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right, I'm gonna be reading from the NLT.
SPEAKER_00: Um if you have another version, we'll have some other version options up here.
SPEAKER_00: This is 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 12 through 20.
SPEAKER_00: You say, I'm allowed to do anything, but not everything is good for you.
SPEAKER_00: And even though I'm allowed to do anything, I must not become a slave to anything.
SPEAKER_00: You say food was made for the stomach and the stomach for food.
SPEAKER_00: This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.
SPEAKER_00: But you can't say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies, and God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he has raised our Lord from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you realize that your bodies are actual parts of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute?
SPEAKER_00: Never.
SPEAKER_00: And don't you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her?
SPEAKER_00: For the scriptures say the two are united into one.
SPEAKER_00: But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.
SPEAKER_00: Run from sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does.
SPEAKER_00: For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?
SPEAKER_00: You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price.
SPEAKER_00: So you must honor God with your body.
SPEAKER_00: Now, reading something like this, there's a good chance that we have a couple of different reactions.
SPEAKER_00: And as we continue to kind of go through this, I want you again to be aware of your reactions.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: We may come with two general reactions.
SPEAKER_00: One of them might be uh like I you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: Like you might read one of these verses, just go, I mmm okay.
SPEAKER_00: So if if you feel that, let's sit with that tension.
SPEAKER_00: If we read this and you go, mm-hmm, obviously.
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: I heard it back there.
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna we're gonna look at that too.
SPEAKER_00: But again, be aware of what your immediate reaction is to this, because I think that's gonna be very revealing to what the Holy Spirit's trying to tell you.
SPEAKER_00: So, the next thing I'm gonna do, yeah, stay here, thank you, on this slide.
SPEAKER_00: The next thing I'm gonna do, I'm gonna give a quick just when we say sexual immorality, I'm not gonna necessarily, I'm gonna try my best with this passage to say this is this is what I think Paul is saying, um, this is the truth.
SPEAKER_00: I have lots of opinions as well, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like, just like you, I'm gonna come to this with lots of opinions and experiences, and I will share some of those.
SPEAKER_00: But when this passage is saying sexual immorality, this is what it's saying, this is the word, this is the what the Bible, what Paul is saying, illicit sexual intercourse to prostitute one's body to the lust of another, indulge unlawful lust.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you can put a lot of different things in our current culture within that category.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not necessarily going to hand you that list today.
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm hoping that's part of what the Holy Spirit will do.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to give a little bit there.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the context of this passage, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, who we know from looking at previous chapters, is starting to look a little too much like their culture, right?
SPEAKER_00: Earlier in this chapter, they he was Paul was urging them not to settle disputes in a secular court.
SPEAKER_00: He also had to say, do not have sex with your stepmother, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like that's something that even the people in Corinth were like looking at the church, going, I can't believe you guys are doing that because we're not even doing that, right?
SPEAKER_00: So Paul is writing to a mixed group here.
SPEAKER_00: There are some people in the church in Corinth who are Jews.
SPEAKER_00: They have grown with this rich history of the Jewish faith and tradition, and there's also some converted Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: So people who are like, I just heard about this Jesus, and this guy seems to make sense.
SPEAKER_00: But they have not had the richness of the traditions that the Jews have grown up in.
SPEAKER_00: They have not had the heaviness of the law that was the old covenant, and we are 20 to 25 years after Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
SPEAKER_00: So we're undergoing the shift right now, where we're we're kind of redefining going from this old covenant of law and of follow the rules, and we're we're undergoing what that means into the new covenant that Jesus came to establish and to fulfill the law and more, and to bring the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of where we are right now.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's who Paul, how Paul is speaking.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Now that we have that established, let's dig in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: I provided a couple different versions because I think this is fascinating to look at it in a variety of ways.
SPEAKER_00: So the NLT is what I read.
SPEAKER_00: The NIV, I also provide the Amplified Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We have somebody in our small group, thank you, Emily, that's been bringing her amplified, we call it the bracket Bible in our life group, and it's been very illuminating, I think.
SPEAKER_00: So I thought, oh, this would be great to include.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so here's verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can read it kind of in those um kind of those different flavors of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I can go to the next slide.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's again, I'm I'm trying to pull out what I think Paul is saying is the foundational truth that's like not Christie's idea, and then I'm gonna have some implications on what I think that means for us.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the truth there is a difference between legal and holy.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Paul starts out in verse 12, I'm allowed to do everything, or I have the right to do everything, kind of depending on the version that you're reading.
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between legal and holy.
SPEAKER_00: If you're concerned about your rights or what you deserve, you're missing the point.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So Luke 9, 23 says, if anyone wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.
SPEAKER_00: How does that sound for a but I get, I deserve, I have the right.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 14, Paul actually talks a little bit, we're gonna get into the verse about the eating, you know, food for the stomach, but in Romans 14, Paul also talks about how our choices in eating can honor each other, right?
SPEAKER_00: We can actually burden our brothers and sisters in Christ with the choices that we make in our eating, how much more will that impact our bodies?
SPEAKER_00: So one of the one of the fascinating things that I have, I'm married, my husband Travis is over here, and um and I've gotten permission to you know throw out a little dirt on us.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but one of the fascinating conversations that we had, especially earlier on in our marriage, thankfully not so much, we're both growing as people, hasn't not so much anymore, but we would have conversations where I would say, hey, this thing happened and I didn't like it.
SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't like how it made me feel, or I didn't I didn't like how like we tried to kind of resolve that, or I I I didn't feel good about that.
SPEAKER_00: And he would say, I didn't do anything wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And I would say, Okay, but I didn't feel honored.
SPEAKER_00: And isn't that the point?
SPEAKER_00: And so we've had to have conversations where it's like there's a fundamental difference of I didn't do anything that goes against the Ten Commandments, and I'm actually serving and loving my God and the people around me.
SPEAKER_00: That is a it's a different attitude.
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to come with a, I have the right, you're missing it.
SPEAKER_00: And and you're not missing the like what you're missing is the fullness of what God's calling you into.
SPEAKER_00: You're not missing out on fun.
unknown: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you're you're missing on the richness that being a part of this body, of the church, of what God is asking for you, because he knows what our relationship with him is like, how meaningful that is, right?
SPEAKER_00: So here's this, this is verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go next to verses 13 and 14, and we're gonna look at, again, I read you the NLT, NIV, these are fairly similar.
SPEAKER_00: I like the little brackets in the amplified.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, food is for the stomach and stomach for food, but God will do away with both of them.
SPEAKER_00: The body is not intended for sexual morality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body to save, sanctify, and raise it again because of the sacrifice of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And God has not done a God has not only raised the Lord to life, but will also raise us up by his power.
SPEAKER_00: So, these verses, let's go to the next slide about the foundational truth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Eating to satisfy hunger is not the same as having sex to satisfy sexual desires.
SPEAKER_00: This was the argument.
SPEAKER_00: But I need food.
SPEAKER_00: I have to eat, I have this urge to eat, I have these other urges, I must be okay to fulfill them.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is saying, nope.
SPEAKER_00: Our body's need for food is different from our need for sex.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we need to eat to live, we need intimacy and connection with others.
SPEAKER_00: Sex is not the same level of need.
SPEAKER_00: Intimacy and sex is a way to have intimacy within the covenant of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the same kind of need as the connection that we need with other people, right?
SPEAKER_00: We need intimacy because we're creating God's image, and God's a triune God.
SPEAKER_00: Like God is intimate within himself, and then wants intimacy with us and has created us in his image so that we want connection with other people.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to do that through sex, though.
unknown: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So we have you there are some studies where there are you know babies who have either been given up for adoption or in some you know scenario where they are fed, diaper changed, you know, given kind of what is identified as the basics.
SPEAKER_00: Without the cuddling, the talking to them, the human connection, these babies slow their development, their growth slows, they have a higher infant mortality rate.
SPEAKER_00: We are wired, as made in God's image, to need connection with other people.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a you in your room alone with no one else kind of experience.
SPEAKER_00: So we do, we need connection, but sex, you can have a fulfilled life without it.
SPEAKER_00: Which may sound a little sucky, but I know people who have done it.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible.
SPEAKER_00: So let's move on to verses 17, 15 through 17.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm providing the NLT, which is what I read from.
SPEAKER_00: I'm giving you the NIV, and I'm giving you the amplified.
SPEAKER_00: They're fairly similar.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll give you a second to kind of just preview that while I get a quick drink of water.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so what is the truth we're gonna pull out of these three verses?
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to the next slide.
SPEAKER_00: The truth.
SPEAKER_00: Your body is Christ's.
SPEAKER_00: So say no to what opposes him, which is in this case is prostitutes.
SPEAKER_00: Originally on this slide, I said say no to prostitutes, like say no to drugs, and I was like, maybe that's not as refined as it needs to be, but now I'm telling you anyways, so it doesn't really matter, but you know.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so here's the next thing.
SPEAKER_00: Sex is uniquely unifying.
SPEAKER_00: Something about it, I'm not gonna get into all of the anatomical things here, but is uniquely unifying in body and in spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So be united with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The implication, we bring Christ into every encounter we have, including sex.
SPEAKER_00: I was processing with a friend recently.
SPEAKER_00: Um, he had some stuff go on in his life where he tried to kind of escape, move locations, tried to get away from the craziness that was his life.
SPEAKER_00: And so I was kind of talking to him, kind of going, so how's that going, you know?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, you know what's funny because wherever I go, I am.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm part of the problem.
SPEAKER_00: And I when I thought about that, I was like, man, and that sometimes we think like, oh, here I am sitting alone at my computer.
SPEAKER_00: God's not here.
SPEAKER_00: Here I am, you know, trying to go out to I want to be really careful here because I want to be very, I want to be very careful about what I say here.
SPEAKER_00: It's just we'll just leave it at that.
SPEAKER_00: Um we don't often process that we like God is everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: There is no such thing as hidden.
SPEAKER_00: There is no such thing as I'm just alone.
SPEAKER_00: There is no such thing as I'm the only one that's gonna experience the consequences of this.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: You are not yours anymore when you agree to be part of this.
SPEAKER_00: And even before you agree to be part of the church, God's still with you and he still sees everything.
SPEAKER_00: But again, that's good news.
SPEAKER_00: You're never alone.
SPEAKER_00: That's good news.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing beyond God's reach, there is nothing beyond his vision, there is nothing beyond what he can see and redeem for you.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: This is where you might find yourself going, I hold that tension.
SPEAKER_00: Hold the tension.
SPEAKER_00: This is a both and passage.
SPEAKER_00: This is a what?
SPEAKER_00: I just you're bringing yourself, your experiences, the people that you know, your story, their stories, your trauma.
SPEAKER_00: You're bringing it to this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Run from sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: The NIV says flee from sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: All other sins a person commits are outside the body.
SPEAKER_00: But whoever sins sexually sins against their own body.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the foundational truth.
SPEAKER_00: Sexual morality has a different impact.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what this is not saying.
SPEAKER_00: It is not saying sexual sin is worse than other sins.
SPEAKER_00: It's not saying people who sin sexually are worse than other people.
SPEAKER_00: It is not saying that sexual sin is beyond God's reach.
SPEAKER_00: Sexual sin is redeemable.
SPEAKER_00: It is a different journey.
SPEAKER_00: It requires a little bit, a little something else, though.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: It's a different kind of self-betrayal than the other sins.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is not saying y'all just need to congregate over there because you're not holy enough for the rest of us.
SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what he is saying.
SPEAKER_00: But it hits different, it feels different.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know um a little bit about my story.
SPEAKER_00: The first memory that I have, and I'm gonna, again, I'm gonna try to be careful because I know there are some younger ears in the room.
SPEAKER_00: The first memory that I have was self-pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: And I carried that for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: I had multiple instances where, regardless of whose fault it was, my fault or somebody else's fault, I was taken advantage of.
SPEAKER_00: And I, for a long time, I felt that darkness because I also was growing up in the church and I went to Indiana Wesleyan and I was doing all of these other things.
SPEAKER_00: And I felt the weightiness and the heaviness, and I hated myself for it.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: I I would go spend the night somewhere and tell all of my roommates that I had spent the night at home because my family's home was 10 minutes from Indiana Wesleyan, and I would always tell them the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: And I lied through my teeth to people constantly to try to cover up what I was so stinking ashamed of.
SPEAKER_00: Because I could not in my reality figure out how I could hold both of those things.
SPEAKER_00: I I was so dirty, I felt so used, I felt, I just I hated it.
SPEAKER_00: I hated the double life that I was living.
SPEAKER_00: I hated the darkness that I that I was I just was overcome by.
SPEAKER_00: And I knew the weightiness of my sin, and I could not get away from it.
SPEAKER_00: And for so long I tried to find ways to punish myself.
SPEAKER_00: No, I can't have that, I can't do that, I can't be that.
SPEAKER_00: I won't be ever able to have this joy, this promise that God has given me because of whatever stuff I did or was done to me.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a combination, if I'm honest.
SPEAKER_00: And I knew, I knew, I knew the weightiness of the choices, I knew the weightiness of the silence, and I didn't know how to get out of it.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I didn't know how to talk to other people, I didn't know how to open up, I didn't know how to be raw.
SPEAKER_00: And as much as I had never done an act of sexual immorality in my life that didn't stem from a lie, right?
SPEAKER_00: So this is not just a my behavior was doing something, my perspective was was skewed.
SPEAKER_00: My my internal life was believing crap that Satan was feeding me about myself, right?
SPEAKER_00: So the behavior was a symptom of what was going on internally.
SPEAKER_00: But the behavior, this behavior, this sexual immorality behavior, it's different.
SPEAKER_00: It has different kinds of consequences.
SPEAKER_00: Not worse, doesn't mean I was any dirtier or more sinful than anybody else, but it was different.
SPEAKER_00: And I knew the weightiness.
SPEAKER_00: You did not have to convince me of it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, Travis has given me a little some permission to share a little bit about his story as well.
SPEAKER_00: Travis didn't know the weightiness of his choices as a high school boy.
SPEAKER_00: So he made a lot of choices.
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't realize because nobody ever talked to him about it.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody told him this is not the way, or this is the way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm feeling a little Mandalorian right now, this is the way.
SPEAKER_00: Um he didn't have that conversation with people, and so he didn't really feel it.
SPEAKER_00: But you know when he did feel it?
SPEAKER_00: He felt it when we started dating, and he had already kind of committed to living a different life.
SPEAKER_00: But he realized he was becoming the kind of person who had hurt me in my past.
SPEAKER_00: And that weightiness hits different.
SPEAKER_00: And so we experience the weight of our choices.
SPEAKER_00: We experienced the weightiness of this particular sin, and we're still experiencing it, but by God's grace, not nearly as much as we once used to, and we are becoming victorious.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: This is not something we are just absolutely stuck in forever.
SPEAKER_00: We still have moments when I'm like, not tonight, because I'm I'm uh Satan's attacking me a little bit, and I want to make sure that the intimacy that we have is between the two of us, and I still am processing through that 10 years later.
SPEAKER_00: So this is not a point A and point B, and we're done journey, right?
SPEAKER_00: But there is freedom.
SPEAKER_00: This is not something that you have to stand up under the crushing weight of forever.
SPEAKER_00: There's freedom, but it's different.
SPEAKER_00: And if we don't acknowledge that it's different and we don't talk about how it's different and what it does to us, that has implications.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is not just a physical act, it is spiritually formational.
SPEAKER_00: I gave Satan a stronghold in my life because of the things my body was doing.
SPEAKER_00: I opened myself up for more of an influence from the devil because I was allowing my body to be used in certain ways.
SPEAKER_00: That's just what Paul is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: Again, not worse.
SPEAKER_00: It has a different level of seriousness and it has different implications.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to verses 20 to 20, 19 to 20.
SPEAKER_00: 19 to 20.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you realize that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God?
SPEAKER_00: You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price.
SPEAKER_00: So you must honor God with your body.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Your physical body is not your own.
SPEAKER_00: You were bought at a high price, so honor God with your body.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the implication: your body has a God-given purpose and dignity.
SPEAKER_00: Purpose and dignity.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's also weighty.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And again, this is good news.
SPEAKER_00: You were bought at a high price.
SPEAKER_00: This was not some backyard garage sale haggle, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is not a well, I guess I'll give you a buck for this one.
SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus has died on a cross for your spirit and your body.
SPEAKER_00: And so because he has purchased you, your body, your body's not your own.
SPEAKER_00: But again, this is good news.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, before we move on, we're gonna check our reactions a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, like I said, maybe we'll have a uh but I can't, I just have a problem with it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: That might be that might be part of what's in you.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a little bit of a, check that too.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: If you're resisting what Paul is saying, ask yourself why.
SPEAKER_00: Here's here's part of the some of the reasons why you might be resisting.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at this next list.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: This passage it confronts personal autonomy.
SPEAKER_00: Our culture says, you be you.
SPEAKER_00: This is me.
SPEAKER_00: I can choose, I can do what I want.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and that personal autonomy doesn't necessarily exist as much in the church.
SPEAKER_00: We also, as Pastor tells us, it connects our spirituality to our bodies.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us like to live a little disconnected, is not the way.
SPEAKER_00: It also feels a little intrusive on our innermost lives.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, again, our sexuality is connected to some of the deepest parts of us.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we have a lot of conversations, even in our secular culture, around it.
SPEAKER_00: This is why when people talk about their identity as a person, it feels so wrapped up in their sexuality as a person.
SPEAKER_00: It's deeply connected.
SPEAKER_00: And so it feels like intrusive.
SPEAKER_00: It feels a little extreme or shocking.
SPEAKER_00: It removes neutrality from our choices.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get to go do whatever you want with your body and it not have implications on you and other people and your relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: It redefines identity and ownership.
SPEAKER_00: Your body is the Lord's, and it can trigger shame.
SPEAKER_00: So, what are some of the possible reactions?
SPEAKER_00: This is not the full spectrum, but sometimes when we read passages like this, if you've grown up in the church, you might be going, I would never.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna say, yet, because pride goes before the fall.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might say, like me, I have, but I won't ever again.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: You cannot will yourself into holiness.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're trying to work on your own actions and you're not allowing the spirit to consistently renew you daily, you might not just be able to abstain from sexual morality all on your own.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us might be saying, I have.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so ashamed that I can't get out.
SPEAKER_00: I'm stuck in the cycle.
SPEAKER_00: I have things that I want, like Paul said.
SPEAKER_00: I do what I don't want to do, and the things that I want to do, I know I the things that I want to do, I don't do, and the things that I don't want to do, I do.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are just stuck.
SPEAKER_00: I I I I know, like my brain knows, and I just can't get myself out of it, and I'm so ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you might be thinking, I have, and don't tell me what I can and can't do.
SPEAKER_00: Well, good thing I'm not, it's it's Paul in the Bible, actually.
SPEAKER_00: So take it up with the original messenger, right?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the good thing, though.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the good thing.
SPEAKER_00: This passage isn't about praising you for what you haven't done, and it's not about shaming you for your past, your current struggle.
SPEAKER_00: It's about your identity in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You were made for and you belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: We won't talk about weighty.
SPEAKER_00: That's weighty.
SPEAKER_00: So what now?
SPEAKER_00: What now?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, shed the shame.
SPEAKER_00: We have to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: The longer I sat in isolation, the deeper the darkness got.
SPEAKER_00: And the only way that I started to see the light was I started talking to people.
SPEAKER_00: I went to counseling.
SPEAKER_00: Indiana Wesleyan still has free counseling, as far as I know, right?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody affirmed that?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: They still have free counseling.
SPEAKER_00: Go.
SPEAKER_00: For the love of all things good and holy, go to counseling.
SPEAKER_00: It's it was so it's one of the best decisions I ever made in my life over the other than marrying my husband, right?
SPEAKER_00: Go to counseling.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: But get away from the shame.
SPEAKER_00: We have to start talking.
SPEAKER_00: We can't stay hidden.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing we need to do is embrace bodily dignity for yourself and for others.
SPEAKER_00: When you look around this room at your sisters and brothers in Christ, these bodies matter.
SPEAKER_00: And if I'm not fighting alongside your body mattering, what am I doing?
SPEAKER_00: The third one, no one is immune.
SPEAKER_00: Talk to someone today, today, before you leave this building, today, because if we don't talk about it, here's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of these things, we're gonna roll through them a little bit, some of these are just accusations.
SPEAKER_00: I am not saying that I'm passing judgment at all.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: But these are leaders in churches that have come forward, or their ministries have indicted them, or other people have come forward.
SPEAKER_00: This one, this one hit me pretty hard.
SPEAKER_00: Philippiancy.
SPEAKER_00: Eight-year affair.
SPEAKER_00: He's got Parkinson's, his wife's taking care of him.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't lay ourselves bare before someone else, we are not immune.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody, nobody.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to this last quote.
SPEAKER_00: Several years ago, a seminary professor told me we no longer ask our entering students if they are struggling with pornography.
SPEAKER_00: We assume every student is struggling.
SPEAKER_00: The question we ask is how serious is the struggle?
SPEAKER_00: This is seminary.
SPEAKER_00: These are people who have sat in church services, life groups, family gatherings, Sunday school classes, and we're not asking the questions.
SPEAKER_00: We're not being honest.
SPEAKER_00: We are drowning in something that we know is weighty because we are ashamed, and part of it is because of the headlines.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't show you these headlines to say how terrible are all these people.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: These people didn't have the network, the others that they were laying their lives out in front of.
SPEAKER_00: Billy Graham, so far, we haven't seen a headline about him because he has a rule.
SPEAKER_00: He's just never in a room alone with another woman that's not his wife.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: Nope, not gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00: No one is immune.
SPEAKER_00: Talk to someone today.
SPEAKER_00: And the way, the reason I say talk to someone today is because it's the hiding that Satan flourishes in.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the I think I can get over it by myself, or no one will accept me like this.
SPEAKER_00: It's just gonna shatter everyone's perception of me.
SPEAKER_00: Are you willing to trade the grace and the peace and the life that you could have for people's perception of you?
SPEAKER_00: I can tell you it's not worth it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not worth it.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you, life on this side is so much better.
SPEAKER_00: It's so much freer.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the last thing: make a plan to flee and run.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph was being pursued by Potiphar's wife, and you know what he didn't say?
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, Oh, that's fine, I can handle it.
SPEAKER_00: He actively avoided her presence at all possible.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that we just flee, run.
SPEAKER_00: Don't try to stand up under it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't try to test yourself, don't try to say, I think I'm strong enough.
SPEAKER_00: Flee.
SPEAKER_00: Have somebody that you can talk to and flee.
SPEAKER_00: Get away from it.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have the willpower to be alone with your computer, find somebody who will hold you accountable.
SPEAKER_00: Hand it to a a spouse, a roommate, a somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Nope, I can't have this.
SPEAKER_00: Find a way to flee.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't tell everybody in the worship team, but I'm actually gonna call them back up to single come to the altar again.
SPEAKER_00: Because I just think that's so that's so appropriate right now.
SPEAKER_00: So here's here's the response.
SPEAKER_00: We're also gonna have the prayer team come up.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, maybe Brandon said just him.
SPEAKER_00: You're just gonna do it?
SPEAKER_00: Is that what you said?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: We're also gonna have the prayer teams come up again.
SPEAKER_00: Please don't sit in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: It's not worth your reputation.
SPEAKER_00: It's not worth the things that Satan's trying to convince you of.
SPEAKER_00: It's not worth it.
SPEAKER_00: I promise.
SPEAKER_00: And statistically, there's a lot of you in here who are dealing with something.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do it alone.
SPEAKER_00: Don't end today without just admitting there's so much power in admitting it, in taking that first step.
SPEAKER_00: And it's scary.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you it will pay off.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you that this is part of your of the life that that the Holy Spirit is trying to give.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of the freedom, it's part of the joy, it's part of the peace that He wants to offer you today.