Welcome to Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we're praying this message helps you deepen your relationship with Him.
Now let's dive in. Welcome back to the Deepen podcast with Pastor Joby Martin. We are so glad that you're here. And this week we are deep diving into this week's teaching on the Kingdom of God. and sex.
We have been walking for the last handful of weeks through a teaching series at 1122 called The Upside-Down Kingdom, where we've been looking at the differences, the radical differences, between what the world says and the ethic of the world and the kingdom of God and what God's heart is for His people. And you have been doing an unbelievable job unpacking God's heart and God's mind through His Word to us. And so as we just dig in tonight into 1 Corinthians 6 and go wherever God would lead... Set the stage for us and kind of give us the highlight reel of this weekend's sermon.
Yeah, the kingdom of God and sex. This would be a good warning if you're listening like in your car to the podcast with your children. This is probably a PG-13 kind of thing. Part of the reason I wanted to walk through this text, there are many to choose from in Scripture, right, as God talks to us about His design for sex.
But the refrain in 1 Corinthians, because Corinth was a sex-saturated, sin-soaked society. temple prostitutes, and that was kind of the core business in Corinth. And Paul keeps saying, did you not know? Do you not know?
Do you not know? Do you not know? And they would say, we didn't know. We didn't know.
We didn't know. So you see, you can really see the two kingdoms at work here. And what the Corinthians were trying to do, they had a very similar ethos sexually that our culture does now, that I can do whatever I want to with my body and just give my heart and soul to Jesus.
And so... Through the lens of the upside-down kingdom, they had one foot in this kingdom and trying to put one foot in his kingdom. And Paul's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not how it works. And so he starts with the gospel and he brings it back to the gospel.
This isn't just try harder, do better, get some filters on your phone, stay away from the temple with the prostitutes. It's more than just white-knuckling it. There's no way we will change our practice until we can change our perception. And I just really want people to know how valuable they are. They are a temple of the Spirit of God.
Therefore, we should honor God with our bodies. Amen. You did an unbelievable job walking through the text faithfully. Man, I mean, you're my favorite preacher in the world. Well, you're very kind.
That's true. And you know I listen to a lot of preachers. You do.
And just as I was sitting there tonight as a believer and dwelt with the Holy Spirit, I was so... And just, it could feel the Spirit of God in me, just not coming alive, but just growing. And there was an empowerment happening in the room and in our people. And I just think there's just so much confusion.
There's so much truth suppression. There's just so much hurt. There's so much that comes with this topic in everybody.
the history and bad thinking and bad experiences. And so I just think Jesus is going to use this to set a whole bunch of people free and to really help people see that there is a road to freedom and there's a road to health and life. And so I'm excited to deep dive into this with you.
I want to welcome Trey Brunson, one of our pastors. He's joining us tonight. And if you're listening, you wouldn't know this, but if you're watching on YouTube, you may be asking yourself, what's up with all the bald people? And, you know, He was chosen for us.
Better lucky than good is what I say. And so it's not a requirement to be bald here. It just happens to be a requirement to be bald and ugly to be in this podcast right now.
I feel like I'm a part of the team. That's right. We're glad to have you. Pastor, let me just start with some questions.
As I was listening tonight, I was thinking about... four different groups that would hear this message, potentially hear this message. And maybe I'll share the group, and then maybe you could just...
How would you encourage them as they're hearing and receiving this Word? The first group I was thinking about is believers who agree with what you're saying. And they agree not just with what you're saying, they agree with what you're teaching from God's Word.
That's a really important distinctive. You're not just up there sharing your opinions. And you say this very clearly in the sermon, that we're standing on the Word of God.
And we hold fast to the Word of God, and that's what we got. And so they're believers. They agree with the Word of God as it's written. They agree with the way that you were expositing the Word of God. But they're praying for someone who is trapped.
And they got a family member, somebody maybe very close to them. There's a very personal relationship they have with somebody that's just trapped in a sexual addiction. How would you encourage them as they're praying and as they're carrying the burden?
for this person. So I'm older than you guys, but we grew up in like the, or I did for sure, the like true love waits era, you know, which I think there's some pure hearted folks talking about purity. We'd signed covenant and all of that kind of stuff.
And everything I was taught, we were taught was a lot of wisdom, a lot of path languages about where those paths lead. And all that's really important. But the only hope this believer has for the person trapped is that that person has a true encounter with Jesus. I mean, you just won't be able to will yourself out of these kinds of things.
There truly is a demonic spirit. I mean, if you want to think about addiction, particularly like a sexual addiction or a pornography addiction, what do you call it when you don't want to do a thing? You've told yourself, I'm never doing that again.
You know the destruction that is at the end of that road, but there's another thing in you that tries to lead you down that road and then demolish you once you walk down it. That is demonic, man, for sure. And only the grace of Jesus can set you free from that.
And so I think... I think there's a lot of wisdom in things like paying attention to your environment. I think there's a lot of wisdom in not doing this alone and having a band of brothers around you to help.
Accountability makes a lot of sense, filters for your phone. All of that's wisdom, but wisdom and will will only take you so far. That's right. You've got to have a fresh encounter with Jesus Christ to free you to know, one, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and then two, therefore go and leave your life of sin. Yeah.
For sure, and see back to week one when we were talking about confession and repentance, and this idea of repentance, I just can't shake it, that you're just praying and believing for this person that you know that's struggling. Maybe it's you, maybe it's a close relationship, you're just praying that they would truly repent, meaning that they would come to a place where they see Jesus as so beautiful that they just can't be at peace with that sin, you know? So this is dangerous. And if you truly talk about biblical grace, It's scary for guys in our position because we're trying to make disciples. Yeah.
And if you take this the wrong way, you can just do some crazy stuff. Okay. The struggler doesn't scare me.
The person that the Spirit of God is at work in them, and when they sin and when they're tempted, regardless of where they are on that spectrum that James talks about, the Spirit is at work in them. They feel the good news of conviction of the Holy Spirit, not condemnation from the enemy, but they know. That's not walking in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they continuously come back to the Lord. Okay, that person has the evidence of the Spirit of God working in them.
The person that says, I don't care what the book says, I ain't changing. And I'm a Christian. I'm going, bro, that scares me all the way. Totally. I had a whole bunch of stuff that hit the cutting room floor tonight.
But. Man, what people have done with the scriptures that don't want to change behavior is you either have to say the Bible's dangerous or defective. And I've got denominational leader after denominational leader that has essentially looked at God's Word and says, yeah, I don't... Yeah. I mean, there was actually a guy, and he said that we have to discard the scriptures that...
speak negatively about some of these sexual sins, and we know that we can do it because we can point to our own human experience. And I was like, well, at least finally somebody said it, that I am elevating my human experience over the Word of God. Now, here's the thing. You could disagree with me all day long, no problem there, no problem. I welcome the debate, no problem.
All I'm trying to do is say what the Word says. You know? No doubt. Trey, you're a prayer warrior, and for those who don't know you, I'll just...
Let them know a little bit into who you are, that you are one of the best pastors, if best pastors is even a category. You're one of the most pastoral people I've ever been around in my life. And I've told you this before. I really admire how— intentionally and really aggressively, you step into people's mess to pastor them, and you've prayed with a lot of people. He says that behind your back, too.
Same thing. Pastoral heart. Oh, it's amazing.
That's right. One of the things, so you're encouraging somebody who is warring and interceding and praying on the behalf of somebody else. How would you encourage them to pray?
With faith. I mean, that's the obvious answer, I think, that do you believe he can do it? I was at the book release thing the other night, and your comment, anything is possible.
Right. Anything is possible. Do you have faith?
Do you believe? I would also... And just a mustard seed. Just a mustard seed, yeah.
If it's just a mustard seed, just hang on to it. Mountains can move. But I think sometimes we pray almost assuming it's not going to change.
I hear it a lot when I meet with couples and one of them is addicted to something or there was something in the past. It's almost like there's this wall we're not going to be able to get through. You've completely removed God from the equation.
So you've got to encourage them to bring some faith to the prayer that you're praying. I also would say it's a process. Like, I think we forget that so much of what the Spirit is doing in us takes time because it's not just about that thing being removed. It's also about what's taking its place. So if I'm praying for a friend to break a pornography addiction, I don't just want him not looking at pornography.
I want him being amazed. at who God is. Right.
Because then he's not going to go back to something that's worthless. Right. He's found that treasure of great price, that pearl of great price, and he's going to give everything for it.
So it's a process of detaching your hands from the things of this world so they can be reattached to God, to quote J.I. Packer. Yeah.
That's great. Yeah. And you addressed this a little bit with the second group I was thinking about tonight, but I think it's worth pointing out in that.
You have a professing believer who would say they agree. However, they're just ignoring God's way of doing things in this part of their life. What words would you speak to them? What encouragement would you give them? So if they're a professing believer, particularly if they're in relationships with other Christians where they have invited those believers to love them enough to encourage them, We live in a world, talking about upside-down kingdoms, we live in a world that would say, that's none of your business.
But the Bible teaches believers, if you're a part of the same family, a part of the same body, that their business is your business for the sake of the body. And Let's just say it was one of you two, or either, let's say it was me, okay? I would just hope that you would love me enough, that you would care more about the trajectory of my life than how I feel about you right now. Now, you got to speak the truth, but you do it in love with the hopes of reconciliation. For sure.
But that is what the command is. And honestly, there's probably, there's a big group of those folks, like a friend of those people, you know, just good church going. and folks, but there's an area in their life they're like, whatever.
And if you try to use grace as justification for sin, then it is evident you don't understand justification or grace. I had a friend in ministry with me at one point. We were on staff at a church together. And he steps outside of his marriage with another lady. And she steps outside of her marriage, and they begin a relationship.
And I call him six months into the mess of it all. And they've now both left their spouses in a dating relationship. And we're friends. And so I'm happy.
having this conversation with him where I'm talking about this, and I'm like, is this really what you think God has for you? And he said, the baptism example you gave tonight with the Crusaders, he literally says it out loud. Wow.
He says, I know God loves me, and as far as this goes, I got this. That's the words he says. And I just said to the phone again, I'm like, brother, I pray you don't ever eat those words. And I know, I'm promised that this is not heading the place that you think it's headed. And I'm just hoping that you...
Turn to Jesus, you know, and it did not end well. Of course. And I just think that it's a real timely word. Anytime you hear a word, let's just say you are that person where you agree in theory, and you may have even shared this with somebody else, but you're just ignoring the Holy Spirit. You're ignoring God.
Here's the thing. I think one of the great tactics of the enemy is this really bad theology of perfection, and particularly when it comes to sexual sin, because you can't get it back, right? You can't let it go back. Right.
And so the enemy is like, well, you're already... You're already dirty. You're already tainted. You're already screwed up.
So what's one more going to do, right? And then, dude, the enemy can quote you a Bible verse, right? For sure. He knows it better than you do.
No doubt, bro. And so if all you ever do, again, is try to use God's grace for your justification to sin, it's evident that you don't understand what you're talking about. Now, hopefully, the Spirit of God will just get that person, right?
And I mean, I honestly think that God will bless them or break them, whatever it takes to draw them back to himself. Because it would be the wrath of God to turn them over to their own desires, Romans 1. That's right. And he was talking about sex and sexuality. That's a great... Prayer to pray when you're praying for somebody when they've seemingly given themselves over to any habitual behavior that does not lead to life is, God, I just pray that you would bless them or break them, whatever it takes to get them to you.
You've prayed that for our church for years and years and years. For sure. All right, there's a third group that I was thinking about tonight was someone who's not a believer.
And I don't believe, whether the Corinthians, I didn't know about Jesus, nobody ever told me, or I've only ever been reared by this world. And some of the things you could be saying would be confusing or just new for sure. For sure.
And they're sitting there listening and they would say, you can't be serious. Like, don't you want me to be happy? So I would say a couple of things there that are at work. One, a part of what I was trying to point out is you got to at least admit the current world's way ain't working.
Yeah. Man, it was interesting. I was reading some articles by C.S. Lewis. So this would have been 1940s and 50s.
And he was talking about how sexualized the culture was. And he said, he said, if you came up upon a people and. Hundreds of people were gathered around a plate of food that you had covered, and you were slowly exposing the food. And then right when you went to expose it all, the lights went out. You would say, that's an appetite going wrong.
There is something wrong with these people. It happens every day in a strip club. Something is really, really wrong with our current culture's obsession with sex.
And evident that it will never be fully and finally satisfied. And so a part of what I would want people, just from like, if you're just using your brain and you just looked at statistics, you want a happy marriage, the best thing to do is wait until you get married, go to church together, only have sex with people that you're married to. Just statistically speaking, you will be happier.
I think the attractive thing to the non-Christian that looks at this and says, these people are crazy, but you mean to tell me this relationship with this Jesus that you speak of is greater than and more fulfilling than the sexual history I have and sexual appetites I have? You actually believe that? There's something to that wooing power of the Spirit of God that convicts the non-believer.
And because part of the reason I just dive into what I dive into is I don't try to make it, like, cute and catchy and trick people in, you know what I mean? But just lay it out there and say, hey, man, you'll be a Christian. This is what you're signing up for.
You're turning your decision-making about your sexuality over to Jesus and saying, you're Lord, I'm not. This isn't one of the ways that the enemy keeps people on the... hamster wheel yeah is stupidity by keep trying to keep everything on the surface he doesn't want you to get down below the surface he doesn't want you to actually think about things he wants you just to keep it on the surface and this is the the temptation to happy yeah right and so trey maybe talk a little bit about the difference between happy as the world defy defines it and sex and happy seem to be like all wrapped up around each other in the kingdom of the world. But there's far deeper meaning and joy in the kingdom, which is different.
And so how can we settle the temptation to settle for happy when there's just such a deeper well to drink from in the kingdom? What's been weird for me is my wife started serving with Hadassah's Hope. So she goes into, I think it's Sensations, it's the only all-nude strip club in Jacksonville.
Her and Camille Murphy go in. And they're ministering to these girls. And I've never been to a strip club. My dad's a Baptist pastor, man. Like, you know what I mean?
I ain't been anywhere near any of these things. She comes home and tells me all this stuff. I have no clue.
It was weird for me at first to hear how much the girls hate what they do. I guess I just thought, like, if you're going to do this thing, you would enjoy it. But, like, they hate it. And they hate that, like, they keep getting called out and they're annoyed by it.
And what you find is it's such an ab- abusive world where the men who are there, it's completely about themselves. So that lie of sex however you want it is going to produce happiness. Maybe for you for a moment, at the expense of another person, and you said tonight, what happens in that moment is it is the mingling of souls.
What it will produce in you over time is just utter brokenness because you can't relate to anyone. You can't find joy in that process. I mean, it's wild to me when you hear, oh, All the statistics and, I mean, things like erectile dysfunction in our culture that like 20-year-olds right now are having a big problem with erectile dysfunction. Like if happiness was what you were pursuing. Because of pornography.
You're not getting any of it. So, I mean, it is pure veneer, right? There is nothing underneath it other than woundedness, brokenness, frustration.
I do a lot of counseling. I meet with a lot of people who want to start off with, I can't get past this thing that happened to me. this wound that happened to me, this thing I did, and it has hung up their whole life. That's a lot of our people.
Like you've given us, what about this person? What about this person? There are a lot of people who walk into any church on a Sunday and they have a thing that happened to them. I mean, you mentioned tonight, shame from being abused. There's a bunch of people.
If it's one out of every four women, one out of every six men has been sexually abused. And it doesn't matter if you're in church or not. That statistic stays the same. coming in with something that has just jammed their whole life and every relationship up. Or they've got all of these people that they have mingled with and have no connection to.
So happiness, like I don't even know that people really believe they're going to get happiness. I think they believe they're going to get temporary relief from everything else that's overwhelming in life. And it's just providing more chaos. You addressed beautifully those who would carry those kind of wounds. And I would just say to anybody listening, echoing your words, and for anybody who comes into our church, one, I, we, I'm so sorry.
Right. Yeah. And you didn't do anything wrong, just like you said.
I'm so sorry. Yeah. And you're welcome here. And...
Jesus'wounds can heal our wounds. Correct. He can heal you. You know? Correct.
So there's not the pursuit of happy. Talk to me a little bit about that. You preach about that a lot.
It's like there's a deeper well here, never ending. The biggest problem with happy, it's way less significant when you're talking about cash and prizes kind of stuff. Because it's okay to use a truck for your happiness.
Yeah. But when you're talking about sex and sexuality, you're talking about using another person for your happiness. Yeah.
And I think when Jesus says, if you lust after a woman in your heart, you've committed adultery, I think what he's talking about there, because when does it become lust? If you notice someone is pretty, is that lust? I don't think so.
I think anybody with two eyes and a brain can be like, oh, she's pretty. But when you begin to commodify another person for your own happy, for your own benefit, bro, that's what we're talking about. And so the pursuit of happiness at someone else's expense, and if you're not married to this person and you have sex with them, you do not love them.
It is impossible to take and love. You just can't do that. It is impossible to use and love. It is impossible to put your needs above their needs and love them.
These things are just... I'm not saying you don't have feelings for them and all that. That is not what loving is. And so it is really, really dangerous.
The pursuit of happiness in the realm of sexuality is dangerous. It becomes abusive. It becomes demeaning. It becomes devaluing.
The reason these women hate it so much at these strip clubs is because, regardless of what they believe, they were still created as image bearers of God. And a part of the image that is so tarnished there is God, by imprinting Him in them, they know what it they want to be valued. Like God wants to be valued because He is valued. He wants to be worshipped because He is worth it. So there's A part of how a female rightly images God is that thing, and in that strip club, it is the exact opposite.
And so, bro, it's breaking their souls. That's why it's dangerous, man. I'm going to use you for my own temporary good is nothing but abuse and hate.
I mean, it's not what we call it in this world. Either last week or the week before, you offered a great definition of love. Yeah. And I have one I use regularly, which is love is when you... Want, when your attention and energy and affection are set on someone else's highest good, their ultimate good, regardless of what that means for you.
That that's true love, is that you're setting your attention, energy, and affection on somebody else's ultimate good. And it's love's evil twin, perverted and distorted at the fall, is lust. And lust is when your attention, energy, and affection...
or for your highest good at the expense of someone else, regardless of what it costs someone else. Correct. And so they can actually, like love and lust can, on the happy level of surface, can look and even at moments feel similar.
But man, they are at best evil twins. Bro, passion, lust is like squirting lighter fluid on the fire, bro. It all feels the same. It just rears up in you. But you're right.
I mean, the definition that I use is my joy in the Lord for you at great expense to myself. That's love. That's what love is.
So the opposite of that would be my happiness in me at great expense to you. That's the difference. Or any expense to you. No doubt, man.
Not great. No doubt. I mean, great, yes, which will come at great, but any expense to you.
That's not love. Right, yeah. You said something in the Song of Solomon series. that I'd never thought about before. But you said you see how this plays out in our culture when all we talk about with sex is technique instead of intimacy.
And I can't go to the grocery store and not see it anymore. It's like all the magazines. And it may not even be good housekeeping, but it'll say six ways to make your man want to come home.
And our culture is so obsessed with technique because we've robbed sex of what really was supposed to be this intimate mingling of souls. Correct. Another group I was thinking about tonight was a married couple trying to do it right, being married and trying to do it right as well. But sometimes intimacy is hard. And sometimes figuring your way through sex and the mingling of souls and the physical, sometimes it's just hard.
There's different people struggling. Different ways, you know, and it's not the same for everybody. And you learn this in counseling and meeting, whether it's like deep issues. And none of these things are in the same lane.
And so I'm just going to dump a bunch out there. But you got a lot of issues of like body shame, you know, that affects intimacy for sure. Legalism from your past, you know, that I can't count the number of. Purity culture. For sure.
The shadows or just. distortion of what was a good thing in the purity culture, which, by the way, the kingdom is a purity culture, so we're not knocking on that. It was the alternative, man. That's right.
Yeah, that's right. But legalism, the idea that when a man and a woman who are married and bonded in covenant have sex, that that is worshipful to God, is a gift to God. You are partaking and enjoying creation.
as worship unto the Lord. There's a lot of people who grew up similar to how I grew up. That is a tough mental jump to make because your entire life, it is pounded down your throat. This is sin, evil, wrong.
It's the pinnacle of the worst thing you can do. And then you show up one Saturday at a church, put on a tux, and now you're good to go? Yeah.
Honest to goodness, man. Yeah. When Gretchen and I first got married, I felt... tons of shame and all of that for months. And I was like, you know, because I was a youth pastor, so I told everybody you ain't supposed to do this for so long.
It like gets in here, man. I'll speak specifically to that group. I was giving very explicit instructions to my wife on don't embarrass us. Not really, not really, but I will just say this. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ and you're indwelt with the Holy Spirit in your marriage, and you're having sex, it's okay to pray together before, after.
You should pray together naked. For sure. That's naked and unashamed.
So here's the way I'd look at it. Got any married folks having problems in the bedroom kind of thing? I think you've got to look at it heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Let's go back to the Shema. So you've got to pay attention relationally because what dudes will mess up with a lot, man, is they will just look to the physical and they haven't done their job as a husband to take care of their wife's heart. So you don't like to sleep people that you don't.
sleep with people that you don't respect. And if you've been disrespectful to her for a long time and then just thinking she's some kind of glorified prostitute that owes you because you put a ring on it, bro, it's rough, okay? You also need to pay attention to the relationships that you had growing up, because if things happen to you to ding your heart, you take your heart into marriage, right?
So that's hard. Soul, the enemy does not want married couples that love Jesus to have great sex. Because the number one way to flee sexual immorality is to flirt with your husband or wife.
You know how it goes. When you go to the grocery store full of a great meal, you are not tempted to buy M&Ms and stuff. You're like, I'm all set, okay? Now, I'm not putting any responsibility if somebody goes outside the home on the person at home.
Not saying that, but I am saying you need to pay attention to your soul, okay? Your walk with Jesus. You got to pay attention to what you're putting in your mind.
If you are reading Fifty Shades of Grey and watching all these Netflix junk and just filling your mind with, honestly, what two generations ago we would have called pornography, but now we just call it, I mean, it's like ABC TV, you know, pay attention to that. And then strength, man. I mean, your spouse is your only legitimate source of romance. And so, husbands, your wife is your standard of beauty, period. And man, listen, my wife is really pretty, and yet she struggles with the way she looks.
It doesn't make sense to me, bro. I'm telling you. I have stood her before me and said, baby, if when I was 16 years old, if you'd have told me this is what I got, I would have been like, yo, crazy, you know?
And so it doesn't even... And one time she's like, how can you feel so good about you? And I'm like, I know it's crazy, but I do, okay?
But my job, man, is to speak life. And for 22 years of speaking life, you know, her ears... finally begin to hear it, her brain believes it, her heart feels it, that matters like crazy. So one of the things, especially husbands, man, you can either speak life into your bedroom, or you can speak death into your bedroom. Be very, very wise in the words that you use.
So it is, it's a heart, soul, mind, and strength thing. It's not just like one thing. Yeah, for sure.
And one of the killers of joy in any area of life, maybe the killer of joy. in any area of your life, and you've said this many times, specifically in regards to the bedroom and marriage, is comparison. So how have you experienced that in your own life?
Just the spirit of comparison, the game of comparison, kills joy. And how would you encourage someone that is... Just joyless because they're just so wrapped around the axle of comparing themselves to something they've seen on screen or some idealized version of themselves that they've just made up in their mind or You know what I mean there they just fall into the trap And so how would you encourage somebody to stay to stay away from the comparison trap?
Well, I for one you guys start at the beginning right as we do premarital counseling That's one of the questions I ask have you been sexually active with someone other than this person you got to talk about that You got to get it out. If you don't disclose that, it's going to create all kinds of problems because then you're going to think even more about it because why didn't they tell you? You got to get it out and then confess it, right? Let's walk in forgiveness in this. That's forgiven.
It's in the past. Then as you move forward, I think you just have to be honest. I mean, you have to be honest about the thing that you're struggling, especially with your spouse in the bedroom.
You got to be honest. I'm really struggling with, a wife needs to tell her husband, I'm struggling with the way I look. If my wife tells me that, I will make sure she has no reason to feel that way ever again.
Sure. I love to tell her that she has no reason to feel that way. So I want to use my words to affirm.
You made the comment, like, if you expect the physical all the time, you've got the crockpot thing, right? I feel awkward saying it because I feel like we've said it for decades. But like, slow boil that thing.
When I come home, first thing I do is go straight to my wife. I want my kids to see me hug her. It used to bug me when I was a kid.
My dad, I remember going to the beach, and my dad, if a song came on, and it was a song they danced to when they were kids, he'd pull the car over, get out, get my mom out, and dance in front of the car on the side of the road. And we watched this as kids. I learned you should love your wife well.
You should treat her like the princess she is. And, man, I think you have to lean into that. But as a wife, I would say you've got to be honest with your husband if you're having that, if comparison. an idealized version of what you think you're supposed to look like, or good night, you just turn the television on, and it's seemingly perfect people, but it's people who have been Photoshopped heavily wherever you look. It's not as idealized in reality.
Having made a film, we can fake a lot of things. So it's not as true as you'd think, man. Trey helped make a movie. You don't need to plug it, man. I'm not going to plug it, but he did help make a movie one time.
He did. And it was about football, not about anything to do with any of the things we're talking about. And so one of the things you just said is. honesty.
Yeah. And being honest with each other in marriage, specifically in regards to sex, and learning how to talk to each other about it, and keeping your defenses down, and trying to have ears to hear, and trying to... Because it doesn't even matter how long you've been married, that every time you... Sometimes you can talk about this.
Eventually you can break through, and it can just be a part of the conversation, or maybe you start there. But for some people, it takes time to learn. each other's language and how to talk to each other.
Totally. It's just to pursue honesty, to be able to have that conversation around, like to be in the place where you can talk to your wife and say, hey, babe, you know, what do you think? You know? Totally. And her to honestly reply and go, I love you.
But X, Y, or Z. No problem. No problem. And you can leave and it literally be no problem. That's freedom right there.
I'm just telling you. Yeah. And that's naked and unashamed kind of stuff.
Cultivated. That we can have an honest dialogue. And because I value you more than I value me and we have the rest of our lives because we're in this thing forever together. And so just because we can't have sex right now, you're not denying me anything. You're just being honest with me.
You know what I mean? Yeah, man. If you want to be great in the bedroom, it's pretty simple.
Wives, your husband wants to be respected. That's it, man. He wants to feel like the man. So that's what it's all about.
It's not about technique. It's not about... It's really, man. It's not even about consistency and all that. If he's consistently getting his hand slapped, it could be because he's pursuing wrong.
Let's give the cat the benefit of the doubt for a second. Man, if he consistently is getting his hand slapped, first time he reaches out strong, next time he'll kind of like T-rex it. Eventually, he just can't handle the rejection.
It's deep in the wound that every man's got. Do I have what it takes, right? And so a big part of her role in his life is to echo what God says, man. Because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I think you're the man. Yeah.
And then she wants to be pursued or valued. So you can't neglect her all day long. And then when you get in bed that night smelling like the weed eater, just decide, all right, this is it. So you pursue her, and you're not pursuing her with strings attached. You know, you're not counting days.
And she's not a combination lock. So I know it worked last Wednesday, but this is a different Wednesday, and you spin that wheel every day, and you're like, come on, let's see what we got. That's part of it, man. Praise God for that. But that's what it comes down to.
And then I would, this is very practical, the more you can just talk openly and honestly and practically. I mean, the only image I can think of is like in football, reviewing film, I'm not saying film it and review it. I'm saying that it's very helpful that you just say, is this cool? That wasn't that cool? You know, those kind of things help a ton.
And honestly, I mean, that is naked and unashamed because there's a vulnerability there. Yeah. If you keep reading beyond chapter 6 in 1 Corinthians, it gets into chapter 7, and Paul just continues with his instruction. He does. So let me read a little bit of that, some of it's in the spirit of what we're talking about.
Verse 1 says, Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. So seemingly the Corinthians wrote Paul, and my assumption is, and it could be in the text, and I just... This is a, I'm not a Bible scholar on this issue or in this text for whatever reason, but seemingly the Corinthians wrote Paul a letter and my reading between the lines, it feels like they're saying, Paul, you're single.
You're not having sex. Are we supposed to not have sex with, you know, and, and. So that's the context of verse 1, I think.
It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, in quotations. Verse 2 says, but Paul's responding, but because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.
Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. What Paul's, in the legalist camp, it would be like, do not deny one another.
It's a hard line, but that's not what Paul's talking about in regards to like, you're not feeling good or for whatever. There were a countless number of reasons as to once. the husband or the wife's pursuing, and tonight's not the night. That's not what he's getting at, in my opinion.
What he is getting at is the spirit of, I want us to be together, and we're going to operate from a place of yes. And when we can't, we can't, but we're going to operate that our heart for each other is yes. And not just yes to sex, but our heart for each other is yes, and that includes sex. Correct, yeah.
And so other... Things you would pull out of just those few verses? Well, I think he's saying that, you know, the Great Commission supersedes everything.
And so if you are single, then devote all of your time, effort, and energy towards the church, to the Great Commission, Paul saying, like I have, you know, so that my priorities are not divided. But sexual temptation is such a big deal that... it is better for you to be married. That's right.
It's a really big deal. He goes on to say it. He says, now as a concession, not a command, I wish this.
I wish that everybody were as I myself am. Right. Meaning single. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind, one of another.
And then he goes on to say, he goes on to give a bunch of instructions, but he does. say singleness can be a gift and a call. Correct.
And there are many people who feel shame because of singleness, and then because they feel shame or they feel lonely, or it all gets wrapped up in this big emotional mess, right? And then you end up... in a relationship that you never intended to be in, doing things you never wanted to necessarily thought you would be doing, and then you kind of find yourself stuck in this pattern of repeating, and you're not happy, and you're not drinking from a deep well of joy. You're just living in this confused, mediocre kind of apathy state versus embracing singleness.
I really would encourage a lot of people that are single to think about that. Embrace singleness as long as God would have you single, and if God would have you single forever, then praise God. What a gift it is. You know, Pastor Kwan preached a great sermon on singleness back during the Song of Solomon series. It is not second-class Christianity.
For sure. Maybe speak to the singles that would be listening right now and just offer them some encouragement. Well, that your identity is not bound up in any kind of relationship other than your relationship with Jesus Christ.
That's right. pour yourself wholeheartedly into the advancement of the kingdom. One of the myths that we buy into is that our greatest good is to fulfill our potential.
Well, man, the moment we got married, we severely limited our potential in ministry. I mean, like take right now, man, I got two kids at the house I need to get home to and make sure they're okay. If I did not have that, I could stay here for endless hours and do all kinds of ministry.
So, um, Oftentimes what we've done is we take this kind of Western idea of the ideal family and we've laid it over the Scripture instead of the other way. Now, God is pro-family for sure, but it was not good for Adam to be alone. It was good for Paul to not have a wife.
It was good for Jesus to not have a wife. And so the key, I think, to understanding it there is, do you feel like your singleness is a gift from God? Now, he goes on to say, if you burn with passion. Then you get a wife.
So you may feel like, hey, can I exchange this? Because I'm burning with passion. However, I've never heard those verses at a wedding, right? Like, I was trying to be single, but I burned with passion. Therefore, I guess I'll take you.
All right? Because that's not what he's saying either. Yeah, there's a better way to ask. There is a much, much better way. The key is, it just comes down to identity.
Is your identity in your relational status here on earth, or is your identity found in Christ? But that's also true when you're married. Because if your identity is in your marital status, man, one of the worst things you can do is put the weight of Savior on your spouse.
She can't carry it, bro. She's not on this planet to make you be all that you can be. You were here to serve her.
I mean, these are two very different things. And if she is your functional savior and you think she exists on this planet for you, the weight that you put on her will be impossible to bear for her. And again, man, be careful.
If you idolize her when she lets you down, you'll demonize her. And that's a bad place to be. These are fundamentally different ways of thinking about...
Singleness and being married. First and foremost, this is why I think Paul, before he gets into the instructions on what to do in 6, he starts with the gospel. Nobody unrighteous inherits the kingdom of God. Long list that we all fail, so we're all unrighteous, but that ain't who you are anymore.
The same thing is true in your singleness, man, that your primary identity is not your singleness. Your primary identity is Christ, and He is more than enough. Yeah. One of the things you said tonight was the world says experience and God says exclusivity. Correct.
And I thought that was really good because one of the kind of mantras of the enlightened age, kingdom of this world, would be you need to understand and then experience, understand and then experience. And logically line it all up, have your rational arguments, see. If you can see it, taste it, touch it, feel it, then experience it.
But the kingdom is different. Yeah, totally. It's different. In the kingdom, here's how it happens. You have a supernatural, divine invasion from God where he snatches the scales off your eyes.
through the revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he gives you eyes to see. He gives you ears to hear.
And you get saved. You surrender your life to Jesus Christ, and you are completely passive in this process. He is grabbing you and waking you up, turning the lights on. You don't turn the lights on for salvation yourself.
God does that. He turns the lights on. And so you have this experience that you spend the rest of your life trying to understand. It's completely different than I'm going to understand something and I'm going to have a framework for it, and then I'm going to have experiences with it.
In the kingdom, it is straight up. You experience God through the revelation of truth through Scripture and faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then you spend the rest of your life trying to understand what has happened to you. Yeah, correct. You know? Yeah.
And so I thought that was great, just brilliant tonight. The world says experience, but God says exclusivity. He wants your divine. Correct.
supernatural attention. And think about this, man. Think about when you got married, okay?
Honeymoon. Let's just say, first night was like, whoa! That was incredible.
And imagine if your wife told you, oh, I'm glad you liked it. I've been practicing for years. I've had lots of teammates.
I've downloaded these how-to videos. You know what I mean? I kind of went to boot camp every year at spring break. So the goal was for you to have a great experience.
Now there's zero intimacy. You know? It's not a great experience anymore.
Nope. Yeah. It is exclusivity that fuels intimacy.
And you can get good over time, but you want to be the one that God grows you together. Right. Right? That is the exact opposite.
That's where all the technique stuff comes from, on front of the magazines. That ain't it, man. That ain't it.
Yeah. And we talked about this earlier. You were talking about the supernatural nature of sex, man. Think about it.
I talked about it tonight. One God in three persons in a perfect love submission relationship. And out of an overflow of that love, image bearers are created.
Now, don't take too far, but in your marriage, like there's one God in three persons, so there's three to become one. In your marriage, one plus one and one God equals one. And out of your love for your wife. and their love for you, there are people that bear your image on this planet now.
That's a really big deal, man. That is not just procreation. That is not just I have an appetite, let me fill it. That is not let me use you as a commodity in order that I can achieve some temporary happy right now. There's a supernatural element to it, and every culture and generation has understood it.
That's why, by the way, one of the things that most often is identified in cults as some kind of weird sexual behavior because they realize there's this supernatural spiritual element to it. And so now they twist it and make it all terrible, but it is more. It is more than what this world offers.
Way more. No doubt. And to be rooted in biblical love, for the husbands out there that are listening or the one-day husbands, I pray for you, and I'll pray for you tonight before I go to bed, that you find a wife that you love. And marriage is not always easy, as anybody knows, but man, I love my wife, and she's easy to love.
I mean, we're married. We're people. We're sinners living in the same house, being sanctified by God's grace.
It certainly ain't perfect all the time, but I love my wife. And the fact that I love my wife and I genuinely enjoy my wife, what a gift of God's grace and what a gift of sonship, that He would love me so much that He would give me someone to love. And then give me the capacity to love them.
Like that is supernatural. That's a supernatural thing that happens. And I pray for the husbands that if maybe that's in there and it's just been. But the warning I would give is don't think that just accidentally happened to you. Like God just like sprinkled the love dust.
That's right. So you would just be so focused on Jen. Okay. The Bible says delight in the wife of your youth.
Yeah. I love that word delight. Yeah.
That's kind of a, almost like an immature, like a. Not immature, but like a young kind of word. Remember when you first met her? Oh, yeah. You used to do stupid stuff.
You'd just call her all the time and send her stupid notes. And you'd go watch movies that you would never watch, man. You'd eat so much yogurt, you're about to blow up.
You do the things. Okay. I think the Bible's saying, keep doing that, man.
Keep pursuing her like I pursue you. Like, have some delight. One of the worst things you can do. I've been married.
It'll be 22 years next week. And man. Happy anniversary. Thanks. It's so good.
I can't tell you how good it is. Grace is out of town this week. The text, the little emojis.
Man, emojis are good for your marriage, right? Send them a little heart, some little heart eyes and all that kind of junk. I mean, you got to keep that stuff up, bro.
You do. You got to delight in the wife of your youth. Remember how you pursued her.
You still got it in you. The worst thing Christian husbands do is get old and lazy. And they just assume upon her. That's covenant.
What's she going to do? Come on, man. And then wonder why she doesn't respond to you like you want her to.
Well, you know, when I knew Jen was the one I was going to marry, I call her one night. I'm driving back from preaching somewhere. I'm in my 20s. And for people who don't have a context for ministry outside of 1122, what's happening here is not normal. Right.
And I'm in countless days and hours and miles. I would drive six hours to preach to a youth group of 12 kids for a. a couple of slices of pizza and maybe a gas card.
You know what I mean? It didn't cover the gas until you get there. Yeah, for sure.
And glad to do it. You know, you want me to talk to people with the Bible in mind? All right. And I'm driving back from one of those one night, and I called Jennifer on the phone, and we're talking.
We're pretty new in our relationship. We're on the phone for like two minutes, maybe three minutes, and she's like, did you need something she wasn't being mean about it but she was just like i was like no i'm just driving home and i'm just calling to talk and she was like all right be safe you know like she did not just talking on the phone was not her thing and i was like okay oh i this is it right here like you know and so Sometimes it's just fun to remember back the small things that you're like. So here's just a well, it's based on that verse, man. To the spouses, it feels just a little dry and crusty, a little like, you know. All right.
Go out this weekend. All right, go to whatever restaurant, doesn't have to be great, and just reminisce. Like, just ask the questions.
All right, best date you can remember, all right? What was the thing you liked about me earliest? What was the thing you were like, uh-oh, that might not go good? and you were surprised in the positive way.
Keep it all positive. But man, remember the wife of your youth. I mean, Solomon talks about it a ton in the Song of Solomon.
They remember the early dates and those kind of things. I think it's important. I think it's really important. Okay, so think about this. That's how God thinks about you.
Yeah. God thinks about you the way you reminisce about falling in love with your wife. He loves you like that.
Different, but He loves you. The Bible says He delights over His children. He sings over us. He dances over us. An old crotchety man doesn't delight, sing, and dance over anybody.
Right. And yet our Heavenly Father loves us that way. We should be loving our wives that way.
Yeah. it's good man we have a friend here uh trade i'll ask you this i have a friend we have a friend um great guy done really well works really really hard been single never he's never married probably in his 40s um Did dating and relationships the way the world would prescribe at one point in his life. Surrendered his life to Jesus.
Started following Jesus and started dating as a believer, trying to walk in the way that the Lord prescribes. And has had multiple... He has multiple examples or stories, testimonies of getting into a dating relationship with someone, and two dates in, the conversation will come up about sex.
And he will say his desire is to honor God by waiting and to be faithful to the Scriptures. And he would tell you multiple times, the relationship's over right there. And I know him, but I know that story, unfortunately, is common for people who do want to walk faithfully to the Scriptures, but haven't found the person that they're going to marry yet, and they may be tempted to settle. How would you encourage him or encourage them to stay the course?
Tom Petty said the waiting is the hardest part, right? I mean, that's true in a lot of situations. I think about Proverbs 5. In Proverbs, Solomon seems to contrast two women.
It's the woman in Proverbs 2 that's standing in the street crying out. She's wisdom, and she has a way that is wise. And then you get to Proverbs 5, and there's the adulterous woman who has words that are like honey, and she's tempting, but she's luring for death.
I think you just have to trust God's Word. I know it's hard because waiting is the hardest part, but trust God's Word when He says, there is a wise way and there is a foolish way. And you reap what you sow, two kingdoms, right?
And you see it almost throughout the book of Proverbs, that contrast of If you do the wise thing, there's a blessing. If you do the foolish thing, there's all of the destruction that comes with it. It's really hard to wait, but you can trust the Lord.
He's good. Yeah, see, the twist, the deception, this is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6. Do not be deceived. Here's where that girl's deceived.
She has in her this eternal thumbprint of God to be pursued and valued. And then the enemy has twisted that to say, If he doesn't have sex with you, then he's not really into you. Right.
And there's the twist. There's the lie. Yeah.
And so what the enemy has convinced that girl of is that she can't trust the word of God. Yeah. She can't trust the worth of God. She can't trust the work of God.
Yeah. That's it, man. Yeah. Did God really say? That's what he's saying to her.
Yeah. And so what our brother has to do, man, is do the opposite of that. Trust God.
Just trust him. Do I trust him? Yeah. Or do I have to? take matters into my own hands.
It never works out good that way. I can't remember if we talked about this the first week. That said, the enemy's game is to suppress truth. The Bible says that.
That he is in the suppression of truth. He doesn't do that normally. Maybe ever in statements he does it through questions. Primarily the question, some version of, did God actually say?
And that's the original one. Question, the suppression of the truth that God loves you, that under His rule and reign, you will flourish. The shalom of God, the peace of the kingdom of God can be not just something you experience momentarily, it can literally be your life under God's rule and reign. Did God actually say, right?
And so, but I think that makes the suppression of truth is the game. He's trying to suppress you from the truth of God's Word and the truth of God's kingdom. And take heart.
One of my favorite verses in the Bible is 1 John 3, 8. The reason Jesus came into the world is to destroy the works of the devil. And so the work of the devil is to suppress truth. He got it with Adam and Eve, and all kinds of borders and restrictions and brokenness and chaos broke out, and truth was—things got very distorted and perverted, for sure. And he's been distorting and perverting ever since.
That said, the Christ has come. And he has destroyed the works of the devil. And we can take heart that victory— Even in the hardest of places, and there's no—sexual sin's just different.
The temptations towards sexual sin is just different. And Jesus has destroyed the works of the devil, and you can't stand. Yeah, I mean, we have a little pre-meeting before the service. You know, you've been in it before, a little programming meeting about what happens and all this kind of stuff.
And I'm just kind of going over how we're closing. There's a couple of single folks in that meeting and a few married people in that meeting. And I just look at them and I just told them, this is going to be tougher for you than you. Like what I'm laying out, not that the enemy hasn't come against me and not that he doesn't tempt me with lust of the flesh for sure.
But at this point in my life, 22 years in, lead pastor, I get to set my own rules. I'm not even alone with people. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of guardrails there.
Plus, I got a wife that loves me, and she's super good looking. All the sexual desires that I have, I get to find in my wife. Here's who I have a heart for. As I watched hundreds of people flood the altar tonight, hundreds.
The divorced man or woman. The single person that has all these sexual desires and doesn't feel like they have an outlet. the person confused about their sexuality but trying to surrender to be surrendered to jesus right you know like okay so yeah man it it costs you more in the temporary and and if i were talking to a person It kind of reminds me of John chapter 6. Jesus gives this teaching, and people can't quite get their heads around it. Eat my flesh, drink my blood.
We know what it means now. It's the gospel, it's communion, whatever. Apart from the gospel, you can't have me. But people are like, that's tough. I'm leaving.
I think the modern day message that confuses people and says, I think I'm out. is this one on sex and sexuality and gender, those things. And again, there are entire denominations that are like, this teaching is hard. And so they've just come to the Bible with a highlighter and some scissors, right, to make God in their own image.
But the person that really wants to be faithful, even if you can't understand why God would let you still be single or why your husband or wife left you, or even why you did the thing that created your divorce, whatever. But then Jesus looks at Peter and says, you don't want to leave too, do you? Yeah.
Okay, I think Peter's answer in this context is the only way to make sense of it. Yeah. Where am I going to go? Where am I going to go? You're the only one that offers.
eternal life. Let me tell you what happens to every single person that goes down the sexually immoral route. They just come back all busted up and broken with no more answers and just a mound of hurt. Now, the crazy thing about our Jesus is he will meet you right there and heal you, but the wisdom literature in the scripture around this topic is, where else am I going to go? Bro, you can go to the apps and start swiping all over the place and meet people and go hang out at the bars and try to I'm just telling you.
All you're going to do is get beat up, battered, and bruised, scarred, and then have the same questions and unmet desires and expectations that you're left with. And Jesus is the only one that when we find him fulfills us, and if we fail him, will still receive us. For sure.
Yeah. That's a good word. And Look, he rose from the dead. And your book just released, If the Tomb is Empty, Anything's Possible. You referenced it earlier.
I'm not pitching the book right here. However, I think it's awesome. My point is this.
He rose from the dead. Right. That's the foundation of our faith.
If you believe that He rose from the dead, then you can believe. And you do believe in some part of you that He can heal you. That's right.
And that His forgiveness is available to you. That's right. And He can resurrect anything.
Anything. Because he came back from the dead. You know what I mean?
Correct. So it's a good word, man. Yeah. So I feel like an awkward guy in a conversation about sex.
I have a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, right? All right. I'm not a nerd, but. Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings for all of you who did not know that. You should know that.
Before Peter Jackson. And he led C.S. Lewis to Christ. Yeah.
So he wrote a letter to his son on marriage and sex that is actually incredible. And one of the quotes that he sent his son, he said, the devil is. endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favorite subject. Tonight, you got into the next generation and what happens when there's a move of God.
I mean, you guys are a couple of years on down the road for me, at least with your kids, right? I don't think I'm that much younger than you guys. How do you talk to your kids about this stuff when it feels like for that generation right now, I mean, there's a lot of kids who take their lives over sexual identity, over...
broken relationships, even at early ages. You said the porn industry targets 13-year-olds. How do we talk to and fight for our kids? Because in three days, they could be addicted.
So you got to go to war. Worship is war, right? You got to keep your kids'eyes focused on Jesus. You start at a very, very, very young age with identity and who they are.
I mean, that matters a ton. You better pray a whole bunch of scriptures over your babies, man. You want to lodge the anchor of the truth of God's Word deep into their soul. I would have very honest conversations early.
The first time JP and I ever talked about sex, I would mention it to him, and you could tell it wasn't time, you know what I mean? Then one day we're sitting in a tree stand, which this was accidentally genius and brilliant, because we're not looking at each other. We're all looking out in the woods, you know? And I was like, hey, we need to talk about sex. And he's like, okay.
And I thought, uh-oh, what do I do, you know? So I simply did this. This would be my advice. Very practical.
I said, well, how do you think it works? He talked for like forever. And it was some of the things. He kind of understood like the genetics of it. You know, there's a mixing of genetics, but other than that, he was way off.
But then it allowed me to just get into that conversation. And tonight, as I'm walking over here on the phone, calling to check on him, we're still having the conversation. So it is not a talk. It is an ongoing, never-ending conversation, right? One of the things that I try to do, I tell him this.
I've been your age, but I've never been your age in this age. Right. And I just tell them, if I was 16, okay, so the phone thing, bro, the only reason I'm not taking this from you because I hate you, okay? You're not in trouble. I'm just telling you, when I was 16, if I had this on my hip, it would be a problem, and I love you enough.
We've got Covenant Eyes together. There's a thing. Yeah. Okay?
With your 16-year-old. Covenant Eyes is an app or a website. Yeah, you go to a website.
You can buy like a bundle, put it on every device, whatever, and there's accountability there. And honestly, as much as I'm I'm trying to protect him from whatever. I'm also trying to invite the conversations when those temptations come, because a part of what you want to do too is let him know.
That the way the enemy works is he takes a good desire. Right. The fact that my son wants to see a naked lady.
Yeah. The Lord put that in there. Right. There's just one he had in mind.
Right. And then the enemy tries to twist that good desire in us and make it a bad thing. Those are the conversations that you want to have. You know? Yeah.
And then you also, I've got a daughter too, and at the end of the Song of Solomon, her brothers who raised her. Yeah. They said, all right, if you are a wall, in other words, like if you conduct yourself rightly, then, man, we're going to celebrate you like crazy. And if you're a door, we're going to build walls around you.
So you better be putting guardrails in your kid's life. And I'm not trying to tell anybody how to parent. I'm just telling them if your kids have just total access to the internet with no filters and no supervision, you're just so naive. You're just so naive.
That's sending your kid to a minefield without a map. Saying good luck. Yeah. The enemy's going to take them out.
You said two points of conversation, and then we'll wrap up. You, in Tolkien's quote, he says that sex is the enemy's favorite weapon. Favorite subject. Favorite subject.
I've had this thought running around in my head for some time now, and I can't remember where it came from normally when that's the case. I just give the credit to Charles Martin. Or the Holy Spirit via Charles Martin. So this could be his thought. I don't know.
If sex is the enemy's favorite subject, there's something that I've grown pretty convinced of, which is that the enemy's favorite wound is rejection. Ooh. And he loves to mingle.
Sex and tries to dangle sex out there as though it would be the thing that heals the wound of rejection. While reality is it's just reinforcing it. And one cannot medicate or it can't even medicate.
It certainly can't heal. And the reason that I think the enemy, and I'm not making a theological statement here. I am offering a thought. If the rejection is the enemy's favorite wound, I think it's his favorite wound to trample around on and to just run amok through people's lives in because it's his wound.
That's right. It's his eternal wound. Yeah.
From his perspective, he wanted a seat, and God rejected him. Yeah. God rejected his desire to have that seat.
For the good of all things, including him, had he received God's rejection or God's not giving it to him, but he didn't. So God rejected his desire and rejected and kicked him out of heaven. And so for all of eternity, his experience will be that as of being rejected.
And rejection from it comes contempt and bitterness and hate. No one hates you more than the enemy. That's right.
And he's so filled with hate because his entire life experience is that of rejection. Yeah. Or whatever word you want to use. His eternal experience from whenever God created angels or if he created angels, I don't even know all that. He did.
He did create angels. See, there you go. That's why Pastor Job is here.
And so I would just say this, that there are a lot of people. that have experienced rejection in their life, and they carry a deep wound of rejection. This goes, in a lot of cases, to a father wound.
And the father wound and the wound of rejection, they're the same. They're the same. And the enemy loves to just peel that wound as wide open as he can, wanting you to believe that that's your identity.
And so I just want to— We've all experienced some version of the wound of rejection in our life. And that has led us, many of us, to places where we try to satiate that wound through the vehicles of sexual promiscuity or trying to, that sex somehow will make this thing not hurt or not feel. And sometimes it's even like we don't realize what we're doing.
It's just got that kind of power. That said, I want to close our time talking about forgiveness. Okay.
And I want to talk about it on two folds. One, the only way for the wound of rejection to be healed is by and through Jesus Christ, period. Correct. He does not.
You will never experience rejection from Jesus if you are a child of faith. That's right. And sometimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself.
And so let's just encourage some folks as we wrap up our time together in regards to how the blood of Jesus Christ from the cross of Calvary covers and heals the wound of rejection. Yeah, because our ultimate reality from birth is as one who has rejected the Almighty God. I mean, that is, we are glad participants in Satan's rebellion against the one true God.
And the way he responds to our rejection of him is to send his son as the redeeming rescuer to make a way where there was no way. And then, husbands, you were told to love your wife like Christ loved the church. Think about that. Who gave himself up for her.
You will probably never have that honor. but you get to lay yourself down every day, right? One of the ways, as you were saying that, which I agree, man. I mean, we've talked about that, and there's something to that, especially when we were created by God to be known by Him, that whenever you feel rejection, especially from an authority figure in your life, there is some—I mean, it dings you at the soul level. So husband's one of the ways that you can help fight through that.
Is to just, because think about it, man. How do you go to war for your wife these days? There's no dragons to tame, you know what I mean?
And so it just occurred to me a long time ago, it was probably the way that I can go after the heart and soul of my wife and play the man, is to just pray over her. That's it, man. Just pray over, pray for her, not pray about her. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Not trying to manipulate her spiritually in order to get what I want. Nothing like that. But to just go after her heart and her soul.
One of the things God tells Adam in Genesis, in the curse, is he says, Yeah. The problem is you listen to the voice of your wife. And you're like, whoa, we're not supposed to listen to our wife?
Not to their voice. We're supposed to listen to their heart, right? And one of the few ways to really get in there, man, and see what's really going on and to pull back the fig leaves is prayer.
And I'm going to tell you, the enemy does not want you praying for, out loud, and over your wife. You got all these secondary situations going on, and oftentimes the primary problem is you're not going before the Lord on behalf of your wife with her hearing you praying over her, because she needs to hear those words that, and if you believe what the Scripture says, the Spirit of God is giving you the words to pray over her, and the power of the praying husband is incredible, and The words that she hears, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are bringing life in places where the enemy wants there to be darkness. That there are chains being broken.
There's some whispers of the enemy that get drownded out by the applause of heaven over her. Those kind of things are happening, man. You really want to be the man?
You really want to lead at your house, man? How about be the lead prayer over your wife? It's a good way to start, especially when there's like a wound and a scab. Because, you know, wounds happen.
And if a wound is not healed and you bump into it, you get an overreaction. But, man, when scars grow up, then it's just evidence that healing has happened. And so oftentimes, especially husbands, you could be... You could be the tool by which God wants to bring healing into your wife's life.
And so, again, I would encourage you, man, pray out loud over your wife. And if you say, well, I don't know what to say, okay, no problem. Just take her by the hand, ask this very simple question, how can I pray for you? She's going to say stuff.
Close your eyes and just repeat that stuff. And then ask God to give you words. Ask Him, and He will.
Yeah, you're right. I mean, wounds don't heal themselves. Weeds don't pull themselves.
There is an active part to play. in receiving the effective healing of the blood of Jesus over any wound, over any, whether it actually be a sin or a struggle or whatever. Trey, how would you encourage someone to walk in forgiveness and to say, encourage them to, I don't like the word let, but to...
To join Jesus in the healing work of the wound of rejection in their life. I mean, you got to be forgiven to forgive, right? It's come full circle.
That's where Paul starts this whole thing in verse 9 of you got to know the gospel. You got to have received it yourself. I'm not ever forgiving my wife out of my strength.
I'm forgiving her out of the forgiveness I've experienced every day from the Lord. And appropriating that which has been so... scandalously poured out on me.
I didn't do anything to deserve this, man. That God would love me, forgive me. Because I have been nothing but a rejecter, hater of him.
Until I experienced love, I couldn't explain. It overwhelmed me and invaded my life and took over. I want to do that same thing with my wife. I just want to overwhelm her with quick forgiveness.
When I'm doing counseling, I talk a lot about if it's forgiven, it's forgiven. This is not a history lesson every time there is tension between the two of you. If it's forgiven, it should be forgotten because that's what happens to us.
Our sin has been cast as far as the east is from the west. I gotta forgive and I gotta move forward. You can't always forget, but you can choose to not bring it up.
You can choose to walk in that forgiveness, which is hard because it does. There's a reason why you're back to forgiving again at some point. There was another wound that was opened up, but it's not the same one. You've got to get it. Yeah.
Paul says, love keeps no record of wrong. The Greek is logizomai, so the root word is logos. Yeah. In other words, you don't talk about it, you don't bring it back up. Love keeps no record of wrong.
because God kept no record of your wrong. He canceled your debt. That's right. That's countercultural, man. Oh, totally.
I read Jackie Hill Perry wrote that the true power of forgiveness is choosing it every time the hurt comes back up. So every time it shows itself again, the pain or the hurt, that you just choose forgiveness again. You choose it again.
The power of forgiveness is that it's always there for you to choose every single time. Pastor Joby, how would you encourage our church coming off the heels of this weekend and the word that we were able to experience together? Don't get distracted by the tips, techniques, guardrails, to-do list. Understand that you were bought at a price. Amen.
And the price that God was willing to pay for you was the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. Yeah. You were bought at a price.
Therefore, the reason that we act like we're valuable is because, according to God, you are valuable. Yeah. that your body is the temple of God, that his permanent address on this planet is in you, is in you. So remind yourself of that. Quiet the whispers of the enemy by the overwhelming voice of God over you, calling you beloved.
Yeah, amen. Your highest call in life, like we said in week one, is to be loved. That's right.
By God. And if God can forgive you, and if you've trusted Jesus, He has forgiven you, then you can forgive yourself. That's right.
And you can walk in freedom, and you can forgive those in your life that need your forgiveness, and you can walk in freedom. And so let's pray together that that would be true in our church. Jesus, we love you. We thank you. Thank you for your love for us and that you paid the ultimate price so that our sins could be forgiven.
I just thank you for this time with my friends, and I thank you for what you're doing in our church. I thank you for opening our eyes to your kingdom. And I just pray for... Anyone who would hear the sermon this weekend or this conversation or will be at 1122 joining us from wherever, Jesus, I just pray that this word would transform lives in Jesus'name. I just pray that people would hear and believe and receive, that would fall on fertile soil.
I pray for marriages to be strengthened. I pray for hearts to be healed. I pray for wounds to be healed.
Jesus, we know that it is by your stripes we are healed. And so I just claim the healing that you accomplished on the cross over our church in Jesus'name and over your church here in Jacksonville at 1122. I just claim it in Jesus'name. And I just pray that you would bind up the enemy in any of his lies and truth suppression in any of his games. any of the whispers that He would offer to people as they're hearing this Word, I bind Him up in Jesus'name, and I loose wholeness, and I loose health, and I loose freedom, specifically freedom from sexual sin and from the shame that comes from it.
I pray for anyone struggling with a sexual addiction. They would be broken free in Jesus'name, that those chains would hit the floor and that they would walk free. And Father, I pray that we would just hear countless testimonies by Your grace of people who hear the words of Jesus, just like the woman caught in the act of adultery that we talked about tonight in service, that Jesus, anyone who is caught in the traps of sexual sin and shame, that they would feel you looking at them face to face, Jesus, and that they would hear your words when you look at them and say, who condemns you? Neither do I, so go and sin no more. And I just pray that people would walk in holiness and purity and that you would...
protect our church from any fiery dart of the enemy, specifically sexual temptation. And Lord, we just thank you for your goodness to us and your grace. And we just pray that this word would go forth and we know what it does is that it produces fruit and we trust you with it in Jesus name.
Amen.