Four Things to Say When Tempted to Sin Sexually:
- "This is not WHAT God wants for me." (1 Thes 4:3)
- "I CONTROL my body." (1 Thes 4:4-5)
- "I don't want to face God's CONSEQUENCES ." (1 Thes 4:6)
- "That's not WHO I AM ." (1 Thes 4:7-8)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
int: Highlight blanks above with your cursor for answers!
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Open up your Bibles with me please to 1 Thessalonians.
00:05-00:13
Typo on my part. Your outline says 1 Thessalonians chapter 3. That's my bad. We're in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4.
00:16-00:26
The title of this message is "Be Self-Controlled." 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 is returning there. I'd just like to review where we've gone so far.
00:28-00:35
In Acts chapter 17, this church was planted in a place called Thessalonica.
00:36-00:39
The Apostle Paul talked about being torn away.
00:40-00:47
You recall they were accused of insurrection and they had to sneak Paul and Silas out of the city by night.
00:49-00:52
They were only there a few weeks.
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And he writes this letter sometime after, and in chapters 1 through 3 that we looked at over these last couple of months, Paul commended them for their faith and he combated the accusations that were made against him and he expressed his affection and his longing to see them.
01:12-02:04
And when we get to chapters 4 and 5 in 1 Thessalonians, Paul is going to be laying out some pastoral instruction and some application. So in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 he says, "Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God just as you're doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus." And we could do a whole sermon just in those two verses, but I just want to say a couple of things. First of all, this is a call to growth. This is a call to growth.
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Obviously, be content in your salvation, but have a continuing desire to grow in the Lord to mature, to progress.
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And parents get this.
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Just as you would want for your children, this is what Paul wanted for the church.
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I don't want you to just be.
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I don't want you to just get by.
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I want you to excel.
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Two things I want to say about growing, maturity, excelling.
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these things down. This is a way of encouragement. First of all, we don't grow at the same rate.
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Okay, we don't all grow at the same rate.
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Sometimes I think Christians can get discouraged thinking, "Man, I thought I'd be further along than I am at this point." And that's not a good evaluation. The evaluation is, "Am I growing? Am I growing?
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Do I see more Christ-likeness in my life?
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Do I experience the power of the Holy Spirit in my life more today than I did this time last year or more than I did this time last month?
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Am I seeing the fruit of God's Holy Spirit at work in me?
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If you're seeing growth, that's the encouragement.
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Don't be discouraged by how little you perceive the growth is.
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Are you growing?
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Are you progressing?
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That's what Paul wanted for the church.
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Just as you are doing that, you do so more and more.
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Excel.
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How can we evaluate that?
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What harvest Bible chapter we evaluated through worship, walk and work?
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What is a disciple?
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Disciple, someone who worships Christ.
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Are you seeing growth in your personal worship of Jesus Christ?
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Not just here?
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Yes, here, but also personally at home, in your family, in your car.
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You're seeing growth in the way that you worship Jesus Christ.
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Are you seeing growth in your personal walk, in God's Word, in prayer, in small group?
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Are you seeing growth through your personal walk, through your relationship with Christ?
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Are you seeing growth in your work for Christ?
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You're seeing the fruit of the Holy Spirit as you use the God -gifted ministry that He's given you.
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Something else I'd like to say about growth.
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There are a couple people here, I'm sure, that need to hear this.
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Failure.
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Failure doesn't stop growth.
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Some people are doing well and are doing well and, "Yeah, I'm growing, I'm growing, and I'm understanding more and I'm really growing in my walk.
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And then they blow it.
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They commit some sin.
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They say, think or do something they shouldn't have said.
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Now I'm such a failure.
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I thought I was better than this.
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And it's almost like I'm ready to throw in the towel.
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Now, God already knew you were gonna blow it, okay?
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He knew before you did.
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So how do you handle that?
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You say, I'm thankful that you've forgiven me in Christ.
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And God, I am sorry that I blew it.
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God, I need your power to prevent that from happening again.
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But you get back on the bike, right?
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You get back on the bike.
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Yeah, you're gonna fall, you're gonna fall, you're gonna fall today, you're gonna fall tomorrow, you're gonna fall, you're I want you to pretend with me. Can you pretend with me?
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I'm a 9 and a 10 year old little boy at home.
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Two of them.
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We do a lot of pretending.
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I want you to pretend with me.
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Let's pretend that you're the pastor of this young, exciting, new church.
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And for some reason you have to move away.
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and you're going to write a letter to make sure that you give some pastoral instructions and some things that they need to get down.
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Just imagine, can you think of a young, growing, excited, spirit-filled church?
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I didn't even church like this one.
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Just imagine you move and you're gonna write a letter to this church and you wanna give some pastoral instruction and encouragement.
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What topic would you consider to be so important?
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That you feel as if you need to address it first.
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What would it be?
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Is there any particular sin that you feel like?
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This is a huge temptation in the culture in which this church lives, and I need.
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to challenge this church in this particular area of sin.
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Can you think of anything, anything at all?
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Well, I think it's pretty obvious.
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That's exactly what we're going to see in the text.
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The very first thing that Paul goes after when he gets to this passage, Thessalonians 4 and 5 when he's talking about applying the word of God, when he's talking about Christian living, the very first thing he goes after is sexual immorality. That's the first thing. And there's a reason for that.
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Sometimes I think that we think things have never been as bad as they are here and now, but that really isn't true.
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The Thessalonians, this church that we're reading about, they lived in an extremely perverted culture.
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Things like pedophilia were common transvestites, prostitution.
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The Babylonian cultic religion actually had temple prostitutes that when you would go there to worship the way that you got closer to the gods was by sleeping with one of the temple prostitutes. They believe that's how you got close to the gods. That's what they did for church in this culture. Sick and twisted and perverted and out of control. Does that sound familiar? The Thessalonian culture, just like our culture today, had another common denominator and that was this, there was no shame or guilt.
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There was no shame or guilt.
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You see, all this stuff that was happening in the culture, it wasn't like people were like, oh, this is really bad what's happening.
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They're just like, hey, check it out.
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Check out the culture that we live in.
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Woo hoo, look at the stuff that we do, wow.
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They were excited about it and they were bragging about it.
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Does that sound familiar?
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Anybody?
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Does that sound familiar?
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Honestly, the only difference between our culture today here in the United States, 2015, the only difference between our culture and the culture in Thessalonica is really the media.
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That's really the only difference.
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Meaning we have easier access to the filth.
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For us, it's as easy as turning on the television or logging on to the Internet.
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That's how easy it is for us.
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In our culture, because of the media, we are bombarded.
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With sexual immorality, it's not here and there, gone are the days that you had to.
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Sneak down to the store, you know, find it in a magazine, and that was really the only place you could find this.
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Some of those days are ancient history.
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We are bombarded with it everywhere.
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And the danger for us as a church, as Christians, is our resistance to it is lowered by constant overexposure.
10:49-11:04
We're just getting so used to it, we see it and we see it and it's on the sitcoms, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha It's in the movies and it is the plot line of movies.
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It is the premise of movies and we shell out big bucks to go see it and it's all over the internet and overexposure, overexposure, overexposure and we just kind of get used to it.
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Yeah, that's kind of what we do.
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The culture that Paul is addressing, like our culture, is sexually insane.
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Okay?
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perversion in our culture has gone from, first of all, tolerated. Remember the day it was tolerated? Well, you have this sexual perversion and that's not really my thing, but, you know, we're still neighbors and, you know, I'm not going to hate you for it.
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It went from tolerated to what? Promoted. It went from tolerated to promoted.
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And I'm not going to hate you Not just, "Oh, that's your thing, it's not really my thing." No, it's...
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This perversion is promoted, and there's a push to teach it to children in schools.
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We've gone from tolerated to promoted to advocated.
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The people are fighting tooth and nail to the death.
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This is the hill that I'm going to die on.
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I'm going to fight for.
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I'm going to fight for the sexual perversion.
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Tolerated, promoted, advocated.
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How bad is it? Here's how bad it is.
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Sexual fulfillment is now more important than life itself.
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How can you say that?
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Well, because of me being sexually fulfilled creates a life that I don't necessarily want.
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We'll just kill it.
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So in essence my sexual fulfillment is more important than life itself The life of this baby that I created that I don't want inconvenienced with I'll kill it So Paul has a lot to instruct the church But the top of the list the top of this hey you need to be the church you need to be the spirit-filled born-again, Holy Spirit empowered church the top of the list in the midst of a sexually sick culture is to be self-controlled Be self-controlled Sexually sick culture I could go on and on and on with examples and like we could talk about Sitcoms movies everything Fifty Shades of Grey see the promotion that that got All over the news whether it's Jerry Sandusky or Bill Cosby or Bruce Jenner or teachers Having sex with students You can't even turn the baseball game on without all of the Viagra commercials The suggestive language and imagery that goes along with that You just can't seem to avoid it We just can't seem to avoid it.
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So as we talk about this, I know what a lot of preachers do.
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When you talk about sexual immorality and somebody gives you a bunch of information about it.
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I love this church and it's because I love you.
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I'm not going to just send you out of here with an encyclopedia of information.
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What I want to do is I want to help you.
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See what you need is not statistics.
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This is the part of the sermon where pastors give you the statistics.
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You want some statistics?
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This was a poll in 2014.
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This poll was taken among people who professed to be born-again evangelical Christians.
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This wasn't Joe Schmopagin on the street.
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This is deacon, elder, minister at the church.
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They did a poll.
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Born-again Christians, this was taken in 2014.
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95% admitted that they have viewed pornography 54% look at pornography at least once a month.
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44% viewed pornography at work in the last 90 days.
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31% had a sexual affair while married.
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25% erased internet browsing history to conceal pornography use.
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18% admit to being addicted to pornography.
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And there was another 9% on top of that that think they might be.
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I could go on and on and on with stats.
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I'm not going to do that.
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Why?
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Well, first of all, you can do that.
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Just Google it.
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I-- to get that, I googled astonishing pornography statistics.
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That was one of the first things that came up.
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But the other reason I'm not going to just bombard you with stats for the next half hour is because statistics really are irrelevant.
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It's irrelevant.
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Because if only 1% of the people are sexually immoral, that's still a problem, right?
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That's still a problem.
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If it's only happening to a couple of families in our church, that's still a huge problem.
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The only thing statistics tell me is, It's probably happening to a lot more of us in the church.
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That doesn't even really matter.
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Whether it's happening to 50 of you or to two of you, it's still a huge concern.
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The other reason I'm not just going to bombard you with statistics for the next half hour is statistics don't help you in the moment.
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They don't.
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You're not going to, late at night, your wife's asleep, you're logging onto the computer to look at something on the computer that you shouldn't, statistics aren't gonna stop you.
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Nobody stopped in the moment and said, well, you know what, I probably shouldn't do this because 44% of men admitted to doing this while they were working the last 90 days, so I probably shouldn't.
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Statistics aren't going to help you in the moment.
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So if stats are your thing, you can look that up.
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You don't need information, you don't need statistics.
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Here's the other thing, some preachers, they get to this point, I'm gonna give you a sermon about why sexual immorality is wrong.
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I'm not gonna do that either.
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Because you're already sold on that, right?
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When I talk to guys that are struggling in this area, it's never like, I really don't think it's that bad.
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I mean, I do it, but I don't think it's that bad.
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It's never that.
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It's always like, man, I need help.
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I'm doing stuff I shouldn't be doing, and I need help.
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I don't have to sell anybody on the fact that it's sin, right?
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You're convinced of that.
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What I wanna do is I wanna give you help.
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That's why the outline's constructed this way.
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I want you to write these things down.
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If this is an area of temptation for you, I want you to keep this outline in your Bible.
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For some of you, you might wanna tape this outline beside your computer.
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Because what we're going to do today, to give you real help from the word of God, I'm going to give you four things to say when you're tempted to sin sexually.
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Okay?
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When you're tempted to exchange emails with that person who's not your spouse, those flirtatious things, and when you're tempted to do that, I'm gonna give you some things to say in that moment.
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When you're tempted to get on a website that you have no business being on, you have no business letting that garbage into your mind, I'm going to give you some things to say in that moment.
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When you are planning a meeting up with somebody to do something that you shouldn't, I am going to give you four things to say when you are tempted.
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And it is all straight from the text.
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But jot this down first of all.
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Number one, this is not what God wants for me.
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This is not what God wants for me.
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Look at verse 3.
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For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality.
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Paul says this is the will of God.
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How many people here would say I care about what God's will is for me?
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Yeah, every born again believer, that's your motto.
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I want God's will for my life.
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I want for me what God wants for me, right?
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I want for me what God wants for me.
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Like, well, what does God want for me?
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Here it is.
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One of the things that God wants for you is your sanctification.
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Like, well, what is sanctification?
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That's spiritual growth.
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That's Christ-likeness.
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That's Romans 8.29 says that God's purpose in saving you was to conform you into the image of his son.
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God wants you to grow, to be more and more and more like his son.
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And that's what his Holy Spirit does.
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He grows you to be more like Jesus.
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That's what he wants for you.
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God wants you to know the joy.
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Of the holiness.
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That comes from the spirit filled life, that's what he wants for you, that's his will for you, this is God's will.
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for you, your sanctification.
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Like, well, can you be more specific?
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He does right away.
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Like, what does that look like?
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Well, here's part of it.
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You abstain from sexual immorality.
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That's going against the grain of what God wants for you.
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OK, so every time you sin in this way, you're going against the grain of what God is trying to do in you.
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Abstain from sexual immorality.
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The Greek word is "pordia" and that's a general word, okay, for sexual sin.
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I was thinking about that this week.
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The word "pordia" in the Greek is a general word for sexual sin and I'm thinking, in our culture, the concept of sexual sin, what does that even mean?
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We're getting to the point that we're like, "Well, what's sexual sin?" because anything goes right anything goes so what what's simple you see we live in a culture that more and more and more is moving the line what was unacceptable before is now acceptable and this was unacceptable now it's going to be acceptable I promise you you write this down if the Lord tarries there's going to be a day Jerry Sandusky is going to be looked at as a martyr People are going to look back on history and say, "Can you believe what we did to that poor man?" We locked him up.
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Because he was just doing what was natural.
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That's just how he was wired.
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People are going to look at him like Rosa Parks.
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That day is coming.
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Unless the Lord comes back sooner.
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Count on it.
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Poor Jerry Sandusty, can you believe the way that we lashed out at him?
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Society's moving the line, moving the line, so the concept of sexual sin, you're like, what is that?
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What is sexual sin?
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And I could spend a lot of time talking about cohabitation and bestiality and homosexuality and pedophilia and adultery.
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I'm not going to go through and just say, here's all the things that God's against, The truth is God has one plan for sexuality.
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He has one plan and it's Genesis 2.24.
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For this purpose a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
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That's God's plan, one man, one woman for one lifetime.
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That's the most important verse in the Bible concerning marriage by the way, because when Jesus talked about marriage, he quoted Genesis 2.24.
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When Paul talked about marriage, 1 Corinthians 6, Ephesians 5, He quoted Genesis 2.24.
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Jesus and Paul, back to the very beginning.
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This is God's intention.
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A man and a woman committed to each other and joined each other.
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That's the plan.
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Anything outside of that plan is sinful and it's destructive.
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I think sometimes the church gets a bad name.
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It's like people leave church.
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You think, "Well, you know what, sex is bad." I kind of thought that growing up, to be honest with you.
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Because any time you heard about sex in the church, you just left with this feeling like sex is bad.
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And, you know, as a little kid I had no idea what sex was, but I knew one thing.
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It was bad.
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It's a bad thing, and bad people did it.
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I had no idea I was even the product of it.
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Okay?
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I had no idea.
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I just had this idea that it was a bad thing that bad people did.
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And then I read the Bible.
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Do you know who created sex?
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Do you know whose idea that was?
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Anybody?
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You're like, "I'm too embarrassed to say it." In church, who created sex?
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God created it!
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Okay?
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Is sex bad?
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No!
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It's one of the greatest things that He created.
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But He created it!
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Okay?
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It wasn't like some guy's idea like, "Hey, I got an idea.
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Let's try this marriage and what if this happens and we can make kids that way maybe biologically?
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Let's try it." It wasn't some guy's idea.
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God created it.
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It's awesome and it's good and he created it for procreation and he created it for oneness and marriage and he created it for pleasure.
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That's in the Bible.
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He created it for pleasure.
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God wants you to enjoy it.
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That's what he wants for you.
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But he created it to be enjoyed and used in the context of marriage.
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That's why Hebrews 13, 4 says, "Let the marriage bed be undefiled." What does that mean?
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That means sexual intimacy within marriage is not sinful whatsoever.
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It is a beautiful thing.
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The marriage bed is undefiled.
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Sex is not bad.
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There is a sense in which you could say sex is like fire.
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When fire is in the right place, it is beautiful, right?
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Like fire in the fireplace.
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Who doesn't like fire in the fireplace?
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I mean, it's beautiful and it's warm and it's inviting and it's cozy.
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Fire in the right place is fantastic.
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Fire in the wrong place is destructive, right?
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Fire in the middle of your living room floor will burn your house down.
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That's how it is with sex in the right place, in the right context, it's beautiful.
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Outside of it, in the wrong place, it is destructive.
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That's why he says, "Abstain." He says, "Abstain." That you abstain from sexual immorality.
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That means stay away from it.
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Stay away from the immorality.
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God wants better for me.
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God wants me to enjoy it in the way in which he designed it to be enjoyed.
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If the word "abstain" isn't strong enough for you, 1 Corinthians 6.18 says to flee sexual immorality.
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It says to flee sexual immorality.
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What would you do right now?
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I was just like walking down the aisles, and I looked down, and I'm like, "Oh look, here's a nest of rattlesnakes." What would you do?
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You would be gone, right? You would be out the door, behind me.
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Okay? Make no mistake. I would trample you to get out the door before you.
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If I saw a rattlesnake in this room, I would flee. Why? Because they're dangerous.
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And I'm scared to death of them. And that's sort of the attitude you need to take about sexual immorality.
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1 Corinthians 6.18. Flee it!
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Here's the problem. We don't see it as dangerous.
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You need to run from it.
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You get bit by a rattlesnake, yeah, you're gonna have to go to the hospital and you're gonna have to get the antivenom and yeah, it's gonna cause some problems.
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That's why you should flee from a rattlesnake.
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Sexual immorality causes more problems.
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It causes more problems.
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Because it has the tendency to not just destroy you.
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But to destroy people around you.
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More dangerous.
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So the first thing I want you to say when you're tempted, when that time comes that you are tempted to sin, you say, "This is not what God wants from me." God has something so much better for you.
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He doesn't want sexual immorality for you, because it's destructive.
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Choose to sin, choose to what? Choose to suffer.
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Number two, here's something else to say when you're tempted.
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Number two, I control my body.
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Look at verses four and five.
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He's elaborating.
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He says, "Abstain from sexual immorality." What do you mean?
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"That each one of you," look at this, "know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passions of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God." second. I control my body. See, Paul makes a comparison there in verse 5 to people, to those of us in the church, those of us who know Christ, those of us who walk by the Spirit. He compares us to people who don't know Christ. You realize when it comes to sexual immorality, the people who don't know Christ, they have no motive to plead from sexual immorality. They have no motive. Like I said, they've erased the line. There's no motive. They have no encouragement. The group of friends that they're with aren't going to discourage them from sexual immorality.
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They're going to encourage them towards it. Here's the other thing, people that don't know Christ don't have the ability to abstain from sexual immorality.
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We're talking about self-control, self-control. Self-control is an interesting concept because you don't even have the power to have self-control.
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It's the fruit of the Spirit, right? The fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5, "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control." It's a fruit of the Spirit. It's something that the Holy Spirit has to do, but it's something that we have to cooperate with. He's not going to do it against our will. So comparing the church to the world, here's the world's way.
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when it comes to matters sexual, out of control.
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Like animals looking to have sex with anyone or anything.
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Out of control, that's the world's way, out of control.
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You remember that program several years ago to catch a predator?
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How many people saw that, to catch a predator?
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You ever see that program, some of you?
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Well what it was, they would have a police officer pretend to be this like 13 year old little girl online and chatting with these adult men who were online looking to have relations with a child.
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And they'd sort of set up this sting operation where they'd have this house where they'd be like, "Hey, my parents are at home and why don't you come over?" And these people would be like, "Oh, I'm on my way." And these guys would show up with alcohol and drugs and food and all kinds of stuff.
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They'd walk into this house thinking that they're walking in to have relations with a 13-year-old little girl.
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And then the host of the show, Chris Hansen, would come out.
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And like, what are you here for?
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Nothing.
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And basically, he'd talk to them and try to get in their head a little bit about why they came and what they were doing.
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And then the guy's like, well, I'm under arrest.
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Chris Hansen would be like, "That's not up to me." And he goes, "You're free to go." And the guy would leave.
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But as soon as he walked out of the house, was my favorite part of the show, was when the police would jump out of the bushes and spear the guy, okay?
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But I was always fascinated with that show.
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Because there were guys on this show that were caught more than once.
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You would think, you would think, I've done this before, I've gotten in trouble, I've been to jail, I've brought shame upon my whole family, I've lost my job.
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You would think at that point it would be like, I'm moving to the middle of nowhere and living off the land.
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I mean, I have destroyed my life.
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These guys, right back after it.
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See, that's the way the world views sexuality. Like an animal.
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Out of control.
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And that's why in the face of that, Paul says here, look at it again.
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Each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.
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Not in the passions of lust like the Gentiles. They don't even know God.
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They're gonna act like animals, not you.
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That's why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9.27, he says, "I discipline my body, I buffet my body, so that I don't disqualify myself for ministry." I'm paraphrasing.
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But what Paul's saying is, I'm telling other people not to be sexually immoral, and I could turn right around and do it myself and disqualify myself for ministry.
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He says, "I beat myself into submission. I disciplined myself." And that's why he says here, "Each one of you know how to control his own body." Each one of you need to know how to control his own body.
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That's why I have this down in my notes.
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Jot this down.
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Make a plan.
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Make a plan.
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Why?
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Because it's not going to happen by accident.
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It's not going to happen by accident.
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You're not going to get up in the morning and say, gee, I hope today I don't look at something on the internet that I shouldn't.
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It's not going to happen by accident.
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It's like, you know, I've been chatting with this person online that I shouldn't be chatting with, and I hope that that kind of ends today.
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I kind of hope that that relationship dissolves because it's probably not right.
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It's not going to happen by accident.
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Make a plan.
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You should be involved in a small group.
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You should have accountability.
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You should have people that you are speaking with openly about these things.
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This is a safe place to do that, by the way.
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We're not going to judge you.
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We're not going to condemn you.
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we want to pray for you, we want to help you.
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For some, maybe that know-how, maybe that plan that you need to make is putting filters on your computer.
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Something like Covenant Eyes or something like that that sends a report to someone else about the things that you look at on the computer.
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Maybe that's something that you know that you need to do.
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To help you to abstain.
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From being tempted into doing something that you shouldn't.
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So when you're tempted, first of all, this is not what God wants for me.
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Second of all, I control my body.
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Thirdly, I don't want to face God's consequences.
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Please look at verse 6.
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This verse should sober you up.
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He says that no one transgressed and wronged his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.
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Now notice he says, first of all, that no one transgressed and wronged his brother.
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Wait a minute, is he addressing the church about this stuff?
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I mean, these Thessalonians, they seem like such a nice church.
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Surely, they're not tempted to do this stuff.
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Surely, this is really meant for the world.
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Surely, this isn't meant for the church.
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I mean, it's obvious he's talking to the church here, right?
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He compared them to the Gentiles in the previous verse.
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He's talking directly to the church.
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That's why he says again, "We told you about this beforehand.
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We warned you.
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I'm talking to you, church." Surely this stuff doesn't happen in the church.
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Did it fall when you fell off the turnip truck?
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I can tell you story after story of pastors and counselees who started out innocently enough and turned into a sexual relationship.
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I can tell you stories of elders and other elders' wives.
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Okay, not in this church, right?
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Okay.
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So what I'm saying is don't be like, that's happening right now?
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No, we're talking about, I know a lot of pastors in a lot of churches, and I hear a lot of these stories.
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This elder was with another elder's wife.
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We're having this big church blow up over this now.
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I have another pastor friend of mine, the worship leader with another one of the musicians wife.
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Okay?
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That's wronging your brother.
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That's what he's talking about here.
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I need to remind you that God takes sexual sin very seriously.
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While the world poo-poos it, listen to what the Bible says.
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First Corinthians 6.9 says, the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom.
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Galatians 5, 19 through 21 says that sexual immorality is a work of the flesh and those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom.
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Revelation 21, eight says the sexually immoral, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire.
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Revelation 22, 15 says the sexually immoral are outside of heaven and here's my point.
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If sexual immorality is sending people who don't know God, sending people who hate God, it's sending them to hell.
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Do you think God's just going to let his children do it?
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Do you think just because we're forgiven that God's just going to tolerate it in the church?
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Look at what he says about that.
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Let no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter.
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Why?
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What's the big deal?
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The biggest deal.
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Look at the next phrase.
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Because the Lord is an avenger in all these things.
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God notices, God acts.
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He will avenge.
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You will face consequences.
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Okay?
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And you know it doesn't rob you of your salvation.
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Nothing can rob you of your salvation.
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You know, I had a preacher growing up that he said, you know, sexual immorality is the unforgivable sin.
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That's not biblical, okay?
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It's not biblical.
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It doesn't rob you of your salvation.
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Paul says, "Church, we told you this beforehand, we warned you, the Lord is an avenger in all these things." What does that mean? What does that mean? I'll tell you what that means.
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We have a common scene in our house, you know, my son Owen doesn't talk and he's kind of a loser, kind of teaches to himself, and my other son is sort of on the other end of that spectrum, kind of loud in your face, wants your attention.
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and this scene happens all the time in our house.
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I would come around the corner and just catch Cade, my younger son, about to do something to the older son, to tease him, to irritate him, to bother him.
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Like one example is we were outside playing the other day and I was mowing the grass and doing some weeding and stuff and I come around the corner and Cade has the garden hose and Owen's standing here and Cade's like, and I come around the corner and he's like standing there with the hose.
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And I'm like, "What are you doing?" He's like, "Um, I'm just gonna squirt over it with the hose."
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(audience laughing)
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And I said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." This is what Kate says when I say that, in any context.
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He says, "What's gonna happen if I do it?" I have a standard answer for that.
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I say, "You don't want to find out." Then you put the hose down.
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In church, I would carry that same attitude to this passage.
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If you're like, "Well, I know I'm going to heaven because I'm forgiven in Christ, but it says the Lord's an avenger in all these things, and he's obviously talking to the church, so what's God going to do if I do commit sexual immorality?" my answer is you don't want to find out. Do you? Really? Is that the button you're gonna push? Is that the line you're going to tiptoe around? Really? Is that the chance that you want to take?
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Let's think about it. Let's take a giant step back and think about it. Is it worth Is it worth it?
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Is it worth it?
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Is a few minutes of pleasure worth finding out what it means that the Lord is an avenger in all these things?
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God may allow you to lose your ministry.
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And I've told you before about pastor friends, people that I've known.
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You see it on the news, it happens nationally.
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I know many people it's happened to locally.
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Pastors that have gotten in trouble and lost their jobs.
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Do you know what the common denominator is in 99% of those cases?
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Sexual immorality.
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Occasionally you hear about the pastor that embezzles and it always catches our attention because we're like, "Oh, that's new.
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He just stole money." Usually it's sexual immorality.
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Men that have disgraced themselves and they're out of ministry now, why?
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For a couple minutes of pleasure, really?
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That was worth it?
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God may allow your marriage to deteriorate.
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You might see intimacy with your spouse turn to nothing.
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You may see a marriage deteriorate to the point of divorce.
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You could lose your family.
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You could lose your job.
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You could get a venereal disease.
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I don't know how God may discipline you for it.
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Here's all I do know.
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The Lord is an avenger in all these things.
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He's gonna do something.
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He loves his children too much to watch them do sick and destructive acts and say, "I'm not gonna discipline them for that." He's gonna do something.
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So I would suggest to you, next time you're tempted to sin, number three, I don't wanna face God's consequences.
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What are they?
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I don't know.
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not find out. It's not worth it. It's just not worth it. I don't want to face God's consequences. And finally for today, that's not who I am. When tempted to sin sexually you need to say, "That's just not who I am." Look at verse 7, "For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.
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Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
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You are called to something greater.
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You were bought with the blood of Jesus Christ.
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You are forgiven of your sin.
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You have eternal life.
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You are a child of God.
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And listen, God doesn't want his children eating out of the dumpster of sexual sin.
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You are called the holiness, you're called instead to eat of the table of all of God's blessing, including the blessing of incredible sexual joy and fulfillment when that comes, when you use this gift in the way that he intended.
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Believers, you have the power of the Holy Spirit.
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You are dead to sin.
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You are alive in Christ.
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And when the temptation knocks on your door to commit sexual immorality, your answer is that's just not who I am.
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You must have the wrong address, pal, because that's not who I am.
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Maybe that's who I used to be.
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But that's not who I am anymore.
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I'm a child of God and he gives me the power to do what is right and what is holy.
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And as I close the sermon, there's probably somebody here at this point, "Yeah, I'm not convinced. Sounds like sensationalism, sounds like the preacher's all fired up, and I'm just not really convinced it's that big of a deal." Well, you have the choice of rejecting what God has to say about sexual immorality. You have that choice. But I need to remind you in verse 8 says, "When you reject what God has to say..." Understand, you're not rejecting me. I mean, I'm nothing. Who cares about what I think? Like, nobody. My dog, sometimes. It doesn't matter what I think. You're not rejecting the elders of the church. There's some incredible men that helped shepherd this church. Like, yeah, I'm not buying into this. You're not rejecting Mark or Darren or Jay. You're not rejecting them.
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You're not rejecting the church bylaws. Like, "Well, yeah, it's probably in their bylaws about sexual immorality and blah blah blah and every church has their silly little rules and I'm not really buying all this stuff that Jeff was talking about today." You're not rejecting the church bylaws.
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Look what your Bible says. "Whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but God. If what I have said today is merely broadcasting what the Word of God says and you walk out of here unchanged, unfazed, indifferent, you're rejecting what God has to say about this. You see, God gives a sales pitch in His Word. God's sales pitch is this, I created sexuality to be enjoyed in marriage.
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Use the gift the way that I intended and be physically fulfilled.
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Or misuse the gift and face the consequences that come when you misuse the gift.
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That's God's sales pitch.
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The world has a sales pitch too.
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Throwing everything at you to tempt you into sexual sin, into lusting, into gratifying your desires.
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It doesn't matter if you use someone.
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It doesn't matter if you destroy somebody else's marriage.
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It doesn't matter if you're risking losing your job over this.
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It doesn't matter if you have to abort a child because of this.
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As long as you get your thrill.
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That's the world sales pitch.
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The question is, which one are you going to buy?
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Are you weak in this area?
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Today's a new day.
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and today can be the first day of a new chapter in your life, abstaining from sexual immorality as is God's will for you. Will you stand with me?
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I'm going to lead us in a prayer. We have some folks from our prayer team up front. If this is an area of weakness for you, we invite you to come and pray as our worship team leads us in our closing song. I would encourage you don't be shy. There's nothing to be shy or embarrassed about. We are all weak people.
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And if Paul was so concerned that this excellent church would fall into this temptation, how could we be any less concerned for Harvest Bible Chapel in this area?
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So we invite you to come forward. Maybe there's somebody here that blew it like I just completely messed up.
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Come and pray.
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Maybe there's somebody, the temptation is knocking on your door right now.
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You're like, man, I need prayer.
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I need to rely on God's Holy Spirit for self-control.
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Will you pray with me to that end?
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This is not the time to be shy.
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This is the time to come and pray.
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So let me lead us in a prayer as our worship team plays.
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We worship we wage in a column. Father in heaven, I don't have the words to communicate what a serious matter this is to you.
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That one of the most incredible and beautiful things that you've given to mankind has been used in disgusting ways that our culture is proud of.
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Father, our call to the Church is to give back to this design that you have, to enjoy this gift in the way that you've given it.
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to flee from the temptation of the eventual destruction that comes when we entertain lustful thoughts.
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Father, I pray that for many in our church this is a new day.
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I pray that people will take your word to heart.
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We would not be people who disregard your word as you have encouraged us today.
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Let's take your word to heart and use your word.
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Empower your spirit working with your word to combat this temptation.
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Let this be a new day.
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We pray in Jesus name.
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Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
Why do you think sexual immorality seems to be a more prevalent sin than other sins? Why do you think it's a more readily accepted sin than others (e.g. murder, stealing)
Paul says that each of us should know how to control our own body, in holiness and honor (v4). What are some ways that we can control our bodies, or "discipline ourselves"(1 Cor 9:27) to avoid sexual immorality. Be specific!
What does Paul mean by "the Lord is an avenger in all these things" (sins related to sexual immorality, v6)? How does God "avenge" sexual sin, even regarding believers?
Breakout Questions:
Confess any struggles you have in this area and pray for each other. If you are not struggling, how have you learned to "discipline yourself" (1 Cor 9:27)?
