Understanding How To Follow Jesus Instead Of Today's Culture

We're all part of a culture. We're born into it, we learn from it, and we acclimate with a sigh—I guess this is as good as it gets. But when we make the decision to follow Jesus and live from his perspective, everything changes. Suddenly, we're going against the flow. And sure, that often means living differently from popular culture. But sometimes it means living differently from Christian culture too. We're looking at the book of 1 Corinthians to discover the full life that comes when we live counter to culture and follow Jesus against the flow.

Paul Basden 00:53
Well, I am glad you're here today. And whether you're in person or online, I'm glad you're here at Preston Trail. It's a great day because we get to talk about sex. I grew up Baptist, and I never heard a pastor say that my entire life. We're talking about sex today. But we are. You may ask “why in the world are we talking about sex?” The reason is because we're starting a brand new series of messages that is coming out of a letter that Paul the Apostle wrote to a church in Corinth, which was in Greece in about 55 AD. The people were asking Paul all sorts of questions about how they were to live having come out of a pretty pagan culture; and the topic of sex came up several times.

Now, sex is not the only topic that comes up in 1 Corinthians, and, in fact, the next eight weeks are not all about sex. But today clearly is. The other weeks are about great topics as well—you won't want to miss those. But we're talking about sex today because that was one of the most important things that they were asking. And we're calling the series counterculture because what the Apostle Paul said was against their culture, it was counter to their culture. And so, for these eight weeks, we're going to counter culture in some of the most obvious trends in culture with the Word of God.

Today, my hope is that we will challenge the dominant cultural voice on sex and listen for God's voice. In case you're not clear on the difference in those two voices, here we go. Culture's voice on sex, God's voice on sex, there are a lot of differences.

First, culture's voice on sex is loud. TV shows, movies, music. God's voice on sex is soft, still, small, quiet. It's there, but you have to listen. Second, culture's voice on sex is exciting, makes your blood pump. God's voice on sex is calm, cool, clear—if you're willing to be still and hear him. Third, culture's voice on sex appeals to your old life of sin. If you're a follower of Jesus, before you decided to follow him, the most important thing was, what do I want to do now just because I want to do it? And that's what the cultural voice appeals to. But God's voice on sex appeals to your new life in Christ. When you say yes to Jesus, you become a new person in Christ. And while not everything gets reversed in your life right away—it takes a long time to die to the old things and to live to new things, to die to sin and to live to Christ—God's Word on sex appeals to our new life in Christ in which we ask, “How can I honor and obey you, Lord, even with my body and with my sexuality?” Fourth, culture’s voice promises pleasure, and it gives pleasure. But it enslaves you along the way. God's voice promises joy, and it frees you. And finally, culture’s voice seeks you, it is seeking you 24-7. It is trying to disciple you and make you a disciple of the world. God's voice on sex must be sought. You can't find this on the average TV show, movie, radio, etc. You have to be quiet ,still and listen for his voice. And so, my prayer today is that we will see the emptiness of the voice of culture and embrace the wisdom of God's voice.

Here is the truth that we'll be talking about over and over today: God's wisdom about sex is better than anything culture can offer. Today, we're going to talk about sex in the first century and sex in the 21st century. We start with this New Testament passage addressing sex in first century Corinth. Now, what do we know about Corinth? Well, first off, it was the third most important city in the Roman Empire behind Rome and Alexandria, in North Egypt—Corinth was the third most important. And we know some things about that city, because it's so important. It was a cosmopolitan port city, a lot like New York City, a lot like New Orleans or Miami. And there was lots of sex—free and paid. Sex with anyone, anytime, anywhere seemed to be the motto. And the church was filled with people who came out of that culture. Some of them continued to deify and worship sex. They said, “Well, just because we came to Jesus doesn't mean we can't have sex with anyone, anytime, anywhere.” And others, when they came to Christ, said, “Oh man, that's a part of my old life. I need to get rid of that.” And they began to demonize sex and said, “No, it's terrible.” So, the Apostle Paul was trying to deal with those issues.

Now we know that sexual activity was very prominent in Corinth for two reasons. First, there was not one, not two, but three temples to Aphrodite. One is on what's called Aqua Corinth, one of the highest areas in Corinth, Denise and I have been here, we have seen these ruins. But an artist has envisioned what it might have looked like, and they believe this is what it might have looked like.

Aphrodite, in Greek, is the same as Venus in Roman mythology. And you know that, therefore, she is the goddess of love, the goddess of sexual love, and the goddess of beauty.

Also, there were these temple prostitutes that would be all around the three temples to Aphrodite, and their goal was to offer themselves up to anybody who came to worship as a part of the experience. You know, there are a lot of ways to grow a religious organization and religious movement, but one way would be to say that when you come and worship the gods, you get to have sex with somebody whether you know them or not—that was Corinth.

Another thing to know is that the word Corinth became a verb in the first century “Corinthianize.” It simply was a euphemism for having sex. Imagine if every time someone asked where you are from, and you name the city, they just smirked because that word means “having sex.” So, we know that Corinth was an unusual city. No wonder Paul condemned the culture and the sexual sin there six times in this letter, three times in chapter 6 verses 12 through 20, which is where we are today.

Paul had to have a crucial conversation with them. And the crucial conversation came in the form of a letter, which is a little bit unusual for us. As you know, the way we like to communicate with people is through text and through email. And the reason I love text and email, and the reason you probably do is not only is it quick and fast, and you get an easy, quick response, but you get to scroll up and down so you always know what happened before and always know what happens later. Right? You're able to check context. And you’re able to check content.

But it's different with a letter. When you receive a letter, you can't scroll up, you can't scroll down, you have to remember what was said in the last letter. If you kept it, you can go back and look at it. But what if you just run across a letter that wasn't written to you? Well, you don't really know what it's all about, because you don’t know who the sender was and what they're trying to say. For example, let's say that one day, you're up in your parents’ attic. You're rummaging around, and you find a little shoe box, and you open it up and, of all things, it's love letters from your dad to your mom, while your dad was overseas serving in military. Well, you read a few of the letters, but they're not really much to talk about because your dad's a guy and he said, “Hey, honey, love you.” And he kept on going. And every letter was understandable until you got to the letter that had this these two sentences. “And remember what I said in the last letter, don't tell anyone. I don't want to get in trouble with my commanding officer.” And all of a sudden your ears perk up, and your curiosity is piqued. And you say “Well, what do you mean by that? Dad, I'd like to know what it was that you didn't want anyone to know about that you were afraid was going to get you in trouble in the military.”

Now, if your parents are alive, you have a simple solution. Just go to them and say “Mom and Dad, what was this about?” And they'll tell you, “It was about a contracting firm that wanted your dad to come work for them when it was time for him to re up in the army. And he didn't want to get in trouble by talking to that firm too much.”

But what if your mom and dad had died, and you were up in the attic because you’re clearing the house out to sell it. And you're looking through that box, but now you can't go to mom and dad. So, what do you do? You have to reconstruct the situation, you have to ask questions, you have to go to relatives, and you have to piece the story together.

Now, I tell you all of that because you can't understand the letter you found because it wasn't written to you, and the people who wrote it and received it (your mom and dad) are dead. That will actually help you understand how to read the letters in the New Testament. If that sounds weird, here's what I'm saying: The letters in the New Testament were not written to us. (First Corinthians was not written to you, your name is not there. It was written to a church in Corinth.) But they were written for us. And if we're going to understand how to use them in our lives, then we have to understand what they meant to the original recipients.

In First Corinthians, Paul was responding to three statements that needed correcting. Here's the first: You say (Corinthian Christians), “I'm allowed to do anything.” But Paul says, not everything is good for you. And even though, “I'm allowed to do anything,” Paul says, “I must not become a slave of anything.” Now let's contrast what the Corinthians say and what Paul's saying. The Corinthians said, “I'm free to do whatever I want, to have sex with anybody, anytime I want, whenever I want.” Paul said, “That may be true, you have that freedom. But freedom has its limits.” If you look back at that verse, you'll notice the two big words here: good and slave. What Paul's saying is indulging in freedom is your right, but it's not always good for you. For example, you can decide that for the next month, you're going to eat 5000 calories a day in desserts only. But I'm pretty sure you're not free to wear last summer’s swimsuit. Not everything that you're free to do is good because freedom has its limits. The other word Paul talks about here is slavery. He says that freedom that leads to slavery is not really freedom. Guys, if we go to Sheels, outdoor store, and we just start going down the aisle, and we pull out the credit card, I want this, I want this, I want this—charge, charge, charge, charge. You're free to do that. But if you can't say no, at some point, your freedom has become slavery, and you'll figure it out when you can't pay off that credit card. You see, what Paul's trying to say here? Of course, you're free. But freedom always has limits.

The second thing that Paul was countering that they had said, “Food was made for the stomach and the stomach for food.” And of course, their point was “that’s right, Paul, and the body is made for sex and sex for the body. And Paul says what's true about the stomach and food—"though someday God will do away with both of them. But you can't say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. 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 raised our Lord from the dead.”

With that in mind, let's look at the two contrasts. The Corinthians said sex is as natural as eating. In other words, if I would not deny myself a BLT when I'm hungry, why would I deny myself sex when I feel the urge? Paul says, “Okay, you don't really understand either the body or sex.”

And again, if you think about his logic, here it is: the stomach and the food go together. Food goes into our mouths, goes down to the stomach, it nourishes our body, and then it exits our body. And as long as we're alive in this human body, we're going to need the stomach, and we're going to need food. But there will be a point when this body dies, and it is sewn into the ground. And what God is going to do on the last day through Christ is raise us up in a brand new body, and that new body won't have to worry about whether the food nourishes the body or whether the stomach has to make sure that the food exits. It's a different, resurrected kind of body. And that's why Paul is saying your body is more than your stomach and your food. Think about the body that God sees. He sees your body, but he sees what it's going to be one day—after death—when Christ returns. And that body, including now, is designed for Jesus, not for sex when you want it.

Part of what Paul's saying here is that the idea that you and I have to have sex, just like we have to have food, puts us on an animal level. If we say sex is a primal need, and if I don't indulge that I'm going to die, just like if I don't eat, I'm going to die. Well, it's true that if you don't eat, you're going to die. But it’s not true that if you don't have sex, you're going to die. And I know that because there are plenty of Christians over the centuries who have said no to sex, not because it's bad, but because God called them to celibacy. And if you can't name any who have done that, well, how about our Lord and Savior whom we love most—Jesus? And I know you’re thinking, Well, of course, he didn’t have sex, he was God. Well, God invented sex. And Jesus was fully human. So, he was tempted at every point, including sexually, and yet he chose not to in order to fulfill the purpose that God gave to him.

What Paul's saying here is, you're a human, not an animal. And your body has a higher purpose than just sex when you feel like it.

The third thing Paul is correcting: he says, “Don't you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ?” Pause right here. You should be picturing in your head right now your favorite picture of you… inside Jesus. I don't know how you want to picture that—standing side by side, or you're merging into him. Maybe there's a little you and big Jesus, and you’re inside him. You should be picturing that because that's what that means. Your bodies are actually parts of Christ. These are things we don't see but they are spiritually real. “Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! And don't you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, ‘The two are united into one.’ But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.” Notice the difference: the Corinthians say “sex is just a physical act—just two bodies pleasuring one another”—Paul said, sex is far more than that.

Let’s go back to that image I asked you to have in your mind. If you're a follower of Christ, you belong to Jesus and your body is in Christ, not just your soul, all of you is in Jesus. Remember in John 15, Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. As a branch abides in a vine, so you abide in me.” Well, if you look at a vine and a branch, they are all kinds of connected. It's really hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. If you're in Jesus, it's hard to tell where one begins and the other ends, your body is a part of Christ. And so, when you have sex with someone else, you're bringing Jesus right there. And does Jesus covers his eyes up? No, he doesn't. He's right there. You're joining Jesus to that person. You can't tell Jesus to leave you alone, or to stay behind when you want to fool around between the covers with your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your co-worker or your neighbor. He's there, because if you're a follower of Christ, you are in him, and he is in you. This question may be a little harsh, but I hope it makes its point: Who are you taking Jesus to bed with? Because if you're taking Jesus to bed with anybody, other than your husband or wife, you are not following God's will.

And there's more. Paul says that when you have sex with someone, you actually become one with them. It's not just two physical bodies that merge; it's two souls that merge, it’s two spirits that merge, it's your psychology and your spirituality and your body and your mind. It's a whole person and a whole person becoming one. You saw the word join several times in those verses. That's a Greek word, it's actually translated glue. Glue is a bonding agent that takes any two objects and holds them together. And Paul's point is that sex is a bonding agent that connects not just to bodies, but two whole persons, and makes them one.

Now with all that in mind, you can understand why Paul gives a very strong warning. His warning is this: flee sexual sin. In 1 Corinthians 6, the first few verses simply say run from sexual sin. Don't play around with it. You're not going to win. Don't just tinker around and toy around. You're no match for it—run. Just like Joseph in the Old Testament in Genesis, ran from his boss's wife, who was trying to seduce him. He didn't try to reason with her. He just ran. That's God's warning, run from sexual sin. Now, if that sounds too strict for you, and you're thinking, well, that's why I don't like church. They make so many rules, including about sex. Paul gives two great reasons to heed his warning. The first reason is because sexual sin affects you, uniquely. Paul writes, “No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does, for sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.” Now, when we see this, we're probably thinking, well, Paul's talking about STDs and AIDS. No, he's not. He's not saying that sexual sin is worse than any other sin, it's not. In the eyes of God, all sin is sin. It's doing things our way and not his way. Every sin, including all sexual sins, have been and can be forgiven by God. So, he's not saying that sexual sin is the worst sin. Nor is he saying that no other sin affects your body. Let's be honest—overeating is a sin against your body, over drinking is a sin against your body. The difference is that both overeating and over drinking deal with neutral matters, food and drink. And you can dial back either one of those with discipline and accountability, and with programs that will help you. I know many people who are alcoholics, but they are now sober. They don't drink and it's mostly through AA. And I know many people who decide to lose weight. And by exercise and smart eating, they have lost an awful lot of weight. Do you see the difference now between overeating over drinking, and sex? You can gain a pound. You can lose a pound. You can undo weight gain, but you can't undo sex. It's just not possible. That's why Paul says it's unlike anything else in the way that it affects you. Your whole self is united. It's glued to another person. And that's why sex has such an impact on all of us—good or bad.

Now, the second reason Paul gives for this warning is because your body is not yours to do with as you please. Now, of course, this is not popular in our democratic country. I love our democracy, but in this democratic country people are very firm on their rights, “Don't you tell me what to do!” Okay, well, this is not me, this is Jesus. We don't get a vote. When Jesus says do something, I’m in.

Read 1 Corinthians 6:19 -20. “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? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So, you must honor God with your body.”

Two things Paul is trying to say here. First, he hangs out here with the concept that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, the temple was a building for the Spirit of God to live in. We're in the New Testament, your body is the temple. Your body is a temple where God's Spirit lives. So, it's not yours. You're just a steward of it. You're just a manager, he's the owner.

Second, he says Jesus died for you. “God bought you with a high price,” the high price of the Son of God being nailed to a cross. Talk about a horrible, humiliating death. And when Jesus died, he didn't just die for your soul, he died for your whole body. So once again, you and I don't own our bodies, we don't get to choose what we do. Jesus owns our bodies. The Holy Spirit lives in our bodies. God the Father gave us our bodies, and we are stewards. And remember, the owner makes the rules. So, this is counter to culture, not just in ancient Corinth, this is counterculture in our world. So, let's look at our world—sex in 21st century America.

About three or four weeks ago, my younger daughter, Kristen, and I watched a movie on Netflix called Euro Vision. It’s a goofy movie in a lot of ways, but I just love Will Ferrell, and I laugh at anything he does. My wife thinks he's weird, but I just laugh about anything he does. The most unusual thing about this movie—besides the fact that he was not shameless, which he usually is—is that Rachel McAdams and Will Ferrell, the characters they played, were virgins. They get picked on and laughed at and treated like they were stupid. But they were virgins. When was the last time you saw a movie or streamed a TV show, or binged a show and the heroes practice chastity, or virginity, or God's plan for sex within the confines and safety of marriage? Almost never! 99.99% of everything that the culture is feeding us is just the opposite of what that little movie was trying to say. So, God wants to talk to us, in this culture about sex. What's he going to say? Well, I think the crucial conversation is going to involve truth and consequences. We start with truth. As Pilate said after he washed his hands of Jesus, “What is truth?” Truth. We say, your truth is your truth, my truth is my truth. Have you ever heard that? Ever said that? I first heard that about 25 years ago, when my oldest daughter one day I said, “I'd like to do this.” And she said, “Daddy, that’s your truth.” I looked at her and said, “Well, I know your mom is not teaching you that and your grandparents aren't teaching you that.” I wasn't smart enough to realize that every friend of hers and every TV show and every movie and every song was giving her that underlying message: This is my truth. That’s your truth. That's the basic assumption in 21st century America. Truth is relative. There is no such thing as absolute truth. There's no such thing as absolute moral truth, or right and wrong. Right and wrong is not from God, it's just a human idea. So, someone could say, “You believe that sex should be reserved for marriage? That’s your truth. I believe sex should be with anyone, anytime, anywhere. That's my truth. Quit judging me.”

Let me say what God says. God says, “My truth is the real truth—and that includes moral truth.” For God, moral truth is not relative, it's absolute. And if you're thinking to yourself right now, “Paul, I'm kind of a fan of moral relativism. I believe that certain things are my truth and your truth. And I feel like you're judging me now. And you're coming down on me hard like I'm stupid.” No, I think you're too smart to believe it if you really know what moral relativism is. Let me tell you the three reasons I think you are smart enough to release it. First, moral relativism is self-contradictory. As soon as you say it, you've undercut yourself, you're on the edge of a limb. You're speaking now you're sawing off the limb that you're sitting on. For example, if you say, “Hey, that's true for you, but not for me.” Well, that statement is true for you, but not for me. If you say truth is relative, what you're making is an absolute statement that is actually relative. So, it's self-contradictory. You’re too smart to believe that.

Second moral relativism makes life random. You see, if there's no absolute truth, and God did not create you, and you were simply a random byproduct of random cosmic events, then you are random. And your life is random. And your story is random. But Jesus Christ comes into this world and he interrupts everything and says, “I'm not random. I am the truth. And therefore, I call you to follow me because I don't think you're random. And now I want you to have a purpose in life.” You're too smart to believe that life is random.

Third, moral relativism has nothing to say to evil. Come on. What can a moral relativist say to Adolf Hitler? I think here's about the best thing you can say if you believe “my truth is my truth and your truth is your truth.” “Well, Fuhrer, different strokes for different folks. You think it's right to kill 6 million Jews? I don't think it's really that great. But I can't condemn you. Because it's your truth.” That's your only option. Unless you want to say “That's wrong!” Now, you're talking about a moral absolute—for some reason, it is wrong to commit genocide and kill six million people and attempt to wipe out a race. At that moment, you are no longer moral relativist, and you can't have it both ways.

Which is it? You can't say moral relativism is right for you, but not for Adolf Hitler. You're too smart for this. Release moral relativism and instead, begin accepting God's absolute truth for your life. That's truth. Now, I think God is also going to talk about consequences. Because we say hooking up is fun. It has no consequences, and everyone's doing it. Hooking up is how people are finding sex these days, maybe not so much love, but they're finding sex. It appears to be very easy. Any brief, commitment-free sexual activity outside of marriage has become one of the preferred ways for people to connect. How popular is it? On college campuses, statistically, 1 percent more students prefer hooking up to dating. 62 percent prefer hooking up, 61 percent preferred dating. Why? Why is it so popular? Because if God's not in the picture, or if he's really small down here where you've got him, and moral truth, and absolute truth are out the window—and yet, you're still looking for something intimate, and you're looking for something mysterious, and something transcendent—then you're probably going to go for sex as often as possible, because it makes you feel like your little life is bigger. And without a doubt, it's the closest thing you can find to the transcendent intimacy and mystery that God wants to give us through knowing him.

Now those who hook up say that what they're doing is consequence free and victimless. But I beg you to look at the statistics. Among young adults who find hookup, which generally ends in sexual expression, is the normal way to meet another person, STDs are up, depression is up, alcohol abuse is up. In fact, nine out of 10 unplanned hookups involve alcohol. So, if you want to do something you regret, go meet up with somebody you don’t know and drink a lot of alcohol with them, and the opportunity for a regrettable night is pretty high.

And of course, there's a psychological factor involved because men and women aren't always seeking the same thing when they hook up. Tim Keller reminds us that men seek apocalyptic sex. Nothing quiet, apocalyptic. Women seek romantic sex. It doesn't mean that women aren't interested in the bodily feelings and doesn't mean that men aren't interested in the connection of the soul. But it does point to a general trajectory, and I think women are often missing what they're seeking.

Laura Stepp, in her book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, interviewed hundreds of women who had hooked up with men. Here's what she wrote: “Hookups left most young women unsatisfied, though they were unwilling to admit it to their peers.” Just like boys bragging in locker rooms, unwilling to say what their experience really was, but trying to make themselves look good many of the women that she interviewed were unwilling to tell their friends that it was unsatisfactory and brought sadness into their lives. They just wanted everybody to think that they were cool. And by the way, while young adults are hooking up, high school students are not doing it nearly as much as previous generations. In fact, they're having fewer sexual encounters, statistically, each passing year. And as a Christian author asked in A Practical Guide to Culture asks, “Could the decrease in sexual activity in millennials signal the moral exhaustion of the culture?”

Maybe Millennials are hearing God's whisper. And if they are, here's what they're hearing: They're hearing God say sex is too valuable for hookups. Trust that his way is best. After all, sex was God's idea, talk about a creative mind. He came up with the whole idea. So, he's not against it. He's for it. It is his gift. But it is so much like dynamite, that it needs the safety and security of marriage, so that it doesn't explode and blow up everybody in the process. I like to say it this way, sex is such a powerful gift that God has drawn a boundary around it by reserving it for the security and joy of marriage.

Just a few weeks ago, Jim Johnson, in his message, said to reserve ultimate intimacy for ultimate commitment, be sure to check out that message if you did not hear it, or you may want to hear it again. God didn’t create sex to be random or casual, he created it to bond two people together in this permanent, exclusive union, because that's what sex does—it unites body and soul, even if the people involved are only thinking about their bodies. That's why after intercourse, two people never feel the same about each other. They never see each other the same. And they never forget that moment of complete bonding. That's why marriage is so much better than any other option for the world of sex. Marriage alone is a setting where sex finds its purpose fulfilled. Because in marriage, you don't have to worry about the technique that somebody told you about that’s supposed to be so wonderful. If you're really a sex guru, you can just experiment and enjoy your lifetime lover. In marriage, you don't have to wonder if the other person is going to be a different person next week, or a different person next month, or a third different person a year from now, no, you have the security of a lifelong commitment, that person right beside you. And marriage is the right setting for sex because you don't have to focus only on foreplay, orgasm, and afterglow and then leave and say, “See you later, even though I don't remember your name.” No, you get enjoy all of those things, and then you get to rest in the arms of your lifelong lover, in the one who loves you the most, who gave sex as a gift.

Now I need to bring this home, so let me be very sensitive as I apply this to our lives. First, if you have sinned sexually in the past, I invite you do three things. First, make amends. Second, ask God for forgiveness. And third, accept his forgiveness. I don't know what “make amends” looks like for you, but if there's somebody whom you used sexually, in the past, the Apostle Paul said as far as it is possible with you, live at peace with all people. So, if somebody has that against you, and you know it, if you can make amends, I encourage you to do so. I don't know if it needs to be in person or on the phone. I hope he won't do it texting or email. Those are too misunderstood. But if you need to make amends, please do. I mentioned asking God for forgiveness. You probably have done that. If you have a sensitive conscience is probably hounded you - please release it, receive His forgiveness, he accepts you. Regardless of that sin, He accepts you through Christ. And as I said, my Psalm 103 message, as high as the heavens are above the earth as far as the east is from the west --- which we can't even figure out --- That's how much God loves you and has forgiven you. Second, if you're involved in sexual sin now, I would say to you: End it. End it immediately, end it when this service is over. Contact the person and say, I know I've been meeting you every weekend here or at this hotel over here or something—I'm not doing that anymore. I'm done. And in that process, you're probably going to have to make amends. I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I took you on this ride. This was a lot about me and not that much about you. But I am now going to draw the boundary that God has given me. At the same time, confess it to God. Name it for what it is, name it is a sin. Receive his forgiveness, asking for it and let it come into your life and light you up on the inside. And finally, this may be the hardest thing you have to do - to release a sexual partner or a sexual pattern in your life. You may not be able to do it alone, you probably won't. So I encourage you to find one person who will be for you, an accountability partner, a friend of the highest order, whom you can call when you're ready to make another kind of call and say, “I'm about to fall off the edge here. Please help me.” And your friend will say, “Good, let's talk. Let's meet for coffee. Let's meet for a meal. Come over here and get your mind back together and your heart re-centered on Christ.”

Now, I don't know what God's trying to say to you today. If you're online, I know God's Holy Spirit is speaking to you. If you're in person at McKinney, I know God's Holy Spirit is speaking to you. If you're here at Frisco, I know God’s Holy Spirit is here speaking to you. What’s he saying? Whatever he’s saying, I'd like us to respond. So please join me for prayer.

In this sex crazed world, it'd be awfully surprising if in your life, you don't have sexual sin from the past. I do. Almost everyone I know does. If you do, I challenge you to make amends. On your side, get the account square, no matter what they say. And I challenge you to confess that to God; stop beating yourself up. You made a mistake, maybe you made several mistakes. God's grace is greater, accept his forgiveness. And if as you think about yourself, you realize that's not just something from the past, but something from the present, that you are just ankle and knee and waist deep in sexual sin right now in your life: I challenge you to release it. To say no, to end it today. To draw a boundary that would honor Jesus Christ, who owns your body. I challenge you to make amends, as much as it depends on you. Be at peace with it. As much as it depends on you, make amends. Ask God for forgiveness; fully receive his pardon. And find someone you know, who you can trust, and who loves you who’ll be an accountability partner when you need them most. In many different ways, we have messed up, and we are messing up. This word from the Apostle Paul strikes deep into our hearts: Truth in consequences. Hearing your truth, may we obey it for the sake of Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.

Colby VO 37:19
We hope that you feel encouraged and inspired by the message you've just listened to. If you'd like to get in touch with someone on our team, you can send an email to info@prestontrail.org. Additionally, you can call us at 972-668-1244. We would absolutely love to hear from you. Thanks so much for listening.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
sex, god, paul, jesus, body, culture, truth, hooking, sexual sin, corinth, christ, life, voice, people, letter, hookups, marriage, sin, moral relativism, person





Recorded in Frisco, Texas.