Jesus Unfiltered - Follow - No More Shame, Part 2

One of the most sensitive areas in all of our lives is our sexuality. Thoughts we have, things we've seen, things we've done, and often our sexuality is wrapped in shame, often in guilt. God does not want you to live with shame. Stay with me today as I share a story of a close friend delivered out of the shame of sexual immorality. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.

Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. I'm Dave Drouy, and in just a minute Chip will pick up where he left off in his series Jesus Unfiltered Volume 2. But before we begin, let me encourage you to try using Chip's message notes while you listen. They contain his outline, scripture references, and much more. To download these message notes, just go to the broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org.

App listeners tap fill in notes. Okay, let's join Chip for the second half of his message from John chapter 8 as he continues unpacking how we are to biblically handle sin. Second thing though is that I've been around the block in churches too, and there's a pretty significant reason why a lot of people don't go public and don't ever deal with the things that need to be dealt with.

I was speaking to a friend, getting to know each other really, really well. And part of his history, he was in full-time ministry. He had an affair that went on for a significant amount of time. He lost his wife, and he lived in that situation. He lived with the lie. He lived with the pain.

He lived with all the things. This is right, but this is where I'm at. There's like these two forces, and one pulls at you so strong of what you're experiencing in the sexual sin.

And the other pulls at you. You know this is right, and you want to confess. You want to make it right with God. And he said, I so wanted to do this, but honestly, I thought God would forgive me, but I just wasn't very sure about the church. I just didn't know how I'd be received.

I just thought, I don't know that I want to go there. I got an email from Kendall, and she shared with me a little bit more of their journey. And I will tell you that Dave and Kendall's journey may be in the top 1% of the most wonderful moments I've ever had in ministry in my life, of seeing the body of Christ act and respond in the beauty and the power that God calls us to, and see a man and a woman courageously deal with pain and be completely restored.

I want to share a bit of what she shared with me, and I want you to listen very carefully, because here's what I know. 50% of the men in this room are involved in pornography right now. About 30 or 35% of 18 to 30 year olds are currently sleeping together or living together who are born again Christians. And by the way, it's not restricted to them.

That's just where we have the stats. Sexual sin is epidemic in our culture, and it's now epidemic inside the church. And I think lots of people's souls are stuck, but I want you to hear the inward journey. Kendall writes, the night Dave shared with me about his unfaithfulness, he took full responsibility for his actions. He shared openly and honestly. In that moment, God brought clarity and perspective to my heart. I, too, had come to a place of deep despair and lack of trust in God after Dave's chronic pain diagnosis and the loss of our baby.

Kendall says, God opened my eyes to my pain as I looked at this man I'd known for 15 years, and I saw a man that was so broken and hurting, so desperate to get out of physical and emotional pain, so responsible for his actions, asking for forgiveness, all I could say is God would not let me turn him away or reject him. I told him that I loved him and that I forgave him, and I would be willing to work through this with him. We talked a lot that night, and I knew immediately there would be significant consequences for his job.

I knew he'd be resigning, and I also knew he would need to do it publicly. I'd seen this done both well and very poorly in churches, but I believed our church would respond well to us. I wanted Dave to be able to take ownership of his behavior and then demonstrate in real life the things that we taught the high school ministry and claim to believe. I was also in need of support, and I knew going somewhere else would be very difficult.

Listen to this. I believe the people of our church who had already demonstrated their love and support over us over the last years would do the same things. I believe they would see in Dave what I saw in him. The next week Dave shared in front of the ministry in the high school that he'd crossed a sexual boundary and be resigning. I asked to go up so that we could pray with them for Dave and see the faces of those that we loved. And in a sense it was our last opportunity to lead through how we responded to failure.

The next weekend an announcement was made, and Dave's letter was read to nearly 3,000 people in attendance in the weekend services. We didn't go to church that day, but the following Sunday, talk about courage, the following Sunday they didn't run. They didn't hide. They didn't repress.

They didn't try to make up for it. The following Sunday we made our ways down the halls into the worship center as we'd done every week for the last eight years. The first Sunday back I was anxiously confident. I believe people would respond lovingly toward us, but I also knew it's hard to handle, and some people probably can't. I was so grateful for the families and friends that demonstrated their love for us that first week and the next couple of months and now years. People we'd known for many years would see us across the worship center or down the hall and they would come right up to us encouraging Dave and sharing their support and love for me and encouraging me to still meet with their students. And they just loved us without asking details or questions or judging us. Our friends protected us. They protected our privacy. They honored us in a way that I'll forever be grateful for. They continue to be people that we meet with on a regular basis for community and accountability.

Their acts of kindness and love allowed us the opportunity to heal in our own time, in our own way, without shame and without embarrassment. Do you hear the hope? I've been a Christian since I was 12 and I walked with God through some very difficult times.

Listen carefully. God is going to ask those of you and those of us who are involved in sin, but specifically sexual sin, to come clean the way Dave did. And here's what you will experience from God. I've been through difficult times, but I have never experienced the intimacy and the gentle love of God in ways that I have in this season of my life. His presence has been so real, it's almost tangible. Through His word, His people, His creation, He's undeniably spoken into my life, gently meeting me and slowly walking me through deep places of pain and fear and shame and giving direction and clarity and hope and perspective.

The process of obedient surrender has been slow and not without missteps and failures. But I see the trajectory of life is heading toward wholeness and intimacy in my relationship with God and with Dave. How does healing like this really occur?

What's the process? How do you move from simply experiencing forgiveness and knowing in your heart you've asked God to forgive you? How do you get to where there's a level of courage that you can own some stuff and get some stuff in the open in the appropriate way with the appropriate people and be forgiven but then be restored? To have your soul set free, to have the guilt and the depression. David sinned sexually and for a year no one knew about it. Psalm 32, you might jot it down and some of you will read it and go, that's me. He said, when I was silent about my sin it was oppressive.

It was like being in a desert. Literally, as you read Psalm 32, here's a man who's clinically depressed. When we deny, when we shove down, when we repress stuff in our soul, especially sexual sin, it erodes your soul.

It'll destroy you from the inside out. And finally he's confronted and in Psalm 51, you get this picture of a man who experiences the gentle, intimacy, grace of God. Friday morning as I was praying, God really tapped me on the shoulder. You know, my sermon's done, I've got it all set, it's in the folder, the notes are done, they're printed. And I really sensed at first just a whisper from the Holy Spirit, Chip, this is so much bigger than you think. I want to heal people this weekend. I want this to be a weekend of liberation and freedom and no more shame. Do you realize how rare it is that an actual church body has done what the Bible says? Loved, supported, encouraged, doesn't judge, helped. Do you see this?

This is an amazing picture. This is the hope that everyone wants. Chip, do you understand, it's not statistics, these are real people and there's some of them that are depressed. There's some of them that are currently having affair. There's some of them that are logged on to porn. There's some that are having homosexual issues and other heterosexual issues.

There's others that, it's about verbal stuff. There's others that are older and no one thinks, but boy, they have these lustful thoughts and... Sexual sin is an addiction. You might be asking, why take this much time? I want to take this much time because this is a victory I want to celebrate.

There really is hope. And I want to take this much time because when sexual sin has a hold of your soul, it not only does something very devastating to you, it impacts your relationships and it cuts you off from the grace and the power of God in significant ways. You won't be fruitful. You won't experience love and joy and peace and patience and goodness and kindness and gentleness. God will not use you even remotely like he wants to.

He'll honor some gifts and honor his word. But there is no hope for the world out there until there's a revolution inside of the world in here. And so I want to talk to you about why sexual sin is so devastating and how to get out of it, okay? The research they've done, by the way, this isn't about, I'm going to try really hard one more time.

Trying hard doesn't work. The studies they've done on those hooked on pornography, it is as addictive as cocaine, crack cocaine, or heroin. And when you study the brain of men and women who over a prolonged period of time who are watching and hooked on pornography, the changes in what happens in your brain are exactly the same. Therefore, what it does to your life, what it does to your thinking, what it does to your relationships, it's not some casual sin that doesn't have any impact on anyone else. I'm going to ask you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and I'll read without significant comment a passage that outlines what the Bible says sexual sin does to us and why.

Because what's happened is we're in a day now where people, it's not that big a deal. I mean, I know, you know, we all have our issues, I love God, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, I just have this problem. And I'm not hurting anybody, I just log on to here, or, you know, I'm in an unloving relationship, and, you know, so what, I'm having an affair, it's the only one thing that, and we have totally redefined God's standards.

I mean, you know, God understands it's just economically more feasible to live together at this stage of our life than live separately. You know, what's the big deal? If you'll pick it up at chapter 9, here's the big deal. Chapter 6, I'm sorry, verse 9. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? And then he outlines, so, what's wickedness in God's eyes? Don't be deceived.

So, I mean, we could actually think these things aren't wicked, yes, don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, or idolaters, or adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swinders, will inherit the kingdom of God. So he doesn't just say some sexual sins, I mean, this sort of the ground looks pretty even. Those kind of sins, habitually practiced, you will not inherit eternal life.

And that is what some of you were. He says, that's not you now, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the spirit of our God, that's who you were. Those behaviors can't be a part of your future. You're not an idolater, adulterer, you're not a sex slave of any kind.

You're a son, you're a daughter, you've been washed, you are clean, he loves you. And then notice he goes on, he says, everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food, but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. The logic, I mean, it was a super sexually permissive place.

It's Corinth. I mean, you could get any kind of sex any way that you wanted at any time. The temples and the prostitutes, heterosexual, homosexual, for all kinds, you name it, you got it. And the logic was, wait a second, we're new Christians now, but legitimate desires should be filled. When I'm hungry for food, I should eat. When I'm thirsty, I should drink something. When I want to have sex, go have sex. And the apostle Paul is saying, I'm breaking the logic.

Why? By his power, God raised the Lord from the death, and he will also raise us. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? You have real union with him. Shall I take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?

Never. Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it's said the two become one flesh. But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in the spirit.

Do you get the idea? If you're a follower of Jesus, you're one with him. His body belongs to you. He loves you. There's this union with him. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? Whom you have received from God? You're not your own.

You were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. He's saying it's not about what's convenient. It's not your opinion. It's not what you think. What I can tell you is all the research that we have just absolutely supports this. What's the big deal? We love one another. We need to try it out. I heard a woman last night.

This is very timely. My son came to me. He grew up in a Christian home. He told me he and his girlfriend are looking for an apartment.

Because there's schooling and economics. Here's what you need to tell your son. This is what God says regardless of what he thinks. By the way, live with your girlfriend and whether you eventually get married or not, ten years from now, longitudinal secular study, only one out of ten couples will be together ten years later. Because when you live together, what you're saying is, let's try it out but not make a commitment. And what keeps people together and brings real intimacy is the very commitment.

The very thing you're afraid of is the thing that will cause it to fail. And God knows that he created sex so there's glue in a relationship. And there's a sense that I'll never leave you.

I'll never betray you. It's the sealing of a covenant. And it's for our emotional good. It's for our relational good.

It's for our physical good. And so he says flee sexual immorality. You never slide out of sexual immorality. You don't like say, okay, wow, I think God's really speaking to me. You know what, I think, let's see, next Friday, how do you, I mean the word, it's a command, flee.

And here's what I can tell you. There's a few rare moments in your life, and one of them is right now, where God is speaking to some of you, and it's getting increasingly clear and there's a war going on in your mind. Oh, what about, oh, if she found out, oh, what about this?

Oh, the implications here. This might mean, and the Spirit of God is going, come, come home, come home. You'll be so glad you did, and everything's going, oh, what about, what about, what about, what about my... And so I want to give you a very practical way to come home. Jesus is saying to you, neither do I condemn you, grace.

Go and sin no more. And the question is how. When the prodigal son came to his senses, he turned, and where did he come? Home. I want to give you a little acronym that is just a quick way to know how to come home.

The H is for honesty. Jot this down, okay? Just write this H-O-M-E, and I'm going to give you something very clear, and then I'm going to give you a chance to act on it today. You might jot down Psalm 145, 18. The Lord is near to those who call upon Him, to those who call upon Him in truth. God will listen to you. David would say in Psalm 51, God desires truth in the innermost being. Later he would say, if there was a way to earn my way back or make up for it or do some burnt offering, I would have done it.

But the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart, a broken spirit and contrite heart. Oh, God, you will not despise. If you'll get honest, and it's the first step, I mean, you'll experience God like never before. He'll give you the power.

He'll take care of the future. Don't worry about what's going to happen or all the implications or will he understand, will she understand, what about this, what about that. Just get honest. It's painfully difficult to do.

The O is for openness. You will not ever be freed from sexual sin until you get it out of the secret world. Secrets have power.

Secrets destroy your life. That's why all through Scripture, the deeds of darkness. Jot down, if you would, 1 John, because I want you to look at these later. 1 John 1, verses 5 and 6. If we say we have fellowship with him, Jesus, and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and the truth is not in us.

But if we walk in the light as even he himself is in the light, the blood of Jesus keeps on continuously freeing and forgiving us. You've got to get this out in the open. You've got to just do it. You've got to come clean.

You've got to get it out in the open. Can I ask you a question right now? Because some of you are going, ooh.

As you listen to Dave and Kendall on a video, did anybody think less of them? Did anyone look at that and go, wow. Or down deep in your heart, see, whenever grace and truth come together, down deep in your heart, something inside say, I wish I had the courage to do what I know is right. See, because the truth is I wish, yeah, I kind of wish this could happen. Except I wouldn't be too excited about, you know, if we had like four different colored lights of different sins, and like sexual sin could be a red light, and anyone who had that, then a light would go right over your head. I mean, it would really be great, it really would, because what would happen is you'd go, oh, my God. Are you kidding me?

We've got 95 groups, we've got to start tomorrow. And then, you know, green, green would be the greed sin. Ooh, boy.

Right? See, this idea you have that all these people in this room are making so much more progress. There's the power of the Christian life as God fills clean vessels. Not perfect ones, clean ones.

You've got to get it out in the open. The M is for mentor. You will not do this alone. Jot down Hebrews 3.13. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today.

Let any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. If you know anyone who's been through a 12-step program, anyone who's gotten serious in realizing their weight issue, or their sex, or their alcoholism, or their shopping, and they got really serious about it, what you realize is the root cause is never the symptom. And the only way you make progress is you get honest, then you get open, then you've got to get with some people, and you've got to walk the journey. And you need the encouragement.

Not like once a year. This isn't like, okay, I heard it. It's me and God. I'll start reading the Bible more.

Oh, wait a second. I've said this 44 times in the last 43 days. It won't work.

You can't do this alone. And see, what keeps you from? What is it that keeps you from? I've had guys tell me, I've driven 30, 40, 50 miles to celebrate recovery or to different groups somewhere.

Because of the shame they feel that if someone knew. We've got to get over that. The final E is for exit. You do not slide out of sexual sin. Jot down Matthew 5, 27 to 30. Jesus is talking about adultery.

You have said, do not commit adultery, but I say to you, if you lust for a woman, you've committed adultery already with your heart. Long before psychology, Jesus is saying, everything starts with the mind. And then here's his application. Are you ready for this? He says, so how do you deal with this? How do you deal with what happens inside of a man or a woman's mind when there's lustful? He goes, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, poke it out. You're thinking, I'm glad I didn't go to that message.

Now wait a second. It's very clear he's not being literal, because watch this. If I cut off my right hand and my problem is stealing or some sort of sexual sin, I can actually do that with my left. And if I poke out my right eye, I can lust with my left.

Do you know what he's saying here? The idiom of the day, be as drastic as you need to be to deal with this as radically as you need to deal with it. Be as drastic as you need to be. So some of you here are involved in an affair.

Some it's physical, some it's emotional. Stop today. Exit. By the way, not an email, not a text, not a meeting.

They don't work. A quick phone call. I'm very sorry.

It ends today. God has spoken to me. This isn't good for you. It's not good for me. I don't want to see you again. I'm sorry. I won't pick up the phone. I won't answer emails.

I will not meet you. I'm very, it's done. Those of you that are hooked on pornography, you need today to someone say, here's my phone. Here's the TV. Here's my computer.

Put a password on it that I don't know. I'm sending an email to the church or I'm finding a program or I'm going to go to a Christian. But today, you won't slide out of this. And here's the thing. In this window or this moment right now when we're together as God speaks, if you choose and act and do it today, God will deliver. By Monday, 24 hours later, the probability of you actually obeying will probably drop about 75%. And pretty soon, well, you know, it seemed really right, but I don't think God, you know, Chip does get a little over the top and I'm not sure that passage really means, right? We are liars.

We are deniers. And your soul will stay in prison. I'd like you to close your eyes if you would and I just want you to hear Jesus saying, please come home. Please come home.

Please come home. I want to forgive, restore, make you whole. Chip will be right back with his application for this message, No More Shame, which is from the second volume of his Jesus Unfiltered series titled Follow. Whether we realize it or not, we all want to be in control, control of our finances, our relationships, our work, but that desire conflicts with our relationship with God.

So how do we change that? Well, in volume two of Chip's series, Jesus Unfiltered, he tackles the practice of following, which begins with humbly allowing someone else to lead. Chip explains that when we decide to follow Jesus, we agree to believe, trust, and obey him no matter what. And in turn, he's responsible for leading, providing, protecting, and loving us. Discover how you can experience the freedom that comes with following Jesus wholeheartedly.

Now, if you miss any part of this series, Jesus Unfiltered, volume two, or want to learn more about our resources, the Chip Ingram app is a great way to get plugged in. Well, Chip, I know you've got an important application to share for this message, but before we get there, would you take just a minute and explain why we ask listeners to support Living on the Edge financially? Well, first of all, ministry is always an issue of the heart, and Jesus says that wherever our treasure is, that is where our heart will be. The Bible also commands us to be generous and open and free, and everything that I have, everyone listening to my voice right now, everything they have, God has entrusted that to them. The second is the Bible's really clear not only that we should be generous, but aware we should be generous.

I personally believe that your first commitment is to your local church, but then there's that opportunity to give over and above that first portion and to express love, because God says wherever you're spiritually ministered unto. In fact, the apostle Paul would say to a group of Christians, I ministered spiritually to you, and he actually went so far as to say, you have a financial obligation to minister back to me, and in his situation, it wasn't like for air time, I guess it was maybe donkey time, or I need some new parchments, or I need your financial resources to get on that ship to go from Corinth to Ephesus, and it's just the same here. If you get ministered unto, one of the ways that you not only say thank you, but then you generously pass it on to others is to support that ministry that's ministering to you. So that's kind of what biblically why we do it, and there's just the reality of need and it's a partnership and a team, and people are generous.

I mean, I'm thrilled. I'm very excited about how they do give, and so I want to say if you haven't, you can get in on this, and if you have, thank you very much. Well, if you're benefiting from CHIP's teaching, now would be a great time to join the team. You could minister with us to help others receive the same blessing you're enjoying. To send a gift or to become a monthly partner, donate online at livingontheedge.org. Tap donate on the app, or just give us a call at 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003. Your partnership is greatly appreciated. As we wrap up today's program, believe me, I understand that a lot of people are both uncomfortable and convicted and some of you just yearning and hopeful.

I hope the stats are completely wrong about men that half of all the men in the church visit Triple X websites at least once a month and have pornography addictions, but here's what I want to tell you. There is hope. Let me go over that little acronym for you to get home. Home with God, home with your heart, home with the people that you love.

The H is for honest. Just own your stuff. Just get real with God.

He's not shocked. Tell him and get real. Two is open up. You have to tell someone. As scary as it is, you have to get it on the table because the enemy is holding you hostage.

The M is for find a mentor. You need help. No one is going to break sexual addiction or any addiction for that matter on their own.

And the E is exit. I mean, you literally have to make it dramatic, whether it's pornography, whether it's an illicit relationship, whether it's an affair. I mean, you just have to exit. And before you just feel overwhelmed with getting honest and, you know, opening up and finding a mentor and exiting, I just have to tell you of the scores and scores of men and women that I get to experience here and I've had in my past of people that have overcome pornography, people that have lived through the affair, who have reconciled. Here's what I want to tell you. If you'll be honest and take the first step, there is hope.

This doesn't have to define or ruin your life. Thanks, Chip. Well, as we close, you know, a great way to get plugged in with our resources is through the Chip Ingram app. There you can listen to past series, sign up for daily discipleship, download the message notes and much more. Let us help you experience God in a new personal way, starting today with the Chip Ingram app. We'll join us again next time as Chip continues his current series. Until then, this is Dave Drouie saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.