Love Sex and Lasting Relationships - Love and Sex: Why Knowing the Difference Makes All the Difference, Part 2

You know, God created a beautiful, beautiful gift for His people called sex. And it's been exploited. It's been cheapened.

It's been defrauded. And I believe God looks down on so many of His children that are living together, that are hooked on pornography. And with tears in His eyes, He says, Oh, I long for you to have sex how intended, intimacy and love and connection. If you'd like to learn how to have that kind of sex in the right relationship at the right time, stay with me. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international teaching and discipleship ministry motivating Christians to live like Christians. Well, in just a minute, Chip will continue our series Love, Sex and Lasting Relationships, based in Ephesians Chapter 5. For the past handful of programs, he's been opening our eyes to God's design and purpose for intimacy, commitment and genuine love, and explaining why the world's model is unfulfilling. Let me encourage you to go back and revisit any part of this series through the Chip Ingram app. It's a great way to listen to Chip and Living on the Edge anytime. If you're ready, here's Chip with Part 2 of his talk, Love and Sex, Why Knowing the Difference Makes All the Difference. Far from wanting to limit sex, God's heart, stop experiencing such second rate sex. Logging on to an imaginary site with people that have been pumped with stuff and where they're blowing fans and they touch up the body and create these worlds that don't exist.

Having affairs, living with someone where, you know, there's no real commitment and you say all kind of words but it's just convenient, but it's really about you. He says all those things reduce, reduce, reduce, reduce the capacity for what God wants. You matter to him.

We read it earlier. You're his workmanship. You're like a prize painting. You're like the most classic car. You're like a beautiful mansion.

You're like a Rembrandt. You matter more than anything. He wants the best for you and he's saying, don't destroy this. And here's the reason. Sexual impurity destroys relationships.

It's that simple. Sexual impurity will destroy your relationship with God. Sexual impurity will destroy your relationship with yourself and sexual impurity will destroy your relationship with others. Notice what it says in verse five, for this you know, put a box around the word know. I'll tell you why in a minute.

With certainty that no, notice the repetition, no immoral, no impure or covetous person, by the way, who is an idolater, has inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. And then here's a warning. He's saying to a sex saturated culture, this is counterintuitive and I'm laying out, this is God's plan and he loves you, but there's a lot of people that are blowing smoke. They're fooling you. They're deceiving you.

They've got you in situations where you won't experience God's love and you're not going to experience good sex. He says, let no one deceive you how? With empty words. And then there's the warning, not only not to be deceived, but the consequences. For because of these things, what things? Immorality, impurity and covetous.

Because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. I said, put a box around the word no. In Greek, there's two major words for no. One is a fact. This is just a fact. The other is knowing by experience. So certain things I know because I've experienced them. Certain things are I can feel them or not feel them, but two times two equals four. That's this word.

He's saying you can know with certainty. Okay, here's what I want you to know. People, they can say they love God. They can raise their hands. They can come to church occasionally.

They can pray a little prayer. People who are living habitually immoral lives, habitually impure lives, and habitually covetous lives will have no part in God's kingdom. He's saying, and it's not like God's kingdom coming. It's God's kingdom, God's rule, God's favor, God's blessing now. And then he says don't let people deceive you.

Don't let them tell you stuff like if it's safe sex is okay or if we really love one another it's okay. See, did you notice that one little word? It's a person who covets. Coveting has to do with I want something that's not mine and isn't mine rightfully. He says that person who is immoral or impure or covets and then you notice that little phrase is an idolater. An idol worshiper is someone who worships the creature instead of the creator or something they make themselves.

And when you think of idols, don't you usually think of like a little something that you know people put on a stand or like the old Indian movies. Remember a totem? A totem, you know, they would worship. They might have a lion and a bear and but every totem, every idol, you can you can worship success. You can worship your body. You can worship your kids. You can worship your work.

You can worship ministry. But any idol that you have, you can go down through that idol at the very bottom of the idol. You know what's right there?

A mirror. And when you look at the bottom of that idol, guess who you're really worshiping? You. Guess who I'm really worshiping?

Me. If I would choose to log on to an internet site, if I would choose to flirt with someone, if I would choose to let my mind go, because this isn't just our actions, right? Jesus said, Matthew 5, if I lust for a woman in my heart, I've already committed adultery. Jesus said, the pure in heart will see God.

Solomon would say that as you think and I think, so we will become. When I do those things or when you do those things, that is all about me worshiping me and me getting off and thinking there's something that will deliver that's different than the woman that God gave me in the context of our relationship. And so here's what God says, I love you too much for that. Paul's saying to the sex saturated world in Ephesus, you will never experience God's favor and God's love and God's freedom.

You will end up like a little girl who's 20 and clinically depressed and can't figure out why life is meaningless because she's been exploited and used because she got her virginity over with. You don't want to be someone that inside of your marriage and it's rampant in Christian marriages where you don't talk about sex, it's not very fulfilling, you don't know what to do about it and you're chatting online with old high school boyfriends and girlfriends. He doesn't want you to be like someone who's playing the little game and let's pretend we're really committed. Your parents divorce, my parents divorce, so let's live together for a while.

That works out great for you, but there's no commitment and if there's no commitment, there's no safety and if there's no safety, you can't really let the other person know all of who you are. The great majority of all the people, we'll talk about it next week, that cohabitate, do not end up getting married and do not end up staying together. This, would you please hear, if you hear because of your background or my background, I didn't grow up as a Christian, okay? When I first heard, literally, when someone told me no sex before marriage, I'm just thinking, I don't know about that Christianity, but that's not for me. You should probably laugh right now with sort of that, yeah, that's how I think too, but you're way too holy, I appreciate that. Really, I mean, I just thought God had a bony finger and arms crossed and, you know, like, I thought God was up in heaven when sex occurred, like, oh my gosh, Gabriel, what are they doing, you know? The Bible says he's up in heaven and the marriage bed is holy and he looks at a couple that's spiritually committed, walking with Christ, knows one another, loyal, and they're having sex and God says, hey, Gabriel, guys, look at this, it's awesome.

You know why? Because sexuality and spirituality are so closely tied. There are few things you experience ever in your entire life that's akin to your intimacy with God, like having sex with your wife or a husband without guilt, without baggage, without stuff, and without junk.

And God says, that's what I want. Why? Because you matter. Don't treat yourself like you don't have any respect for yourself. Don't treat yourself like you don't matter.

You matter to me and so I want the best for you. The consequences, the wrath, and the word wrath, all it means is you're made in God's image, so here's what happens when things that are beautiful or things that you made or things that you've worked hard and things that you know are supposed to be wonderful, when someone comes and destroys them, you get mad, don't you? Right? Anybody, any of you parents have some other kids or a school or someone start to really mess with your kids, I mean, and really start to damage them? Tell me about those emotions, will you? What do you do? You get mad. When things are unfair, you get mad.

Why? Because you're made in the image of God. When we do things that are destroying our lives and destroying relationships and breaking up families, God gets angry and God's anger, it's not like God has an anger component and a love component. Theologically, God is simple and what that means is that He is absolutely holy and loving and simple and righteous and compassionate and just perfectly all at the same time and so out of His love, He allows consequences to happen when we're sexually immoral in our mind or in our speech or in our behavior and He allows these consequences to get our attention and so there's certain diseases that you get, those are physical consequences, there's depression and guilt and baggage, those are psychological consequences, there's spiritual consequences, you know, if you've gone too far, if you're logging on internet sites or if you're living together and now we can push down our conscience, right?

We can sear it, but I got news for you, there's a lot of people that when you've done something that you know is wrong and violated sexual boundary, you can open up this book and it's just like words off the page, doesn't speak to you. Try praying really from the heart and experience God's presence. Try wondering, why don't I see vivid answers to prayer? Why don't I don't have any power over temptation?

You can't live in both arenas. God says, I care about you so much, I don't want you to be conformed to this world and its consequences, I want you to be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you could experience my will, the good acceptable and perfect will of God in your sex life, in your married life, in your single life, in your thought life, because you matter that much. I have a friend of many years ago and the illustration is the consequences and we were playing basketball throughout South America and he was a West Coast guy, played for one of the, I think it was called the Pac-8 or I don't know what, there's Pac-12 now and I mean major, major school on a basketball scholarship, but he was an amazing athlete, so he was also a baseball player and so he played like AA ball in the summers, made money. And his story, I'll give you sort of the truncated version was, you know, I found some playboys early on, I kind of got involved in some soft porn, I found in high school that girls were pretty attracted to me and got with a group of guys and we kind of played a silly game about how many girls in high school could we sleep with, so we did that and went to college and I played the same game, I was kind of the big guy on campus and it was, there's certain men don't say this a lot, but he was like out of a poster, okay, you know, like 6'3", bronze body, California, blondish type hair, good looking, amazing athlete, nice personality, it's sickening actually, you know, for the rest of us. And then he said during the summers when I played pro ball, I became addicted, this was before the internet was big and on and he said the game I played was how many women could I sleep with in every town each day and he said I just, I'm ashamed at the numbers because, you know, you're a baseball player, you go to these towns and you kind of have groupies and I mean for a lot of guys I think this sounds like the life and he said this trip is my last stop, I said what do you mean your last stop? He said I live that way and then I'll never forget something happened and, you know, I know about God and I know about right and I know about wrong but I mean I just couldn't stop and then something snapped and broke inside of me and he said I went completely numb and he said I didn't have any desire, I didn't desire for sex, for God, for people, I had no feelings whatsoever and it scared me, I just felt like I'd given everything away, I had no capacity to love and no capacity to feel and I was completely bankrupt and I went before God and I begged and begged and begged for his forgiveness and I don't feel a lot but I started getting the bible and started to memorize some passages and then I got into church and I guess you could call it growing but I've got this chain that I'm carrying behind me and he said I wanted to come and serve God, I'm not playing baseball this summer, I wanted to serve him and so I'm praying that someone praying that someday someway he could restore that broken part inside of me.

The wrath of God is his kindness and love providing the kind of consequences to help you understand that you may not want that much love but he will keep loving you because he cares and he will bring increasing levels of consequence to get your attention so that you will become sexually pure so you can experience the very best. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Before we hear the rest of Chip's message let me remind you that we are a listener supported ministry. Your regular gifts help us create programs like this one, develop new resources and encourage pastors globally. Prayerfully consider becoming a monthly partner today then go to livingontheedge.org to give a gift and thanks so much for your help. Well here again is Chip. Now as you turn the page we need to then ask where do we go from here right this is a big big day for some of you it's like if this guy talking right now had any idea where I've been and what's going through my mind and my present situation what I'm currently doing right can you hear something before we go on God loves you if you're addicted to pornography God loves you if you're living with someone right now God loves you if you're sexually active with your boyfriend or girlfriend God loves you if you're currently having an affair God loves you if you have homosexual leanings and identity issues God loves you if you're involved in a homosexual relationship God loves you if any of those things are true of you today but you must understand that love will bring about consequences and to habitually continue in that destroys your relationship with God and your opportunity to experience Him and so He wants to forgive you for some of you you're involved in those things and you realize what you really need to do is realize oh my I never saw it as being covetous I never saw it as being exploiting or using I've confused lust with love and it's what I've ever seen and known and heard and you need to ask God to forgive you once and for all not just for your sexual sin but for all your sin and invite Him to be your Savior and He'll forgive you and He'll come into your life in the person of the Holy Spirit and He'll give you a brand new life for others you're here and you you're born again I mean you know God you know the story you experience Him you read the Bible some you pray some but you're living with someone and you know the empty words the deception we really love one another and we really can't afford to and on and on and on and and for others I hope the statistics are wrong about 25 or 30 percent of the men you're logging on to porn sites at least once a month more and more frequent with women so here's here's here's the here's the deal God didn't bring us together so you go oh wow man I'm a jerk I'm a selfish unloving lustful exploiting user of other people well you kind of got to see that right if you don't accept the bad news you can't get the good news and so now here's His word are you ready a word to those that are uninvolved I mean you're not involved in any relationship today make a commitment and you don't have to wear a ring and you don't have to go through a ceremony if that helps great but make a commitment to say I'll be sexually pure in my mind my thoughts and my relationships and next week we'll talk about developing a game plan if you're in a relationship dating someone or living with someone just do what's right this is not rocket science if you're living with someone you know I had a very long conversation knowing this was coming up and I sat down with a guy that I love a lot he's a great friend he's living with someone right now he's a great friend and we've talked about this and so I sat down earlier this week and I said hey man I really love you this is what I'm going to share you're going to be here your girlfriend's going to be here and you're going to come to a crossroads and you know he gave me all the empty you know what we can't afford to move apart and we really love each other I said look man you say what I get it right you either obey God or don't obey God so what you're telling me is you believe that God I mean he's great God you believe God is powerful enough to create the universe right yeah you believe he's powerful and loving enough to send his son to die in your place right and rise from the dead right but you don't think he has the power to help you guys deal through living apart figuring out whether this is really the right person and and supporting you financially so I just want to make sure I get this right so he can create the world but there's no power for you to obey he said could we sit down and talk and work this out I said my wife and I'll sit down with you and we'll we'll help you go through the steps of what to do but some of you that's the decision and this isn't one of those I'm going to think about this this is today we're not going to live together for some of you today I'm not logging on anymore today the affair stops and by the way don't meet with them to tell them it's over it never works you never break up with a text in a casual relationship but a text is good for this affair is over I've disobeyed God I've damaged my life I'm sorry we're done a word to those that are in crisis if you're in a marriage that's really not working and this just sort of exposes it if you're in a relationship where you feel like honestly I mean honestly you're in a relationship and you're scared because it's not just sexual it's abusive get help talk to someone today talk to a pastor Christian counselor get help and then finally for those that are married and all I can say is Christians are funny people I didn't grow up as a Christian so I can say this because I've been there we would we'd rather pretend than get real and I've done a lot of counseling I don't do a lot of it anymore I've met couples that are in their 70s that have never talked about sex walk with God 40 years she never ever told him you know when you do this it really doesn't really help me at all or when you do that or we haven't really talked about it it's this big white elephant and it becomes a barrier and people don't wake up and just say hey you know I think I'll give up on this marriage or I think I'll have an affair or I think I'll just give myself to the kids or I think I'll become a workaholic God wants your emotions and your spirit and your bodies to be connected in a way that sustains and is loving and deep and great so go to one of these marriage classes pick up a book on sexuality my wife and I have gone through so many books these books included to help us in every area of our life love giving another person what they need the most when they deserve it the least at great personal cost sex a beautiful dynamic bonding gift for procreation pleasure and beauty for one man one woman inside of marriage to have the light and intimacy that your creator wants for you you're listening to Living on the Edge with chip engram and the message you just heard love and sex why knowing the difference makes all the difference is from our series love sex and lasting relationships chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute everyone desires to love and be loved it's built into our dna so why are wholesome committed relationships so hard to find and hold on to in this 10-part series chip paints a more satisfying picture of love than what you'd find at any relationship workshop or dating site discover the truth about romance sex true love and marriage the way god intended it if you've missed any part of this series catch up any time through the chip engram map or at livingontheedge.org well chip's in studio with me now and chip as many of our regular listeners know our mission is to help christians really live like christians and i understand you have a story that really brings that idea to life i sure do dave at some point you wonder you know is Living on the Edge really making a difference and i got a note in the mail that i just have to share listen to this dear chip we don't have enough words to show our gratitude at one point my husband and i both thought things were so bad they'd never get better but thankfully i heard one of your sermons that spoke to our situation so i started listening on a regular basis now my husband listens to through god's transformation in our lives we started seeing restoration in our family even though we're still a work in progress we can see god's hand making direct changes in our lives recently we decided to make a monthly donation to help keep your broadcast going we realize that if your ministry helped us this much then it can help others too thank you for all that you're doing to furthering god's kingdom signed dr and i just remind you you know we're all so personally focused and we're human that you know over a million people this week will hear what you're hearing and not only that but then the broadcast and the teaching and the small groups will go to china to the middle east and places all around the world because people pray and because people partner financially and so if you're one of those partners can i just tell you thank you very very much if you're one of those partners that kind of gives now and then and would ever consider prayerfully to say you know i bet i could give just a little a month boy those monthly partners really help us understand what we can project and making budgets it's a huge help and if you have never partnered with us financially would you just today say lord is this something you want me to do and if he nudges you and says yes follow that good prompting thanks chip and if you'd like to be a part of ministering to believers all across the world prayerfully consider becoming a monthly partner with Living on the Edge your gift will go places and accomplish ministry work like you wouldn't believe to learn more call triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3 or visit Living on the Edge dot org that's Living on the Edge dot o-r-g or call triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3 app listeners tap donate well with that here again is chip today's program was one of those programs that made some of you feel very uneasy for some it's like i didn't know anyone's still talking about christians being sexually pure and for others you're downright a bit hostile inside thinking you know i don't really know about all that and i think that's sort of old-fashioned etc etc i often have uh you know people tell me so how do you know this is really true and of course we could go into lots of lots of reasons but in the last 15 to 20 years i cannot tell you how many uh bible studies in my house i've had with 20 and 30-somethings they're from all over the world they're people with all kind of backgrounds and what i can tell you is both inside and outside the church is a relational world of people hooking up being damaged lacking intimacy and deeply struggling i often had someone say does the bible really teach an old-fashioned no sex before marriage let me say unequivocally the passage that i taught today makes it clear sex outside of a monogamous marriage between one man one woman who are married is wrong period it is missing the mark it is sin now is that because god is a prude and gave us desires and doesn't want us to fulfill them absolutely not it's because he's so good he wants the very best psychologically physically spiritually for some of you you are deeply aware that what i've shared is true and like at the end of the story an arrow has pierced through your heart and what i want you to know is god forgives and there's restoration and the consequences of sin are real but healing and restoration are just as real turn to him today with all your heart and can i encourage you choose today for your relationship and for the honor of god to be sexually pure great challenge chip as we close if you're looking for a way to get more out of our teaching let me encourage you to download the message notes now this helpful tool is available for every program they include a clear outline all the scripture references and lots of fill-ins to help you remember what you're learning you can get them at livingontheedge.org under the broadcasts tab at listeners tap fill-in notes well until next time this is Dave Drewy saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge