Can we get excited about what God's going to do in two weeks at all of our campuses? It was, hey, it was 15 years ago that I was working at a church in Raleigh-Durham called the Summit Church. And man, church, it really shaped a lot of the ways that we think about ministry. And we did a church in the ballpark, man. We rented out Durham Bull Stadium, brought all the campuses together, and it was one of the most powerful services I've ever been to.
It was like, you know, downtown, open air, all the campuses, one service, one location. Man, people giving their life to Christ, getting baptized. It was a ton of fun, man, family stuff. It was just incredible. And it was 15 years ago, but I remember thinking because we were in the pipeline of Plant Mercy Hill at that time.
I remember thinking, man, what if one day, you know, God has moved in such a way where there's all these campuses and we could come together and some kind of ballpark in Greensboro or something and come together. And that was 15 years ago. I had that thought and dream. And now that day is here, two weeks from now, all right?
So, man, I just want you to make your plans. This is something you want to cancel other plans to be a part of, okay? It's like, man, It's going to be a historic day in the life of our church. Get there early, stay late, be involved, serve. Man, it's just going to be awesome.
Hey, I want to invite you to really think about baptism. We guys handed these cards out on the way in at all of our campuses. And if you need to get baptized, this is a great time to do it. If one of your kids has given their life to Christ over the last few months or even the year and they are not baptized yet, do it at the ballpark. It's going to be such a historic day.
So you can fill that out at all of our campuses and drop it in the bucket on the way out. All right. We're going to be in Proverbs chapter 5 today. And if you've got a copy of scripture, I want you to turn with me to Proverbs 5. And we're going to see a warning from a father to son that really ends up being a warning from our Heavenly Father to all of us.
Now, we're in the built sermon series, okay?
So, I am talking directly to the men, and I've been pretty unapologetic about that. But all of this stuff really built, you know, kind of bridges over to everybody in the room. But for the guys specifically, we're talking about avoiding sexual temptation today because it is certainly a place in which our culture and the enemy kind of align. And they sort of say, Hey, guys, come build your life on the sand. You know, don't obey and hear the word of God and obey it.
Come build your life on the sand because the greatest pleasure, the thrill, man, everything that you need and all your desires are going to be kind of fulfilled if you build your life on the sand of sexual sin. And it really can be very devastating, man. It wrecks people's lives, it wrecks families, it wrecks kids. Guys, I've been doing this a long time, what I'm doing now. I mean, I mean, Mercy Hill is, you know.
14 years old, and before that, I was in ministry for another five, seven years. Like, I've seen a lot of family stuff, okay, is my point. I've counseled a lot of people. And I'm telling you right now, people really kind of can ruin their lives by not handling sexuality in the way that God has called us to do it. And so today is a giant warning.
Here's the big idea: God warns against sexual sin because the consequences are so devastating. When I was a kid, I had an experience that it reminds me of this. Like, man, the consequences are so bad when you see the warning, you better run. I was fourth, fifth grade. I had these two rabbits, okay?
One was named Thunder, the other was named Lightning, all right? And so they lived on the back of our property. Man, I'd go out there. They were in a big dog run, okay?
So they run wild. And I would hop up and climb the fence, and I would feed them every day. And so I get out there, and right as I'm jumping up on the fence, I see my poor rabbit, Thunder, and he's thrashing and flopping all around because he has just got bit by a five-foot-long diamondback rattlesnake.
Okay, now the snake is still in the pen. And so I'm up on the pen about to jump over, and this snake is in the S-coil right below my feet. And man, I praise God I didn't fall in. I jumped out. Again, I'm fourth or fifth grade, I run into the house.
Dad gets home, he comes out there. He's got his gun and everything, and I'm ready to I'm ready to smoke this thing, all right? Because he, you know, he's done killed my rabbit, thunder. And so, anyway, we get out there, and you know, I'm a kid from North Florida. Like, there's a lot of there's gators, there's snakes, there's all kinds of stuff, man.
And so, um, my dad has this bright idea. I'm talking about we're standing here, dead rabbit there, snake there, just right here. And he starts taking pine cones and throwing them at the snake.
Okay, and getting a snake all just so fired up.
Now, I don't know if you ever seen anything like that. It's a big old snake. Man, he's starting to do the whole boil thing. He's coiling up. Man, he's starting to want to strike.
He's getting really, really, really mad. And man, that rattle is going crazy. And it's very terrifying. All right. Here was the point.
My dad was saying, hey, I want you to understand that that sound, and if you've ever heard it in the wild, I ain't talking about the zoo. If you've ever heard it, you'll never forget it, all right? When you hear that sound, you run the other way.
Now, for my dad, he thought this was like great parenting. I was putting it more in the child abuse bucket, okay? Because it was like, it was just very scary. But I remember that idea of like, hey. Danger, danger, danger.
This is exactly what this passage is here. To do, danger, danger, danger. Man, it's a warning for all of us.
Now, there is grace because listen, every one of us have failed in these areas. There's not one person here that is gonna be able to say, Man, I've never chased the forbidden woman in some way, okay?
So I get that, and there's gonna be grace on the back end of this. But right now we've got to deal with some of the warning. Because listen, some of you guys are wrapped up. Secrets, fear, shame. Man, hidden things.
Man, the thought life is just going wild. It's like, man, maybe in singleness, you're just right on the verge of saying, man, I'm not going to wait. I'm not waiting for marriage anymore. I'm not doing it. I'm just, man, I'm going for it.
And there's just so much destruction that can come on the other side of that. And that's why the Bible calls us as a loving father. No, no, no, don't go that way. All right. I want to show you the forbidden woman, the foolish man.
And the faithful way. All right? Forbidden woman, foolish man, faithful way. Let's dive into verse 3, chapter 5, verse 3. For the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey.
And her speech is smoother than oil. But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps follow the path to Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life.
Her ways wander. For she does not know it.
Now, the forbidden woman, your translation may say adulterous woman, or immoral woman, or strange woman, or forbidden woman. Um, she is really the representation of a foolish path that will lead us down to destruction. She looks good, she apparently sounds good. That's the idea of like lips, honey, smooth as oil.
So she looks good, says the right things in terms of catching a fool's attention, but in the end, it's not sweet, it's bitter. That's what wormwood is. Wormwood would have been medicinally used in small amounts, the most bitter thing you can imagine.
Okay, it's a sword. All right, so she looks good, but it's cutting in the end. Delicious promises. Devastating consequences, all right, and that's the idea of the forbidden woman.
Now, I don't want any of our ladies here or at the campuses because I've heard this before. It's like, man, the Bible, you know, she's kind of making every woman out to be a seductress. Guys, you got to think: this is a father writing to his son.
So, of course, the imagery is going to be the forbidden woman, not the forbidden man.
Okay?
Now, you could bridge all this stuff over and realize there's a whole other way that you could think about forbidden man if you were a woman. But in this case, the forbidden woman has some things that she is doing that call out to the foolish man and get him to follow. First, you could say it like this: the forbidden woman calls with her words, the foolish man. All right, she calls them. What's interesting to me right off the bat is the thing about words.
Lips with honey, words smoother than oil. I'm sure she's attractive, but she has caught the fool's attention not by her body, but by her words. See, the fool is looking in the forbidden woman to get more than just sex. He's a very good idea. Affirmation, ego inflation.
Okay, he wants the words, and that's what actually catches his attention.
Now, the forbidden woman, I would say. Obviously, understand some things about a man that maybe we need to understand. And I think that I can say this. I would love to just say this to our ladies here that are either pondering marriage, are in a marriage, think you're going to be in a marriage one day. This would be good to know about this idea of words in a man's life.
So, let me say this, okay, before I get into it, because I want to make sure I nail this down and be very clear. All right, if you are in a marriage and your man steps out on that marriage or sexually sins inside of that marriage, that is on him, full stop.
Okay, it's none of this, like, well, you didn't say the right thing, or you didn't do the right thing, right? Or you didn't look the right way, or something like that. Nope. If he steps out, if he sins sexually, it is his responsibility before God. It is not you.
I just want to be very clear.
Okay. Having said that, We can all work very hard on trying to lock the home down.
Okay, we can all do that, men and women both. Like, if they sin, it's on them. But I want to do my part to try and kind of lock things down at home if I can. The way I think about it is like this. If I got a gun in my truck and somebody steals it, it's 100% on them.
They're a thief, they sinned, they broke the law, it's on them. I'm still going to lock my truck. Right, just because it's gonna be on them, I'm still gonna lock my truck and make it as hard as I possibly can, right?
Now, for the women in the room, here's what I wanna say. The guys, the man in your life, they may not say this. They may not um They may not come off this way. The words. That you say to him carry an immense weight in his life.
All right, and there is a need that he has. to hear from you words of affirmation, words of respect. All right, that's part of a woman being called to respect her husband. A man's called to love his wife, she's called to respect her husband. Part of that respect is words of respect.
And what's crazy is the forbidden woman seems to know that. Because she's trying to throw out words that's going to catch his attention, and probably it's just ego. It's just inflation with hollow praise. What he needs to hear from you is not that inflation of ego and hollow praise, but what are the words he needs to hear from you that are kind of in that bucket of respect? I would say it like this, okay?
So, Anna, you know. A couple times a week, she'll write a little note and put it in my lunchbox. All right, I know. I'm 10 years old.
Okay, it's fine. It's totally fine, all right? But she'll write a little note in my lunchbox. If she writes a note that says, Hey, love you, miss you today, you know, something like that. I'm going to be this super confessional, I'm going to be straight with you.
I'll read it. I'll have half a smile. I won't think about it again the rest of the day. All right, I just won't. It'll be like, oh, that's cool.
I mean, I won't even, it'll be one second. If she writes on that note, Thank you for leading our family this week. Totally different category. If she writes on there, hey, thanks for going to work so I can homeschool these kids, or thanks for going to work to keep our home, whatever it is. It's like, man, it's a totally different category.
It's something that'll put me on cloud nine that day. Do you remember what I told you last week about I walked in and she's singing the Psalm to Faith In? Daddy's got to work.
So we can swim. It was like, and it's all sudden, I'm on a cloud night. Why? Because the words are matching up. with the calling that God has on my life to lead this home.
And all of a sudden, it's like, man, it fills the bucket in a different way.
So, ladies, again, if there's sin, but actually, both ways, men and women, if there's sin, it's on them. But part of locking the home down. Is understanding what the forbidden woman knows and is using for evil, we should know and use for good.
Now, he is, he sees her, he wants to follow her. All right, this is the foolish man. He's kind of wanting to go. And here's what the Bible says: Her feet go down to death. Her steps follow the path to Sheol.
She does not ponder the path of life. Her ways wander, and she does not know it. Here's the thing. He is looking at her. And what he's got in his mind, the background music, is Party Like a Rock Star.
This is this is gonna be I mean wow crazy. It's gonna be crazy. It's gonna be What actually is the music in the background is the theme of Jaws.
Okay, that's actually what's happening. He thinks it's one way, it's another way. That other way is her feet go down to death. And I would want, listen, I really want to try to show you this. It's not just death, it's hell.
Okay, it really is. Because she... is the antithesis of what Jesus is. Jesus in 1 Corinthians 1.24 is said to be the wisdom of God. What this is.
is a manifestation of the foolishness of man. That's who she is. She's embodying that. I want you to see this phrase. She does not ponder the path of life.
Could you give me another phrase? that would show you the heart of foolishness. Man, I don't ponder the path of life. I wonder. I go from this to that, no thought about God.
I live minute to minute. I'm a wonderer. Not a ponderer of life. Here's what I would say: following the forbidden woman will keep you from following Jesus because they are on two totally separate paths. All right, forbidden woman, epitome of foolishness.
Jesus, epitome of wisdom. If you follow her, you will not follow him. And her way is this way. It's a wandering life instead of a pondering life. The one who ponders the path of life is seeking God's wisdom.
God, this is your world. I'm just living in it. Man, you have created all of these different things. The way that we handle food and drink, the way that we do our bodies, the way that we do church, the way that we do sexuality. Like, all of this is in your world.
And I want to, with my life, uncover more and more wisdom and fall in love with that. That is the path of life. That's pondering the path of life. Growing in wisdom all of my days. She is the opposite.
You can say it like this. The forbidden wo woman wanders instead of ponders. She goes thing to thing, free will in life. Man, I'm not building. I'm not thinking about what God has for me in the future.
It's just sort of this idea of ultimate freedom. Man, I'm getting away from any boundaries, I'm getting away from any responsibilities. You know, when you read the book of Proverbs, you'll see the forbidden woman coming up over and over. She, she, the Bible says it's like she eats, wipes her mouth, discards, and says, I have not sinned. Like she just just at moment to moment.
I mean, it's just, I'm kind of going, no thought to God. That's the wandering life. And here's what's scary, guys. What's scary in our culture is that I think we're kind of drawn to that. I think we sort of like it.
We love the idea of no rules. We love the idea of total freedom, no responsibilities. I mean, people kind of love this. We love the whole thing. I mean, most of them, a lot of people are really drawn.
I'd love my life to be Ferris Bueller's Day off. You know, we would love to be the four-hour work week. I can work this much, and then I've got total freedom on all of my time to do me all the time. That's the wandering life, man. My dad used to sing the song about Janice Joplin, some of you guys know it.
Me and Bobby McGee: Freedom's just another name for nothing left to lose. And then it says this later on in the song, but that's good enough for me. Man, just to be free. Just to be totally. And I just want to say this, the wandering life that she promises.
Man, it's a mirage. It's not real. That freedom is not the absence of rules in our life or conformity. True freedom comes from finding the right rules and conforming to them, actually. You know, so you don't see it, you don't, we want to be free.
Okay, you don't see a fish try to liberate itself from water. They can try to be free all they want. There's a reality to the situation. You might want to liberate yourself from your alarm clock tomorrow morning. You may get liberated from employment.
as well. You understand? It's like we can say, I don't want any rules in my life. That's not freedom. It's actually the opposite.
She wanders instead of ponders. It's the path of foolishness. This is the forbidden woman.
Now, let's look at the foolish man. And now, old sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house. lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless. Lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner.
At the end of your life, you groan. When your flesh and body are consumed, and you say how I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof. I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instruction. I am on the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation. Foolish man.
He doesn't avoid her. The Bible don't even call you to resist her here. It's to avoid. I'm getting far away from that situation. Guys, the danger here is so much.
That we should be running from any temptation. We should be running away and not even allowing ourselves to get in the situation of being tempted. This is what he's saying: avoid her, go away. Man, get on the other side. And I wonder how we're doing with this, or do we just kind of flirt with this stuff?
You know? Like, are we avoiding? Are there? Listen, I think about people that you may. You know, just situations you may be in.
You know, some of us right now, you might have somebody at your gym you're getting too close to. You always know when they're there. And you know when they're not gonna be there. And you tend to show up when they're gonna be there, and yet you're married. That's the other woman, man.
That's the forbidden woman. And we're maybe getting a little too comfortable with that. The Bible says, avoid, don't even go near the door. Guys, some of you right now, maybe you're like, man, there's nothing real bad. There's nothing like crazy bad on my phone or whatever, but does your wife have total access to it?
I mean, is there any moment in the day where she can't pick your phone up, go through every single message, read all the stuff? There's no codes, there's no passwords. It's just like, hey, man, this is my phone. You know all these things. That sort of seems like it would be right to me if we really are one flesh, you know?
There's not a bunch of secrecy stuff going on. You might say, well, there's nothing like real bad on it, but I don't really want to have this much openness with this. Is that really avoiding the door? Of the forbidden woman, or is it sort of kind of wanting to flirt with it a little bit?
Well, here's the deal. The Bible's going to give us about three things here. That we got to be willing to put on the table and lose. If we're gonna flirt with the forbidden woman, guys, all right? And the idea here is: this is the rattlesnake rattling right now.
You gotta choose whether you're gonna go the other way or kind of keep going towards danger. Three things we're going to lose if we end up Going this way with the forbidden woman. The first. is our honour. Look at verse 9.
Lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless.
Now, there's a lot I could preach on it here, I've picked out these three. But I want you to think about honor for a moment. The honor that we have in the assembly, the honor that we have among co-workers. The honor that we have among our friends. Man, the honor that we have among the church, that stuff is at stake when we decide to flirt with the forbidden woman, when we step outside of our marriage.
The people that are around us understand the character move that we just made. Our kids understand the character move that we just made. Our family, extended family, bears the weight. of the decision that we just made. Guys, I want to tell you something right now.
If you have if you need a mental image that is stronger than the image, that the illicit image that is on that computer screen, I'll give you an image. How about this image? How about the image of your son finding out that you're running around on his mama? Looking at his face. The loss of honor We put that on the table whenever we're going to step out on a marriage.
The second thing is, we think about what God has called a man to do and building wealth so that he can provide for his family. Look at verse 10: lest strangers take their fill of your strength and your labors go to the house of a foreigner.
Now, the traditional interpretation of this has been: well, this might be a prostitute because the money's going, and it's like, and that very well may be, but it ain't got to be that. Guys, if you are wrapped up in sexual sin, in secrecy, in hiding, got to figure out where to put this phone because she can't find this phone and all that kind of stuff. It's like, man, or if you're single and you're kind of living that, you know, kind of that Playboy lifestyle, where I got three different women, I'm sorry. You think all of that doesn't affect your bottom line? You only got so much energy.
And what's happening now is, we are dividing our energy among all of these things that are so illicit. God has called you as a man to build wealth for your family.
Now, listen, we don't all start in the same place in that journey. We're not all going to end in the same place in that journey. But as a man, we are absolutely called to that. Proverbs 13, 22 says this, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. 1 Timothy 5:8, if a man doesn't provide for his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Think about that for a minute: worse than an unbeliever. This is very important, men. Uh you are called to provide for your home. And if you are called to provide for your home, but you have all of this other stuff going on. Man, we absolutely will be divided in our efforts.
and the fruit of our labor will be squandered. But it's not only that. Third thing, verse 11. It's actually your very health. What does he say?
At the end of your life, you groan. your flesh and your body, those things are consumed. I'm talking about, man, when we have decided to just live any kind of way, the devastation in a culture from not handling sex by God's design, instead doing it sort of in our design, man, they're devastating. I'm talking about AIDS. I'm talking about Hep B.
I'm talking about syphilis.
Okay?
Like when a culture just decides to go that way, we live in the midst of this great sexual revolution that's been happening in our country where people are just like, oh, I can do it with whoever, whenever, you know, however, all that kind of stuff. What do we think happens when a culture embraces that? How physically unhealthy is it? Do you guys remember the 90s song, Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls? I'm not going to sing it.
Okay, I'm not gonna do it. You guys remember it though? Everybody knows it. What's the song about? Go back and listen to the words of the song.
I want to chase the fast life. And it ends up consuming me. Probably with AIDS. And that's kind of what the song is. And it's like, yeah, man, don't go chasing that life lest you fall off and die from it.
Loss of honor. Loss of wealth. Loss of life, loss of health. That's not even I don't even know if it's the worst thing actually one of the worst things About going down this road that the Bible wants to warn us about is the pain of regret. Look what it says in verse 12: How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof.
I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, or incline my ear to my instructors. I am on the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation. Can't you feel? What he's saying. He's saying, man, I'm looking back on a life when I should have known better.
I knew what to do. I just didn't do what I knew to do. Right? It's not that I didn't know. They were trying to tell me.
I did not listen to the, I didn't incline my heart. to the instructors that were trying to tell me. Why? Why would we not? And this is really the heart of it.
Guys, when it comes to sexual sin, The heart of it is just this. It's almost like a child. We can say, well, I just want to do it because it feels good and it feels natural, and I'm just going to do it. I mean, we've all seen a kid do that, right? It's like you're trying to tell him, like, hey, all of this, this ain't going to lead to the right place.
What does a kid do? I'm going to do it anyway. I I'm just gonna do it 'cause I want to. Feels good, feels natural to me, I like it, I'm gonna do it. And that that's that's the heart of a child.
You know, it's not maturity. Maturity is understanding that the rules God has given us are supposed to lead us to a place where this is not our reality, this kind of regret. Where we look back.
Now listen, we have all made mistakes. There's not anybody in here that is free of that.
Some of us, and I think this is right, many times we look back, and some of our greatest regrets we ever have in our whole life revolve around sexual sin. I want to make sure you understand we're coming to a place in this text. Where the gospel and the cross can cleanse us and free us from all of that shame and all of that guilt and put us back on the rock, okay? But In terms of the warning. What God is saying is, man, you don't want to live with that kind of regret of just sort of having that childish posture toward this sin.
You know, I think about the childish posture and how you mature over time. I think about my daughter, Hattie Joe. When Hattie Jo was like three years old, she was grown, okay? I mean, in her mind, it was like she doesn't need to hold nobody's hand in the parking lot, you know? I mean, she's just kind of grown.
Like, she knows, you know, she can look both ways, just like everybody else, and all that. Of course, we'd make her hold her hand anyway. She was strong-willed. What's funny is she would get mad about that at three. But at 13 If for one of her little brothers, wouldn't hold her hand, she'd snatch them up quicker than Miranna.
A get on to him. You get what I'm saying? It's like at three, she don't want the rule. At 13, she's gonna impose the rule. Because she understands how dire the consequences are of not holding somebody's hand in the parking lot.
That's maturity. Maturity is the ability to choose what is right, even if you don't like it at times. I mean, you know, the whole idea of the sexual revolution is: I'm just going to feel good, it feels good, I'm going to do it. It feels natural, I'm going to do it. Think about other things in your life that that kind of doesn't lead you to wisdom.
Like, what's natural to me is to eat donuts every day and never work out. It's not wise, you know, but it is very, very natural for me.
Some of you guys in here, if you do the financial peace thing, half of you are spenders, half of you are savers, okay? If you're in the spender category. You're like, man, I'm going to tell you what's the most natural thing in the world. Spend it. Spend the money.
I mean, and the most unnatural thing in the world for you is to put anything back. You're like, why would I save for tomorrow what I got today? Who knows what's coming tomorrow, you know? And and and it's this I but you would understand that's a little funny, but for the spenders in the room. You go back to the word and you say, well, yeah, but actually, the Bible does say that in the storehouse of the wise, there's wine and oil.
The Bible does say that only a fool devours all that they have. Like, even though it doesn't feel the most natural. The wise thing here is to try to put some back and save and invest in all that kind of stuff. And that is what I'm trying to get us to see. If we want to avoid the regret of verse 12, 13, and 14.
We can't just do the child thing and say, well, it feels good, I'm going to do it. What we've got to have is like some mental awareness around. That idea is the foolish man. then I'm just going to do it anyway. Proverbs 27:12 says this: Wise people see danger and take cover, foolish people see danger and they just keep going, like Dory from finding Nemo.
Okay, they're just going to keep on. They're going to keep swimming, just keep swimming right into the danger. And a wise person doesn't.
Okay, forbidden woman. Foolish man. Now, let's look at the faithful way.
Now, I'm going to tell you this. We gave you the warning about your kids being in here. And the reason we gave you that warning was not because of something I was going to say. Is because of something I was going to read, which is in the Bible. All right.
So here's the imagery. This is just like straight up Song of Solomon. The imagery is kind of crazy. Drink water from your own cistern. Flowing water from your own well.
Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth. A lovely deer, a graceful doe, Let her breast fill you at all times with delight. Be intoxicated always in her love.
Now, some of you are like, wait a minute, cisterns and fountains, this stuff doesn't mean what, oh yeah. Oh, it means it, okay? It means everything you think and more. And this is what I love about the Bible. The Bible doesn't just slap your hand and say, kind of stop.
The forbidden woman foolish way. Doesn't ever do that, man. It's not gonna stop there. Because God has so much more for us. What the Bible is going to do is going to say, yeah, don't go that way, foolish.
Go this way. This way is wise. This way embodies the design that God has for sex in marriage. This way is good for human flourishing. We want to talk about honor and wealth and life, okay?
These things, staying inside of that marriage, that produces those things. Honor and a marriage and wealth and life, and all of that comes from the family environment. And so he's saying you need to focus there.
So many of us, many times on our campuses as well, we are caught thinking the grass is going to be greener on the other side. Let me tell you something: the grass is greener where you water it. If you decide right here, this marriage. This is where our energy goes. It's going to be me pouring out for you, you pouring out for me.
I'm not worried about what's out there, I'm not looking out what's out there. I'm not going to be a person who lives my life as if the light is kind of on, open for business. People can feel that. It's like, no, no, no. My life locked down.
The sexual part of my life was created by God for this. For this relationship. And that's where we're going to spend our energy when it comes to these things. And the Bible is trying to get us to see. I mean, think about the imagery.
I don't have to go back and read it again, but if you just kind of go back and look through it, you understand. The end of it is this, be intoxicated always in her love. Listen. There is a greater relationship. that sex in marriage is supposed to point us to.
That's why it is what it is. It's two bodies. Coming into one. It's physical oneness that represents oneness in every other area. It's physical oneness that is supposed to represent and sort of be the mingling of souls.
Okay, it's so much more than me and you baby ain't nothing but mammals. That's the world's view. The world's view, and the world looks at it's like, oh, the church got all these rules around sex, and how fun is that? And how, oh, they don't even think, you know, almost like we devalue it. You put rules and boundaries around things that are valuable.
You know, if you take all the rules away, it's like, well, yeah, you do that because you don't value it at all. The Bible's view of sexuality pushes us to see God's relationship with us. I mean, it's so deep. It's like this idea. Think about Paul in Ephesians 5.
He says this, you know, when he's thinking about our relationship with God, that we are found to be Christian, you are found to be in Christ, joined with Christ, united with Christ. And he's like, hey, actually, the best way to think about that is to think about what happens when two become one within sex in marriage. I mean, Genesis 2:24 told us very clearly: a man will leave his father and mother and be, what are the words? Joined. United.
Cleave. to his wife. The same thing that Jesus as groom is to us, bride, the church. That is manifest in the sexual union inside of a marriage. Can you not see how different that is than pornography or hookup culture on a college campus or paying for sex in Nevada somewhere?
In Vegas. You understand? Like, those things are so much lower. than what the Bible is trying to get us to see in sexuality. Two becoming one points us to the gospel.
You know, I was in a wedding. Right when I was out of college, and I was supposed to do the lighting of the unity candle in the wedding.
Okay, so I don't know if you guys have seen the unity candle. It's like they kind of bring them together and it symbols the whole flame, symbolizes, and you know, the marriage and all that.
So, there's two little candles right here. And then there's one big candle that's kind of elevated, right? That's the unity candle. And I felt like I got it. Like, I felt like I was like, I kind of, I don't know what to do here.
But I decided I'm going to ask, just to make sure, wedding planner, I said, hey, what do you want me to do with the candles? I'm going to go up there in the processional. She said, oh, yeah, no problem. She said, hey, I want you to go and light the big candle right in the middle. And I was like I'm not an expert, okay?
I'm not an expert. I feel like that's not what I've seen. I said, so what are they gonna do? Oh yeah, no problem. What they're gonna do in the wedding is they're gonna take their little candles, okay, so he'll have one, she'll have one.
They'll light their candle individually off the big candle in the middle. And then they're going to blow the middle candle out. Yeah. I said, woman, that's a divorce ceremony.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, this is... She looks at me and she says.
Well, sir, I've been doing this a long time. I've seen it done a lot of different ways. I was like, you ain't never seen it done that way.
Okay, I guarantee you ain't never seen it done that way. The idea of a unity candle. There were two, now there's one, right? I'm waiting for the day that somebody does their wedding where they actually take the two, light the one, and then blow their own out. The two are one flesh now.
You know, that's when I want to see somebody be bold and do that. But my point is That is the picture of sexual union and what God is pushing us to see.
So much different than the forbidden woman, so much different than the foolish man, is the faithful way.
So, by way of application, we're going to head into communion, okay? Avoid the temptation of sexual sin. Avoid it. Avoid it and then get free from it, and then we'll be done, okay? Avoid it, number one.
All right, man, how seriously are we taking this stuff? Late at night, you know, working at night with a woman that ain't your wife, whether you're single or married, or, you know, going on trips and all this stuff, hotels. Man, it's just like, dude, we're not avoiding. It's just not avoiding. It's like you're flirting.
With it. I think about kids with technology, parents. Like these kids with their with these smartphones and all that kind of stuff, guys. You know, way back in the 1900s, you sort of had to hunt for sexual sin.
Now it's hunting you. It's everywhere, so pervasive, no barrier to entry. You ain't even got to go to the gas station and ask the guy sheepishly to get something from behind the counter anymore. It's just right there. And it's so much worse than we can imagine.
Guys, if we were called to avoid it then, what are we doing now? Hey, parents, how are you handling technology in your home? If you got teenagers. And the internet lives inside of their bedroom where they can lock the door, close the door. I'm talking about their phone, their computers.
That's where that stuff lives and makes its home. Why don't you just go ahead and slide a loaded handgun in there with it?
Okay, because that's probably where this stuff's heading. It's just so it's like man, we've got to take seriously avoiding these things And so, how are we doing with that?
Well, when I really begin to think about, man, What do our search histories and sunglasses guys tell us about where our eyes have been? You know what they've been looking at. If I said, hey man, what if the lustful thoughts that you had were played on a screen that everybody could see? We start asking some questions like this and we realize, man. When I look back over my life, there has been so much failure in this area of my life.
I bet you feel the same. It's hard for people to admit, I get it. But man, it's just the reality. All of us have followed the forbidden woman at some point. And for that, the Bible tells us very clearly, there is a loss.
I mean, I mentioned it in three ways, kind of big buckets. There's a loss of honor. There's a loss of wealth. Ultimately, there's a loss of life. You know, the Bible says this later in the New Testament: it says the wages of sin is death.
Actually.
So, yes, it's death physically, but you know, the wages of our sexual sin actually is hell itself. That's what we really deserve. When it comes to sexual sin, don't be tempted to say, well, I'm doing a little better than I used to. No, no. This is past fail, you understand.
It's a passing failing grade. Either we have sinned sexually or we haven't. And if we have. then what we're going to need is someone to save us from the consequences of that. And praise God, he did.
Y'all, I want to tell you the encouraging part of this story. This is such a warning, and I want to be faithful to the text, and I want to warn you. But you know, the way we end this is by saying, Hey, every one of us have failed to heed the warning at some point. And praise God, Jesus Christ stepped in for the fool. All right, He was the manifestation.
of wisdom. But he steps in on our behalf, the foolish people, foolish men who have chased the forbidden woman. And what did he get for it?
Well, he traded places with us. You know, it was, what do we deserve? We deserve to lose our life. We deserve, verse 11, for our bodies to groan and be consumed. But instead, it was Jesus for us.
Then he groaned on the cross. He cried out. His body was consumed there. Jesus drank the wrath of God for all the times that you and I did not drink from our own cistern. But we stepped outside and we chased something that wasn't ours.
You can say it like this: Jesus took the penalty for our sin and gave us his purity.
Now some of you might be like, man, you have no idea. The rabbit hole I'm in. You have no idea the things that I've done last night, last week. You have no idea kind of the ways that I have messed my life up in terms of giving things away. You might say, man, I'm a.
High schooler, college age, man, lost my virginity this year.
Somebody I'm never going to get married to. Wrapped up in regret. You made a huge mistake, stepped out on a marriage. Maybe you had a. A pornography thing that was honestly an addiction, but nobody knew, and it got exposed.
And man, you're just, maybe you're like a wreck.
Okay, here's the thing. You're going to take this into, you're either in that situation as a believer or as an unbeliever. If you're an unbeliever in that situation, I have got to tell you some of the most powerful words. That Jesus ever said I want you to think about this, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. You have an opportunity to be free.
Secrecy lies. Nobody knows. Crushing guilt, weight, shame. Feel like you're carrying around 500 pounds in your life backpack. You got a chance to be free.
and forgive him. Today. Not because of what you have done, but because of what Christ has done. I want you to think about how much God loves you. You are not defined by your greatest failures.
I mean the worst things in your life, the ugliest things in your life. God saw it all from eternity past. and he is still offering you a place in his kingdom today. The blood of Christ washes over us. It washes us clean.
That's what he has done. That's what he wants to do for you. Would you accept him today? But hey, You're facing that as a believer, man. Maybe there's some stuff in your life that's sinful, wrapped up.
What are you gonna do? You run to the cross and you realize. God knew even this in my life and yet he still forgave me. He still called me. And I'm going to tell you what it does in my life.
It makes me want to want. The life that he has called me to. It's like, God, if you saw all that in my life, you forgave me, wanted me in your kingdom, enlisted me in your mission. Man, I want what you want for myself. I want to grow in greater ways.
I want to grow in obedience in this area. And I pray that'll fill your heart. All right, let's pray. Father, we come before you. We ask right now as we come to the communion table.
Lord, that you'll just move, that no one would take it in an unworthy manner. Or that we would. Repent. Of the sin in our lives before we come to this table, we would make right, we would stop right now and make something right with another believer if we have to. Lord, I pray that this would be a very powerful time of us remembering what it cost you.
To bring us into your kingdom. In Christ's name, amen.
