Hey guys, welcome to the last Thursday night service at the Regional Campus. All right, it's kind of crazy.
I know, a little bit crazy. I baptized three of my four children in a horse trough right there and I know that many of you guys have some memories in this place but and that's cool and we want to celebrate that. We're actually going to have a time later where Pastor Bobby is going to lead us in a time of just celebrating what God has done but you know this, man, the church is a movement and we're going to keep on moving, man. It's not about a building. Never has been whether it's an old one or whether it's a new one that we're going to. It's not about the square footage.
It's about what God is doing in it. I do want to say this too though and I know some of you guys are here that maybe serve over there or whatever but and if this snowstorm comes, this may be the last service we ever have here. Okay, this one right here where I'm at so a lot of us are watching this online if that is the case but if you are part of the regional north, I don't know, we just celebrated that but guys, you got to think, you got to understand something. Man, we sent 300 people over.
That turned into some weekend 700. I mean they got after it over there and listen, it was almost 100% volunteer led. This was, I mean, this was like it was more of an overflow venue than a campus that our people owned and decided, man, it's going to be our deal and we're going to see people get saved over there and baptized over there and man, they just did it and in so doing, they created the room here at the regional campus for us to be able to grow. I remember being in the meeting with our executive team, understanding that the ridge campus was so far off.
It was further off than we thought at that time but we still were like, man, it's this far off and just thinking to ourselves, if our folks are not willing to do something drastic, we're not going to be able to grow anymore. We're going to stop reaching people because we're out of room at regional and the idea came up, man, let's tag the 300 and tell them to go across the street over there and man, it turned into a huge movement and so if you guys are actually even right here tonight, can we just give it up for those people? Some of y'all, I'm looking at you. Some of you guys are just faithful servants over there on Sunday and you come to hear on Thursday so man, we praise God for you guys. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 5 today. We're going to be looking at verse 27 through 30 and Matthew 5, guys, Matthew 5 talks all about purity of heart. That's what it's about. It's not about lines that we cross or don't cross and what does God exactly want us to do with this rule or that rule.
Matthew 5 is about what God wants for us in terms of the purity of heart that we would be pursuing him and in that context, we end up seeing something that we need to be very clear about in our culture, okay, and that's the lust of the eyes and what God designs for sexuality. Make no mistake, pop culture is porn culture now. That's where we live. It's where we live, work, and play. It's not censored. It's celebrated. It don't matter if you're at the grocery store aisle.
It doesn't matter if you, you know, all the streaming platforms have now mean there's no boundaries on what becomes mainstream. You know, it's just, stuff is all around us. I told you before, I'm sitting there trying to watch a football game with my sons and boom, next thing you know, there's a Victoria's Secret commercial on television and you got these boys in the room and you're trying to figure out how to, you know, it's just, it's all around us and yet Christianity espouses a sexual ethic that says, no, no, no, all of that, it seems like it's celebrated as if the world values it, but actually what we say is no, things that you value, you protect. Things that value, you make sure that they are held up high instead of devalued in these types of ways and that's how Christianity is. Y'all, God's design for sexuality is about oneness. It is about covenant promise.
Man, that is life lasting, you know, lifelong and lasting. It is the opposite of the culture that we have now, which uses sex as satiating just another appetite and what happens is people just become a way that I can use you to reach my needs and that's what we have in a hookup culture and all of this and the Bible says no and I just think for us too, we got to understand what it's doing to us sociologically, what it's doing to us in terms of just our society and I mean, let me ask you something. If moving further and further away from the biblical sexual ethic in our culture, which we are and have been for years and years and years, if it was good for culture, this is the things that I think you would find, okay? Let me just ask you the list of questions here. Do we feel like liberation from the biblical worldview regarding sex, do you feel like the respect between genders is actually growing?
You see? Do we feel like there's more satisfaction in marriages in our culture? I mean, divorce certainly should be going down, right?
If this stuff is all working. Children should be more safe and being raised in more two-parent homes. There should be less people that are lonely and instead what we find is we keep going back as a society to the same well that leaves us thirstier and thirstier and thirstier. You think if it was satisfying us we wouldn't have to keep going back and it wouldn't keep growing more and more and more and the lust of the eyes and these things wouldn't be kind of out of control, but they are. It's not just big society stuff, right? It's even in our life. I mean, the reality is there are people right now, right here, and there's people that are going to see this whether it's at home because of the snowstorm or whether it's, you know, in our campuses when I preach this weekend, but y'all the reality is there's a secret place of your life. There are social media channels that nobody else knows about. There's a compartment of your life that is for lust of the eyes.
Let me ask you a question. Is it increasing the intimacy in your marriage or is it deadening you? I mean, is that secret place in your life helping you to view other people in the church as brothers and sisters or as objects? I mean, it's not just out there somewhere and the reality is this.
We all struggle in these areas in different ways and so we want to be very clear. This sermon, let's be clear, all right? The lust of the eyes is both sinful and destructive. God doesn't want it for us because he's a good father who wants good things for his kids. It is sinful, breaks our relationship with him. It also is destructive and here's the two things. We're going to circle all the way back to this very end, okay?
There's two things that need to happen today. Some of us need to wake up to how serious this sin is and some of us need to wake up to how big God's grace is. It's both of those things. Some of us in here today are like, yeah, yeah, lust of the eyes, you know, whatever. It's like, yeah, I've got the secret area of my life or I enjoy this or that or whatever and it's like, man, you need to see that what Satan wants to do is to convince you that that is more valuable than pursuing a relationship with Christ. He wants to drag you to hell with that as the bait. It's serious, but at the same time, man, some of us in here right now might be beat down, guilt, shame.
I keep going back to this. I can't get free from this sexual sin of my life and then what you need to see is that Jesus Christ saw every sexual failure you would ever have in all of your life before he went to the cross and he went to the cross for you anyway. There's big grace that he wants to lavish on you. All right, and so let's look at those two things in a few verses here. Matthew 5 27, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand caused you to sin, cut it off and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body go to hell. Jesus is saying this is serious.
You don't compromise with this sin. Man, we get after it. That's what we're gonna do today. All right, let's shoot it straight. Man, let's get after it.
Let's work through this. Here's what it says in verse 27. You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. Now adultery, strictly speaking, usually scripturally speaking in the Bible, adultery is a category of sexual relations with a woman who is married. Okay, that's that's what adultery means. Now it's kind of interesting to me, why does he pick adultery? I'm going to say in a minute, I think it's because there is no adultery where there is no sexual sin without us kind of wanting to grab at what is actually somebody else's.
And I'm going to talk about that in a few minutes. But the idea of adultery, I want to expand for a minute, and I just want to say, you know, adultery is pretty serious. I mean, adultery is breaking up marriages, and what he's saying in this passage is is that the lust of the eyes is the seed of which that is born. And so he's kind of, he's saying, hey, the adultery thing is bad, but you got to get back to the root of it, and the root of it is this lust of the eyes. Now, for some of us that are brand new, I think it's worth us just taking a few minutes here, I mean just a couple minutes, to just kind of go back and talk just for a moment about the biblical sexual ethic. One man, one woman, married, for life, sex happens in that union.
Okay? Now, why is that important? I think it's important because when I read this passage, I say, do not commit adultery, you shall not commit adultery, it's a retelling of the seventh commandment, all right? I think some of us think, well, okay, here's the Bible, it's very anti-sex, it's very, you know, it looks down on bodily union, and it's just down on all of that, oh my, you couldn't be further from the truth. It's the opposite. I mean, it really is the opposite. Christians hold a strict sexual ethic because the Bible teaches us to value it in a way that keeps it that way. We hold it high in esteem.
And why is that? Well, it's because, man, we see what God is doing in sex, that it is about a covenant, it is about a promise, it is about a renewal. That's about two people becoming one. You know, pornography, for example, and I know we're talking about lust of the eyes. Pornography, for example, is such a cheapening of what God intends for sexuality, and here's why.
Because it only shows you the physical part. And what actually God is doing in sexuality is, man, he's saying it's not just physical, it's spiritual, it's a mingling of souls. It's a oneness that is pervasive, all right? It's a oneness of finances. It's a oneness of direction. It's a oneness of what you're doing with your kids. It's a oneness in every area of your life, and then this sexual union shows that off.
It shines. That's what it's actually about. You know, the Bible is not prudish about sex. It's profound when it talks about sex.
It heightens it. It shows us that there is a deeper meaning for all of these things that we see that put in their proper place, that there is something even more to be enjoyed with them whenever we think about it in God's way and in his design. You know, this idea that the Bible is against sex, listen, if you know the scripture, let me tell you how it starts. Here's how the Bible starts. A naked man sings a love song to his naked wife in a garden with God watching, and that's just the beginning, okay?
And then you go through the rest of the Bible, and you see so many layers of how God keeps going back to this. Oh my, in Ephesians 5, what does it say? It likens the sexual union to the gospel itself, that we would have an opportunity to be joined together with God through the gospel, and he uses biblical sexuality as a way to kind of show that off. Y'all, sex by God's design is very, very esteemed and valued and important.
Here's what it is. It's the sealing and celebrating of the covenant of marriage. In marriage, a man and a woman promise themselves to each other for life. They come together, vision, direction, children, spiritual direction. A sign of that is their sexuality. How much different is that than the college campus?
Get a little bit tipsy and see if you can get lucky. How much different is it? I mean, it's so much more meaningful. In fact, Tim Keller says it like this. I love this. He says, outside the covenant of marriage, sex lacks integrity. You know why?
It's fake. What he's saying is, what it's supposed to represent is not actually true. You know, I think about communion. Actually, what's another way that we celebrate our covenant relationship with God? We're going to actually do it this weekend. We're going to do it tonight.
Well, what is it? It's communion, and what are we doing? We're going back and celebrating what was true. The blood, the broken body, our entrance into a relationship with God because of what he has done, and what the Bible is, I think, trying to set up when it's saying, hey, you don't want to do adultery.
I have another way. The other way is, inside of marriage, what is supposed to happen is covenant renewal, and if it's not that, then it's fake. It's proclaiming something about oneness that's not actually true. You see this with dating couples or whatever. I mean, they're dating.
They're having sex. It's like, no, you're proclaiming through that sexual encounter that you have already committed to oneness in every single area, but you haven't. I mean, your bank accounts aren't together. You don't, you know, you're not sharing one roof. You certainly aren't sharing a vision for life. You have not promised to one another in front of others that will hold you accountable for it, right? We're not building a house. We're playing house, and it's like, but well, you're still having sex. Well, that's why Keller says it lacks integrity.
It's fake. You know, I thought this song, you know, sometimes, this is funny. I like country music, okay.
I like a lot of types of music, but country music, sometimes country music is seen as like wholesome and all this kind of stuff. Sometimes it has the worst messaging. I'm serious. I'm serious, man. Like, it will have the worst subversive, like anti-God marriage, you know, and there's this guy named Zach Topp, okay, that's a singer. Here's what he says in his song, all right, but this is actually really true, I mean, in terms of what people do in terms of their sexuality. Here's what he says. This is the song.
He talks about two people meeting at a bar. He says, tell me you love me and tell me you need me. We both know it ain't true, and I'll whisper you're everything I've ever wanted. Listen, I'll pretend if you'll pretend to. Tell me you love me and use me like I'm using you. That's our culture when it comes to sex.
It's fake, man. What we think is, well, the Christians are the prudish ones. Actually, what we have is, no, sex is supposed to be this covenant renewal ceremony. It's supposed to do in a marriage in a little bit of a way what communion does for the body of Christ, that we remember that we stood up and that we made these promises.
That's what it's supposed to do, and I tell people this. When I do marriage counseling, which I don't do a ton of marriage counseling anymore in terms of the pre-marriage and all that, but especially when we were new. I was doing a lot of weddings. Me and Anna would do this talk, and I'm like, guys, you're never going to image the gospel more than when you're having a sexual encounter with your husband or your wife because you're actually acting out the oneness that is spiritually true of you in the gospel and what you promised in terms of your marriage. I started to get a lot of people wanting to counsel, wanting me to counsel.
I mean, I had a lot of the guys who were like, hey, man, would you do our marriage counseling? But my point is, there is something hugely symbolic about this. Now, I know we haven't done, I've been relying a ton on, this is just biblical theology here, okay? This is the biblical sexual ethic, but let's get back to what it's saying here. All right, what it's saying in verse 27 is, don't commit adultery.
So everything that I've tried to share with you, I mean, I've just given you a recap of just a ton of the Bible and tried to smash it down in a few minutes. That's the biblical sexual ethic. Okay, what he's saying is, adultery is the opposite of that, all right?
So don't do that. All right, got it. But here's what he says. But I say to you that anyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. It's about the heart, man. It's about the purity of the heart. Adultery is not by God's design.
It's not what he wants. And now Jesus expands that, and he says, no, you shouldn't, it's not just about adultery. It's about what leads to adultery. It's about what's going on in the inner man, the inner woman. It's about what's going on in the heart. It's about what's going on in the mind, the eyes. God sees it all.
And the idea here is this. I think that Jesus is speaking into a culture, and we face this culture, too. Jesus is speaking into a culture that wants to say, hey, tell me where the line is, because I want to be able to be free up until that line. Okay, don't commit adultery. Fine.
I'll do everything else. Just don't cross that line. I'm good with God. And Jesus is trying to get them to see, like, man, it's so much deeper than that. It's a heart posture about what you think about God's good design. Do you want to, remember I said, there's going to be, everyone's going to bow at the end. Some are going to love it.
Do you love God's design? Or do you just want to figure out where the rule is so that you can get right up next to it? This is always funny in, like, student ministry, and I remember being a student in this.
I mean, students are always wanting to know, well, what's the line you can cross or don't cross and all this kind of stuff? And it's like, guys, it's about the heart. What can I, you know, can I hold my girlfriend's hand? I'm like, well, you're 14. How far up is it getting you?
Okay. Is it, I mean, you tell me. What's it doing to the thought life? What's it doing to the inner man? Because if it's, if it's causing you to begin to sin in these areas, this is what Jesus is talking about. The lust of the eyes is sort of the seed bed to where adultery ends up growing. The teachers of the time just wanted to talk about the physical action. Jesus wanted to talk about the heart because our actions are born from the heart and our eyes are connected to our heart.
Now, one of the interesting things, and I said this earlier, I think it's very interesting. Why does he, I've been dwelling on this the whole week. Why does Jesus talk about adultery here? He could have just talked about fornication, which is any sexual sin.
Okay. And the other thing is, why does he talk about the lust of the eyes? You know, you know how, you know how affected we are by Christian culture, whether you're a believer or not. You know, you might, you might be like, man, I don't, here's why. When we hear the word lust, we all think sex.
You know why? Because Jesus talked about it here, but that word ain't about sex. We all think that because we've been affected by Jesus, whether we realize it or not. But that word is not that. The idea of lust, you can lust after anything. I mean, you can, you can lust after possession. The idea of lust is just the greed. I want, I want what someone else has and I want it so bad, I'll do anything for it.
I'll do anything to have it. And it's been rolling in my brain all week. Why does he use the word lust? Which is not really a sexual word. It's about the grabbing. I want what somebody else's.
I want it for myself. Why does he use the word adultery? Which is specifically about a married person. And this is what I think. Okay.
I think the reason that he uses this is because we got to remember the lust of the eyes and pornography is always about trying to steal what is someone else's. You know what I mean by that? Here's what I mean. Every single person is a child of God first. They're already God's. Okay.
They're, they're already his. And what we want to do through pornography and through the lust of the eyes is we want to steal them and rip them away from God in order to use them and use their image for our evil purposes. And it's lust.
I want it for myself and I want to take it away from God. You think about this. Man, pornography is so pervasive in our culture. I want you to think about, you know, there's pornography if maybe that's something you're dealing with or you see it, you know, even in just like I'm saying grocery aisle or whatever.
You know what's pretty tough? It's pretty tough to lust after that person if you're simultaneously having the thought they are a child of God who has good plans and purposes for them. When we remember they're not ours, that they're already somebody else's, right? It makes it a little harder to lust after them.
Now here's what he says, okay? The lust of the flesh leads to adultery, the stealing of what is God's, the stealing of what is somebody else's. If your right hand causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away for it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand caused you to sin, cut it off and throw it away for it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body.
Go into hell. Now the first thing about this I think is very important to see. Why does he say right hand and right eye? Well, for most people, I know not everybody, if you're a left-handed person, I'm not talking to you, okay? But for almost everybody, I mean, you know, statistically, the right eye and the right hand is incredibly important. It's important for war, it's important for protecting yourself, it's important for, I mean, how, you know, I don't know, some of you might be super coordinated, but like, I just think if you're right-handed, just as an example, if you watched me, you know, throw a baseball, my right hand, and then you said, hey, throw it with your left hand, you know, and it would be like, it looks pretty terrible, right? I actually thought about doing it, but then I thought, I'm so athletic, it actually would look the same both ways, and then you guys would be like, well, you kind of, ha, you kind of ruined the illustration, I'm just kidding. Although they say, although they say this is a true story, that my Papa Hopper, okay, this is three generations back, could pitch half a game right-handed and half a game left-handed, so go figure that out. All right, but anyway, most of us, right, if we try to throw a ball or something with our opposite hand, it would look so crazy. My point is this, if you said, hey man, you got to choose one, you got to choose one, which one would you choose? I'm right-handed, I would choose my right hand, right? He's saying, you need to think about what is very valuable to you, and realize that not being caught up in sexual sin is more valuable than that.
My right eye, my hand, that's pretty valuable to me, but you know what's more valuable? Man, not being so caught up in sexual sin that I decide to love this world more than I love God's kingdom, and it sends me to hell. I think some of us might read this, and we're like, well, wait a minute, you know, is this, is this kind of saying, you know, that you're gonna go to hell for sexual sin? Well, I'm gonna get into that in a second. You know, it's kind of yes and no, okay?
It's, it's yes, if that sexual sin has got you so wrapped up that you don't want to ever repent from it, and come under the Lordship of Jesus, then it absolutely sends you to hell, okay? We'll talk about more of that in just a second, but here's what I want you to see, right eye, right hand. This is not about literal, okay, I don't think it's about literally cutting your hand off or whatever, all right? They say the Church Father Origen read this passage and castrated himself.
Probably should have ran that by his community group leader first, I think, maybe, okay? I'm serious, hey, I knew a guy, this is not a joke, I knew a guy in Montana that let, that read this passage and laid down on a train track and cut his right arm off. I'm serious, his name was 3 Lim Tim, and I know that sounds like a joke, okay? It's not a joke.
He was this weird prophet guy, and he thought he was a prophet. I want you to see, there have been people that have done that kind of stuff. I don't think that's what this is getting at, just so you know, okay? I think what it's getting at is, we need to take this stuff incredibly serious.
I think it's saying this, you don't compromise, you don't negotiate, you don't come to the table with sexual sin. Man, you kill it. Some of you guys hunt in here, I know not everybody, but some of you guys like to hunt. Here's the thing about hunting, you go deer hunting, you're sitting up in the stand, and you see a coyote run by, guess what? You ain't deer hunting no more. You're coyote hunting. You know what I'm saying? I mean, if you're in my house, and we're deer hunting, and there's a coyote comes running out, we ain't deer hunting no more. You know why? Because I got animals, I got livestock, I got little kids running around, I got dogs that them coyotes might try to tangle with or whatever. You don't, my point is, you don't compromise with it, you kill it. And that's the idea that I think is trying to be expressed here.
Why? The stakes are so high. There are people who will fall more in love with the sensuality and sexual pleasure. They will fall more in love with the lust of the eyes and pornography itself. They will be so wrapped up that they don't want to see the kingdom of God. Think about that.
That they will not want to bow their knee, instead they will rebel. I mean, you could ask somebody, if you can have all the pornography in the world, but it sends you to hell, would you want it? And there's a lot of people that would say yeah. And it's really sad. Look what it says, for it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go to hell. Here's what I want you to see. Y'all, Jesus came and lived a life that you didn't live, and then died for your sin, for your sexual sin, and every other kind of sin.
Okay? Man, we're all jacked up. We're all sinners. We got every kind of sin you can imagine.
Our hearts are deceitfully wicked. And Jesus came to take the penalty for all of that. And in his resurrection, he gives us the chance to be washed clean, white as snow, justified, means just as if it never happened. I mean, he gives us that opportunity.
What good news is that? But here's the deal. There are some people that will get so wrapped up with pornography and sexual sin that they don't want what Jesus offers them.
And that's what this is about. You can get so wrapped up that you don't want that. And what you think is, I'm playing around with sexual sin, I'm playing around with lust, I'm playing around with pornography, until that thing grabs you and turns you so inside out that you don't want to see God and his kingdom. But instead, you would choose it, and you would have that rebellion in your heart. That's a dangerous place to be. Some of us might be there today, right now.
And today, I pray that the Spirit of God would break that heart and give you an opportunity to come to him, to rip the eyes out, cut the hand off. Metaphorically, of course, don't play around with this stuff. Man, take drastic measures. I remember talking to a college student one time, and he's like, man, I'm struggling with pornography. I'm like, well, let me see that phone.
He's got a smartphone with all the data packages. I was like, well, man, if I were you, I'd walk right out there and smash that thing in the parking lot. It's the first thing I'd do. You think he did it? No. No?
Wasn't that serious? Well, I think what Jesus is trying to get at is like, hey, man, this is that serious. So here's what I'm going to call you to do this weekend. Turn from lust and turn to Jesus. Turn from lust and turn to Jesus Christ today, all right?
Hey, two applications, and I'm done, all right? The first application is, if you are a believer, we have a responsibility to be clear about the biblical sexual ethic. Pop culture is porn culture, and we're not to be a part of that. We aren't. This is not wholeness, and we are to speak into it other people's lives when they give us an opportunity to say, man, this is not good for you. It's not.
I told you guys this story before. People are like, man, it's hard. It feels like you're indicting people.
Well, it's kind of an indictment. You're saying, hey, this is not what God's design is. I'm not saying I'm not a sinner. We've all sinned, but this is not what God has for you. Sometimes that's hard.
People don't want to see it. When you're light in a dark place, it hurts people's eyes. I remember one time me and Anno, younger, as parents, our son AP, I don't know, he was two years old. His eyes were real pink and puffy on a Sunday afternoon, real bad, but we're like, well, we'll let him sleep it off. You wake up the next morning, and things are fists, okay? And it was pink eye, real bad, and he couldn't, man, he couldn't open his eye. He wouldn't open his eyes. It actually surprised me how quickly he resigned himself to blindness. I mean, he's like, dad, just pour my cereal and turn the Ninja Turtles on.
I'll listen to it. Okay, that's how, that was his attitude about the whole thing. I'm like, no, but we got to get these eyes open.
And that's, man, trying to get his eyes open when they've been closed that long. And the light, as soon as he saw the light, you know, when, when we've had our eyes shut for that long, when the light comes in, it's painful. And that's how we are. We wonder why the world reacts to us the way that they are. It's because we're light in a dark place and that hurts. That doesn't mean it's not right.
Doesn't mean it's not good. Man, you got a brother or a sister that's going down this road. Man, you got somebody in your community group that you know is going down this road to sexual sin. We've got to be people who are willing to be clear, right? And the other way that I want to apply this is just, you know, I've thought about a million ways, guys, I think we'll put some stuff maybe on social media this week that are just, you know, really good, smart ways to fight against sexual sin. If you're going to fight sexual sin, you got to fight smart and you got to fight with your heart, okay? It's got to be both of those things.
It can't just be one or the other. And so fighting smart, I mean, there's a million things. Guys, have accountability, covenant eyes. You know, make sure that there's not a bunch of hidden. Hey, here's a great one.
Guys, in your life, if you're married, okay, there is nothing in your life that your wife don't have access to. And I literally mean nothing. There's not an email account. There's not a Snapchat. There's not a whatever. There's not, there's nothing. Hey, what's on your phone? Here, take it.
This is it. I mean, that's the type of openness we need. That's a smart way to fight. You know, I mean, there's a lot of smart things we can do.
Don't have an engagement the last 17 years, okay? That's a smart way to fight. All right, if we're getting engaged, let's get on with it. All right, this is what we need to do. So it's, there's a lot of ways to minimize this.
There's a lot of smart things we can do. I want to talk about that. I want to close by talking about the heart fight.
Smarts and heart. Let's talk about heart. Because some of us in here today, listen, some of us have been wakened up. You're wakening up. This is a serious thing.
Now, what do I do? But others are blessed as soon as they get awake to it, man, or you've already been living in this. There is shame. There is guilt. You feel cornered.
You feel like, man, I'm waving the white flag. I have already, I have already given this up a long time ago. And I don't mean I stopped.
I mean, I gave up fighting a long time ago for purity in this area of my life. And I want you to know that God is still a miracle worker that can move and free you. You know, this story's been told 100 times over for 100 years, but the story goes like this. I tracked it down one day to old chess journal, but the story goes like this. There was a kid that was on a trip to the Louvre.
Okay. And he was out, it was an art, art, you know, museum and all that. And he's, he's, you know, he, this kid was a chess champion. And he's, and they're, all the kids are going through, they're looking at all the art, looking at all the art, and all of a sudden, there it is, he sees it. It's a painting that has a name and an artist, and I cannot pronounce either one of them. Okay. But it's got, it's this painting. And the painting is basically a French version of the song Devil Went Down to Georgia.
Okay. They're playing a chess game for the guy's soul. You can see, and, and man, the guy, yeah, I've seen the picture. The picture is, the dude is, the dude is just sitting there, just that look on his face, like, man, I have been checkmated by Satan, and I am forfeiting my soul for all eternity. And you see Satan kind of on the other side of the table, and he's like, man, I got you, I've got you. And the kid is mesmerized, and all the other kids run away. Man, they're looking at all the other stuff, and this kid doesn't move for hours. And he's staring at that. He's just looking at the guy's face, and he's looking at the chessboard, and he's seeing the emotion of it all. Some of you feel that way right now. Some of you are sitting in that chair, and you're like, man, he's got me.
Right? This sexual sin, maybe it's pornography, maybe it's not. Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's same-sex attraction. Maybe it's an adulterous relationship. Maybe it's a dating relationship that has gone way too far, too many times. You feel like it's too far gone.
You can't get right. You can't, and you feel like you're just absolutely sitting there in checkmate. And the kid is staring, and it's finally time to go, and they're shutting down the museum, and they're like, man, we got to go. And he's breaking away, and he's staring, and they're trying to drag him out. And finally, the kid screams out, the king has one more move. And he'd been studying that board for hours, and the truth of the painting was, it was painted intentionally, that if somebody would stare at it long enough and figure it out, actually, the king had one more move, and he wasn't checkmated at all.
And they had some guys play it out that were chess champions, and in playing it out after the move, there was actually a very clear path to victory for the one who thought he was already defeated. I want you to hear in your life today, the king has one more move. And he can move in your life, but it only comes when you do it his way. And his way is repentance and confession. And that's it. And that's where it stops for many of us. It's like, well, I'm not willing to do that.
Well, then the king don't have one more move in your life. But if we're willing to repent and confess, that's what James 5 16 tells us. And we confess our sin to God, but we confess to each other for healing. Here's what I want to call you to do. Guys, many of you are not in a group.
I hope you are. But this is why we do groups. But I'm specifically talking to those of us that are in groups. You're about to be in a new group. Man, you need some relationships in your life where you can let some people in on what's going on.
If you don't have those relationships, this is a great place to start. For many of you, this is where they already are. We're about to regroup and get going again. Hey, I'm gonna tell you this. Don't tell everybody, but don't tell nobody. You got to tell somebody what's going on in your life. And here's the thing. We can repent today.
And I know what you're gonna say, man. I've repented of this a thousand times. Repent today with the promise in your heart to the Lord that you're going to confess and let's start on the pathway to healing. And as we get on that pathway, man, there is pastoral help. We have over 30 shepherding elders in this church that would be just that they want to dive in with you. They want to help you. They want to give you the resources that you need.
There are special groups. There are things. We have a lot of stuff going on that we can help you with. All right, but it starts. Repent and confess. We're gonna have an opportunity to do it right now as we take the Lord's Supper together. Let's pray. Father, we come before you and we ask right now, God, that you will move in an incredible way through this time of communion. Lord, I pray that you would convince some of us here tonight.
And of course, if people are seeing this Sunday, if the snow comes, Lord, I pray that even even where people are in their homes, they would be moved and prompted by your word to trust your design and to repent and confess the lust of the eyes. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen. Hey, guys, I want to tell you this, too. I forgot to say this earlier. Hey, again, questions from today. Text 87217 and we're gonna have an opportunity. I'll respond to those things on Wednesday. We got a huge following with that this past Wednesday. So we'll do that again. Let's let's take community.
