Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Hey New Life Gillette Church, we are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting yes.newlife Gillette.com Here is this week's teaching.
[00:00:25] Let's say good morning to everybody joining us online at Church307. We're stoked you're here all over the state of Wyoming and a city special welcome to our friends down at the prison. We're so glad that you join us every week. Before we go any farther, Richard said this earlier, but I need to give a PG13 warning to this sermon. If you have kids with you that still think birds and bees are animals and nothing else and you don't want to explain that, talk to them. I would recommend checking them in downstairs or going to the quieting room and turning an iPad up real loud.
[00:00:55] Otherwise you're going to have an awkward talk on the way home. Today we're talking about the seventh Commandment. We're continuing in our series called Stone, looking at the Ten Commandments, these things that are written in stone, the ethics, the words that guide our worldview as followers of Jesus for the rest of time. So we're going to read Exodus chapter 20, verse 14.
[00:01:19] While you're turning there though, I want to tell you about something. About eight days ago, 25 new lifers, 25 of us got back from Guatemala. We were able to go down to Llano Verde, Guatemala for for a missions trip. And we were working with an organization called Hope of Life. And Hope of Life has a really simple mission to save lives.
[00:01:40] I love spending time there because one of the things that blows me away every time is they can explain how everything that you do, if you're pouring concrete, if you're doing demolition, if you're working in their nursing homes or the orphanage or in the long term care facility for malnourished kids.
[00:01:56] Anything you do, they can explain to you. Why you doing that is directly tied to someone being alive who would probably not be alive otherwise. They save lives and they do it in the name of Jesus. They plant churches, they do job training. We've actually got some new products in the Purchase project that we picked up while we were down there that were made by artisans in their job training, in their organizations. They were actually baskets made by families who were rescued out of traumatic situations, given counseling, psychological care and job training. So you can purchase those in the Purchase project. There's one thing specifically I want to tell you about this morning. We were able to participate in something called an infant rescue. Hope of Life hires Scouts to work for their organization. And these Scouts go out through the mountains and the rural areas around their facility, and they specifically look for toddlers and babies who are either have medical conditions that would be life threatening and there's no care available or are severely malnourished.
[00:02:59] And they find these kids. When they identify a family that's suffering, they come back with document, documentation and a medic and an ambulance and people to care for the mom and people to care for the kid. And they get full approval. They get the father's approval, the mother's approval, and then they bring the child and the mom to their facility, to their hospital, where they treat them for an extended period of time. I believe a couple of months. They provide medical care, interventive care for the baby and for the mom. They do training on how to choose food that will make sure the children are nourished. They send the family home with supplies and training so that they're equipped to not wind up in this situation again. They're literally saving lives. Now, thanks to your generosity and the hard work of our team that went, we wound up having raised a little bit more than we needed to pay just for the trip costs. So I called our contact through this trip and I said, hey, we've got a little bit extra. We'd like to do something for Hope of Life, something that's going to make a difference with this money.
[00:04:01] He said, here's what you're going to do. You're going to go on an infant rescue. You're going to fund one. An infant rescue cost $1,500. And guess how much money we had raised over, right? About $1,500.
[00:04:15] It's crazy, first off, that they do that for $1,500, because all of that care would cost us 10, 20 times that in the US just shows you how efficient they are in managing their finances. Well, we were able to send three people plus an EMT from Gillette on this infant rescue. And here is the first child that we were able to rescue right here. This child had fluid buildup on her brain and would not have likely survived without this intervention. In the providence of the Lord, though, the Scouts had identified this child and her family.
[00:04:49] And while we were there in the home, while our team was in the home, the mother's cousin walks out with this baby back there we go with this baby, who was born premature and had been losing weight in the 17 days he'd been born. And we were able to quickly get the paperwork signed and rescue two children.
[00:05:11] Save the lives of two children through Hope of Life. Yeah, that's something we should clap for. That's something we should celebrate.
[00:05:20] What better way to share the gospel of Jesus than by actually saving lives?
[00:05:26] What better to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ than by fighting against the enemy of Jesus Death. Amen.
[00:05:33] Now, they do this in the name of Jesus. They plant churches and they train church planters. And here's the thing. I've been talking with our contact through Hope of Life and I'm trying to get New Life onto a list of people that if they have the opportunity to rescue a child, but they haven't gotten it funded yet, that they call us and we just fund it. We just decide we're going to do it and we're going to. In fact, if they don't call us, if we don't wind up on that list, we're probably still over the course of the next year going to fund some rescues. Because why in the world wouldn't we? We here at New life have a 10 year vision. We're two years into a 10 year vision. And part of that vision is to have a measurable, tangible kingdom impact not just in Gillette and not just in Campbell county, but in the globe. Because Jesus said, go to every tribe and tongue, go to all nations. And if you take Jesus seriously, you have to take that seriously. So why wouldn't we save lives in Guatemala if we can do it? Amen.
[00:06:25] So here's how this is gonna work though. Before you clap too much, here's how this is gonna work. We didn't budget for this, okay? We passed our budget. You guys voted to approve our yearly budget a few months ago before we knew we had this opportunity. Now if we're gonna blow the budget on anything, we're gonna blow it on saving the lives of children, right? If we gotta go into savings or whatever, cut other stuff, this is the place we're gonna do it. But here's what's probably gonna happen over the next year. There are gonna be a few times where I get up here on a Sunday morning and I just say, guys, we saved a baby on Thursday, now we gotta pay for it.
[00:06:55] So we're going to pass the plate, all right? And we're going to ask people to give and we're going to choose to be generous as a church. If we got to give from our unbudgeted funds, we can do that. But we're going to decide on a Sunday morning if you're one of those many people which I understand who thinks I don't want to give my money to a church. All they do is ask for money. I understand that. Give towards this because that money's not even going to touch. We're not going to do anything with it, but give it directly towards saving the lives of children. We are going to take responsibility for everything we can do to take Jesus seriously and reach every tribe and tongue, all nations. We with the gospel. Amen.
[00:07:26] All right.
[00:07:27] Exodus 20:14.
[00:07:30] Back to birds and bees.
[00:07:33] You shall not commit adultery.
[00:07:35] Let's pray.
[00:07:37] God, we love you. It's your word.
[00:07:40] Speak to us through it, not my opinions.
[00:07:43] Your word.
[00:07:45] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:07:46] Amen.
[00:07:49] My dad was born in 1951 in rural North Carolina, in the red clay foothills of rural western North Carolina. And he lived. Has lived a wild. He's lived like 14 lives. He's lived a wild life. He's got the craziest stories of any person I've ever heard. He literally wrestled a bear once. That's not a joke. It's not an exaggeration. I didn't make that up. That bear had a muzzle and drank Pepsi. All of that is true. He wrestled a bear once. My dad once fell into an outhouse. Not on the floor of the outhouse, into the hole of the outhouse. I just like to bring that up in every sermon that I can because I think it's great.
[00:08:26] The one story that turns my stomach, though, when he tells it more than any others, is this one. My dad, when he was a kid, collected baseball cards. I collected baseball cards when I was a kid because he told me about it. I wasn't a big baseball fan. I don't keep up with it today, but I've still got the collection of baseball cards I started when I was a kid because he told me about it. They were dirt poor. They never had any money. But when they did, they'd take a quarter, go down to the corner store and they'd buy a pack of baseball cards.
[00:08:55] Now, does anyone here collect baseball cards or any sort of like, memorabilia like that? Are there a few people? Anybody follow baseball?
[00:09:02] A few of us. All right, sweet. Some of you will get this. My dad told me that when he was a kid, he had the entire roster for the New York Yankees in the 40s and 50s, and I believe the 30s.
[00:09:16] Now, some of you only know that name from the candy bar, but that means he had a Babe Ruth cart, right? Years later, there are still kids walking up to the plate, pointing at the outfield because of Babe Ruth. He had a DiMaggio card. He had a Lou Gehrig card. I mean, he had all of them. He had all of the famous players and his friends. They would collect full teams. That's what they do. They'd go try to get the entire roster for a team. The Yankees and the Red Sox and anybody else. They'd try to collect all the cards. And they would play baseball, too. They'd play the actual game, you know, the sport, but they would also play baseball with their baseball cards. They'd take those baseball cards and they'd put them down in that red dirt that stains your skin and everything it touches and gets all over everything. And then they'd shoot the cards with marbles and knock them over. They'd get torn. The corners would get all bent up. Some of you, your stomach is turning right now, too, because, you know, that's the equivalent of taking thousands of dollars, putting it in a tub and lighting it on fire. It's just burning money. Those are some of the most valuable collector's items in anything that people collect. Some of the most valuable cards worth thousands of dollars today. I mean, it makes me sick when I think about that.
[00:10:27] But they just played in the dirt with them, right? That's why my cards, I don't even keep up with them anymore. But they are in a folder in plastic protective case, because I don't know any of the names in the binder. But in case any of them become famous, I've got the card and it's going to be safe and clean.
[00:10:44] They were kids, right? Of course they were kids. Babe Ruth was just a guy.
[00:10:48] He was just a baseball player. They had no idea how iconic he was going to be. DiMaggio was just a baseball player.
[00:10:55] They didn't know how iconic that years later people were still going to know his name.
[00:11:00] So why would they have done anything other than play in the dirt with the cards?
[00:11:07] Because if you don't see something's value, you will not protect it.
[00:11:12] If you don't see something's value, why would you create a boundary, treat it differently than you do anything else?
[00:11:22] If you don't see something's value, you will not protect it.
[00:11:26] When we hear the Ten Commandments, naturally, our natural reaction when we hear, you shall not worship any other gods, you shall not kill, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery. It is to hear that as God calling things evil. God is saying these specific things are bad, right? God says murder is bad. God says killing a human is Wrong. It's a bad thing to do. God says, you shall not steal. Why? Because stealing is bad. God says, you should not worship any other gods. Why? Because those other gods don't exist. It's a bad thing to do. Only he deserves the glory. It's bad to worship other gods. And that is doubly true. When we start talking about sexual things, when we start talking about the adultery command, Sex and sexual activity are uniquely tied to our identity and the way we view ourselves, in a way the other commands and sins aren't. We live in a world that is extremely sexualized. I mean, as soon as you're old enough to watch tv, you see our bodies and our lives presented as objects to be evaluated based on how attractive we are, what our sexual experience is. We're taught to define ourselves based on what we do and do not desire, based on what we have and have not done. It's in the modern world, uniquely tied to our sense of identity and our sense of self. But it's not just a modern world thing. It's an ancient world thing. In the New Testament, one of the authors tells us that sexual sin is unlike other sins in that it's a sin against your own body.
[00:12:53] When you sin sexually, you sin against yourself, not just God or the other person. Why is that? Because sexual sin has a way of changing the way we look at ourselves in the mirror like nothing else does. It has a way of changing the way we think about ourselves, changing what lives in our brain as regrets more than other things do. It's directly tied to our sense of self, to our sense of guilt and shame. In Genesis chapter two, God creates Adam and Eve, and they are naked and unashamed. That's what it says. But in Genesis 3, sin enters the story. And the first consequences of sin in the story are that they realize they're naked and they try to cover themselves because they're ashamed.
[00:13:32] Because sexual sin, for some reason, in some way, is uniquely tied to our sense of self, to our sense of identity. It's tied to this desire to cover things up and keep them secret. We feel ashamed about it, so we feel like we can't talk about it, so we bury it away. Or we do the opposite. We're so ashamed of it, we try to spin it around and brag about it and pretend like we don't feel negatively about it at all. But it's all to cover up the sense of guilt and shame that we innately feel around it. Because since the first humans, we felt the need to cover up in that area.
[00:14:07] Now, Pastor Mark did an incredible job last week of showing us something that when God says, you shall not kill a human, he's not only saying that killing is bad. What he's saying is that actually it's because human life is valuable that we don't kill humans because humans are worth protecting. Humans are made in the image of God. Humans are valuable, and that's why there's a boundary around them. The boundary isn't to call something evil. The boundary exists to call something good and sacred and valuable.
[00:14:33] What does that mean for this command? It means the boundary of this command. The boundary of the command protects the sacred value of sex and marriage.
[00:14:44] The boundary of the command protects the sacred value of sex and marriage.
[00:14:51] In the beginning, in the first relationship God ever made, he made a covenant marriage, a marriage relationship. And he in this relationship, they were naked and they were unashamed. They had nothing to hide. They were completely unified. And it said that the two would become one flesh. That this relationship, this sacred relationship, bonded two people in a way that was unlike anything else. There's no other relationship like it. Because two people are linking their lives. They're connecting themselves spiritually and emotionally and physically in a way that's unlike any other. It's a covenant. That's why, as Christians, we define marriage as a lifelong monogamous commitment between one man and one woman that is both spiritual and legal. It is both spiritual and legal. It's not something you can basically do. It's something you do or don't do. Why? Because it's designed to be hard to get out of. It's designed to be binding spiritually and legally because you're linking your lives together in a way that no other relationship does. It's a covenant. And we believe, we understand that because God says they were naked and unashamed and the two would become one flesh. That sex is the act by which two people become one flesh. Sex is the embodiment of the one flesh covenant of marriage. It's the act of one fleshing. Why? Because in a sexual encounter, you are vulnerable and intimate. You're revealing, not just physically, but emotionally, parts of yourselves that are not revealed in any other area, opening yourself up to desire and pleasure in ways you do not do in any other relationship. It's designed to mimic the commitment of that relationship. Because this is an act not done with any other person. It's a part of you not revealed to any other person. It bonds people together. We even understand now with science, that the hormones released in a consensual sexual encounter are bonding hormones. They draw people together. God designed sex to be like a magnet that draws a married couple together in covenant unity. Did you know God invented it? And he also knew that it would feel good. He wasn't surprised that we liked it.
[00:17:07] He invented it. Yeah. There's actually a whole book in the Bible. There's a whole book in the Bible. It's called Song of Solomon or Song of Songs, depending on your translation. And the whole book is about romance and sex within the marriage. That's what the whole book is about. In fact, there are early Christian writers who wouldn't let a man read the book of Song of Songs until he was 30 because it was too steamy. He wouldn't be able to handle it. The whole book is about sex and about sexuality. It's metaphors and it's veiled, but that's what the book is about. It's got metaphors for our relationship with God as well. Why? Because sex is innately spiritual and physical. God invented this. He invented the hormones that create attraction. He invented puberty, which kind of seems like a twisted joke, but, I mean, it's the thing that, like, allows us to procreate and to have these desires. He invented all. All of it. He did, and he blessed it. Did you know. Let's just say the thing. Did you know that in a healthy marriage, sex is a essential part of a healthy marriage?
[00:18:06] Did you know that Christians should have better sex than anyone else? In first service, one man clapped when I said that.
[00:18:15] One dude was like, yeah, no one else did. It's. It's true, though. When we see this boundary, this is what we have to see, is that God is protecting marriage. Christians should have the best marriages. Christians shouldn't have marriages where we're roommates and we haven't touched in years. Christians shouldn't have marriages that are devoid of intimacy. Christians have marriages in which two people die to their own desires and prefer the other person. Yes, there are differences in desires and differences in hormonal balance and things like that, but each person chooses to sacrifice to move to the other person. Neither person takes advantage of or priority themselves over the other person. And therefore you build a relationship that has romance and fun and connection and spiritual and emotional intimacy as well as physical intimacy. God created marriage to be a wonderful gift so that those who are married Christians should have the best marriages and the best sex. And that doesn't mean our marriages are perfect or our sex lives are perfect, but it means we're working on It. We're growing towards it. We see the value of it. So we protect it and we apply effort towards it. Once again, two people dying to themselves, preferring the other person for the sake of a loving relationship that is not only physical, but does include a physical element. God designed it.
[00:19:37] This is the gift God's giving us, that we would have amazing marriages that should have had an amen. But, you know, well, we're going to do a marriage class this fall, maybe after that.
[00:19:52] I was a youth pastor for about six years.
[00:19:54] Anyone who's been a youth pastor or has been a teacher in a middle school or high school or worked with youth knows that in every youth group, there's one kid who can find a loophole anywhere.
[00:20:05] It's way better to have a kid that just breaks the rules because you can punish them. It's the loophole ones you have to watch out for. I lived in Michigan, and after youth group, one night, we're playing basketball, and there's a kid who keeps throwing basketball at people's faces. By people, I mean me. He was throwing basketballs at my face consistently. Finally, I said, hey, look, you gotta stop. You gotta stop doing that. I'm gonna get hurt if you don't stop. You're gonna go sit with your mom. His mom was a volunteer. You're gonna go sit with your mom until youth group's over. And you're not gonna do anything fun for the rest of the night. You're just gonna sit there.
[00:20:39] He got mad, but he said, fine.
[00:20:42] Five minutes go by, we're playing basketball. I turn around and there's a basketball flying at my face. Put my hand up to block it, and I say, hey, what did I just tell you? And he goes, I didn't throw it. I kicked it.
[00:20:55] And I wanted to kick him. I didn't. That's a crime. I didn't kick him.
[00:21:00] I did make him go sit with his mom, and he cried a little bit. And you shouldn't be happy when a seventh grader cries. But I felt like I won in that encounter.
[00:21:09] This is what humans do, though, right? If you give us a boundary, we walk right up to it, don't we? Right. If you told me, cj, you're not allowed to step off the stage, the first thing I'm doing is, I'm not off the stage.
[00:21:20] I'm still on it. I'm not off the stage. I'm still on it. I didn't step off. You can't blame me for anything. I didn't get in trouble. That's what we do as humans when we're given boundaries. And let's just steer into the stereotype for a little bit. When we hear this command, those of us with lots of testosterone moving through our bodies, generally men hear that and we're like, I can think of some loopholes.
[00:21:45] I mean, you said adultery. You didn't say anything about porn. Porn's not adultery.
[00:21:49] You didn't say anything. I mean, about just looking. Alright? Looking's not touching. All right? You didn't say anything about that. And you didn't say anything about going out drinking after work and just doing some dancing and having a good time. I mean, as long as our clothes stay on, I think it's fine. We know what the boundary is we can't cross. And as long as we don't cross that boundary, I think we're probably fine. You didn't say anything about flirting or having a work wife or a work husband. You didn't even mention that. I mean, as long as we're not physical with the other person, it's fine, right?
[00:22:13] Or you might have heard this and you think adultery. That's what married people do.
[00:22:18] That's when a married person has sex with someone they're not married to. I'm not married.
[00:22:24] Doesn't apply to me.
[00:22:26] Or you might be thinking, yeah, well, it clearly doesn't matter if I'm sexually active with my girlfriend or with my boyfriend, because we're not married. Or you might be thinking, thinking, we're engaged, we're basically married. So it's like the same thing. Which, by the way, you can't be basically married. That's why it's spiritual and legal. You either are married or you're not.
[00:22:43] Seems obvious, but might be saying, you know what? You want me to have a faithful marriage. You want me to have a faithful marriage that's beautiful and sexual and all that kind of stuff, but you don't want me to see if we're sexually compatible before marriage. How am I supposed to do that? I mean, I've just.
[00:23:00] We have to find out if we have the same interests, right? We have to do that.
[00:23:04] So if I want to follow this command, we've got to be sexually active beforehand.
[00:23:09] Or you might be thinking, cj, there's a lot of things that aren't sex but are sexual. There are a lot of things I can do that don't quite cross that line.
[00:23:19] Here's the thing.
[00:23:21] The categories, Biblically speaking, the categories of sexual activity are within marriage or outside of marriage.
[00:23:30] The Bible doesn't allow space for a category where single is fine.
[00:23:36] It's okay to have sex with someone if you're not married. The Bible doesn't differentiate between things that are sex and things that are sexual. All right? There's this wonderful word in the King James version of the Bible that I wish was in every other translation. It's in the New Testament. It's the word lascivious. The word lascivious means to arouse desire, things designed to arouse sexual desire. And it's listed in the same list as fornication and adultery and all the other commands. Meaning the Bible doesn't differentiate. The Bible doesn't say it's okay to do this because that's not technically sex. It doesn't give us that sort of permission. The Bible doesn't say, well, if you're engaged, you're just testing the waters. The Bible says that there is sex within marriage or outside of marriage. Those are the categories.
[00:24:20] And we see this because the only place in Scripture where sexual activity is blessed, meaning it's given to us as a gift. It's a good thing. It's a gift from God. The only place we see the gift given to us is within marriage. There is no other place sex is used biblically that is blessed. It is not called sin. The only place it's given to us as a blessed activity, sex or sexual activity at all, is within marriage. In the ancient world, we know that people got married very young. There was no hookup culture in the ancient world. There was no bars. You could go hanging. And if you stayed until 2am you knew what everyone was there for. There was none of that. People got married very young, especially women. And what that meant was if you were having sex or being sexual with someone you weren't married to, then it was either someone else's wife, it was a crime, meaning assault, or it was prostitution. All of those things were called sin by scripture. There was sex that was in marriage and sex that was against marriage. This command to not have sex outside of marriage, to not commit adultery, assumes that the only blessed way to use sex is within marriage. So if you are sexual with someone you are not married to, whether they are married or you are married to someone else, being sexual with someone you're not married to is taking sex outside of their future marriage or the place that it belongs, it doesn't differentiate.
[00:25:43] Now, I want to be clear here. Being clear is being kind. I am not saying that the Bible puts sleeping with your boyfriend or your girlfriend in the same category as sexual assault. Or a crime. It doesn't do that. The Bible is clear that it expects punishment, consequences for people who would take advantage, who would coerce or use force, or who would assault or any of these things that are a crime. The Bible makes it clear that there is an expectation that someone who does that is held accountable on Earth. Why? Because while any sex outside of marriage is sin, they do not have the same consequences. One has physical consequences and requires a degree of legal accountability on Earth. The Bible expects that there are things that are a crime and there are things that are not. And if someone commits that crime, they should be held accountable.
[00:26:37] And the Bible says that sex is given to us as a gift within marriage and that any sex outside of marriage is sin. Any sexual activity outside of marriage is sin. That includes pornography. That includes AI that includes any sexual activity outside of marriage, because sex belongs within it.
[00:27:02] Now, here's the thing. This is awkward.
[00:27:04] It's awkward to talk about, not just because it feels like health class, but because it's awkward to talk about.
[00:27:13] And it's awkward to talk about because I would bet that there is not one person here on the stage or off the stage that does not have shame in this area.
[00:27:28] We all experience shame.
[00:27:31] We grow up in a culture where very early we are exposed to things. We see things that shape our view of ourself and other people.
[00:27:42] Many of us have things we've done or things that have been done to us that cause us to feel shame or cause us to feel guilt.
[00:27:51] Every single one of us has been broken in this area. That's why we see in the very first instance of sin in the Bible, you see the shame and the covering of. And Satan loves secrets. Satan loves shame because shame keeps things secret. And things that are secret are never healed. Things that are secret are never dealt with. So he wants us to feel ashamed when we talk about sexual sin. He wants us to feel like we can't talk about it, like we can't laugh about it. He wants it to feel like it's something dirty that we should never bring up because he doesn't want it to be healed. But this is the most important thing I can tell you this morning. God forgives, heals and restores everything.
[00:28:32] Everything.
[00:28:34] He forgives, heals and restores everything.
[00:28:37] In one of the prophets in the Old Testament, God says, I want to give back all of the years the locust took. I want to give back everything the locust took. Because sin is like a locust. It eats away at everything good, everything that helps, everything that Heals us and makes us healthy. It eats away. But God wants to forgive, heal and restore everything. He wants to heal the shame. He wants to take away the shame and heal the guilt and heal our hearts and redeem us and restore us to right relationship. He wants us to live without anything to hide and without anything to cover up. He wants marriages that have had unfaithfulness and broken trust to be restored, to have healthy, godly, beautiful relationships built. He wants the way you look at yourself in the mirror to change so that you see yourself as a child of God.
[00:29:19] He wants the way you look at other people to change so another person is never an object for your own pleasure. He wants to heal you from the affliction that is sexual addiction. He wants to heal, forgive and restore everything.
[00:29:31] Everything.
[00:29:32] Everything.
[00:29:34] And he will. And he can. Amen. He wants to forgive, heal and restore everything.
[00:29:41] Everything.
[00:29:44] If we let him. He cannot heal a secret.
[00:29:49] He cannot heal something that's kept a secret.
[00:29:52] We have to admit that it's broken in order for him to heal it.
[00:29:57] In the New Testament, we're told to wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and the light of Christ will shine upon you. Why? Because secrets live in the dark. But Christ brings light. And light is scary when you have something you're ashamed of. But light is healing. That's why sometimes the doctor says, go outside, let the sunlight hit your face. Because physically and spiritually, light is healing.
[00:30:22] It's good for you.
[00:30:24] Now, there are two ways we respond to a sermon like this.
[00:30:28] The first is that there are probably some of us here today who are knowingly breaking this command and knowingly doing it, knowingly looking at pornography, and you're not struggling with it. You know, you're not trying really hard to quit looking at porn. You're just doing it. All right? There's a difference between struggling and trying to overcome an addiction and just knowingly facilitating it. There's some of us here. You're just doing it. There are people here that are. They're just knowingly sleeping with a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a fiance, knowing that sex is within marriage. And there's some of us here today who are trying to find loopholes, right? We're trying to say, well, I didn't have sex. I didn't cross that line, right? I mean, we did sexual things, but that doesn't count, right? I'm not that mess. I didn't mess up too bad, right? As long as we're fine.
[00:31:14] As long as we didn't cross that line, we're good, right? And if that's you, if you're knowingly breaking the command or knowingly living in loopholes, then the application is stop.
[00:31:23] Stop it.
[00:31:26] Begin fighting back against the porn. Begin fighting back against the addiction. Quit hanging out in your apartment at 2am if you're trying to not sleep together, quit doing it.
[00:31:35] Stop.
[00:31:37] Get some accountability. Confess your sins. This is a command. God wants to give you something valuable. He wants to give you something beautiful. And I don't think you see how beautiful and valuable it is that he wants to give you because you're not protecting it. Stop. Look, about 15 years ago, when I was 19 or 20, I needed this. I needed someone to look me in the eyes and say, cj, stop it.
[00:31:58] Cj, you know better. Stop.
[00:32:02] And it happened. A pastor called me into his office and we were talking about stuff and finally he said, stop. When are you going to start doing what you know is right?
[00:32:12] Stop.
[00:32:13] And I believe that conversation is a big part of why 15 years later, my wife and I have a beautiful, healthy, amazing, fun marriage that's not perfect, but we're actively working on and growing in and it's getting better all the time. I believe that's why, because someone looked at me and said, stop.
[00:32:30] Here's the other thing every single one of us needs to hear that God forgives, heals and restores everything.
[00:32:41] Everything.
[00:32:42] There's no brokenness. He will not restore.
[00:32:45] You just have to let him.
[00:32:49] Quit holding the secret.
[00:32:52] Quit holding it back.
[00:32:54] Quit pretending like it's not that big of a deal. Quit pretending like as long as no one knows, it won't hurt you.
[00:33:01] Let him forgive, heal and restore everything that he wants to forgive, heal and restore, which is everything.
[00:33:11] Let's pray.
[00:33:13] Jesus, you are our healer and our restoration.
[00:33:18] You knew everything we would do wrong before you went to the cross and you went anyway.
[00:33:23] We praise you for that. God, would you give us the courage to admit our sins, to confess them to you, to let you forgive and heal them? God, would you give some of us the discipline? Would you give some of us a vision of marriage that is so great that we would protect it even if we're single?
[00:33:41] We love you.
[00:33:42] Amen.
