Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign 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.
[00:00:26] I want to say good morning to everybody joining us on Church 307 all across Wyoming. To everybody over at the prison, at the jail. And I need to give a PG13 warning on the sermon today.
[00:00:39] If you happen to have kids with you in the room who think that birds and bees are animals, then you might want to check them into the kids ministry. Unless you're trying to have a birds and bees talk later. Um, we are. I'm going to keep being really vague for a second, make sure if anybody needs to get the hit that they can.
[00:01:02] We're going to be in Genesis chapter two. Genesis chapter two. If you got a Bible, go ahead and open up there while you're turning there.
[00:01:11] Whenever we talk about sex and sexuality in the church, first off, there are people who are like, dang it, why did I come today? I wish I was sick.
[00:01:21] It's the worst thing you can think of to talk about in church. And the reason for that is because when we talk about this topic, it almost always comes with a degree of shame and regret with affects almost all of us that way. I just want to say this at the beginning. We are going to do everything in our power to avoid shame in this conversation. And I believe the best way to do that is actually just to talk about it, to bring it into the light. To shame thrives in secrets. When we bring it up, when we acknowledge how awkward it is, then we can deal with it and we can reject it. So today we are talking about sex and sexuality, but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So we don't have anything to be ashamed of. Amen.
[00:02:04] All right, Genesis chapter two. We're going to start in verse 19.
[00:02:08] Now, the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky, and all the wild animals. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. And while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the ribbon he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
[00:02:58] Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. Let's pray.
[00:03:04] God, this is your word and we love you. We're talking about a uncomfortable thing, an awkward thing this morning, but something you created. So, Jesus, I ask that when the enemy tries to bring shame into our minds, that it would. We wouldn't listen to it. We would focus on who you are today. Anything over the next few minutes. That's just my ideas. That's just what I want to say. Let us notice that so we can reject it. But if over the next few minutes, if there's anything we talk about that's consistent with who you are and faithful to your word, would you plant that in our minds? We would become more like you, Jesus. We love you. Amen.
[00:03:42] How many of you have heard the term analysis paralysis? Anybody?
[00:03:48] Yeah. Analysis paralysis. That's what happens when you have so many options that you can't make a decision. There's too many options. It's why if my son goes to Walmart with $10 with, we spend 45 minutes in the toy section trying to figure out what he's going to break tomorrow, Right? There's too many options. It's also why if you go to a new restaurant and they've got a huge menu, you spend 45 minutes looking at the menu and what do you do? You order the burger. Why? Because it's safe. And you know what it is. There's too many options. In our world today, we have options for everything. You've probably noticed that we've got options. If you want to get a new job, you can apply to a thousand different types of jobs. On indeed, if you want to buy a new truck, you can. You've got a thousand different options. You want to date somebody. You can put in specifications onto a dating app and swipe until you find someone who more or less fits your specifications and then hope they swipe back like, we've got options in everything.
[00:04:43] And it seems like options are presented to us as if they are freedom. The more options you have, the more free you are. But one of the things we learned from experience is that just as likely as options are to create freedom, they are to paralyze us. They give us too many options.
[00:05:00] Now Analysis paralysis has a kissing cousin. I'm from the South. We know about those.
[00:05:07] Hey, laugh all you want, but this is Wyoming. There are like 500 people in the whole state. Which just means, Statistically speaking, don't do 23andMe, it'll ruin your day.
[00:05:18] That's why I don't do it. Kissing cousin of analysis paralysis. Fomo. How many of you have heard of FOMO before?
[00:05:25] How many of you raised your hand because you didn't want to miss out?
[00:05:28] Yeah, fomo. Fear of missing out. The fuel for many, many, many late night high school and college Taco Bell runs right. Did you need to go to Taco Bell? Did you really need a Crunchwrap supreme at 2:00am? Absolutely not. But this might be the one time something cool happens at Taco Bell in the middle of the night. And you don't want to be the only one of your friends who misses the joke, right? So you go along. So what do you do? Yes, you've got an exam at 7:00 the next morning, but you go anyway. You spend your last $5 in your bank account on Doritos Locos Tacos and an experience. Yes, that is based on a true story. I don't want you to ask me about it.
[00:06:05] If you look at the way we are advertised to in the world today, there are two things that you see. We got options for everything.
[00:06:15] Vacations, jobs, everything. And the way those options are presented to us is with fomo.
[00:06:22] Fear of missing out.
[00:06:24] Do you.
[00:06:26] You see a commercial that's got beautiful people on a beach eating Burger King and they tell you if you want that experience, you got to buy Burger King. If you want to be outdoorsy, you have to buy a Jeep or you're not going to be able to drive anywhere pretty. Do you want to go on vacation where your kids aren't screaming? Stay at a Best Western? We're presented these options and what we're told is you have these desires. This is your desire. And if you want to fulfill that desire, this is what you have to do.
[00:06:52] Otherwise you're going to miss out. We're told you can have anything you want, but if you don't get it, if you don't do it, look at what you're going to miss out on.
[00:07:03] One of the primary anchors, one of the primary things gravity is using to pull us down in our culture is this.
[00:07:14] Our cultural anchor tells us that a fulfilled life is fulfilled desires. Now it's worth pointing this out right here, that when we're talking about our culture it's easy to use that just to blame somebody else. But a culture is just all of the people combined.
[00:07:31] So our culture is us. So really what we as a culture tell ourselves is a fulfilled life is a fulfilled desires. Don't let anyone tell you you can't have what you want. Don't let anyone limit what you want in life. Go be anything that you want. Go do anything that you want. You don't want to die.
[00:07:50] Any regrets. You don't want to die with anything you wanted left untasted.
[00:07:57] Now, I think probably the most dangerous and consistent place that we hear this message is in the area of sex and sexuality.
[00:08:13] You've got desires. That's who you are.
[00:08:16] No one should tell you that. You shouldn't want that. No one should tell you that those desires shouldn't be fulfilled. Find a way to fulfill your desire.
[00:08:25] Now, a lot of us, you hear that, we hear that, and we immediately think that what I'm talking about is LGBTQ issues. It's same sex attraction and gender fluidity. And within the entire conversation of our culture and our world today around sex and sexuality, that's certainly part of it. That is one of the things that we hear this message. Fulfill your desires. Do what you want. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But our culture says this about every area of our lives, about every area of our sex life, sex lives, every version of it. What we hear all the time is, are you dating? Of course you should be sleeping with that person. You need to marry someone you're sexually compatible with. And how are you going to know if you're not trying it out?
[00:09:08] Well, of course you need to experiment. You need to look at some pornography. You need to sleep around and have different partners so that you know what you like. Because God forbid you marry someone that's not fulfilling to you. You need to be sexually compatible with whoever you're going to marry. We hear that, or we hear, hey, are you in a marriage and you're not being fulfilled? Are you sexually bored? Are you not being fulfilled in that marriage? Well, you. You should probably get a new marriage. You should probably find somebody else. You shouldn't have to live a life unfulfilled sexually. You've got these desires. You only live once. You should fulfill those desires. You should.
[00:09:43] You should try stepping out of your marriage. You should open up your marriage. You should get a new marriage. Or we hear if you have a desire that can't be fulfilled right now, maybe you don't have a spouse. Maybe it's something your partner is unwilling to do.
[00:09:57] Well, that's what the Internet's for.
[00:09:59] Every option available to you, you can find a legal version of almost any desire you can imagine online. So just go online and try that out. Fulfill that desire. You might as well try it over and over and over again. What we hear from ourselves and the world around us is any unfulfilled desire is an unfulfilled life.
[00:10:22] You deserve to have those desires fulfilled.
[00:10:25] Now, what I'm going to say next isn't going to surprise you. In fact, if you've never been to church before, you're not a Christian, you've never cracked open a Bible, you could probably still predict pretty closely what I'm about to say. God puts a boundary on desire. That's not surprising to anyone here. Our world says there's no boundaries for desire. You should have anything you desire. But God gives us a boundary around our desires. He says there are things that should not be fulfilled and there are things that we should not do. But when we think of a boundary, we generally think of a boundary in the negative.
[00:10:57] Meaning that when we think of a boundary, we think a boundary is, don't do that because it's bad. We phrase it in the negative, what you should not do. And there is absolutely a place for negative boundaries. A great example of that is pornography.
[00:11:13] We should have a negative boundary around pornography. We should not engage in pornography for a variety of reasons. Here's one. Pornography is directly linked to human trafficking. You can research that on your own. You don't have to believe me. Pornography is directly linked to human trafficking. Pornography is the demand that creates the supply of human trafficking. And as long as there is a demand for pornography that there will be people supplying that through human trafficking. You cannot extricate those two.
[00:11:41] Ethical porn does not exist. It doesn't matter what anybody says on the Internet. There's another reason why it's not just the human trafficking thing.
[00:11:48] Porn destroys the idea of consent because you cannot consent in perpetuity. I cannot consent to the future.
[00:11:57] So we have no way of knowing if we engage in pornography, whether that person or those people still consent to to those images or videos being viewed or used in any way. It destroys the idea of consent. You don't even have to be a believer to value the idea of consent and understand that consent and pornography can't go together because you can't consent to something into the future.
[00:12:20] It's not just what pornography does to other people. Pornography also, once again, this is research. You can look this up on your own. It interacts with our brain the same way that drugs do. They have done research and proven that the same part of your brain looks, lights up when you view porn, as it does if you use cocaine. And that means that pornography creates an addictive pattern in our lives, meaning like any addiction, that it increases in both time of use or amount of use and intensity needed to create stimulation.
[00:12:48] So the more you use porn, the more you will use porn.
[00:12:52] And the more a person uses pornography, the more intense those videos and images will be required to be to create the same stimulation. That's why many, many people who have struggled with pornography have admitted that the things they see now are things that they never thought they would have engaged with in the past.
[00:13:11] We need a negative boundary. There's a place for a negative boundary. But in giving us his design for sex and sexuality, God doesn't start with a negative boundary.
[00:13:25] He actually starts with the opposite of that. He doesn't start by telling us what not to do. He starts with giving us the ideal. And here's how it goes. God creates a human being. The word Adam in Hebrew is the same word that we translate the man. It just means human being. God creates a human being, and he wants a partner for the human being, because the human should not be alone. God creates the partner for the human being. He puts the human to sleep, and he takes part of the human being and creates a woman. And now you have Adam. It switches from a description human to a name Adam. And you have Eve. You have the man and the woman. Actually, in the original Hebrew, it's only after Eve is created that gender enters the story. He and she, male and female. Now, that might seem confusing, but God creates a human, and he creates marriage. And he creates marriage by dividing the human. That's why a few verses later, it says, a man will leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and the two will become one flesh. What was divided is united in a marriage, and the two were naked and unashamed. This story is the entire foundation for our sexual ethic as followers of Jesus. This is where we get it. It's not in restrictions that come later. The entire foundation of the sexual ethic for Christians comes right here. And this is what it is.
[00:14:43] Sex is reserved for marriage, and marriage is one man and one woman for life.
[00:14:53] Sex is reserved for marriage.
[00:14:55] Marriage is one man and one woman for life. Let's start with the one man and one woman part.
[00:15:03] We believe as Christians, marriage is reserved for one man and one woman. And that is not because we think that same sex attraction is gross or unnatural or something like that. It's because God intended marriage to be a one flesh unity. And only that which was divided can be united. This is the foundation of our sexual ethic. Marriage is designed to be a completely unified, intimate, bonded relationship that comes from those who are different, man and woman, and they are united in one flesh. Now, sex is the act of becoming one flesh. You can go on to the next slide. Sex is the act of becoming one flesh. You might be saying, CJ, this story didn't say anything about sex. And you're right.
[00:15:47] Throughout most of the Old Testament, when they talk about sex, they don't say the word. They use metaphors. They say things like they knew one another or they laid together. Or if you read Song of Solomon, which is mostly about sex, they use metaphors and analogies where you don't know what they're talking about, but you know what they're talking about.
[00:16:08] In this story, what we are given is the man and woman, naked and unashamed, perfectly intimate together, fully known and fully loved. The subtext of that story is sexual intimacy. And sex is the act of becoming one flesh. We actually know this chemically now, not that you literally become one, but we know now that in sexual intimacy there are hormones that release in your brain that bond you to the other person. In fact, sexual desire is built around sexual experience. We bond to things when we are sexually intimate. Sex was designed, hormones, pleasure, all of it, to be like a magnet that draws a husband and wife together in a one flesh unity. And sex is the act of becoming one flesh. You can see why the biblical ideal is that we would have sex with one person.
[00:17:03] Because you can't become one flesh with more than one person.
[00:17:08] Sex is a sacred thing.
[00:17:11] It bonds people together.
[00:17:13] It's a beautiful thing. In fact, this ideal that we're given is a husband and wife, fully known, fully loved, Nobody looking in the mirror and regretting what they see. Nobody looking in the mirror and comparing themselves to anyone else.
[00:17:28] Never wondering, is this actually what I like or did I just see it on the Internet? Never wondering whether you live up to your partner's past experiences. No regrets or shame entering the mind. In fact, most of us, even if you've had a long, healthy marriage, you know that that ideal is not our experience.
[00:17:45] Maybe at times because we live in a broken world, but that's the ideal we pursue.
[00:17:51] Fully known, fully loved, no secrets, nothing to hide.
[00:17:58] Think of it like this. I want you to think of your most Valuable possession, the most valuable thing in your house. People and dogs are out. It has to be a thing. Think of the most valuable thing in your house. Doesn't have to be like the most money, but the one thing you wouldn't sell, the one thing, if the house was on fire, you would go grab that thing and take it out. Would it be, I don't know, maybe an heirloom, maybe a locket or dishes from grandma. Maybe it'd be a baseball card or an antique gun or an instrument, something like that, that. You got it. You have that thing in your mind.
[00:18:28] Lots of blank stares. You got that thing in your mind.
[00:18:31] All right, sweet. I have a nine year old son. He thinks that everything is a weapon.
[00:18:37] Everything. He swings, sticks around like there are swords. He points if it's even remotely gunshaped, which grown up guys do this too. But if it's even remotely gunshaped, he's pointing it, you know, like hitting people with it. It's just everything's a weapon. Also, his hands are always sticky.
[00:18:53] I don't understand that. I can't scientifically explain that, but his hands are always sticky.
[00:18:59] Can he, if he comes over, can he play with that thing?
[00:19:03] The most valuable thing in your house?
[00:19:05] No. I didn't think so. Is it because nine year old boys are evil?
[00:19:11] No, no, it's not nine year old boys. My son is awesome. I love hanging out with my son. He's so much fun. We play video games, we pretend like things are weapons together and it's great. I mean, he is doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing. A nine year old boy is supposed to be breaking sticks in the yard, around trees and pretending to fight off ninjas and all that stuff. He's supposed to be doing that. He's supposed to have his hands in the mud and getting his hands dirty. That's very normal for a kid his age.
[00:19:40] We intuitively understand that a boundary isn't about something being bad as much as it's about something being good.
[00:19:53] Not every boundary is about something being bad.
[00:19:57] Sometimes a boundary exists to protect something that's good.
[00:20:02] God created a good and beautiful thing in sexual intimacy in a marriage. He created sexual desire. He created pleasure, he created this. And it is a good and beautiful thing. We do not protect the boundary of sex because sexual desire is bad. We protect it because it's good and sacred.
[00:20:24] There are two ways Christians have historically talked about sex that are both bad. And one is we just say, ah, you should feel bad about sex.
[00:20:33] You don't don't do it. Whatever you do, don't do it. Don't think about it. Don't talk about it. Don't talk about sex until you get married. And then you're supposed to do it, which creates a really confusing progression of life for people who grew up afraid of sex. And then they're supposed to build a healthy marriage around it. But we talked about it with just shame and condemnation. The other way that Christians have historically talked about it is we turn it into a joke. We make light of it. We just make jokes. We don't take it seriously. Neither of those live up to the good and beautiful intention of God in sexual intimacy. But the thing we have the hardest time talking about as Christians is the idea of pleasure.
[00:21:14] We get uncomfortable when we think about the idea of pleasure being associated with sex.
[00:21:20] We kind of communicate like, yeah, you should have sex when you're married, but don't want it too much.
[00:21:25] Don't have too much fun. That's weird. Don't do that.
[00:21:28] I want to say this clearly, but without being crass.
[00:21:32] God created fully functioning human beings with every part of their body.
[00:21:39] He created fully functional human beings with all of the hormones that create sexual desire, with all of the nerve endings that create pleasure. What I'm trying to say is God didn't create sex and then see Adam and Eve do it and think, I didn't know they'd like it. Like, he.
[00:21:54] He created it on purpose because he wants pleasure to be part of it. In fact, within a marriage, pleasure is something that should be worked towards and built and enjoyed together. Pleasure, while not the primary goal of sex, is a beautiful gift as the outflow of intimacy between a husband and wife. God intended intimacy to be pleasurable and for us to desire it because he created us to be drawn together in a marriage like two magnets. He intends that for us.
[00:22:30] But this is where things get a little bit dicey. Some of you guys are like, this whole thing's been dicey. I wish you'd stop. But we're not.
[00:22:38] This is where things get dicey in the way we think about sex and sexual activity is we imagine that there are clear boundaries that differentiate sex from other sexual activities. There is an act, and that specific act is sex. And then there are things that are sort of like sex but aren't. And then there are a whole bunch of things that are sexual in varying intensities. Some of them are okay, some of them are not. That they are sexual, but they're not sex.
[00:23:07] In fact, if you grew up in the church, or you've been trying to follow Jesus in any way and you're dating, engaged, there's a reasonable chance you have felt that temptation, that temptation to try to figure out what is sexual but not sex, so that it's okay and God won't be mad.
[00:23:25] But I can still enjoy myself.
[00:23:28] If I can be honest with you. This was a huge struggle and failure in my life. Before I got married.
[00:23:36] I wanted to have what I wanted.
[00:23:40] I knew that there was a boundary. I knew that God expected a specific thing around sex. So what I wanted to do was find how close I can get to that boundary, what counts as pleasure and will fulfill the desire, but won't get me in trouble with God.
[00:23:53] And if you know that temptation, then you know when you start trying to negotiate that boundary, that boundary moves a lot.
[00:24:00] You have that talk at 2pm and it's a lot different than when you have that talk at 11pm because your desires change. And you start trying to negotiate that boundary to slide farther and farther.
[00:24:10] And then in my experience, not actually trying to submit and trust Jesus as my fulfillment, but just trying to kind of get what I wanted without getting in trouble, you wind up renegotiating that boundary and then trying to convince someone else that you should have the same boundary. And you wind up with no freedom.
[00:24:31] Freedom, joy, fulfillment, pleasure actually never comes from that.
[00:24:36] Only shame, fear, guilt, hoping nobody finds out, wondering. If you cross the line, you wind up emotionally and spiritually hurting yourself and other people.
[00:24:54] Biblically speaking, Scripture does not differentiate categorically between sex and sexual activity.
[00:25:05] Scripture does not draw a line of sin that says this sexual activity is okay outside of marriage because it's not sexual sex.
[00:25:14] In terms of sin, all sexual activity outside of marriage falls into the same category.
[00:25:22] God does not draw a line in between kissing and other things.
[00:25:30] Sexual activity, all action with the intent of sexual fulfillment outside of marriage is sin. Biblical. Biblically, because there is no category for a sexual relationship that is not marriage, that is blessed.
[00:25:48] It doesn't exist.
[00:25:51] All sexual activity is for marriage, and any sexual activity outside of marriage is considered sin.
[00:25:57] Now, we need to be really careful here because as I was saying that, I guarantee you there were people in this room who immediately felt ashamed because you've struggled sexually, but maybe you haven't had sex. And what you just heard me say was all, it's all the same thing. If you struggled a little bit, it's like you've cheated on your wife. If you've looked at porn, it's like you've had an affair. If you've done this, it's like you've done that. And that's not what I said. I want to be as clear as I can here. I said it's all sin. I didn't say it all has the same repercussions. Now, I want to illustrate this as clearly as I can.
[00:26:26] This is how it was taught to me in my theology class in college. It was incredibly helpful. You can use this illustration to talk about any sin. We're going to use it to talk about sexual sin. So this arrow, imagine that this arrow right here is God's intent for us sexually. This is selfless pleasurable intimacy in a marriage where you are not trying to get something for yourself, but the goal is intimacy with the other person that leads to pleasure. That's God's intent for sex. Now, anything that deviates from God's intent is sin. No matter how far it deviates. Anything that deviates from God's intent is sin. Can you guys see that?
[00:27:13] You guys got it?
[00:27:14] All right.
[00:27:15] Anything that deviates from God's intent is sin.
[00:27:19] But what you can see here is that sin has different repercussions. There are some sins that the repercussions, the damage would be easier to correct because it's not wreaking as much havoc in your life. All sins require the same forgiveness. All sins required the same death on the cross from Christ. But not all sins do the same physical and emotional damage in the world. So if this one that's really close to the intent is maybe selfish sex in a marriage, if you're married, even if you have a great marriage, you know that not all intimacy is selfless. Sometimes we just use the other person for pleasure.
[00:27:54] And that's not very far off God's intent, but it is off of God's intent. So that's going to be easier to correct.
[00:28:01] There's not going to be as much damage. But you can see if you continue in that line without correcting, eventually you wind up very far from God's intent because you can't stay in selfishness for very long without drifting from God's intent.
[00:28:14] So the longer you stay in that, the harder it's going to be to correct.
[00:28:19] Now maybe over here is pornography, and over here is sleeping with your fiance, and over here is cheating on your spouse. And these things all have varying degrees of effect. So what this means is if you've been struggling with porn, it doesn't mean you should just go ahead and have sex. If you. I don't know, slept with your boyfriend. It doesn't mean you should just keep doing it. Because the farther you go in that direction, the farther you drift, the more damage is done, the more work it takes to correct. Now, I have to be clear. At every point in the sermon, I God forgives all sin. God restores all sin. You cannot drift far enough away that God does not still love you and die for you and have good, beautiful things for you. Forgiveness is the banner over all of this. No shame, only hope. Amen.
[00:29:05] No shame. But things create different damage in our lives.
[00:29:11] So if you've been struggling with one thing, don't use that as a justification to then do the other thing because they have different repercussions.
[00:29:24] Now, there's one more thing I have to make very clear.
[00:29:27] I'm going to go over today. I am not sorry.
[00:29:35] Sexual abuse is on a completely different spectrum.
[00:29:41] If you are the victim of sexual abuse, you are not guilty of that action.
[00:29:48] I'm going to say that again to be as clear as I can. If you were sexually abused, you are not guilty of that action. The guilt is someone else's. It is not yours.
[00:30:03] God does not hold us responsible for sins that were done to us. Now, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But those acts, because of the significance of our sexual selves, of that part of ourselves. The enemy uses abuse and he corrupts.
[00:30:26] When God says, no, I love you, that wasn't your fault. The enemy says, no one's going to want you anymore.
[00:30:33] The enemy is going to say, oh, well, you shouldn't have even been there.
[00:30:37] The enemy is going to say, oh, it's because of what you were wearing.
[00:30:40] The enemy is going to say, no, it was your fault that that happened.
[00:30:46] But you are not responsible. You are not guilty for someone else's abuse. The enemy wants to corrupt that and say, this is who you are, that's all you are. But God says, no, I tell you who you are. In fact, right here, it needs to be clear. We need to all see it. Fulfillment is found in Jesus, not our desire. And that means restoration is found in Jesus, not in our ability to be perfect. Restoration is found in Jesus, not in our regrets from our past. Restoration and hope and healing is found in Jesus, not in anything that was done to us.
[00:31:16] The first step to healing is seeing that God does not hold us guilty for something that was done to us.
[00:31:24] That he still sees us as his beautiful child, that he loves our world, says, you should have any desire you want, anything, do anything you Want.
[00:31:38] But God says no. Sex is so powerful that it can do a lot of damage when it's misused. It can deeply harm other people because it's so good and so beautiful. It needs a boundary because just like a car or a fire, it's a good thing that outside of a boundary can do damage.
[00:32:07] Imagine that I came to you and I said, I'm training for a marathon, which wouldn't happen. If that happens, I'm under duress. Call 91 1. I didn't.
[00:32:15] I'm not doing that on purpose. Someone has kidnapped me.
[00:32:18] But imagine. Imagine I came to you and I said, I'm training for a marathon.
[00:32:23] And I said, you know what? I'm getting up so early. I'm getting up so I'm running 10 miles before work every day. I've cut out all fried foods. I've cut out all sugar. I'm only drinking water and protein shakes. I don't know if you drink protein shakes if you run. And I will never know. I don't want to know.
[00:32:40] But imagine. Imagine that I said all of that. I've cut all of these things out of my life and I'm going to run a marathon. Would you say, cj, you should really go back to eating fried foods? It's going to ruin your life to not eat French fries. Would you say that? No, probably not. Would you say, cj, you should really go back to eating sugar. You are going to miss out on a good life if you stop eating sugar. Would you say that?
[00:33:00] No. Would you say, cj, you should really go back to sleeping in. I mean, my goodness, the best part of life is hitting snooze in the morning. You're not going to. You're not going to enjoy your life if you're getting up early. Would you say that?
[00:33:10] No. No. You'd probably say, wow, that's cool. In fact, when I hear someone else tell me they're training for something, I'm always super impressed. I start thinking, like, maybe I should be training for something, not running, but something else. Like, I got to get off the couch.
[00:33:24] Because we intuitively understand that it's actually a good and honorable thing to deny a desire for the sake of something better.
[00:33:35] We intuitively understand that when you hear that someone has denied pleasure or enjoyment for the sake of their own growth, your reaction is not, man, you're missing out. Your reaction is to be impressed and proud of what they're doing. We intuitively understand this. The same thing is true in our sexual lives.
[00:33:54] It is honorable and good if you're married, it's honorable and good to deny selfishness, to pursue intimacy, which, just for the record, when you get married, other humans don't quit being attractive. Pornography doesn't just stop being tempting. You still have to deny every desire for everything other than your spouse when you're married. Marriage. If you're single and you think getting married will fix your lust problem, it 100% will not. In fact, it will probably make it more difficult because there is now a distinct person that can be harmed by your lust problem, not just people in general. Lust is something we take care of before marriage. We don't use marriage to fix. In marriage, you deny desire for the sake of something better if you're single. We trust and believe that even in the denial of sexual desire, that what God gives us the fulfillment that he has for us. Jesus is our fulfillment, not our desires. We trust that his way is better. And we look to the testimony of thousands and thousands of Christians in our world today and Christians who have gone before us, who have said, I chose to live my life celibate because Jesus is better. And I do not live with regret. I do not feel like my life was unfulfilling. I feel like I found something better in Jesus.
[00:35:07] Jesus fulfills our lives, not our desire.
[00:35:10] Now I want to say one more thing.
[00:35:16] When we talk about sex and sexuality, there is inevitably shame because almost all of us have received and given harm.
[00:35:31] We've hurt people and we've been hurt in this area. Some of us suffered things like abuse. Others of us in our own struggles and temptations, we have simply compromised things that we feel like we can't get back.
[00:35:47] And this is an emotional topic and I don't want to end with a song and make this an emotional poll or something like that. I want to present the facts as honestly as I can so that we can consider them. But what you have to know, because I. I know if I were sitting in this sermon, shame would be in my mind. In fact, as I was writing this sermon, I was reminding myself that the Lord loves me and sees me in his image.
[00:36:14] Jesus. God forgives, heals and restores our sexual brokenness.
[00:36:21] Whatever sexual brokenness it is, God forgives, heals and restores. There is nothing that you could have done that God will not forgive. There is nothing that has been done to you that God will not heal and restore.
[00:36:38] God forgives, heals and restores our sexual brokenness. The question for each of us this morning to consider is twofold. It's two things. It's one Do I actually believe that Jesus does not see me for my past? That he sees me as his beloved child through the lens of Jesus? That he does not see my shame? And can I see myself that way? And the second thing is, can I trust that Jesus will be my fulfillment so that I deny desires to be fulfilled in Him?
[00:37:10] Those are the questions we have to ask ourselves this morning. Let's pray.
[00:37:16] Jesus, we love you.
[00:37:17] You are good and kind and faithful.
[00:37:21] Let us see who you are.
[00:37:24] Let us see who you make us and call us to be.
[00:37:28] Remove shame from our minds and our hearts that we could see ourselves in one another the way you see them.
[00:37:35] We love you, Jesus. Amen.
