May 24, 2010

Don’t Be A Fool – Series #3

Flee from Slavery!
Proverbs 7 (ALL) & 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Hello family, we have a lot to cover so let’s dig in.
First, let’s pray…

Okay we are in the third week of a series called, “Don’t Be a Fool” where we are unpacking things that trip up Christians on our path. And listen the great news for you if you are here and you are not a Christian yet, is that this series includes some VERY practical teaching. So even if you aren’t sure about God and the bible and sin and hell and Heaven and all of that, you can still get something out of this.

All that said, we are praying constantly for your souls around here. We have experienced an encounter with the living God of the universe and we believe that a relationship with Him and being part of His kingdom are the only things worth pursuing.

In other words, we say this in a lot of ways and we say it a lot – that we are not the morality police!

So, we are going to talk about everyone’s favorite topic tonight, we’re going to talk about sex and particularly, how sex can be a snare for the foolish if used outside of God’s design of marriage.

But beyond that, we are going to look at how violating God’s design in this area is going to enslave us. And so I’m NOT going to say all of what I have to say because we are a bunch of prudes.

On the contrary, we are teaching on this because we have seen how violating these teachings WRECK so many areas of our lives. We know this because of what we’ve heard while working with people who have been through this and to one degree or another, we have seen the wreckage from first hand experience – from our own lives.
But, if you are a believer or a pagan and you leave here tonight thinking, “You’re right, I’m going to follow this teaching and then I’ll be a better person… Or, …then I’ll be acceptable to God!” Then you will have fallen into a completely different kind of foolishness - a completely different kind of slavery, which we call works based righteousness, and that will kill you as fast as sexual sin, because that strips the glory of God’s grace away from Him as you try take part of the credit.

God doesn’t play around with or share His glory. It’s His. So before we finish up tonight, I’m going to do what I always try to do, I’m going to point you back to Jesus Christ and show you how this relates to your relationship to Him more than to anyone around you.

Again, we’ve got a lot to cover so we’re going to just dive in headlong and unpack as we go.

Proverbs 7, starting at verse 1:Notice as we read this together - there are several people in this word picture, in this chapter of the proverbs and regardless of your gender or age, ask yourself who you are in this chapter.

Now, we all want to be the wise parent looking from the window. But are you? Or are you the simple one who is about to walk into a foolish, devastating sin? Or are you the one tempting? The temptress could just as easily be a man, right? The truth is many of us have been in each of these roles. Keep that in mind as we read.

Unpack: Picture the writer here as a father sitting down with a child who is about to become an adult, about to take off into the world on his own.



Unpack: Notice the word simple, not the same as a fool. This implies more ignorance that accompanies youth. But, simple turns to foolishness if we don’t take warnings to heart.


Unpack: Don’t think that the temptress or the male tempter is always going to come from outside the church. Again and again, we are told to be on guard against the wolves who come into the church as well as those among us who might draw people away. For example, Paul warned Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3:1-6, saying:


Now pay attention to this last part. At the end of that long list of sinfulness, Paul warns that some people – in the church – will be…


Now tying this to our point, the temptress from Proverbs 7, says to the young dude, hey, I’ve offered sacrifices, I’m right with God. As Andy Stanley said when teaching on this passage, “I’ve emptied my bucket of sin, why don’t you help me refill it.”


As if this blatant sexual immorality wasn’t bad enough, she kicks it into high gear here…


Unpack: Now we will see this little man move from simple, or ignorant to full blown foolishness. He was already walking in an area he shouldn’t have been in at a time he shouldn’t have been there, but then after she actually propositions sex AND tells the kid that she is married, then even a man who has NO teaching about God under his belt should have the common sense to GET OUT! But he disregards common sense in pursuit of a moment of pleasure…
That last part is so true and we have all seen it haven’t we? Many are her victims. Many are the victims of sexual sin. And among the victims, you can count the careers, and marriages and families and reputations that have been destroyed by consensual sex between partners who were not married to one another.
And you can count among the victims the thousands upon thousands of men women and children who have been literally made slaves in the sex slave market – made to be prostitutes and used for pornography.

And you can count among the victims, millions of men and women who took one or two looks at pornography in magazines, or movies, or online and before long found them selves addicted to the pornography in the same way an alcoholic is addicted to the drink, in the same way an compulsive gambler is addicted to the next bet.

On that point you may think I am going too far. You may think that pornography cannot be as bad as those other addictions. You may have bought into the lie of our culture that says porn is a victimless pastime. If that is what you think, I would say you have never heard the devastating stories that have started, “I was just curious and took a look, or clicked on that sight or went to that club and…”
I’ve seen it rob marriages of intimacy, I have also seen where it has led to rape, and molestation, and on and on...

The point is our culture is littered with victims of sexual sin. It’s across the board. And listen if you decide that this is all just alarmist nonsense and you decide to skip over the passages in the Bible that talk about sex and you decide instead to go by culture, you are on shaky ground.

This is by far not the worst time in history for sexual deviance, nor is it the best. Societies seem to have an ebb and flow of wretchedness in this area. There were times in the early church where people were in incestuous relationships. Some of the cultures of that day had prostitutes that actually worked in temples to pagan gods and they believed that sex with these prostitutes was an act of worship.

Then we’ve had times in this country when – at least in the mainstream – women would be ostracized for showing any skin beyond the neck, head and hands.

Going sleeveless was shocking.

So instead of looking to culture which changes constantly. And even in our day and age, it changes from region to region. And instead of asking the question of “How close to the line can I get?”

Instead of that, let’s take our guidance from the Scriptures. From the Word of God, from the creator and sustainer of the universe, from the One who truly knows how we were designed to live and from the One who sees through all of our smoke screens.

Let’s move into one more passage, in the New Testament 1 Corinthians 6:12-20


Now get this, get where Paul goes next. Paul doesn’t say fight sexual temptations. Paul doesn’t say toe the line. He doesn’t say you can look at this, but not that. No, look in verse 18 He says what? FLEE!


We want to sluff off sexual sin, we want to say it is no big deal, but Paul says this is different. This is different. Sexual sin affects you differently. He continues…


That brings to mind the temple of the Old Testament. Time and again we saw that a desecration of the Temple, the dwelling place of God was met with severe consequences.

The people of God, the faithful among the nation of Israel, would not stand for it.

This points us to the “fruit and the root” principle that Jesus taught us about in the Sermon on the Mount.
If you are of the faith, if you are counted among God’s people. If you have been saved, justified by the blood of Christ on the Cross then you have been given the Holy Spirit to dwell within you. See your body as a temple of God, see your body as Not made for sexual immorality but made for the Lord. Consider your body in the same way that the nation of Israel looked to the holy of holies within the temple, as the dwelling place of God, to be treated with reverence, with a fear of the Lord on their hearts.

Finally one more picture, the picture we’ve taken you back to every week in this series…


That is to say, you were a slave to the sin. You were on the auction block. You and I once followed our sinful desires and we were held captive by the destructive forces of sin.

But God, in His infinite mercy came down from Heaven to rescue us, to rescue you and me from our sin. So LIVE! LIVE in the freedom. Flee from sexual immorality, which we define as any sex outside of the marriage bond. Flee not because we are a bunch of killjoys. Flee because the father, God the Father is looking from His window and He sees past the first and second glance, He sees past the flirtation, He sees past the mugging, and past the, well, we’ll just sleep in the same place, but we won’t do anything… He see past all of the excuses all of the rationalizations and justifications and He tells us, He tells His children, THAT is slavery, that is death. Sexual sin, no matter how tempting it is in that moment of passion, will lead you to death like an ox to the slaughter…


Now, I’m not going to get into a long list of do’s and don’ts here to explain how to honor God with YOUR body.

In Genesis 2:23-24, we see that man and wife will become one flesh (that’s speaking physically, sexually, relationally and emotionally). That’s were we land on this issue as a church.

If it is sexual gratification with anyone outside of a husband and wife relationship it is sin.

So that covers adultery, friends with benefits, pre-marital hook-ups, porn, lust in the heart toward co-workers, toward people on the street, etc, and the rest. If you are into that now, if you are into sexual immorality in your life, repent and believe in the Gospel.

And understand this, just like alcoholism, or drug addiction, sexual sin may have crossed over into full-blown addiction.

And as with ANY sin, you will NOT conquer this on your own. The only way we can defeat sin like this is to ask God for strength from the Holy Spirit to defeat this sin in our lives; and to pick up the spiritual tools that He has given us.

Tools like prayer and meditation on the Word. And tools like the church — A body of Christ centered believers as a whole — and within that group, a core of church family members that you begin to form close trusting relationships with. A core of people who you let in to your life. A core of people who agree to hold you accountable. A core of people that you help in the same way, to keep them accountable.

And we don’t let up! We continue to push forward to the call in which Jesus has called us. We keep pushing forward, co-laboring with the Holy Spirit on our road of progressive sanctification.

And we take each day as it comes and we place our trust in the Lord – moment to moment, decision to decision, glory to glory.

Now listen, we are going to close up. Because of the nature of this conversation, I know you might have a lot of questions, or a lot of guilt or a lot of anger or you name it. This kind of material stirs our hearts in a lot of different ways.

Instead of keeping us here all night and trying to cover us all in a comprehensive blanket, I would ask this instead:
If you have specific questions, get with me afterward face to face or by e-mail me or call or whatever. If you are a woman who wants counseling on this, I am going to refer you to my wife.

Men, we can talk.

Next week we are going to take this discussion where it needs to go and we are going to answer the question, what if you’ve already committed grievous sexual sins. And what if you have been the victim on the other side of that, a victim of someone else’s sexual sin.

Until then and aside from that, let’s pray…
Posted by