The Devil's Playbook | Week 5 | Daniel Goulding

here's what I wanna do up front. We are going to talk about the enemy's plans, the devil's tactics, when it comes to sex. So if you're here and you're like, hey, we brought a neighbor or something. We're trying to convince them that church is easy and comfortable.

This might not be the best message. If you have some children that are here, just forewarning, this is your chance to walk out judgment free. Because again, what I am not going to do, I promise you, I'm not going to be crude. I don't want to go into

things just to be abrasive or make a point, but I do wanna have a real conversation because I believe that the enemy is taking massive grounds when it comes to sex and sexuality in our culture today. So is that fair?

You can't say I didn't warn you now. So you're stuck with me. So let's do this. Everybody buckle your seats. Keep your hands and feet inside at all times. And let's just pray before we begin. Father, we ask God for you to do what only you can do. That Lord in a room full of hundreds of people,

that you somehow can use one person to speak through the Holy Spirit that is alive in me and inside of every single person that's here. And you would speak to us personally and specifically. And so Lord right now, just ask for you to convict, to encourage, to challenge, to uplift,

to make us all more and more into the image of Jesus. And everybody said, amen.

Hey, if you are like put a bookmark in, you can put a bookmark in in Exodus chapter 15. We will get there eventually. I promise I will read the Bible at some point in this message, but I've gotta kinda set this up. So let me just start by telling you a story. So I

grew up as a pretty normal kid in the city, right? Like I am as far as a country folk as you could get, right? My dad's an attorney. I grew up in the suburbs. My idea of hunting is going to the mall and hunting for a deal. You know what I mean?

Me roughing it is taking my travel trailer that has full power with electricity and air conditioning. Like I'm roughing it because I can only take one shower because I'm so big. I don't fit in the shower. I like basically have to be on my knees. Like that's me roughing it. And so I grew up in

my family's house and my parents' rules. And when you start to get older, you start to realize some things as you spend more time with your friends and their families and their parents. You start to realize that your parents' rules aren't like universal rules.

It's like, wait, my parents don't let me do this. But here this is totally okay. You're like, I like this. And if you're smart like I did, you start to spend more time where?

At the house that has the least amount of rules. You're like, hey, we're gonna hang out here more often. Children, if you're here, don't do that. It was what I did because I was a bad kid. You start to realize something that there's different rules for different houses.

My parents' rules weren't universal. Not everybody followed the same rules. This never became more apparent to me than when I was 12 or 13 and in middle school. One of my best friend's aunt has a ranch out in Colorado.

First time in my life I ever went to a ranch and this was like a ranch ranch, like hundreds of head of cattle. They've got like horses and tractors, like a real ranch, you know what I mean? Like you showed up to this place, they handed you a shotgun,

like a can of chewing tobacco and keys to a tractor. They're like, have at it. And I was like, wait, I can shoot this gun? And they're like, yep. And I was like, at moving things? And they let us do it. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. But I realized

being here, it was like I had entered into a whole another world, right? Because in my house, I had to have a learner's permit or a driver's license in order to drive a vehicle. Those were the rules that existed for our state, and my parents strictly enforced that. But out here, there was a whole another set of rules. The rule was basically,

if your feet could touch the pedals and you could still see over the steering wheel at the same time, you're good to go. You are officially qualified to drive tractors and cars. I just was dumbfounded. I'm like, What? You let 12 year olds drive cars out here? This is the best place ever.

This whole experience for me culminated one morning breakfast where my buddy's aunt sat us down and she was like, hey guys, there are a couple things we just gotta talk about. And she's like, you guys have to stop shooting the guns in the house.

And we're like, you know, because what would happen at night is all these like varmint things would run into the yard. And so we took the screens off my buddy's bedroom and we would set up our little shotguns and shoot them outside and try to hit these animals. And she's like, you know, when somebody's inside the house sleeping and then a gunshot goes off in the house,

Everybody that was sleeping is now no longer sleeping. And the best part about this conversation is my buddy's uncle was arguing for us. Like, Hey, you gotta lay off. There's just kids. And I'm like, Man, we are in the twilight zone here. Like

we can shoot guns in the house. And it's a debate of whether or not we've gone too far. And I tell you all of this to say, what I want to do this morning is to really lay out what I believe is abundantly clear and obvious in scripture of the guidelines and the rules that God has given us when it comes to sex and sexuality.

But what I don't want to do and what I think sometimes the church where we get ourselves into some hot water is we try to convince people who have not chosen to live in this dad's house, who have not chosen to submit to God's authority, to live under his rules, authority and governance. And we try to force them to live by rules and standards that are ours, not theirs.

And sometimes we go so far as trying to even legislate this and I don't wanna get into politics at all. What I want to do today is to go, I believe that scripture is abundantly clear.

For over two thousand years, the church has been in agreement of what the Bible says about sex and sexuality. The last fifty years, the church has gotten really squirrelly on some of these things, but I believe that it is abundantly clear.

But again, if you're here this morning and you're like, hey, I'm checking out this whole thing. I don't know about all this God stuff. What I don't want you to believe is that you have to somehow follow all of these rules for God to love you.

If nobody's ever told you the process in which we work out our behavior. Where we begin to change some of the core parts of us. It starts with having a transformative interaction with this person named Jesus and the Holy Spirit in us becomes alive.

And the bible says at that point you will become regenerated. The old person that you were will pass away and a new person with new desires. With new gifts. With new strengths will come to bear.

And sometimes where we get this whole thing screwed up and why sometimes the church is being relegated in this conversation is because we go, no, no, no. These are all the rules. But friends, we have to remember these are our rules.

These are for us who have raised our hands and say, yes, Jesus is the Lord of my life. This is the house that I have chosen to live in. These are our rules and our standards and you and I are the ones that are called to uphold them.

And our invitation is to love people outside of our house, understanding that the rules are different, but it's not about the following of the rules that makes them a person that God is going to interact with. He loves them as they are. But I do believe that our sexuality

shows something about us. Every single person in this room, what you do with your sexuality and your sex life, whether or not you know it, it actually shows who you worship. It shows the authority that you have chosen to live your life

under. What I wanna do this morning with the time that we have left is spend a few moments talking about this is the big idea. I believe that sexuality is a choice to follow the Lord or the liar.

What I wanna do is I wanna lay out what I believe is the lie that the enemy is convincing our culture of. And then I wanna spend some time looking at what does the Bible say when it comes to sex. I wanna just put the rules on the table, show you what the standards are.

It is your choice what you'll do with them, friends. It's not me here to convince you. So Exodus chapter 15. Are you there? We got two of you, so we'll wait.

While the rest of you turn there, I'll set up what we're going to read in Exodus 15. It's gonna seem like a bizarre passage. It doesn't really make any sense when it comes to sexuality,

but but here's what's happening in this story. Okay? The the nation of Israel has been in captivity to the Egyptians for a long time. Really famous story, Moses

comes and he tells Pharaoh, hey, it's time to let our people go. And Pharaoh says, no, and all the plagues come. And eventually Pharaoh says, okay, I'll let them go. Well then Pharaoh famously has a change of heart. So as Moses is leading the nation of Israel away from Egypt, Pharaoh

sends the army after the people and the Red Sea parts and the nation of Israel walks through. The moment they get to the other side, the water caves in and the Egyptian army is defeated. The nation of Israel has been walking around the desert for days at this point. This is where we pick up reading in Exodus chapter 15

verse 22. Here's what the Bible says. It says, then Moses led the people of Israel away from the Red Sea and they moved out into the Desert Of Shur. They traveled in this desert for three days without finding any water. When they came to the oasis of Marah, the water was too bitter to drink.

So they called the place Marah, which means bitter.

Then the people complained and turned against Moses and said, what are we going to drink? They demanded. So Moses cried out to the Lord for help and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. Moses threw it into the water and this made the water good to drink. What does this have to do with anything when it comes to sexuality?

Here's what I believe the lie that the enemy is convincing you and I about sex and our sexuality is. The lie basically if you're taking notes is that sex is purely physical and that the ultimate goal with all things sex is pleasure.

At the end of the day, if you boil all of the tactics and strategies down, the enemy is convincing you and I that sex is just a physical act and pleasure is the ultimate goal. And the proof that this is working is if you look at the compression of when people have been exposed to pornography,

you watch what's happening. Go talk to your grandparents, My grandfather told me 18, 19 years old was the first time he saw a picture of a nude lady. I promise you, it was very different than what is out there today. You asked my dad. It was 16 to 17 years old when he saw his first Playboy magazine.

For me, I was 12 or 13 with AOL, the dial up internet, your buddies are like, man, gotta come see this. There's like these websites and you're like, woah, I like this. I don't know why I like it. Like, what is this, right?

They say today that the average kid will see pornography, be exposed to pornography inadvertently most of the times is between six and seven years old. You look at the compression, you look at the progression of when sex is exposed

to young people and it's just getting younger and younger and younger and younger. Why? Because sex is everywhere. Why? Because the lie is that it's just physical. It's not a big deal. So why shouldn't it be everywhere?

If you start to look at some of the statistics that are happening, you and I begin to realize we right now are living in the middle of one of the grandest experiments ever of which we are all the guinea pigs. More importantly, our children are the test dummies of and we're waiting to see what the results will be.

Never in the history of the world has a little boy, my nine year old son had access to pornography 20 fourseven at any moment's time just sitting in his pocket. And the wild part is if you look, do you know that the pornography industry today, it makes more money than the NFL, the MLB and the NBA combined.

The pornography industry dwarfs everything that's out there. They say that one out of every three searches on Google

is somehow porn related. And some of you this morning are like, man this is awkward. Do I amen at any point during this? Like I'm just gonna not talk. Like this is one of those ones you're like, oh, I'm not saying nothing. I don't know nothing about what you're talking about.

Watch the progression of what started as dating apps. What started as places for people to meet and maybe to potentially date and get married has now come down to the most prolific dating app that's out there. It's this thing called Tinder. Again, you know what it is, just act like you don't.

The entire thing is do you just swipe left or right? And then there's this one too. For those of you who are here that are like, Hey, but not us, right? We're in this little pocket that's protected.

We live in Gilbert, Arizona. I have a graphic that's going to make you really upset, okay? This is a website called Ashley Madison. Another one of those websites that if you don't know what it is or you do know what it is, just act like you don't. Let me fill you in on what Ashley Madison is.

Ashley Madison is actually a website that was created for married people to go on to and anonymously find other married people looking to have affairs.

The website became famous because a few years ago it got hacked and they released all of the user data information and made for some really uncomfortable dinner conversation that evening.

Well, the crazier part is that Ashley Madison releases the data of the top registered user cities every single year. I was looking at it going, you know what? If I had to guess the cities are It's gotta be like Los Angeles. Like let's be real. Probably Las Vegas, New York, Atlanta, like all these big cities, right? And they're all on there. But do you see what number 10 is on the list of most registered users of a website where spouses are looking to have affairs with other married people?

Gilbert, Arizona, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the party.

So hear me when I say this. I know for some of us that are like, man, I don't know if the church should really be talking about sex. And I think that that's one of the biggest reasons why

we have just grown comfortable with coming to church on Sundays, going through the motions and the truth is when we leave these doors, our lives look no different than the non Christian friends that we engage with. You know that the day Pornhub releases all of the data of when people are most engaged on their website?

Sunday afternoon is the number one time that pornography is viewed in the country. And it is heartbreaking that the number one viewer of pornography is typically 13 to 15 year old boys who eventually grow up to become men, who eventually grow up to become husbands and dads.

And I know some of you in here this morning, that's part of your story. That this has been part of the journey that you've been through. And if we're not careful, we will believe the lie that has really that big of a deal. It's just physical. It's just pornography.

It's not gonna go anywhere. It's really not that big of a deal. Why are we talking about this? Think about this for just a second and then I promise I'll tie Exodus 15 into all of this. But think about this for a second.

Let's just assume and let's all agree wherever we stand this morning that God created the earth. How he did it? When he did it? Where he did it? Let's just assume that God created it. And the book of Genesis is literal. And God began to create

the world and he spoke and he made day and night. He made earth and sea. Land and sea. He made the animals. He made all of the things that we interact with and then the bible tells us that the pinnacle of that creation was Adam and Eve. Ish and Ishah in Hebrew. This was the pinnacle of his creation

and what he was going to give them was a gift that would take them from being two individuals and make them into one person called sex. And this act would be incredibly powerful. It would take two individuals, make them into one and create the first family unit. From that family unit would generate children

that would then fill the earth, populate the earth, create cities, create companies, create cultures, create countries, create the world. You could argue that the gift of sex is actually the very cornerstone thing that holds the fabric in the DNA of our entire society together.

So it's not coincidental that in Genesis three, the first thing that the enemy went after, the first thing that he attacked

was the pinnacle of God's creation. And I believe why the attack is so great and why it is so prevalent in our culture is because the enemy knows If he can convince you that you believe that sex is just physical,

that it's just an act that you're doing with your body that means nothing and it goes nowhere and it's not that big of a deal, he knows what he can do as he begin to erode the entire thing that God has built. If you don't believe me, look at the data. Fatherlessness

is at an all time high. Abortions are at an all time high. All of the things that God gave us as gifts, procreation is now something we try to erase. We are for the first time living in a generation that is championing,

cheering for and trying to celebrate all the things that God says, No, no, no, these are supposed to be gifts. But when they're taken out of the context for which they were created, they were taken before you were supposed to have them. What they will produce is something that is not a blessing, but it's a burden.

And you think you will be able to easily erase this, but you won't. Because the New Testament tells us that sexual sin is unlike any other sin. Every other sin we engage with is hands distance from us, but this one, it affects our very body. It takes us to the core of who we are. It deeply affects us.

So here's the part that blows my mind, right? I spent a lot of time as a youth pastor and as a young adults pastor. And if sex, if it really is supposed to just be pleasurable and it's supposed to just be a physical act that has no attachments, why then are people reporting the lowest levels of enjoyment

inside of sexual relationships? For the first time right now, young adult men are having to go to doctors to get treated for erectile dysfunction because they genuinely when a real human is in front of them, it does nothing for them because they've spent their entire life watching a three d image on a screen.

And I think the best picture when I see this that the enemy is convincing all of us of this lie. It reminds me of the story in Exodus 15.

The nation of Israel is desperate for water. Thirsty beyond thirsty. They've been wandering for days and all of a sudden they find a body of water. And they run to it assuming that it's going to satisfy. Assuming that it's going to give them what they want which is to quench their thirst.

Yet somehow when they get to the body of water in mara, they fall to their knees. They start to lap it up. But as soon as they get it in their mouth, they spit it out. Why? Because it's bitter and nobody told them. Could you imagine for a moment dying of thirst, being surrounded by water but not being able to drink it?

If I had to sum up what our culture looks like when it comes to sex, it's this. People surrounded by something believing that the more they take it in, the more that it will satisfy. But the truth is the faster you take it in, the more you realize, man, there's something about this that nobody told me.

Why does this taste so bitter? I thought this was going to lead to this,

but then they just left and now they took with me a part of who I am. When I was a youth pastor, would do this illustration all the time when we did any type of sex talk. I would take a blue piece of paper. I would super glue it at beginning of my message and I would put it to a piece of pink paper. I'd set it down on table.

I would do the talk, make the kids really uncomfortable, say as many inappropriate things as I could, and then I would come back and I would say, this is what the Bible says happens when we enter into a sexual relationship with another person. It binds us together. It's supposed to. It's the way that it's designed.

But the problem is is we think it won't leave attachments. But then if you take the two papers and you rip them apart, it's really easy to see all the blue stuck to the pink piece of paper. All the shards that are ripped and torn and tattered and attached to the other person.

The Bible tells us this is exactly what you and I do when we have sex with somebody and it's the way that God designed it. But he's designed it for you and I to have it with just one person that we'll be with forever, that we're in a committed relationship with. Yet so many of us spend our teenage

and early 20s going around attaching ourselves to so many people, we're like this piece of paper. We're glued, we're stuck. We're glued, we pull apart, and what we end up standing with at the altar is a small shred of who we used to be with all of these other things attached to us that were never supposed to be there.

And the problem is when I grew up in church, the sex talk was always like, yeah, don't do it. They put these pictures up to you like, yeah, don't want that. If that's how you get that, I just won't do it. And the whole message was that sex is bad.

And I'm here to tell you as a married man, sex is not bad. If it's bad, you're not doing it correctly. Know what I mean? Sex is awesome. But you better believe that sex is not just pleasurable, it's also powerful.

You know God could have made procreation and you just walk up and you like shake hands with somebody, but that's not the way that it happens. God gave us this gift, but the enemy has come in and is trying to erode it. So I guess you and I then go, what do we do?

If you're here today and you go, man, I believe that God is who he says that he is. I believe that Jesus really came, died and lived the life I couldn't live, died the death that I deserve. You have to understand that God has given us an instruction manual.

But here's the problem and where this gets really frustrating. If have a bible, turn to Genesis chapter two.

The instruction manual is there, but it just doesn't give us a lot of details. And this is where we get in trouble. We we want answers to the detail, the nuance questions and it doesn't it's not in the bible. God doesn't give it to us. It's one of those moments where he just says, trust me. Listen to me.

Because God knew that sex was not just pleasurable, it was also powerful. And he said anything powerful that we buy, that we actually get, you need to read the instruction manual.

Nobody's gonna go to Home Depot, buy a chainsaw and be like, know what I don't need? To listen to the instructions. Right? You'll chop your foot off. There's something ingrained when we buy something powerful that we just trust the instruction manual except for sex. The

idea that we would listen to God that was thousands of years ago just seems so wild. Well, here's what it says in Genesis chapter two.

It says in verse 18, it says, Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.'

So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals, all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Isn't that like How do you get aardvark? You know what I mean? Like when he's bringing you an animal, I don't know. There's just some random ones.

And he brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And the man chose a name for each of them. Verse 20, He gave the names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, all the wild animals, but still there was no helper just right for him. Verse 21, So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep.

Here's actually the first gift that God gave Adam. It was a nap, right? He actually gives him the first gift, which is a nap. I like naps, so I'm rocking with it. While the man was napping, the Lord God took out of the man's rib and closed up the opening.

Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib and he brought her to the man. At last, the man exclaimed, this one is bone from my bone, flesh from my flesh. She will be called, woe man, because she was taken from man.

This explains why man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked. Underline, highlight, circle, and they felt no shame. This friends is the totality

of the instruction manual that we've been given. The New Testament Testament will clarify and expound on this verse a bit.

The New Testament will give us some further instructions and let us understand that, hey, sexual sin is unlike anything else. It it actually affects our bodies. But when you look at the actual instruction manual in the Bible to say, what does God say about sex? Who's it for? When is it okay? They give us one verse

that is designed for a man and a woman that are in a committed married relationship and when done in that context, it will not produce shame. So that tells us anything outside of that context is sin. The one thing that Jesus will clarify in the New Testament

is that you think adultery is just when you physically step out and create the act, actually go through the process of sleeping with somebody other than your spouse. But Jesus actually raised the standard and he says, If you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery.

Why does he do that? Because he knows how good you and I are at being like, Oh, that's not me. Like, I don't do that. Like, I'm not on that website. I don't do those things. Jesus is like, No, all of us do this, right?

And this is as the church, this is what we need to lead with. All of us fall short when it comes to sexual sin. What we love to do is point out certain sexual sins and go, these ones are worse. No, not according to the Bible. It doesn't matter what your temptation is.

Some of them will be harder and more difficult crosses to carry. Yes and amen. But all of us have to fight for purity in the same way. See, I believed the lie when I was a young man.

That all I had to do was fight for purity until I got married. Right? And then I was like, I got my wife. I'm good. You know what I mean? And then I got married and I was like, Wait, what? You like want to talk? And you want to go to dinner? Like, No, no. I've been waiting for years for this. What are we doing now?

And the crazy part is, if I were to sum up the enemy's tactics, the way that he's going to attack us while we're dating, trying to honor God, trying to not sleep with our partner before we get married, his attack is really simple.

He's gonna try to do everything he can to get you to have sex with that person before you get married. And then the moment you get married, something shifts. Something happens. And all of a sudden he doesn't care about you having sex with this person. It's like basically have sex with anybody but this person.

And the fight for purity never stops. It just changes. And then intimacy, to have a thriving sex life is something that you have to work really hard for. It's something that you have to be really intentional about.

And that was something that nobody told me. I was like, oh, we just do it while we're young. We have to fight for it. Then you get married and it's just complete bliss. But no.

The Bible tells us this is the standard. This is what it is. But if you continue reading the book of Genesis, what happens in Genesis three is the enemy comes in and does the same thing to Adam and Eve that he wants to do to us. He goes, did God really say that?

Are you sure? And the part that's crazy to me is I've watched so many young adults that I love that have done the theological gymnastics that you have to do to get the Bible to say anything other than sex is designed for one woman and one man inside of a committed

marriage. For you to believe that the Bible says anything other than that, you are standing against two thousand years of church history. You are standing against the majority of all theologians, yet there are a lot of people today that will say the Bible doesn't say that X, Y, Z are a sin. But it's actually really clear.

In the New Testament, they asked Jesus, Look, man, I know back in the day you couldn't divorce people, but that was old. You're doing a new thing, right? Can we divorce our lady? This lady's driving me nuts. Can I divorce her? When can I divorce my wife? And Jesus says, you don't get it.

And what does he do? He quotes Genesis chapter two. And he says, the process that you will go through when two, when ish and isha come together and you engage into the sexual union, the gift that I've given you that's better than the toaster that you want for your wedding, right? It's the best gift you'll get.

It is going to do something to you that you will never be able to undo. You cannot un one what God has made one. So how do you divorce her? You can't. He says it's impossible And Jesus answers the question explicitly and he says the marriage is between one man and one

woman. Friends, this is where this message gets uncomfortable. I wish that the bible said this is why x y and z is a sin. But it doesn't. I wish that God explained all the nuances and all of the things of why he's designed us the way that he's designed us. But he doesn't.

And more importantly, the Bible tells us all over the place. You will be tempted to believe that the way that you feel is true. And the Bible goes over and over and over and over again and says, don't trust your feelings. Your heart is above all things deceitful.

We are living in a culture today that says, well, this is just how I feel. This is just how I'm made. And it's very similar to my son coming to me at four years old with a bucket of ice cream going, Dad, I want ice cream for breakfast.

I'm like, Dude, you can't have ice cream for breakfast. He's like, Why? Because it's not good for you. There's sugar. You're gonna become fat. You don't wanna eat ice cream for breakfast. He's like, But I read the ingredients. There's milk in it. I'm like, Man, I wish you couldn't read. You know what I mean?

You're in Spider Man footsy pajamas trying to tell me about what's good for you. But I'm like, How do I explain to a three year old all the things that I know now? I can't. So what do I do? Just say, dude, don't do it. Just trust me. Have I ever let you down?

I know I've disappointed you maybe, but like, have I ever completely just failed you? Like trust me. And this is where my job becomes really difficult in church because I believe that the bible is abundantly clear. The only sex in the bible that is not just good but very good

is between one woman and one man on the other side of a marriage union. Now this makes our jobs as Christians living in today really difficult

because we have to be willing to hold firm to the scriptures, unwilling to bend because it is happening all over in church where we're twisting this and we're saying that's not really what it says. And if you really look at the original language, the gymnastics you have to go through theologically to get there is crazy.

And it just doesn't pass the test of logic. But I wish that it said something different. But if you're here today and you have temptations,

your natural desire is something other than this. Trust me when I say this, the person I am on the other side of meeting Jesus is not even close to the person that I was before I met Jesus. He doesn't wanna make you a better version of you. He wants to make you an entirely brand new version of you.

I wanna read you a verse, give you an illustration and then I'll let you out of here. Here's what one Corinthians

chapter six says about sex.

One Corinthians chapter six, there we go. It says, There's more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in scripture, the two become one. Since we wanna become spiritually one with the master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy,

leaving us more lonely than ever. The Bible makes it really clear. Any sex outside of the covenant of marriage will lead to things that you and I as humans were never meant to feel, carry or experience. Shame, guilt and condemnation. The sex that God has created for us is supposed to take two individuals, make them one,

and create a beautiful union of oneness that will build a family, that will produce offspring, cities. That will populate the earth. That will create jobs. That will create companies. That will create countries. That will influence the world. But this means that you and I as believers. For those of us who are in this house.

We need to stop focusing on the people outside of this house and start to remember that we have a responsibility.

That I know that in this room are people who've been married for a while and things are not going well. And if your marriage is anything like mine, when things aren't going well, what you're not having a lot of is sex. And there's some things that are really easy to reach for that you think will satisfy you temporarily.

And it's really easy to just pull up a website and go, you know what? It's just porn. It's not that big of a deal. It's nobody else. It's just, it's just, you know, it's like scratching an itch. It's not that big of a deal. It's not gonna lead to anything else. And maybe it won't.

But here's the thing you have to understand with sin. There's a catch. The water's bitter. Nobody told you, but it will not do for you what you think it will do. And what I know about sin is every single time it will keep you longer than you thought you were gonna stay.

At the end of it, when you see what it costs you, man, it's way more than you thought you were going to pay up front. Sin is a trap. It's a lie. It's a facade. Will you get temporarily pleasured? Sure. But at what expense? What it could be is your kids looking at you one day going, dad, really this is what you did.

You settled for this and it cost us our entire family. I understand that those are the stakes that I as a dad, a husband, as a Christian, those are the stakes that I have to play at. So what it requires me to do is have a holy and incredibly high view

of sex. That it is one of the most, if not the most exclusive club that we are ever a part of that has one member in it with you forever. Let me give you an illustration to remember this. Sex is a lot like a pineapple.

Pretty obvious, right? Okay? Sex is supposed to be like a pineapple. Here's what's crazy about a pineapple. If we were right now in the 1600s and I pulled this thing out, you guys would be like, dang, Daniel's balling out. You know what I mean? Because in the 1600s,

when Christopher Columbus was out exploring the lands, what he found was this thing that looked like an acorn,

but when you opened it up, it was juicy and sweet like an apple. And he brought it back to his homeland in Europe and people freaked out. They were like, what is this thing? Like, this is amazing. And the only way to get it was to have somebody that was in a natural place where it would grow,

bring it back. And so what started was there was actually companies that were out there that would rent a pineapple for you. If you wanted to flex on your friends and when they came over, you're like, yo, you wanna see how ballin' I am? I got a pineapple. And you could just set it at the entrance and people would walk by like, yo, he is on one right now. This dude is out of control, right?

They say in today's economy, this thing in the 1600s would have sold for over $10,000 If you look at architecture, St. Paul's Cathedral, there's a huge pineapple at the top of it. Why? Because at one point in time, this was a highly coveted, sought after thing. But today,

if you're anything like me, you got these things sitting in your cupboards called pineapple chunks. And some of you weirdos put this stuff on pizza. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't think you can go to heaven if you put that on pizza.

Here's why I bring up this silly illustration. At some point in time, this thing had incredible value.

But what happened? In the early seventeen hundred's, somebody had the brilliant idea of creating pineapple plantations and mass producing. Then the steamboat was invented and it allowed the transportation, the exportation of pineapples to become much easier. And what once had incredible value became commoditized.

And as supply went up, demand went down and all of a sudden you and I live in a pineapple chunk world. I believe that if you go with me with the illustration, it is exactly where sex in our culture is today. God says, no, no, this is the most valuable thing you will ever have.

It is the greatest gift that you could ever receive. It is supposed to be stewarded, protected, guarded and experienced with one person, your future spouse.

The other thing that I want to say to all of my single friends that are in the room this morning that you're like, yo, thanks a lot. We're talking about sex the whole time. Like I'm just single. Paul tells us in the New Testament

that you don't have to be married. You don't even have to have sex and be married to actually fulfill the call of God in your life. I think sometimes we often forget that Paul himself, the guy that wrote the majority of the New Testament, and then this other guy we talk about, Jesus. We're both single men

that fulfilled incredible calls on their life. And Paul says you can do incredible things for the kingdom of God without being married, without having sex. But then he says, but there's a lot of you who won't be able to control yourself. You need to get married. I'm like, hey, I'm in the bible. That's awesome.

But here's the problem that we live in today. We have taken the thing that is supposed to be just a thing, and we've made it the thing. And we have elevated and made it something more than it ever was intended or designed to be. It was always designed to bring two individuals, make them one. But sex is a lot like fire.

In the fireplace, man, it's awesome. Produces heat. It can warm a house. You can cook stuff on it. It can produce life. But if you take it out of the context for which it was designed and put it in the living room, all of a sudden what was meant to be life giving will be destructive and it will create devastation

all around you. And friends, I hope you hear my heart. My goal here is not to keep shame or judgment or guilt or condemnation on you because I know the statistics. With this many people in the room, there are a few of us if we were honest and raised our hands and go, man, I've been struggling with this.

If that's you, I hope you know God has such an incredible plan for your life. If you're injured, you're married, and your sex life has just been a mess and your relationship is really difficult,

I want you to know that God wants you to have an incredible marriage. Get to the church and ask for help. We have counselors available. We have small groups that we can get you plugged into. That's what the church is designed to do.

Not to come here, put on a rock concert, put on a show, and for all of us to go home feeling like we did something great on a Sunday. This is a place where we can come raise our hands and be honest and say, you know what, man? Things aren't perfect right now. That's where we can help. And for those of you that are here,

that are still trying to figure out this whole Jesus thing, and you're like, man, you said a lot of things that offended me. I'm sorry. Hopefully, I equally offended everybody here this morning. But I also hope you understand and hear my heart.

God doesn't want you to follow a list of arbitrary rules so that you can then be loved by him. He loves you exactly where you are. He loves you exactly how you've been designed. And don't limit what God can do in your life.

Some of us just need to start by giving our hearts to Jesus and letting all of this stuff get figured out. And really at the end of the day, my hope, my goal this morning was to just go, hey, here's the rules. For those of us in the house of God, this is what his rules are. You get to choose what to do with them.

But I believe that it's clear. Sexuality is a choice of who you've submitted your life to, the Lord or the liar. Father, I thank you, God, for every single person that's here this morning. God, I I know that sometimes these conversations can be uncomfortable

and the things that we're really dealing with in private when nobody else is around. God, it can be really scary to drag it out into the light. But God, what thrives in darkness is destroyed in the light. And so Father, I pray this morning for the Holy Spirit to encourage, to convict, to challenge,

and to allow us to have the boldness and the courage to bring these things before you so that we can be forgiven. But that God, we would also go to what the Bible tells us is the next step. That forgiveness is between us and you. But healing,

the bible tells us healing is actually found when we confess our sins to somebody else. So Lord, will you give us the boldness and the courage to share what's going on with our spouse, with our home group, with somebody here at church? Would would you put the resources around us to begin to live this way and steward

the gift that sex is always supposed to be? Jesus, we need you now more than ever. It is in your name that everybody said, amen and amen. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way, and make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpoint.io

for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.