Why Sex Matters

But today, I'm excited for two reasons. First of all, we have baptisms right after service. Amen. We got two people being baptized. Hallelujah.

And Christina, I'll give you some instructions. We're going to be right across the street. We're going to do it right there in the hotel in the pool. So we're excited about that. The next thing I'm excited about is that the calls of the last few weeks have been challenging teaching.

And we taught on division. We taught on sin. We taught on confrontation. This week, it's going to be a lot nicer and easier because we're going to talk about sex. The book just keeps going.

Okay. And as we walk through each chapter of the book, we want to land on the important topics and important subjects that the Apostle Paul has laid out to the church. He was answering questions that the church had in that time period. So we've just been walking through those scriptures. We've been walking through those chapters and digging deep into what is beneficial for us.

As Christians, because we live in a dark time. We live in a dark world. And culture is dark, right? But we have a guiding light. That's the gospel.

And we look at this in light of the gospel. We can find a beacon of hope, a beacon of light in which we can walk towards that will guide us through the culture of darkness. Amen. We've got Jesus. I speak Jesus, right?

That's what we praise God for. I speak Jesus. So Paul takes a number of cultural issues in Corinthians. He's dealing with them. And we've outlined in the first week, we outlined in the first part of our teaching was chapter one through four, the problem of division in the church.

Part two, we are dealing with, and we dipped into the waters of that a little bit last week, but we're dealing with sex, marriage, and singleness. A lot of good opportunity to talk about that in the time of season it is. You know, you're thinking about relationships. You're thinking about your husband and wife, your girlfriend, boyfriend, your fiancees. You know, how do we create better relationships?

So this is, this is one of importance. Some of you thought I was going to say the Superbowl's today. So no, but we're talking about relationships. It's Valentine's season. And a couple of weeks ago, we stuck our toes in this a little bit.

Now, I want to say this. If there's kids in here under 13 years old, this might be a little PG-13-ish. I don't know what PG-13 is these days anyway. My wife and I are trying to figure that out, you know, where the line of PG-13 is. But for me, I wouldn't mind my daughter being in here listening to this.

I have no problem with it, but I just want you to, we've got a wonderful kids ministry. I saw kids. You can check them in downstairs if you're feeling uncomfortable with them on this subject. You're not ready for them yet. So Corinth was a highly sexualized society.

Very, very sexualized society. Sexual promiscuity was very common in the culture, so much in Corinth that you were Corinthianized if you had any kind of sexual deviancy going on. You were called a Corinthianized person. They used that phrase as a common phrase in that day. Corinth had thousands of prostitutes.

In fact, they say that one of every 30 people that were walking around was a prostitute. So, as you can see, it's not surprising that sexual purity was something that was a hot topic in that culture and in the church. And as a side note, let me say this. Some of you may be a little uncomfortable with this subject today because you're like, well, man, you know, I'm in church, I'm trying to figure out this Jesus thing or this church thing, and I'm not sure if I believe yet, but I feel a little uncomfortable because I have a sexual history that if somebody heard about that sexual history, they would not want me here. Maybe there would be some kind of judgment because we're talking about that.

Let me just encourage you, that is not the case. As we look at the Bible, be encouraged because Jesus had followers that had sexually dysfunctional pasts, and the earliest of the churches were filled with people with sexual issues. So, this is a very common topic for the church. So, you are in good company, and I'm sure many of others in here who have been redeemed and set free can tell you about their history, and we're just thankful that you're here today to learn with us. With the church occurrence, some were even saying that the occasional visit to a prostitute was okay.

It's fine. It's just physical. After all, it's just biology, right? I mean, when you're hungry, you eat, right? When you're thirsty, you drink.

When you have a need, you fulfill that need. It's just physical. Then you feel better, and it's natural, and you go on. But Paul says, he wants to show us that it's much more than just a physical act. It's much more than just something you do physically.

There are deeper spiritual things that are going on when you are in a sexual relationship with somebody. God has made us psychosomatic unities, meaning that psycho, soul, somo, body, that the body and the soul are one. They're not separated. They're one. You can't neatly separate those two.

They are one. Yes, it's true. When we die, our souls go to be with the Lord. Our spirits go to be with the Lord, and our bodies are in the grave. But it's not meant to be that way.

It never was meant to be that way. And one day, Jesus, when he returns, our bodies will be resurrected, as the apostle Paul tells us. And our bodies will meet our souls in the area, and we will be made one like it was supposed to be. So it says in Scripture that we are actually uncomfortable without our bodies when we're with the Lord. Although it's better to be with the Lord than even be here.

We know we long for our bodies because the body was... It was always meant to be a part of who we are. It was never separated. Body and spirit was never separated. So Paul was going to argue, because the bodies and souls are one, because people were thinking differently.

Sex isn't a meaningless physical activity. It's extremely deep and dimensional and spiritual. So if you follow along, let's go to verse 9 of chapter 6. We're going to begin there. It says, Don't you know that unrighteousness will not inherit God's kingdom?

Do not be deceived. No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or male, males who have sex with males, homosexuals, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Very serious scripture here. A lot of sins are labeled here. But note how many times he brings up sexual issues here.

Why? Because they are significantly important. They're happening in the church there, and they have deeper ramifications as opposed to other sins. Not that any of these sins are any different than any other sin. In God's eyes, he sees all sin the same.

But Paul is tackling some pretty heavy issues here. And then he goes to verse 12. And it says, Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Now, notice the quotations in everything is permissible for me. That was a common quote in that day.

They would walk around, what happens in current stays in current, you know? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. You all know that popular quote. And that was something that they would constantly talk about, or they would constantly share, you know, when you're in the wild city of current, this is what, you know, everything is permissible for me. So, you've got to understand the context in which, because a lot of people would say, Well, everything is permissible for me.

I'm free to do what I can and what I want to. I'm free to sin. I'm free to do whatever to do. You know, just persist in whatever I'm doing because it says everything is permissible. But Paul's like, No, everything isn't permissible.

I'm just stating something that I'm getting ready to rebut. It's like me saying, What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I'm not agreeing with what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, because I know that when you come out of Vegas, you're bringing other stuff with... You don't just leave it in Vegas. It's deeper than that. Some of it is physical.

Some of it is spiritual, right? And people sometimes quote that phrase, You know, Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. So, so let's look at it. He says, Everything is permissible for me. And some Christians and Christians are saying the same thing.

Hey, we've been freed from the law. We don't have to worry about that. So, so this, this, this physical thing that we're... It's not really going to have an effect on us anyway. And Paul says your freedom from the law was to love God and to love others, not to persist in your sin.

And so the question is, are kind of open sexual relationships loving and beneficial for either you or your neighbors? That's what he's asking here. Is this really beneficial for you? And Paul continues, everything is permissible, but I will not be mastered by anything. Everything is permissible.

Being free from the law does not mean getting myself over to simple desires. Being free from the law does not allow me to just go and do what I think will please me at the time. If my body says to eat a dozen donuts and I go out and get a dozen donuts and eat that, it doesn't make it right. I mean, it's going to be good for me. If I get really angry at somebody in traffic and I want to just get out of the car and go bust their windows out or something, and if I follow along with that, it doesn't make it right just because I feel that way.

I'm free, though, in Jesus. But it doesn't necessarily make it right. And Paul's saying the same thing. Scripture tells us what's right. Our mind and reason tells us what's right, not our bodily urge.

So Paul addresses this other Corinthian slogan, which apparently current had a lot of slogans in that day. And he says, food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will do away with both of them. Now, I'm using the CSB translation and they do a disservice to the scripture by putting the quotes behind food. Food is for the stomach and stomach is for the food. But the actual saying is all of the sentence.

Food is for the stomach, stomach is for the food. Move the quotation to the end and God will do away with both of them. Now, unfortunately, people would use this and they would quote this all the time, even in the church. This is just how current it is. This is how we do it.

This is, wait, food is for the stomach, stomach is for the food. If I'm hungry, I'm going to eat it. If I have a desire for it, I'm going to do it. If I need to have sex, I'm going to feel that bodily desire, even if it's outside the constraints of marriage and outside of the parameters of marriage. And if I need to be satisfied, I'm going to be satisfied.

And then the next part is with and God will do away with them both. Let me explain this for a second. This was a flawed idea that God not was not really concerned about the physical. He was only concerned about spiritual, meaning that God wasn't really concerned about what we do with our bodies in this lifetime. As long as our hearts are right, as long as our hearts are correct, as long as our spirits are right.

This is called Platonic dualism. If you go back in history, many of you know the philosopher Plato. Not far from there in ancient Greece, he developed this philosophy that the body and the spirit are two different things. The body will die away. The body is not important.

It's . The Spirit is what matters. And they adopted this as a very popular philosophy in that day that the body doesn't really matter. We can do whatever we want to with the body. We can hurt the body.

We can physically choose things that aren't necessarily good for the body. But what really matters is the Spirit. What really matters is I'm honest and I'm a good person. What really matters is that I'm doing the right thing. But the Bible doesn't teach that.

The Bible doesn't teach that our soul and bodies are separate. So the Corinthian lie is in two parts. Sex is just physical. It's like any biological need that we have. And the other one is what you do with your body has no bearing on your soul.

So they have these two lies. Do you believe that this version is alive and well today? Yes. Let me show you. Here's what people would say.

Casual sex between two people isn't really an issue. It doesn't hurt anybody. We're just having fun. We're lonely. We're just dealing and working with each other to try to patch those rough places or those bad relationships we've had in the past.

There's no strings attached. It's just a little harmful affair. I mean, there's no bearing. And we're just trying to break the monotony of life. You know, it's why would it hurt anybody else?

It's like the Katy Perry lyric. I don't even know your name. It doesn't matter. You're just an experimental game. It's just human nature.

Right. Woody Allen director and comedian and actor said this. I know sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best. In other words, it's just physical. There's nothing.

It's just biological. There's nothing more than that. Here's another variation of the variation of the Corinthian life. I should be able to love whoever I want. God doesn't care about that.

God doesn't care about whether I have sex with who I have sex with and how I have sex. And and love is love. You just try to figure that out. As long as as long as we're all happy, as long as we're all getting long, as long as we're honest. Is that not familiar in our culture?

Sounds good. It sounds great. Right. That's another way of saying it is physical. All this stuff that we do in this world is just physical.

Well, that doesn't really matter. What matters is the spiritual. But Paul counters that in verse 13. He says, however, the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. So God raised up the Lord Jesus and will also raise us up by his power.

So it's a direct contradiction of platonic dualism that's taking place here. And he goes on to say, don't you know that your bodies are part of Christ's body, that you're connected to Christ? That's a pretty powerful thing. So should I take a part of Christ's body and make it part of a prostitute? Because of that, you know, they were sleeping with prostitutes and not thinking it was a big deal.

Right. Absolutely. lowly. That's what he says. It makes sense to us, I guess, but in that day it didn't make a lot of sense.

We can put that in another category if we want to. Don't you know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For scripture says the two will become one flesh. And he quotes Genesis 2 there, and then he goes on in verse 17. But anyone joined to the Lord is one with him.

And that's a pretty significant statement. If nothing more, notice the extremely spiritual dimensions that are taking place in a sexual relationship. You can't have sex with somebody and not become one of them, is what he's saying. You can't have sex with somebody and not affect you in some way deep down inside yourself. You can't separate the body.

You can't separate the soul. Sex is not just biological. It's something much deeper. Now, before we unpack Paul's reasoning and his theology in it, could we take just a moment and acknowledge these truths? Is sex just physical?

If sex is just physical, why is rape so much more psychologically damaging than any other physical violence that takes place in somebody's life? If it's just physical? If it's just physical, why is it that when children experience sexual abuse, it can be so difficult to take it off? Even into their adulthood. If it's just physical, why is adultery so hard to get over?

Why can't we forgive? Why can't we forget? Why can't we move on? Why do we let it bug us? If sex is just physical, why is it that many people's deepest regrets, deepest dark secrets are that of a sexual nature?

It's just physical. It's just physical. It shouldn't matter. Do you see what I'm getting at here? If sex is just physical, none of these things would be true.

It would just be physical. There's something about sex that touches the deepest and darkest parts of us. So Paul's here teaching us. He's going to share with us. Here's why it touches us at deep level.

Paul's going to give us some B-lock lessons here. First of all, God created the soul and body to function as one. Now, you can't do something with your body and not with your soul. That's why in verse 16 and 17, he goes back and forth about this physical and spiritual nature. He says, you join with them.

You become one with them. Notice how Paul used the illustration of the cheapest form of sexual experience imaginable, that of a prostitute. He uses that example. Think about it. It should be meaningless, right?

They're a stranger. There's no commitment. You're likely never to see them again. Yet, Paul says, even the most casual sexual experience, there is a soul joining. That's how significant it is.

And secondly... Jesus died to redeem our bodies, too. He didn't just die to free us of the guilt of our sin, to cover our sins, which he did that. Praise God for that. But he resurrects our physical body.

He redeems our bodies. He died not only for our spirits, but he died for our bodies. And if the body isn't important, God would have just accepted Jesus' sacrifice for our sin, the payment of our sin, and that would have been it. But he resurrected Christ in his physical body, showing that not only that he was God, amen. Anybody who raises himself from the dead, I choose to believe them, right?

But he resurrected Christ in his physical body, showing that God cares about the physical body. He does care about your physical body. He cares about every part of you. Thus, in verse 13, the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord. It's not the stomach for food and the food and food for the stomach.

All of it is Jesus' now. When you give your life to Jesus, it's all his. Every piece of it, whatever Jesus purchased with his blood, he should have worshiped over, and that includes our body. It is all his, which leads me to point three. God designed sex to interact, to reenact, excuse me, the most intimate part of our relationship with him.

The most intimate part of our relationship with him. It's a reenactment. If you want to put your finger on Scripture and turn back to Ephesians 5, 31 and 32, he says, And the two will become one flesh. Back to Genesis again. He goes back to that again, right?

Even to another church. But in verse 32, he says, This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. So, it's a comparison. It's a equivalent to Christ and the church. When you make a covenant in marriage, it's just like a salvation covenant.

Think about it this way. You stand at the altar. You unite yourself with someone forever. All that is his becomes hers, and all that is hers becomes his. The wife takes on a new name.

You put on the ring, which is a symbol of baptism. You celebrate a meal, and then you have sex to consummate the marriage. This beautiful thing, this commitment to each other, out of which God brings forth new life. Now, look at the church. Look, salvation is the same thing.

When you say, I do, you are standing at the altar, so to speak, to the Lord saying, I'm in. I do. I commit my life to you. And guess what? Jesus has been standing at the altar waiting for you to come down the aisle for 2,000 years.

He's been there all along waiting for you to come to him. And when you give your life to Jesus, all that he has becomes yours, and all that you have, he bore on the cross. He took on that. He bore the shame and the sin and condemnation gladly on the cross, and he was bearing your sin and shame. And what was his that becomes yours?

Righteousness. Everlasting life. An inheritance of God. All that becomes yours and you wear a new name. You have a new family.

You have a new name in the heavenlies and you exchange rings. That's what baptism is. Putting the ring on to say, hey, look, I'm married and I'm in. We share meals with communion, the sacrament of communion and at salvation. Jesus puts his Holy Spirit in you, consummating you.

And from that brings forth a new life. You see what I'm saying here? You see that in Scripture? That's why sex itself is not just a physical act. It's much more than that.

The act of sex itself is a physical illustration of God's love. And psychologists say that the deepest desires of the human heart is to be known and loved. And that's what happens in sex. When you go into a bedroom in a marriage bed, someone sees you, he uncovers you, they embrace you, they receive you for all that you are. It's a very deep spiritual level and it echoes the love of God.

It's why sex feels beautiful when it happens. It's a beautiful thing. Even the complementary nature of sex between male and female is a picture of the relationship with Christ alike, but different, complementary in the relationship. And God wrote this in all of creation, everything in creation. He took two opposites alike, but opposites and made something in the day and the night, the sun and the moon, the land and the sea, the earth and heaven.

And on his ultimate day of creation, what did he do? He made the magnum opus of it all, male and female in his image. All that was set up for salvation. All that was set up for salvation. And we, humanity, are united with Christ.

Christ plays a role as the male. He's the life giver. We, the church, play the part of the female, the life receiver. In fact, C.S.

Lewis said that in relation to God, all souls are female in relation to God because he's the life giver. So, sex is a picture of our role as the bride of Christ, the church being the bride of Christ. By the way, same-sex marriage destroys that picture. That's why marriage is supposed to be a union of two things which are alike but different, complementary. So, the point, every part of marriage and sex illustrates the love of God.

It illustrates God's love. So, far from being merely just a satisfaction or a satisfying of our desires, sexuality is central to our humanity. It's central to our knowledge of God. So, what then is Paul's conclusion? What is the application here?

He says three words, but it really is just one word. In verse 18, he says, flee from sexual immorality. Flee. Just get away from it. Run away from it.

Why? Because in verse 18, the second part of it, he says every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. He sins against his own, because when you sin sexually, you sin against three things. You sin against God, because you're going against God's design, and you turn it into something else, rather than a act of worship that he designed it for, a self-giving love to others. And we exchange that for lust, and it sins against the person you were having sex with, because you reduced them down to just an object.

That's all they are. The Corinthian men were treating these prostitute women like disposable objects. They were just things to satisfy. They didn't see them as image bearers of God. They saw them as just drive-through, purchase-consumed, and leave-type things that they could just put to the side.

In fact, Andrew Wilson said it like this, the prostitute is no more than food for a hungry man or a toilet in which to relieve himself. I know that's gross, but this is the reality of it. This is how these men saw them. This is how these men saw them. She's just an object to satisfy my desires, reducing her down to an object.

An object, and it sins against our self. Sex is so integrated into our souls, our human souls. What we do with our bodies deeply affects our souls. Other sins he talks about primarily hurt others, but sexual sins destroy you as well. It deadens you.

It deadens your soul, and the more you do it, it calluses and deadens to the point that you're not even a soul anymore. Even if you tell yourself that it's just casual, and you're just messing around, and there's no connection that takes place, I can assure you that something is happening inside of you. You know it. I know it. There's something deeper there.

You can't escape the connectivity of that person. That's why it's so important. Tim Keller says it like this in the meeting of marriage. He says, even if you are not legally married when you are having sex with someone outside of marriage, you may find yourself very quickly feeling married like ties, feeling that the other person has obligations to you, but the other person has no legal, social, or moral responsibility even to call you back in the morning. This insecurity leads to jealousy and hurt, feelings and obsessiveness that two people are having sex but are not married.

It makes breaking up. It's vastly harder than it should be, at least to many people, to stay strapped in relationships that are not good because of a feeling of having somehow connected themselves. It's like the plotline of every Friends episode, right? It's impossible to have sex and not be engaged in some kind of spiritual dimension. And many people think, well, Christians are just anti-sex, and that's just completely the opposite.

We just know how good it is, and how powerful it is, and how important it is. As Kim Keller said, sex outside of marriage is not a sin because it's bad, it's a sin because it's good. It really is good. It has power over us. It's hard to break away from it.

If we put ourselves in situations, they call God created it to be a really good thing. It's a powerful thing. It's a oneness. It's a spiritual thing. And our culture says sex is no big deal.

I see your body, and I want it, and I'm going to have it. What's your name again? Who are you? Ariana Grande. Somebody in the first service kind of said, I can't believe you quoted her.

Yes, I'm Ariana Grande. Yes, okay? I see it. I like it. I want it.

I got it. You know? That's how we see culture. Our culture's attitude is basically, I've been dating about four months, so I have the right to treat you like an object. So let's have sex, and then when I get bored with you, I'm going to leave after about two or three months because I do treat you like an object, and I don't want to go any longer because I don't want to have to treat you like a human being.

I just don't want that. That's what our culture says in sexual relationships. You're just an object, but we are called as Christians to covenant with someone, not to objectify someone, but to covenant with someone, cherish someone. Not as an object of a satisfactory need. You are sinning against God.

You are sinning against them, and you're sinning against yourself when you have sex with someone outside of marriage just because you want to fulfill this desire that you have. So flee, so flee from sexual sin. Other temptations, God says, endure. Stand. Hold on.

You know, stand firm, doesn't he? But this is the only one, he says, you've got to flee from it. You've got to put parameters up, man. You can't go to that apartment. You can't be alone with him or her.

You can't put yourself in that situation. Martin Luther once said, if your head is made of butter, stay away from the fire. His sexuality is made of butter, okay? Stay away from the fire. Flee.

Flee temptation. Do whatever you can to flee temptation. Don't put yourself. Don't go on that trip. Don't do that thing with that person.

You know you can't handle it. Don't flee. God knew you can't handle it because He made it passionate. He made it powerful. He made it good.

And you need to be aware that you cannot handle it without the power of God in your life. So what does Paul say? Flee it. Run for the hills. Amen.

I heard that. That's a really good one. Flee temptation. Flee pornography. Let me just deal with pornography for a minute.

I mean, our city may not have 30,000 prostitutes in it, but we've got hundreds of thousands of porn sites available at our fingertips. Did you know porn traffic on the web every day is more than the traffic of Amazon, Netflix and Twitter combined? Well, whatever it's called now, eggs. The porn industry in our country takes in more money than Major League Baseball, NBA, and we're getting ready to watch them. Millions of dollars put in this one game called the Super Bowl combined.

The NFL. Combined. Recent studies show that 40 million Americans are regular visitors to porn sites. Recent studies, in fact, get this, one third are women. So it's totally a myth that this is all a man thing.

One third are women. It's not just a male problem. 70% of men ages 18 to 24 visit a porn site every month. That's 70%. That means a solid majority of our young people, our young men are objectifying women.

Most people think of looking at a porn site is, you know, it's not really a big deal. It's just a picture. It's not hurting anybody. It's a victimless crime. Have you heard that?

It's a victimless crime. First of all, do you realize that the woman you are gazing at is a result of an eating disorder and heavy editing? And not only that, statistics say that they're living a horrible life of abuse, likely even sex trafficking. That's hardly a victimless crime. And beyond that, Paul says, other victims are you and your future spouse, your future wife, your family.

I remember a long time ago, my dad sitting me down and telling me, he is a professional counselor, pastor, professional counselor, counseled lots of men. He said, make the decision today not to do it because being good men have ruined their lives, have ruined their families, have ruined everything because they are addicted. Do not do that. You got to flee from it because it was what it does. It is.

Porn rewires the way your brain fundamentally works. When you look at pictures, reducing women down. You start to see real women in life as just objects, too. When you're walking around, you're looking at them, oh, whoa, whoa, hey, what's up? And you're not looking at them as human beings, you're looking at them as objects, and then you carry this into your home and into your marriage, and then you start objectifying everything about your life.

And then one day you're going to get bored with your life, and then you're going to go right back to point again, or maybe even worse, find someone else. It is significantly important that we flee from it for the sake of the future marriage, for the future family, and the future life. Verse 18, he says, Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. Porn is nothing to play around with. Psychologists even say, or psychiatrists, rather, even say that porn is more enslaving to people than heroin.

And what's really crazy about it is that industry is targeting our 12 and 13-year-olds, because they know if they can get them just three days into it, they are addicted for life. It's demonic. It's entering into our kids' rooms, and our kids' computers, and our kids' phones. So we need to be careful, parents. Parents, if you have a teenager that is in their room by themselves with a computer or with a phone or whatever, don't be ignorant, okay?

Anything can happen. You might have a good kid, but you're giving them a loaded gun, okay? I'm not being judgmental. We just have to be careful. We need to put filters on things.

We need to check on our kids often, make sure we're looking at what they're looking at and seeing what they're—we need to put parameters on things, okay? So I directed a lot of this to men, and men are like, you're beating up on us pretty hard today. But as I said before, women are one-third—one-third of women deal with it, too. But if you don't deal with porn, which, you know, the majority of women don't deal with physical porn, but there's all sorts of soul porn. Let's just say romantic novels or some type of fantasy that you're in that has prompted that in your brain.

Why don't you just call it soul porn is all it is. Please be careful. Flee sexual immorality. Flee means to take radical measures, radical—not just small measures—radical measures to separate yourself from it. Flee it.

Get it. Get the filter from your internet's throat. Throw the computer out of your house if you have to, okay? Whatever it takes, get heavy accountability on your life. Flee from it.

Put things in place. But not by—but this is important. You can't flee from it by trying harder. Not by willpower, but by fleeing to Christ. We've got to flee to Christ.

That's why verse 19 says, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? Who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is a temple of In you, whom you have from God, you are not your own. And then he goes on to say, you have been bought with a price to glorify God with your body. Hey, you've been bought with a price to glorify God with your body. All the two things here, the blood of Christ, he purchased you with his blood.

He died on the cross for all of your messed up stuff, and that means he deserves your sexual purity, and he's going to give you the ability to handle it, to live a life of purity. He can do that. And the second point he makes is the Holy Spirit lives in you, and you may feel like you don't have the strength to overcome, and guess what? You don't. But the Holy Spirit does.

The Holy Spirit can give you the power to overcome anything. It's not by my might, not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live not, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

And what we know more than anything is that I can do all these things through me. No, through Christ who strengthens me. Christ strengthens me. Flee to Christ. Flee to Christ.

Let me speak for a minute as we start closing this. For those who feel it's too late, I know there's probably some that are sitting here thinking, you know what? If you saw my sexual rash, it's a mile long, and you, I don't, I mean, pastor, I want us to go back to verse 9 where it talks about all these sins. It talks about neither the sexual immorality nor adultery nor all these different sins, men who have sex with men, all these things. But if you go to verse 11, it says this, it says, and that is what some of you were.

That is what some of you were. But what, what was it said? But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of Jesus Christ by the Spirit of God.

When you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, he washes you. When you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord, he washes you. He's like a fountain. You've been cleansed, and then you're sanctified. You're set apart.

You're holy. You're made pure in Jesus Christ. Maybe you feel you're permanently defiled, but, but, and you're beyond repair, but that's not true because when Jesus comes in, he sanctifies you. He restores you. He makes you a new creation, and he justifies you, meaning that he resolves your guilt before God, that all that guilt, all that condemnation, all that shame that you had, Jesus took that on the cross.

Don't grow out. The cross is what we need. The cross is what we lean into so that there is no condemnation in those who are what? In Christ Jesus, in the cross, in the blood of Jesus, we are set free. Let me speak to one last group here.

Maybe you struggle with same-sex attraction. It's very real in our culture. And you say, you know, I want my body to glorify God, but I have these desires that I just pray and I just try and it just won't go away and I can't control this thing. I know it can't be right, but hear me. All of us have desires that go opposite to God's will.

All of us have sin that goes opposite to God's will. What God wants is for you to submit yourself to him. Realize that he loves you and accepts you and he will not only wash away your guilt and wash away your sin, he'll give you the strength to obey his commands. He will give you the strength to obey his commands even though it may be difficult. And you can come and talk to somebody.

Don't feel like you're alone. Don't feel like you're, you're like any of us. We all need a savior. We all need a kid. We all, we all go through things.

But there is more forgiveness and acceptance and help in Jesus than there is in your sin. And for all of us, those who may be dealing today with all, all kinds of sexual sin, all kinds. You may have messed up desires. Maybe, maybe you have twisted desires, whatever they may be. Oh, we can all be washed.

We can all be sanctified. And we can all be justified in the name of Jesus by the spirit of God. And nobody's too far. Nobody's too gone. So my invitation to you is that would you accept Jesus as your savior?

Would you receive Jesus today? Would you let him wash over you? Would you let him sanctify you? Would you let him justify you? Would you place your trust in him?

Would you place your hope in the cross of Jesus Christ today? With all heads bowed and eyes closed. Jesus says, He who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. He said, there is not one who is, who is sinless. You're not one.

But thank God for the grace, the blood of Jesus Christ. You can give your life to him today. Would you do that? Maybe you need to rededicate your life to God today. Maybe you need to rededicate your life to God today.

Would you do that? Would you resubmit your life today? Sam, I confess that I've walked away from you. We do this by proclaiming the blood of Jesus Christ, admitting that we're a sinner, and receiving Jesus as our Savior. Let's pray that together.

Father, I believe that you are the Son of God, and I admit that I am a sinner. Today, I trust in you as God. And Lord, I receive your blood. I receive your sacrifice. I receive your salvation.

Come into my heart. Consummate the bearage, Lord. Live in me, God. Thank you, Lord, for saving you. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Cabildo Bracken Son of God Son of God Pepper 100 Zef