You, Sex, And God // Relationship Goals: In Real Life (Part 6) // Pastor Charles Metcalf

What is up friend? Hey, listen, there's a topic we got to talk about. It's a big deal. It impacts all of us no doubt and it is sex. That's right. We got to talk about sex because traditionally the church's stance on sex is either distance or demonized. Meaning it's not happening or it's a terrible thing. Don't do it. And it's just not true and it's not God's view. You need to know that God made sex as a gift and as a bond for humans and to really multiply the beauty of humans who are God's image bearers on this earth. There's a way for our sex lives to flourish and in this sermon I talk about the truth about sex, what his word says, and three goals that we can have in our lives. Listen, I know it's gonna be an encouragement to your soul and I know it's gonna lift any shame. Maybe you're here and you're watching this and you felt shame for your past or what's happened to you or what you've done. I'm believing that through this sermon you're gonna experience a release from shame. Listen, we love you so much. And as we go into this message, let me take a moment and pray for you. I thank you for my friend. I thank you God that this moment you've seen before the beginning of time. So right now I pray that your presence would invade their space and they would feel your love. It's in Jesus name I pray. Amen. Without further ado, let's jump in to this week's message. Today's gonna be great. Y'all don't even know what I'm talking about. Just wait a second. Keep that same energy. All right. Today is gonna be great and specifically because we are talking about something that has impacted, will impact, and currently is impacting everyone under the sound of my voice. And we are in a series called Relationship Goals in Real Life. Somebody say in real life. There is nothing more than the subject that I'm going to talk about in just a moment that has affected and impacted our lives in a real way. And I wish I could say it differently that this was a topic that we talked a lot about in church, but the honest truth is we don't. And I think we have a responsibility to because it's impacting everybody. And so today I need you to, before I tell you what the title is, before I tell you what we're talking about, everybody take a deep breath in, let it out. Today we talk about sex.

Oh yeah. Come on. Single people don't be shouting too loud. You're not supposed to be having it. Come on. Yeah! It's like, okay. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. We got to talk about it because statistics say by the age of 19, 80% of people have been watching porn for five years, have had four or more sexual encounters, and two or more sexual partners. 50% of marriages end because they're either unsatisfied or the other 50% says that someone went outside of the marriage to do the thing we're about to talk about. And sadly, the church's traditional response is to either create distance or to demonize. Or, option three, both at the same time. Even the fact, I didn't tell you the title of my sermon. The title of my sermon today is You, Sex, and God. You, Sex, and God. You, Sex, and God. It's so funny because people come to church and they're like, man, I need help. I need to talk about relationships. I need to talk about finances. I need to talk about having faith. I need to talk about, but for some reason, even the fact that this word is up on the screen in church, some of you are like, I don't, what, what is he about to, oh my gosh. I can't, what is he gonna say? I don't know if we should be talking about this. Which would be the exact tactic of the most powerfully created thing for the devil to make you avoid it and the church stay away from it. But I don't know if you've noticed or not, culture doesn't care that church isn't talking about it. So just because we ignore it does not deny the impact of it on our lives. Everybody in here, this is, this is, this is gonna be a crazy statement, but for some reason the church be freaking out. Everybody in here is a sexual being with sexual desires, sexual needs, but the church is like, oh, this is weird, and I don't know if, my gosh, my 11 year old is in here. Let me tell you something, your 11 year old probably know more than you think they know.

If you ain't gonna talk about it, let me tell you, their phone is talking about it. Their friends are talking about it. They already know. Already. I promise you. Some are like, oh my gosh, the youth are in here. I preached a sermon two weeks ago to the youth. They already know what I'm about to say. They locked in with me. Just cheer on the parts that are good, y'all remember. But we have to talk about this because it's affecting everybody. We cannot ignore like this is not a thing. You in this room, you either wanna have sex, you are having sex, you were having sex, you feel bad now you're not having sex, but we can't not talk about this. We have to. Because here's my first point, we're gonna get right into it. I don't know if you know this or not, but God made sex. God made sex, Genesis chapter number one. He says, you know what I want you to do? Go be fruitful and multiply. He wasn't talking about arithmetic. He's not like go fruitful and do, you know, subtraction, division, multiplication. It could be said the first commandment ever given is go have sex. This is scripture, this is what it's saying. Here's what I want you to do, be fruitful and multiply. Go do this thing that I made you to do, that I created you to do, that I gave to you as a gift

that allows the world to be populated for my glory to be expanded through creating more image bearers that now reflect my goodness and grace and it'll connect you in a way that nothing else on this planet can. Go do that, but for some reason, the church has relinquished all rights to sex to R&B music and the world. We don't do sex, you know, it's weird, it's too much. We don't wanna be all up in people's business. We don't wanna be, what? God created this and here's the problem. For too long, the narrative has been, I don't know about you, I grew up in church and they're really, what I said earlier, the distance or the demonized were really the only two options you had. It was either you go to church and people act like it's not happening. It's like, oh yeah, no, we don't even talk about that. What, sex, what is that? Never heard of it. Meanwhile, it's like, I think you've heard of it. We've heard, you've heard of it. We, you know, some of y'all you're new up in church is just like, we all know y'all sleeping together, y'all in worship, y'all, like. So there's distance or it's the demonized that your body is the devil. You gotta kill your flesh,

the devil is the devil in your bones. You just, you gotta stop it, don't do it. No. No. But the Bible does not teach that. The Bible teaches that your body is the temple. So which one is it? Is it the devil or is it the temple? You gotta let me know. Because the thing you are demonizing is actually the Bible teaches this concept throughout scripture and I can't get into it. You just gonna have to wait. Maybe we'll release a Bible study later on this year about it but there are three parts of you. Your spirit, you have a soul and a body. And I'm not gonna teach the whole thing but your spirit has been justified. This is some churchy words. I can get down with these churchy words but justified just means you, it's the part of you that know God, the part of you that was saved, the part of you that's being renewed. Your soul is being sanctified. That's the process of going from wretched to righteous. Some of y'all is, you know, it's a fluctuating scale. Your body is just the vehicle with which your soul acts out. Your body is just made up of chemicals and it has different things. And what the scripture teaches us is your body

is a temple that God created, that he designed, that he made, that you do not have to demonize the natural desires that God gave you. The problem is your soul is out of control. Your mind, will and emotions. So the problem isn't your body is the devil and it's terrible and if you feel something you should just feel terrible. The problem is you can't control your soul. You can't control your thoughts. You can't control your will. You can't control your emotions. So you see somebody and your soul's like, I think we should have sex with them. And your body's like, I don't know man, I'm just chemicals over here. Something's happening, I don't know what it is. And then your spirit's like, hey guys, don't think we should do that. Not really a good idea, it'll ruin us. Soul's like, yeah, we'll get back to you later. Let's do it! And your body's like, all right man, I'm just doing whatever you say man, I don't know. We have to talk about, your soul needs to be trained that hey, we don't do that. There are so many, when I was talking to youth, I took some questions and I also this past week posted on my Instagram a little question thing. And there were questions that came in

and people were like, well, if sex is so bad, how come I be really wanting to do it? Well, that's a fair question. If it's so bad, how come God made me want to do it? How come you're like, well, I don't know if God made you, well, let's talk about this. Is it so bad that God made me want to do it? The premise of your question is, if I feel like I really want to do it, Is it so bad that God made me want to do it? I should be able to do it. I don't know about you, but yesterday, I was in my front yard. Is it so bad that God made me want to do it? My kids were playing. Somebody drove by fast on my street, and I felt like chasing the car down and kicking out all four of their windows. Metcalfs sometimes can get into an area called rage, but we're working on it. What is my premise? Just because you feel like doing it does not mean it runs your life. You know who's like that? Dogs. That's why your dog humps everybody when they walk in, because it can't control its urges. It's an animals do that. Your animal brain says, if I want to do it, I should do it. Using that as an argument is the dumbest thing in the world. There's a lot of stuff you're going to want to do that you shouldn't do. I just, if God didn't want me to do it, then why do I feel this way? Because you're dumb, and your chemicals are off, and that's such a bad argument. So we have to take that and just sit it over here.

There's stuff that we got to have an understanding. There's stuff I'm going to want to do that I shouldn't be doing. If you ever, if I was four years old, I'll never forget it. We went to the Christian bookstore, and then we walked in, and this was back when Larry the Cucumber was a big deal, and there was a little, Larry the Cucumber, a little squishy thing. I stole it, put it in my pocket. Ooh, what you talking about? Get out of here, bro. Ooh. I stole what I got in the car, and my mama knew, too. We got to the door, and we walked right out the door, and she said, does anybody have anything in their pockets? And what type of question is this? You've never asked me this question before in my life. And me, literally, my hand like this, like whole hand in my palm. I'm like, nope, nothing in my pockets. So I not only stole, but I doubled down on the lie. She was like, really, nobody's got anything in their pockets. I'm like looking around my little brother like, champ, you got anything in your pockets? We walked to the car. I walked to the car. I sit down in my, I'm like trying to get in the car and sit down. Nothing in my pockets. My mom cooked me that day. Why, because we all have human wiring that is not for your flourishing. And I could preach a whole sermon on this. Because God is the creator, he understands what practices are going to create the most flourishing for you.

It's not that there's other stuff you couldn't be doing. If I wanted to, I could use this glass as a hammer. You don't believe me? OK, is it? Oh, no, no, no, no. But it's just not the best use of it. I'm not saying that it couldn't work. I'm not saying that it could. You could fill this up with coins. You could do whatever. You could eat cereal out of this glass cup. You'd look weird, but it's like, but there's a reason it was designed. And guess what? We can't leave it up to everybody's interpretation. Somebody has to be able to determine, what do we use this for? Well, it's really up to you, man, just whatever you feel. If you feel like hitting people in the head with it, if you want to use it as a cell phone, you can. It's really got endless options. No, it doesn't. It's just not true. We can all pretend like this, and I'm saying a lot without saying a lot. But there's a lot of things in culture that we just left up to like, yeah, just you, whatever, how you want to do it. It's just it's not how it works. So God made sex. And here's the next point that's important for you to understand, because church has confused this a little bit, and culture has even tried to manipulate this. God is not anti-sex.

He's anti-sin. God is not anti-sex. He is anti-sin. Sin is when we miss the mark of perfection. So sin is an archery term. It means you're trying to hit the bullseye. You miss. God has a mark. When we make mistakes, the Bible says that sin gives birth to death. Now, people feel like, oh, my gosh, the Bible's so intense. We all know this. If you lie in relationships all the time, eventually that relationship's going to die. It's not like this. We don't need like a Bible to tell us this. We all know we're broken. Something's off. It's not supposed to be like this. So God is not anti-sex. He's anti-sin. Why? Because he knows this thing is way too powerful for you to just be doing whatever with. Another question I got was somebody was saying, you know, Pastor Charles, why is it? And this was a great question. One of the students asked this question. They said, why is it that I can't have sex, and then all of a sudden, I sign up for sex? on a piece of paper, we married, now I can't have sex.

Come on, some of you are like, dang, that's a good question, I didn't even. It's because some of us have misinterpreted the design and the most significant thing sex does. Sex was created by God to bond people eternally. When you have sex with someone, the reason it was made, it's to recreate, but there is a bond that happens forever, forever, forever, ever, forever, ever. Now, this is important to understand because if you don't understand this design, you will not understand how to utilize this. Now, I wanna pause before we go any further in the message because we're about to start cooking and we're ready to go. I first wanna say, this is like one of the most complicated, nuanced subjects in some ways. And what I'm saying that is, everybody in this room watching online have had different experiences, had different standards. You may be navigating stuff right now. The biggest thing I wanna say to everyone is there is no shame in this sermon at all. If you have ever been shamed into trying to get better, that was a terrible thing. Shame is not a motivator that God uses to make you better. I don't care what pastors use it, what churches use it, what person on social media use it, shame is not what makes us better. It is understanding. The Bible says it's his kindness that leads us to repentance.

So I wanna say this because I'm gonna speak very clear because the Bible is very clear. I'm gonna make some very definitive statements because the Bible does, but this is not an attack on anybody and when you know better, you do better. So some of y'all, you're in here and you're like, I did not know. That's what I thought it was just supposed to be. That's okay, but we're gonna have a restart and from here, you're gonna hear this. Here's the other thing. If you have not submitted your life to Jesus as your Lord, let me explain this to you. There is Savior, which is you fell off the boat, you ain't got a life raft, Jesus saved you. But we like to say he's Lord and Savior. So he saved you, Lord means he's the boss. He decides, he knows best. If you have not decided he's your best, do whatever you want to. Go for it, go. I'm submitted, we've submitted, our church has submitted his word, his scripture. This is what determines what we do. We don't get to just decide and do whatever we want to do. We have submitted our life to his word. So if you don't follow Jesus right now, this would be a great peer into of what it would be like to follow him. I could give you scientific proof on the state of our world

that having sex with any and everybody is ripping your soul out every time you do it. But we don't have to go down that argument. It's just science, it's just how it works. It just, it doesn't work when we don't do it God's way. Okay, I want to talk to you about the science of sex. This is a backing scientifically for the claim that I made of God's design of sex, which is a eternal bond. When you have sex, there are two chemicals. One is your thrill chemical, dopamine. It's like, wow, this is amazing. That's kind of how that chemical works in like a summation without taking you into the science work that I did this past week. The other one is a bonding hormone. It's the same hormone that happens when a baby is born that tells the baby, this is your mother, you are safe here. Every time you have sex, these two things happen. There is the thrill and there is the bond. What happens if you have sex with multiple people is your chemicals start to get confused. Because what it says is, okay, I had sex with this person, the dopamine went off, it was a thrill. And so I go back to have sex with them again and the dopamine wasn't as much as it was last time. So it wasn't as fun, it wasn't as exhilarating, and it wasn't as much, I thought it would be better. So your brain tells you, hey man, you gotta go find somebody else. So then you go to have sex with somebody else

and the dopamine's like, we're back, we are so back. But guess what your bonding hormone does? Your bonding hormone is so disappointed, it says, ooh, maybe we shouldn't be bonding and emotionally connecting. So every time this happens, what you are doing is the neural pathways of your brain, how God wired your brain, is you are telling your brain, this is only fun with someone new, and the more I do it, I should connect less. So your bonding hormone slowly gets to a point where it shuts off and you are emotionally numb because it's so detrimented that you were only supposed to do this with one person. So the chemicals of your brain are saying, let's completely sever all emotional feeling completely because it's painful. when we do this and it rips us apart. So let's sever our emotional feeling and also let's go find someone new because if they don't know you, it won't be that bad when you have to sever the connection. And you wire your brain this way to where your brain thinks, okay, I can't have sex with this person, but it's definitely gonna be way better when I go find someone new and I'm not gonna have to emotionally connect. Why is this important? And I'm gonna make a very clear statement here.

When you see things in the world that are terribly evil, it is because people's bonding, compassionate, emotional chemicals got fried to such a point that they could not see a human as a human. They saw them as an item to be used for their own sake. And what I'm trying to connect here is that is the most extreme version of being outside of God's plan, is having sex with tons of people and doing it with all these crazy things that we see happening, all of that. So we have to go back and say, maybe the results and the studies and the data of culture are trying to tell us God has a way for this thing to work. He has a way that doesn't kill us, a way that doesn't crush us. I wanna read to you the scripture that I read. I only read the end of it, but I wanna read you Paul's writing in 1 Corinthians chapter number six. He says this, you say, I'm allowed to do anything. This is, I mean, church people, been church people for a long time. They're like, hey man, we got grace. So we can do anything. And he says, but not everything is good for you. And even though I'm allowed to do anything, I must not become a slave to anything. I heard somebody say, you can drink as much as you want to

until you can't stop. I can do whatever I want to. No, you can't because you can't go to sleep without drinking alcohol. So you are a slave to it. You're not doing whatever you want to. You're doing what you've wired your brain has to do. I can have sex with whoever I want to. No, you literally can't sleep without having sex or looking at porn. You are a slave to that little phone. Get out of here, I can do whatever I want to. You lying to yourself. Oh yeah, man, it's the time I'm on. Y'all real quiet up here, okay. You say food was made for the stomach and stomach was made for the food, but you can't say our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord. Here's the key point. The Lord cares about our bodies. The Lord cares about your body. He cares about your body. He cares about your body. The end of that scripture says your body is the temple. He paid a high price for it. And here's the problem with culture's view on sex and how that is completely opposite of God's view on sex. Culture's view on sex, the only way it explains it

is for you to devalue your body. It doesn't matter. Sex is just a feeling, it's just about pleasure, it's just a habit, it's fine, no big deal. And what it has to do is lower your standards to that of an animal that is just moving off instincts. I just gotta, you know, I gotta sow my wild oats. I gotta, you know, I gotta do my thing. That is dumb. That is, you are literally like the dog you have in your house, which cannot control itself, so you just go do whatever. And you're trying to use it as a sign of your symbol, but the truth is, I know the chemicals in your brain have cooked you so bad that you are extremely insecure and you're trying to cover it up by doing this thing that you think's gonna fix it, but it's a never-ending hole that you keep on digging. It's just, it's just, you can't argue the fact of it. So he says you can't say that just because you can do anything, you can do so. He's talking about your body has value. And some of us, my question would be, is the way we treat our bodies, do you know that it has value? Because God's vision of sex and why he designed it is that your body is so important. It's so valuable. It's so meaningful that you shouldn't just let anybody have it or do whatever with it.

I'm gonna illustrate it this way. My friend, my friend, he showed me this a couple weeks ago. My friend, he showed me this a couple weeks ago. This is my friend's grandfather's pocket watch from World War II. Now, I did not pay for this pocket watch, but if you were like, yo, Charles, let me use that pocket watch, I would say, no. Get out of here. No. Don't ask me a question like that. Why, because the first understanding is this ain't mine. This isn't, and it's too expensive. I don't know you like that. You may not understand how valuable this is. You just saw it and you think, oh, I think I saw one of those on Amazon. That might be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. This ain't from Amazon. This ain't. This ain't cheap, this ain't, this ain't, no, no, no, no. You don't, I'm not letting anybody do whatever with this because the first thing is it's not mine and I understand its value. Even though I didn't have to pay for it, I am very clear, someone had to pay for it. And my submission is God says, hey, the scripture told us, don't you realize your body is not your own? This ain't even yours.

You just written that thing. The Bible tells you you're gonna get a new body. But while you got this one, you better be taking care of this thing. You better not be letting anybody do whatever with it because you matter, you matter. Here's what we're gonna get into. The last big point I have, and then we're gonna go into three points. The last thing is that you have to understand is God is holy. Write this down, God is holy, God is holy. What that means is God has set a part and the scripture says, I'm asking you to be holy like I am holy. Be holy as I am holy. What does it mean? It means you be different like I am different. I think it's important we all have to address, we all have a lot of different views and understandings of sex, what the goal of sex is, who we learned it from. The truth is many of us, you did not learn it when your parents think you learned it. I don't know, but like I remember, I remember asking my mom like, did y'all have a talk with me? Because I don't remember no talk. Y'all know the talk. And my mom, of course, she was like,

Charles, you know we talked with you. Do not say that. I don't really remember, Mom. She said, you remember that one time we was at the football game and Dad, I remember y'all went to go get some popcorn and Dad was with when y'all was waiting on the popcorn. I was like, Mom, listen, I'm gonna tell you, even if that was the time, that's a terrible time to, you know, son, speaking of popcorn, one of the things one day that's gonna, yeah, no, I'm gonna stop, but it's like, we have to agree, here's my premise, we have to agree God is holy, he has a different way. And so today I wanna talk about three goals for godly sex, three goals, and this is for everybody. If you're single, if you're married, if you're engaged, if you're divorced, three godly goals based off of scripture that we can look at, that we can focus on, that we can set as an objective in our life that can steer us, that can make us live a pure sexual life. The first one is, three goals for godly sex, the first one is purity. Purity, purity, purity, purity. Here's why this is important. For church, I grew up thinking the goal was virginity. The church will teach you this. Just be a virgin.

I'm not gonna lie to you, man. I'll never forget this, I remember being in school, and y'all, we talking about sex, but we already down the road, come on, chill. If you got questions, text sex to 828282. No, I'm just. I don't know who's gonna respond, but see what happens. Bree will personally answer all your questions. Text confused to 828292. But I'll never forget in church, it was like, you just be a virgin, you just gotta save yourself from marriage. Don't have sex, be a virgin, save yourself from marriage. And I'll never forget, there was this one girl in school, and she was walking, I'll never forget her. She was like, we were in like a small group or something, and she was like, yeah, I'm a virgin. And I was like. I was looking around, I was like, you might technically be a virgin, but I think we all know, I be knowing that you ain't really. Come on, man. You done. Because I knew, because some of my homies, I knew. Here's what I'm saying. The summation of that is you can be a virgin and nasty. Some of us, that's what we holding on to. Well, I'm a virgin, yeah, I mean, technically, yes, but you are nasty with any and every body, and here's why.

God's standard is higher than just barely sliding by. And this is the problem. We like to be asking like, how close? This is the classic question. Any 16-year-old will ask you, how far can I go and it not be bad? That is not the right question. I get it, I ask the same question. But you cannot live your life thinking, how close can I get to murder before it's technically like, you know, considered breaking the commandment? How close to stealing can I get before it's like, technically, is it like first base, second, like, what is the? The standard is not just being a. Purge is being pure, and Jesus raises this standard because he says if you look at a woman lustfully in your heart, you've already committed adultery. Purity is about your heart, not your outside actions. And let me say this very clearly, there are a lot of us, I'll talk to us men, who are in marriages, but your heart isn't pure. Because you follow a bunch of people, you just go on your phone, scrolling just to see what will happen, and you know what's gonna happen because you follow a bunch of ratchet workout people who are not trying to work out because why your pants gotta be up your butt

while you're trying to work out? That don't make no sense. Y'all see these new demonic yoga pants? It's like it's got a stitch right up the butt crack just to help with your glute workout. It's the devil who made those pants. Now I did get some for Abby, but we are in a covenant relationship. It's different. She's never worn them, she won't wear them. Oh, that's the only joke I'll make, babe. That's the only joke I'll make. I'm saying this for real, God's standard for whether you're single, dating, married is for you to be pure. Not just not be technically having sex with people. And I gotta say this because so many of us are single, dating, married, and we're not even married, and I gotta say this because so many of us, our standards are so low. You know what you're doing. Well, I'm just gonna go see what they talking about, you know, in between breaks. You're not gonna see, you know what they gonna be wearing. Get out of here, that's so, quit lying. No, man, I just, my friend, you know, I gotta, just be quiet. Purity, purity.

Now here's the other thing too. This is not a shaming thing. This is not like a, oh, I gotta, growing up in church too, specifically, which now, I was looking at statistics, it is almost even men and women struggling with pornography. So this is not like an exclusively men thing. When I was growing up, it was like, yeah, men watch porn and girls love God. Like, it's like, eh. I know we did the mutt sermon, but I've met some girls who were mutts, just to be clear. Don't be, don't be, don't be coming for me. We ain't got a name for it, but. Some of them watching me preach right now, so calm down. I'm just saying. Y'all out here, we see you. Okay. No, I can't even really, okay, I'm not gonna say nothing. Just saying. Okay. Purity. What is your standard for purity? How you, whether you're dating, whether you're married, this is something I would say specifically for dating people.

Abby got married a couple weeks before we got married. There was one night where we sat down and we told each other everything we had ever done with somebody else. And it was for two reasons. One is because I didn't want to enter into marriage with a bunch of ideas and pictures of other people that I was storing and trying to hide. And the second thing is, is I, oh, is, I don't know what that was, God or what that was. It was crazy. That was, that was scary, low key. I'm not even gonna lie. But the other reason is, is now growing up, being together for 13 years, four kids later, all these things, what I'm realizing is there are a lot of times I was moving through life, and now even specifically for me, having three daughters, that's like, if any boy tried to treat my daughter the way I was out here running around, I would. Thank you. But I'm saying this, this purity, purity, purity. What does that look like? It looks like being honest. Being honest, being honest, being honest. It's not about, okay, I'll just, I'm gonna try not to technically cross the line. No, I wanna be as far away from the line as I can. I wanna live above reproach.

I don't wanna be seen in a compromising situation. I wanna live pure. Okay, the second point, goal for godly sex is serving. Serving, serving, serving. It's interesting to me that everywhere in the Bible, God talks about serving, but in sex, we wouldn't necessarily connect those two things together. And here's my premise. Why in the world would God create the whole Christian life about serving someone else, but in sex is where it becomes selfish? This is about me. I gotta make sure this is good for me. It's gonna be okay. And I said, we gotta be honest about this because if you're a. Approach in sex is about me, how it feels for me, how I look, all these different things. You are not living a Christian life according to his standard of serving someone. The Bible tells us in scripture that even a husband and wife, their bodies don't belong to themselves. It belongs to the other person. I am supposed to approach this with a serving attitude. What do you need? How do you feel? How can I see you? What, where are you at? And the truth is so many of us have been formed by culture

and our society and watching pornography that we are selfish when we enter the bedroom, selfish. And we gotta talk about this because the truth is, and again, I can only do this and you know, yes, but I'm gonna talk to the man for a second. The truth is a good amount of men grew up watching pornography. You got married and now you're trying to do stuff. You grew up watching and are you serving your wife or are you serving yourself? I want my girl to be like, first of all, that's not real. Those people's souls are empty. God can save them and reach them. But that is not, it's a movie that they're making. It's not real life. And when you enter into a sacred bedroom with someone who you're supposed to be intimate with and you're in that mode, it is not serving. It's selfish. Have you asked? Do you, is this, do you enjoy this? Is this okay? Are you comfortable with that? But we're so nervous. We're so nervous to even talk about it. No, this is great. Well, you may be surprised according to statistics. You might be getting bamboozled there, brother. I don't wanna, I don't wanna go too far,

but just double check. Just saying, man. Just that conversation. What is it? Hey, is this, is this comfortable for you? Because Christians, we be using the marriage bed is undefiled. Oh yeah, it's like, first of all, you to be old to be yelling at like that. I've only heard older people yell out that scripture and it makes me nervous. More power to you, but just, yeah. Are you serving the other person? What would that, hey, are you, is this okay? Asking those questions. Purity, serving. Last point. Sacred. Sacred, sacred, sacred, sacred, sacred. In the Old Testament, the most sacred thing was something called the Ark of the Covenant. Ark of the Covenant was in short this box where inside of it was the 10 commandments. Moses' staff, there were a couple of things in there that were of high value in the history of Israel. In this Ark of the Covenant, it represented the presence of God. I mean, this is the most powerful item throughout the entire New Testament.

The story really centers around this Ark of the Covenant. Children of Israel having it, some of it being stolen. There's a crazy story where they're carrying the Ark of the Covenant and it was actually only supposed to be carried by these guys, it was their job, but they were kind of lazy and they put it on a wagon and they're like, come on, man, let me just put it on this wagon. And it goes to fall and there's a guy who's like, oh no, I don't want it to fall. And God had told them, hey, I'm so holy, like you can't touch this, this is before grace. So it's like, God's like, yo, this is the rule, don't touch it. And the thing is, he had given them instruction not even to put it in the wagon. So like his grace was like, you ain't supposed to be doing this in the first place, but don't touch it. Whatever you do, don't touch it. And the guy, even out of a good heart, it goes to fall, he go to touch it, bam, he dies. Right when he touches it. Because what it represented was the purity of the holiness of God. And it reaches a point in the story where they first create something called the tabernacle. And it's pretty much this big tent system and there's layers to it.

But in the deepest layer, was this thing called the Holy of Holies. And the Holy of Holies was special because the priest would only get to go back there at a distinct time, a distinct number of times. And there were all these rituals and things they had to do and washing their hands and sacrificing a bull and enter into each stage. And the priest at the time, they would tie a rope around them and put bells on them. And so if they walked into the Holy of Holies and their heart wasn't pure, they would stop hearing jingle bells and people would drag them out because they were not in a right place with God. This is why specifically, even though we are not under the law anymore, as a preacher, I still carry that image with me. That the lineage of people who do what I do, there's a reverence you must carry. with this thing. Because the law used to have you dropping dead when you entered into the Holy of Holies. And then the Holy of Holies, it progresses from this tabernacle to the temple. And God gives David this beautiful vision for a temple, and it's immaculate. The problem was David's, there was too much blood on David's hands. David couldn't control himself. And this is why my little note, why we have to talk about sex. Do you know so much of the Bible is about sex? Like over 40 characters of the Bible, their story arc involves sex. David, why he didn't get to build the temple is because he was sleeping with Bathsheba, had a baby with her, killed her husband after having sex with her. So this is all throughout the Bible. But he gives the plans to his son. Solomon's temple is the most immaculate thing you've ever seen in your life. Covered in pure gold. And the Holy of Holies was the arc of the covenant. And the Bible tells us that there

was a curtain that would separate the Holy of Holies. And in a couple of weeks, we're about to celebrate Easter. What we're celebrating is that the scripture says that from the top to the bottom, that the veil was torn. And essentially, this is the elimination of this place physically where God's presence resides. The Holy of Holies is not a place you go to anymore because Paul says it later in scripture that God does not live in man-made temples. But you know what? And where he does live is that there's a new temple. There's not just a new temple. Do you know there's a new Holy of Holies? God, the value of the temple when it was built equivalent would have been 10 to 20 billion dollars to build this temple. But God takes all that value. And the scripture says, for we have this hidden treasure in earthen vessels. Here's the dot I'm trying to connect. Why sex is so sacred is because it's one of the only few remaining temple activities. It's if your soul is the Holy of Holies, not everybody can just come back there and do whatever. There has to be a standard. And might it be that the reason sex has such high impact? Because us as the temple of God, the Bible says that he paid a high price for you. So when you see this thing, it's not just about what's happening in the physical, but there is a super natural thing that is happening, a sacred act that bonds you at the deepest level. And this is not pain or shame or guilt. What I'm trying to say to you is that God views you as so important as the temple that he died for, that he no longer wanted there to be separation. So he died on a cross. So the presence of God would not be in a box that is carried around, but it would live in your soul. And now you are the place that carries his presence. And when you walk in somewhere, it's his grace. And when you walk in somewhere, it's his mercy. So what I'm trying to say to you is, is you are so important that you are so valuable that how you relate to sex and how you understand it, it matters. It matters. It matters. It matters. It matters. It matters. It's not something to be thrown around. It's not a tool to make your spouse do something you want to win. It's not a means to control somebody to hold it over self or to be like, well, you ain't have sex with me, so I'm not going to know. No, it's more sacred than that. It's more valuable than that. All I'm saying is, is if we could for a second, realize what the scripture says that you were

bought with a high price. Look what the Bible says. I'll close out. I'll just read it again. Don't you realize your bodies are actually parts of Christ? So should a man take his body, so should a man take his body, which is part of Christ and join it to a prostitute? Never. And don't you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her. For the scripture says the two are united into one. But the person who is joined to the Lord is one with him in spirit. So run from sexual sin. No other sin. and so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Some of us this is a quick note as we close. We're trying to fight stuff. You ain't got no business fighting. The Bible does not tell you to fight sexual sin. I just got to put my Dukes up. I got to be strong. It never tells you to do that. It says brother. You need to get out of there. Run, but I got to be strong. No run, but I got it. What do I do? If I work with somebody or run away? What if what if but my promotion? I would quit your job. Oh, it ain't that serious. Okay. Ask a bunch of people who are alone at 65 because they couldn't control themselves. If it's that serious. It's not that big of a deal. Oh, it's not that if you're struggling with pornography get a flip phone. How am I gonna?

How are you gonna? What please how how am I gonna email? You don't read your emails. First of all, dummy. Second of all, get a computer. Ask somebody I'm upset because people will will live their whole life with a grenade in their pocket. Hoping it doesn't go off. I just got to stay connected. No. No, you don't you actually don't. Run get away, but I think we're going to get married. Okay. Awesome. You might get married, but you're not right now. You not married right now, but I know it's my wife. No, you don't you don't know you don't know what tomorrow holds. You don't know. No, you don't so make a decision. I'm going to honor God because this is the last thing I'll say when you honor God, I promise you it's better than you could imagine. I promise you. I promise you. I promise you. I promise you. You make a decision. You know what? I maybe God knows something. I don't maybe this is affecting me in ways that I haven't been honest about maybe just doing whatever with whoever watching all this stuff is doing

something to my soul. Some of you I feel it so strong. The reason you are so cold in life is because this is draining your soul. It's crushing you every time something happens. Some of you in marriages. You need to be honest. You need to have a conversation. You're all at different points. You're going to have different desires, different levels, all these different things, but it's valuable enough to have a conversation about. It matters enough because if you don't have a conversation about I promise you it's still affecting you. I request and desire really today is really for one last thing, which is this specific area is such an area of shame. There's so much shame that is associated with this of mistakes that you've made things that maybe happened to you that you didn't even know what to do. The truth is early on your brain was rewired in a way that you can't even explain. You feel like I'm doing this, but I don't even know I don't even want to and I don't it doesn't even feel like it doesn't matter and or you've shut off this whole side of you. That's a gift from God. My prayer as we close our service today is I just want to pray that there will be no more shame in this area. If you're struggling right now, you feel like man. I just feel like I can't get this under control. I promise you there's a God who can help you and there are habits. You can start that can be you helping you. God will transform you in a moment and you still have to have good habits.

So going out on the weekend with your homie who knows all the girls, that's not a good habit. Because when you get married, guess what the chemicals of your brain aren't going to be looking at a marriage license. The chemicals of your brain are going to go. We need to go out because it's Saturday night and what we do on Saturday night. I'll take a moment as everybody to bow their heads and close your eyes. If you're in here under the sound of my voice and there's been any shame. Anything at all. I'm gonna really ask everybody to bow your heads and close your eyes just out of a moment of focus and some of you maybe I haven't have a sense some of you you've never been honest about some things. and things that have happened, things you've done. And really, if you don't wanna carry that weight anymore, the scripture says in Jesus' kindness, he says, come to me all who are weary. Truth is, many of us are weary because of our relationship to this topic. And if you're weary today, the invitation is easy. You can lay it down. You can lay it down. It's that easy. It seems too good to be true, but that is the gospel, that in one moment, a moment of grace, a moment of kindness, you can lay down everything. So with every head bowed, every eye closed, if you're in this room and you say, you know what, I just, I could use some prayer. I could use some prayer about this area and this topic.

Every head bowed and every eye closed, I'm gonna ask you to lift your hands all over this room, online, in the chat. You can just say, I'm raising my hand. So proud of everyone who took the brave step to do that. I wanna pray for you. Lord God, I thank you for every hand that was raised, saying, God, I wanna do it your way. I wanna honor you. I want beauty. I want trust. I want purity. I want a serving heart. I wanna acknowledge the sacredness of this. God, would your spirit empower our spirit to be able to honor you in this way with our body? Every head bowed, every eye closed still. You can put your hands down if you're in this room. And you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I said it at the beginning, but we acknowledge him as Lord and Savior. And the Savior part is really the greatest news of all time. And that is, in some ways, God saves us from the worst part of ourself. That there's this part of us that is searching and we will do anything to fill that void. And we try to do it through sex. We try to do it through money, through achievement, through trying to build a business to succeed.

And all of those things are legitimate desires, but we're trying to fill them in a wrong way. And if you're in here and you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, what it is is saying, I surrender. I don't wanna run my own life. I don't wanna govern my own life, but I wanna do it God's way. And I want him to lead my life. If you wanna accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I'm gonna count to three and you're gonna raise your hand. When you raise your hand, you're saying on the outside what your heart is believing on the inside. And that is, I wanna surrender everything to him. So I'm gonna count to three. And if you wanna accept Jesus, I want you to boldly raise your hand. One, he loves you. Two, today is the day of salvation. Do not wait another day. Three, right now in this room and all over the world, would you lift your hands? I see you over there. So proud of you. I got you over here in the back, all row of you. I got you brother. I see you. So proud of you. A family up here together.

I got you. I see you. So proud of you. Now open your eyes and pray out loud together with every head bowed, every eye closed. Would you pray with me? Everybody together for the benefit of those who are coming to Jesus today. Everybody say, dear God. I admit I've made mistakes. I pray you would save me, change me, make me new. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Hey, can we celebrate for people who just made that choice? And listen, standing up all over this room, all over this room, what we're gonna do, our worship team's gonna sing. And if you feel led to, you can stay. We're gonna have some of our team come forward. And these team are part of our altar team. And that's it, if you need prayer for anything at all, I would encourage you, come receive prayer today. But I believe this is gonna be the best week of our life. And even as we get close to Easter, make sure you invite somebody with you. But Lord God, we thank you. I thank you that this week, Lord God, that we would see you in every part of our life. God, would you bless us and keep us is our prayer. It's in Jesus' name we pray and everybody said, amen.