To epiphany fellowships podcast where our goal is to some people every show off the glory of Christ in every area of Word of God. How many of you know you're a friend of God? Oh, no. You don't seem like you're filling that. Oh, man. Listen, let me explain something to you. Many of us enjoy, you know, if we knew a celebrity in, we want to take a selfie with them to show how close we are out of them. Because we want everybody to know that we met this person and we connected with this person, but the superstar of the universe. The one who created everything in the world said, you are his friend. I wish I had some help out there. But anybody know that you serve and you're best friends with the one who created everything. Matter of fact, the stars you look up to one day going to have to bow down to him. Because before God there are no stars. Oh, come on somebody. We serve. So take pride, godly pride. Baba says, let those who boast, boast in this, that they know and understand me. That's a boast. So you can say, you know I know God, right? That's my guy. That's my guy. I rock with Yahweh. You feel me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. Like sometimes as I walk with the Lord over the years, I need to get into this sermon, I just start talking to him sometimes. In the house, I just walk around and just say, Lord, I just thank you for the season that we're in, Lord God. God, thank you that all my kids have saved God. God, thank you for your provision. I'm just glad I'm able to talk to you, God. I don't know what this day is going to be like, Lord, but I pray that you would just meet me in this day. Good morning, God. I hope all is well in heaven. God, I'm just, I'm just so glad I got access to you. I'm going to take it. I wish I had some prayer warriors in the building. That you're quiet time. Ain't the only time you talk to God. But why are you in your cubicle? Why are you on the sermon? Why are you on the ale and why are you on the trolley? And why are you in your car and why are you in traffic? And why are you at the mall and why are you shopping? And why are you web searching? And why are you on YouTube? And why are you breastfeeding? And why are you holding your baby? You are talking. You should pray so much during the day that you don't even know how much time you spend in prayer. You should get lost in talking to your God. Oh my goodness.
It's something about just, just, just, just, you know, just beginning his presence and knowing that he's there. And those are the times where he'll speak to you in a still small voice. And listen, when you, when you have a prayer, like that's what it means to pray without ceasing. In other words, you, you're a trigger prayer. You, you know, just, just, you just, you know, sometimes I, I, I see an accident on the road. Y'all may hear me. And I pray for the people that I say, God, I thank you, that you, I'll just pray that you would get, because I don't assume that everything on BRS, I say, God, I need some traveling mercies. Well, whenever me and my family get on the road, I say, everybody bow your head and pray right now. Because we, it's going to be some accidents on the road. But my prayer is, is that some stuff we just go around me? And then we get from point A. I love, I'm done, I'm done, but one last thing. This witch became a Christian. And she said that when she would come out of her body in her sayances with her cousin to attack Christians, when they prayed particularly churches, there was this light hedge around them that was impenetrable. And she knew that when they prayed, she couldn't bother them. She said, I, she said, I'm just letting y'all know, y'all want, y'all want all this other stuff. You don't realize that something happens when you pray, sometimes you don't even have to rebuke the devil for the devil to be rebuke. Sometimes you're just praying. And the enemy sneaking up on you and you say, God, I just love you today. Because listen, when God's presence comes around you and he puts that on hand to protect you. Around you, you better learn how to open up your mouth and pray to your God. All right, all I want to say, y'all pray, don't underestimate prayer. Lay hands on your kids and pray for them. Lay hands on your friends and pray for them. Lay hands on your spouse. Lay hands on your mama. Lay hands on yourself. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, don't underestimate it. Don't underestimate the power of prairie men. All right, so I want to make sure right after this gathering, we are going to have a great members meeting. Emergency means about something, a great opportunity that we have that's going to blow your mind. So this is not going to be a bad church meeting. Amen, it's going to be a great church meeting. So we want y'all to hang back and visit us if you don't mind just transitioning out. And we love y'all. So it's not, it's no beef there. We love y'all, but we want you to transition out. Also, if you have, what was with JR? They told me the ages. What was the ages y'all told me? Five to nine. I think so. I guess five to nine. So if you're five to nine years old, you got to five to nine years. The sermon is going to be about five to 12. Thank you to me. All right, I got to write that time. Five to 12, you know, and your own discretion as the number gets higher. And we're going to be talking about sex again today. So, you know, so I just want to warn, not warn you, but just let you know based on what you want your children's ears. I don't see any many, but yeah. All right, well, let's go before the Lord. In descriptions of first Thessalonians, the 4th chapter verses one through six. First Thessalonians, the 4th chapter, verses one through six, one, two, three, read. Amen. Before I get a title, at five to 12, so if you want your kid to go upstairs and they're open for you to go from ages five to 12. You made a 12. They may once day, but they met. So today, we'll be talking about in this sector of our series through culture shift, sex and sanctification. Somebody say sex and sanctification. Let's go before God. Lord, Almighty, maker of all things, sex is a beautiful thing, but the world has perverted it. Help us to see it redemptively, but Lord God, help us to have distinction. Prepare hearts in here to hear everything you have to say. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight. O God, our strength and our Redeemer in whom we trust. In Jesus' mighty name, we pray. Everybody agree with that set? You may be seated. Sex and sanctification. The nation's first sex museum opened in New York on Saturday, September 27th, 2002. For the purpose of celebrating the New Yorkers, how New Yorkers have led the nation in introducing prostitution, strip shows, pornography, and operena approval of all types of sexual behavior. But listen to this on October 8th, 2002, Miss America, Erica Harold, up set officials of the Miss America pageant, by announcing she would campaign for sexual capacity. Though rocked by sex scandals on a regular basis, officials felt it was too controversial to have the reigning Miss America associated with urging teens to abstain from sex. We live in a weird world, y'all, that I was 22 years ago. And y'all know the level of ratchetness and rampantness has grown on the line. I mean, it has grown everything from twerking to... Don't act like y'all don't know what it is. Y'all don't know what that is, pastor. What's its work? Everything from a sex exploitation. All different types of things have just blown my mind at how sexualized our culture has been. But my concern isn't for the culture, it's for the church. Because the culture is going to keep on culturing. However, we as the people of God have to take a stand. I feel like today there's almost this disposition that I'm never going to get a handle on this. It's almost like, Lord, you know what it is, you know my heart. Now, when people say you know my heart and you're sending, you can't be saying that he knows your heart in a sense of you want to do right. Because you don't, because my Bible says the heart is deceitful and wicked who can know it. So yes, he knows your heart, your little wicked heart, mine too. Instead of saying, God, you know my heart as a cry to act like you're better than this, you are. But the disposition has to be low and help my heart. So we want to go deeper into that and we want to develop this as we work through this text. What's interesting about the Thessalonian church is it's viewed as one of the top three most healthiest churches in the New Testament. Which is interesting. You know, Samaritan, they was, they was, they was, they was bowed about it as it, as it pertains to the Christian lives of the church. Ephesus was as well. And here we would put here a Thessalonica or as they say now Thessaloniki. But what's interesting about, oh help me today, God, what's interesting about this is they thought that Jesus Christ that come back. Some people told them that. So some of the Christians started losing their minds. Because they said if Jesus came back, then why are we living right? So a lot of them started to get, you know, idle, they started being lazy, hypospiritual, hyper conservative. And which led to rejection of prophecy and sexual immorality. The sexual immorality went up like crazy. And so what's interesting here though is that Paul begins to engage them about this reality. It's because he didn't want them to normalize this disposition. So the context of us learning about how Jesus come, it's coming back in chapter four, based on his second coming. Not the rapture, but the second coming. Amen. We'll talk about that in another sermon. They're both the same. They're not separate. And so interestingly enough, there's this sense in which it's hard to understand how they can be healthy and be sinning. Okay. Let's understand what that means. Unhealth is sinning with no feeling. Yeah. All right. You're not hearing me. Healthy is sinning with conviction. Yeah. If you can while out and feel nothing, be very afraid. You're not hearing me. Being healthy doesn't mean you're perfect. Healthy means you know what's unhealthy. And you're fighting to do less of it. But I'm letting you know that you need to have some Holy Ghost conviction. If you don't have conviction, you are in a very, very scary place and you may have been handed over to yourself. And so in this context, Paul does some work. He builds around the idea that sexual promiscuity is deeper than just the act. But there are other things that we have to understand about who God created us to be that will help us to see sex in a healthy way and then apply it in a healthy way. So I got one point. One point only. God calls on us. God's call on us is a call to distinction. God's call on us is a call to distinction. I like this. He says in verse four. He says, I mean, verse one. He says additionally then brothers and sisters. We ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus. We're going to come back to that in a second. That as you received, I love this. That as you have received instruction from us on how you should live and please God as you are doing. And do this even more. Because interestingly enough here, Paul lets them know that they know better. In other words, he said you were discipled better than this. You got to understand the background to the Thessalonian churches in Acts. Paul went in there. He was in there two weeks and he poured into them and invested in them. And he had the dip because he was getting persecuted. What he did was he wrote these two letters back as a way to reinvest in him even though he couldn't physically be there. So as he began to do that, he began to walk with them and let them know that they had learned the fundamentals of the faith. This is why learning the fundamentals is important. Because too many sermons out here are on two things. Relationships and purpose. And so all you develop in the church is thirsty business people. All you doing is looking for people that all they come to church is for a hook up and a hand up. But Paul and them didn't talk and do a series on relationships year round and purpose year round and how to do this year round. But what he began, in other words, in order to be a healthy Christian, you have to have healthy nutrients. So that means stop asking for the crossover when you don't know how to dribble. You're trying to sham God and all of that going all like this, doing all that. It can't even dribble down the court. Get the ball taken from you. You got to learn the fundamentals. What a Christian fundamentals. I know you didn't ask, but I'm going to give them to you. Trinitarian menism, prolegomena, a crystallology, ecclesiology, bibliology, you feel me. You know baptism, communion, all of the different doctrines that help you get settled in the faith. Somebody told me pastor, I want to learn apologetics. I said learn the fundamentals. You can't defend what you not rooted in. How you want to defend the faith and you don't know the faith. I had somebody that wanted to be a prophet. He wanted to be a prophet. And I asked him, I said, that's good. What's the hypostatic union? What you mean? You want to prophesy, but you don't know no Bible. You don't know the fundamentals, but you want to tell people about their life. In order to be a good prophet and know that you're hearing from God, you have to have scripture in you so that the voice that you think you hear, you can judge it based on what the word of God says. If you don't have the, that's why you got so many of these prophets out here saying foolishness in the church. And you know, a good discernment person said, I don't know if that's from God. That's why Paul told the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 1, 4, 6. He said, these things are written to you in order that you may not stray far from the things that are written. In other words, we root our feet in the written and look at prophecy with one eye open and one eye close. Oh ain't nobody going to talk back. And so he wanted them to get those fundamentals. We're going to come back because we're going to find out that not only was Christology, ecclesiology, eschatology, and bibliology, and prologomena were fundamental Bible doctrines, but sexology was taught. We're going to see that in a second in the church. But what does this the next phrase I like right here? I like this phrase. It says something powerful. It says additionally, then brothers and sisters, we ask and encourage you, I like this, in the Lord Jesus. Yeah. That means we said, he could have just said in Jesus. But mom, he said, the Lord Jesus, you feel me. In other words, Jesus is your boss. Oh, they're all going to hear me. We're going to get this in and say, he's a friend, but you don't treat him a particular way in your vernacular. You know, you know, the man upstairs and all of that, right? No, no, no, no. Jesus is God. Why is this important? Because you need to know that you don't give God a syllabus for what he should do for you. You're the student. He's the teacher. I was, I was, I was, I was, I was looking at the somebody sent me a real the other day, and this, and this well-known singer. You'd know her if I said her name, and they were talking about the Bible having some drinks, and she, and she's a little tipsy. They were saying, they were saying, what, what, what, what, what the Bible say? And she's like, I just don't, now she says she's a Christian. She's saying, I don't, I don't, I don't feel that. I, I can't agree with that because in my mind, and she just started telling me, telling her, talking about her disposition about the Bible, not having read it and not even allowing it to be influenced. In other words, we live in a world where people want the Christian faith, I like hearts. We, we, we think the Christian faith is a buffet. We can walk past and be like, I want that. No, I don't like that. A little bit of that. I'll take a little bit of that, but I won't take a good scoop of it because, because, because I want most of this stuff. So I'm going to get the stuff that I want, but I won't get the stuff that I need. In other words, they think that the Bible has a system settings, that you can go into and reconstruct it based on what you want and don't want. But God is like my mama, when she cooked the meal, y'all know what I'm going to say, in the house, and I said, mama, I don't want that. She said, either you eat that, or you don't eat it all. That's how God is. You don't go to God and say, um, today I'll have no. God doesn't give you that you choose your appetizers. He don't let you choose your salad. He don't let you choose your main course. He don't let you choose your dessert. He don't let you choose your drink. He says here. No, while we know why we view the Christian faith this way. And I'm going to come back to this in a second. It's because many of us view being under Jesus' lordship as restrictive versus freeing. See, see, in other words, we view our ability to do our own thing as freedom, not knowing its bondage. Listen, listen, when I'm talking to my kids and I tell my kids, you know, I don't do this. Now, see, I buckle down. I'm a little rough. So pray for me, but, but, but, but why daddy? Why can't I do it? Because I said so. But, but, but, but they want to know the inner workings of my know. Well, why, why, why are you saying, why are you saying no? Because they don't realize that many times my know is a voice of protection, not rejection. Y'all ain't hearing me. And so God sometimes says no to keep you free. You ain't hearing me today. Sometimes his no is I'm looking out for you, dog. You don't know what you're getting into with shorty. You don't know what you're getting into with that. I'm telling you, fall back. God loves you enough to close doors. Some of y'all should shout right there because some of y'all don't realize that some of the stuff you wanted, that God said, God wouldn't. God said, the some of the stuff he closed the door, some of y'all looking on Facebook by somebody you wanted back in the day. And you seeing the situation that they came through ten years later and you said, God in the name of Jesus. I'm glad that you closed the door. God, I'm glad that you didn't let that out. Look how crazy they turned out. Thank you Lord for your know. Thank you Lord for not right now. Thank you Lord for way. Some of you need to thank him for the know. Yeah, because being under his lordship is one of the most freeing things in your life. But listen to what the rest of the verse, I gotta get out of verse one y'all. Help me. He says that as you received instruction, and this is dope, I like this. It says from us on how you should live and please God, that's beautiful. No, why? Because it, you know, doctrine isn't abstract. What do I mean by that? It's not like, you know, stuff is just out there that kind of doesn't matter. He says, our instructions apply to how you live, but then also in how you please God. Now this is interesting, and this is going to be freeing for some of you. You don't necessarily please God, but you do please God. Let me explain it. Let me explain it. So the way this works is Jesus has already please God for us. Okay, Romans 8, 8 says, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Philippians chapter 4, 8 says, I received full payment, and more, I am well supplied having received from the Papaditis the Gifts. So you sent a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable, and pleasing to God. We'll come back to this because the Bible says that Jesus was our propitiation. Was that me? First John 2, 2, here it is. First John 2, 2, 2, it's a beautiful, beautiful verse. It says, he himself is the atoning sacrifice or propitiation for our sins. And not only for ours, but also for the whole world. In other words, propitiation means Jesus satisfied or please God's wrath. So when you get saved, you're submerged in Jesus's pleasing of God. Oh man, this is going to free somebody up. You already are pleasing to God because of what he's done for you. So you don't do acts of pleasure towards God to be accepted. You're already accepted. So all you're doing is living in light of the pleasure that he already has for you. So some of you think you're not good enough for God. We're not. But he made you good enough. Matter of fact, he didn't make you good enough. He made you great. You don't even realize how accepted you are. As messed up as you and I are, as trifling as you and I are, we are fully and unadulteratedly accepted by God and nothing we will do will squelch that acceptance. And so all he's saying since I've already accepted you because of my son, why not live in light of maximizing everything that I've given you by pleasing me? In other words, when I give you a plate to eat, eat all of it. I'm in my wife and I went to Eddie V's, Lord have mercy. Lord is great and great. Let's give you praise. Their lives are there. They're prawns. You know the shrimp is good when they just call them prawns and then call them shrimp. I feel me and the steak, the filet, man, y'all back in the hood, I used to say macknack, but now I know how to say the word filet, man, y'all. And man, listen, listen. If I don't eat all of that, I'm taking it home. It was people in there. I want to be a little ghetto. I was like, I wanted the day to touch that part because I want to take it with me because you're not going to eat the rest of that. You're just going to throw that in the trash. In other words, it's too good to leave anything on the table. Oh, y'all don't hear me today. What God has for you and pleasing him. It's too good to leave on the table. You better take you a doggy bag with you and maximize everything. There are many under the sound of my voice. One every single thing that God has for them. I don't want to leave nothing on the table. If I can't eat it now, I'm going to save it for later because let me tell you, baby, I'm going to have everything. Look at somebody and tell them, I want it all. Yes, I don't sing war in G. I heard somebody singing war in G. I want it all. Y'all heard y'all. But also, this is what's beautiful about being a Christian in pleasing God. He's not only just our propitiation. He's our expiation. The Bible says he's taking our guilt as they are 53-4. So that means he cleanses your conscience from the guilt you feel about your sin. That's deep. In other words, he makes you feel like you didn't do it. When he takes on your guilt, that means he takes on the feeling your conscience will tell you that you did wrong. He who says even though our conscience condemns us, it says, Jesus is greater than our conscience. Oh, man, I wish I had some help right there. Let me get out of verse 1. Let's get out of verse 1. I got 20 minutes. Help me. Verse 2. He says, for you know what commands we gave you through, again, Lord Jesus. So it's rare that you see the Lord Jesus redundantly put in a text. And the reason why this is redundant or repetitive is to talk about the serious nature of being under him. Right? So look at verse 4. I mean, verse 3, here we go. He said, this is the will of God. Stop right there. Listen. People are God. What's your will? Most of his will written in scripture. We just asking for something else. So if you want to know what the will of God is, you won't get it clear as day. Right here. He said, this is God will. It can be translated. This will God wants for you. Oh, that's so good. Your haggy osmos. Your sanctification. Oh, let me stop right here. He wants your sanctification. Now that's a massive word. You have what we call position of sanctification. Then way over here, you got permanent sanctification. In the middle, you have progressive sanctification. Now this was dope about position of sanctification. That's Hebrews 10, 10, right? And by that will, we have been sanctified. That's good right there. In other words, initial or position of sanctification means when you get saved, you are positionally perfect and pleasing, but also set aside. You're no longer a vessel of wrath, but a vessel of mercy or hear me today. But then there's permanent sanctification where you don't have to grow no more, but you'll be with God. You have a new body that can never be corrupted and a spiritual soul that will never be corrupted. You will be fully what we call glorified. That's that's eternally set aside and with God forever, but but don't go on it. It's a dash in the middle. In between positional sanctification and a permanent sanctification, there's practical or progressive sanctification. And so when we look at this idea of progressive sanctification, I like, I like James one, I think it's 120 or 121. It says, receive the ingrusted word of God, which is able to sow, sow, sow, save your sow. So salvation, the word for salvation isn't always about salvation. It can be used in the sense of sanctification. So the word of God is able to grow you spiritually. So in that dash, even though you're positionally perfect and you're going to be ultimately perfected, you're in a process of getting less messy. That's progressive sanctification. In other words, progressive sanctification is the process by which God makes you actually holy. The process where He conforms you to the image of Christ in your everyday life. Stay with me. This is the will of God. This is very important. So one of the things about style is I tend to like to buy clothing pieces that aren't trendy. I like to buy timeless pieces. You feel me, like a tweed suit, for Doris, a good timeless sneaker. You feel me. I like buying things. I like buying a good trench coat. Yeah, you know, I'm saying a good trench coat. One for a certain part of the season. I like to buy vintage. You know, I'm saying Eddie Bauer coach, you know, with the with the faux fur around the collar. You could put it up. Knock it up. Put on you. Some Tim some super Tim's with some nice jeans for door. Look at fly. You feel me. Another thing that I like, though, another thing that I like, though, it's it's it's it's it's salvaged in them. Selfage denim is not like what you buy city blue. See city blue jeans and snipes jeans and them store to just have all of those graphitees in them. And it's just like look like it's for ages 12 to 18. Those jeans are pre washed and they rip easy because they're cheap. But salvage denim is a thick Japanese denim. That's about 13 to 18 ounces. And it's not washed at all. And the way they do it is just about the weather for a year and never washed them. In other words, if you because because they're not preshunk or anything. You put your water in the same place and you keep it in that pocket. Why? Because over time, it melds itself to the contours of the person wearing it. Y'all don't hear me today. And if it starts to stink, you just put it in the freezer and let the bacteria get out and you put it back out and put it on. Now, if you want it to be stay with me. Now, if you want to make it quick and you want to get a quick one on what you do is because they're not preshunk, they're going to shrink if you wash them. So what you can do is you can put them on, get in a cold tub of water and just sit down for 30 minutes and get up and guess what happened. It'll shrink to your body side and stop because the goal of making the gene is for the gene to have inside of it the one who wearing it so that you can mow to the form of the one that's inside. You're salvaged in them and when you got saved, Jesus put you on. You're the glove and he's the hand and listen, he's putting you in stuff to get you to his specific specifications of what it looks like to look like him. So wherever he has a lump, you have a lump. Wherever he has a bin, you have a bin. In other words, Jesus wants to easily wear you in this world. You know you know you're just a Jesus swess suit. You just a Jesus swess suit and you're supposed to go ahead and model him. Go ahead and model Jesus on his front. Go ahead and do your thing. Yeah, knees, knees. So as we please God and this is the will of God sanctification, right? Why does he put this here like this? He says, what does sanctification look like in this situation? Keep away from sexual immorality. Notice he said he didn't say keep away from sex. Sex is okay immorality isn't. You hear me? So it's interesting though family that it seems that something about sexual promiscuity affects your sanctification differently from other sense. All things are a sanctification issue. However, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, all other sins are not against the body but sexual sin or immorality is against the body. What does that mean? God made you with a system of covenant. You're made to be a covenant committed being. So when you get saved, what happens is when you have sex with someone in this penetration or consecration, your body is trained by God covenant. But what happens though with many of us is when we delve into sex, have hazardly over and over and over again, your system gets corrupted. And it no longer views sex as commitment. That's why why do you always ask somebody when did you lose your virginity? They remember it like they never remembered anything else because God created it to be a covenant cutting ceremony. But what this is why you have to be careful because your body begins to short circuit when you've been into too much immorality. And it begins to rewrite the spiritual DNA of its makeup of what covenant creation is for. And the more you're promiscuous, the less value you see in sex. The more you watch porn and masturbate, the more sex goes down. And your value of it goes down because God was meant for you and one other person to be virgins and to fumble through the sexual process of getting defined their spots. You don't help me God and whatever is their fancy and you talk through with things and you don't have anybody else on your mind. But when you got a body count like the rocks and sands of the sea shore. What ends up happening is it's hard to have intimacy. We don't know that those women in porn, you don't know they gotta get high before they do that. There's nothing pleasurable about that and men you know what we're like. I don't even go into that that they have to do a scene over and over and over again if you know what I mean fellas. Yeah, that's painful and they have to act like it's good. And we're watching it thinking that it's pleasurable when they're high and in pain and broken. When we objectify a woman and only see her as an object of sex, sex was never to see the woman as an object. It was meant, oh God, I hear you. It was always meant to hold hands on the beach. To develop deep relationship and talk and tell each other things you never told anybody else to go through some difficult times together to get angry at each other. To, to, to, to God that throw. Hey, girl, I'm over here washing dishes. She said, you better wash them dishes and you over here. I'm putting stuff in the dry right now girl. She said, I'm putting the stuff in the dry. You better do it. And then when you come to bed that night. She like this. Hey, boy. Why? Because y'all have been full playing each other all day. And then it's an explosive experience with that one person. It's easy to do tricks on multiple people the same tricks with one person. A bunch of people, but it's hard to please somebody for a lifetime. You got to diversify your to be married and be faithful. You got to diversify your sexual portfolio. But God meant for you only to know what position one another likes. I'ma come back to that in a second. And so when we look at this, he says, Pornaya, Pornaya or sexual immorality is the word for that we get our pornography from. So what is Pornaya? What makes up sexual immorality? A lot of stuff. Pedophilia, incest, violent sex, imaginative sex, commercial sex, prostitution, biciality, homosexuality, sexual worship, and spiritual prostitution. Masturbation itself, stimulation, and also generally the idea of foreign occasion. And so one of the things we have to understand is that there is a lot of obstacles to sexual morality. Let me give you ten of them. Number one, expect it to be a irreverable issue. That's number one. Number two, emotional promiscuity. Come back to all of this in a second. Mismanagement of loneliness. Trusting in your boundaries. Undefined one-on-one relationships. Murky dating direction. I'ma come back to this. Y'all still with me, right? Media feeding. Overestimating your strength and tolerance threshold. The Bible says who can take fire into their bosom and not get burned. Engagements lasting too long. Some of y'all need to go out into the courthouse and have a regular one later. When y'all get married, next summer, it's January. That's a year and a half. That's some weird old stuff to me y'all. You're weird. I'm just talking crazy. Pray for me. No guidelines given by the church and seeing relationship direction as legalism. So how do we deal with you? Jesus is our expropriation. So what are selfless forms of sexuality? Y'all heard me say it. Procreation, consecration, recreation, protection and connection. Procreation is, we can create more glory refractors. Consecration inaugurates the union. Y'all trekking with me. Recreation is for fun. Satisfaction is joy without regret. You can have sex without sitting on the side of the bed knowing you was wrong. But you can cuddle up and know that everything's alright. Hallelujah. Somebody should give God a praise right there. Y'all boring today. Anyway, protection, protection to war off illegitimate outlets and connection to develop friendship. And so down in verse four, he says that each of you knows how to control his own body and holiness and honor. In other words, the idea of control means to master your body. So to know how to possess it as a possession to be controlled, not to be controlled by it. Let me see if I can make a plan. So, so, so, you know, I see people, you know, they had a little dog, a little, a little cute poofoo dog. And they put the little little little little little vinyl thing around his neck. And he go around like that. When you have a conicor, so a pit bull or a South African master, a tyberian master, those are big dogs. You can't use the little Ralph Ralph chain. You got to go to home depot and lows and you got to get a chain link to put around the chain because money will yawn and nothing to just snap. So you got to, you got to have, you got to have a chain that matches his passion. Hey, we about to go outside. See, this is what you got to do with your passions. Sit, sit. All right, good dog. Let's roll. I didn't, I tell you to sit your crazy behind down. You got to do your crazy passions like you can't have your passion. And you go all around like this. And you got, you got to say, yeah, give me. You got to have a walkin' beside you marching like that. You know what I'm saying? Which way you want to go on like that? You got to have the, you got to have your passions trained. Why? Because you have the foot of the spirit self-control and got, you're not asking for self-control. You're accessing it. And you last saw your passions and say, sit down. But let me tell you something. But then there's the point. So when you can take the chain off, say enjoy yourself. In other words, the chain keeps you free, not in bondage. You get to direct it as a child of God who has been empowered with the righteousness of God to not be out of control and whiling. You have the ability to do that. So what's goin' on? Let me get real real practical. I'm almost done. Y'all ready for me to end this? Uh-oh, okay. So what's goin' on? I hear about and see folks how they move. Men in the church, womanizing. You're not here, fellas. Let me tell you something. I'm gettin' up in your grill. You can run around trying to smash everything to move. Y'all said it. Not here? And listen, ain't no suckers here. You're gonna be runnin' around here actin' like this is the peanut gallery. But on the other hand, women accepting sexual advances of men. Come on, sis. Come on, sis. Quippin' desperate. You giving him what only you can give him in marriage, pro-sponsed marriage. Why are he gonna marry you if you cookin' for him every day? If y'all sleepin' together every day, wakin' up in the morning every day, pein' bills and livin' together. Why would he put her when you gonna marry me? Why? I got sex, I got food, I got you, and I'm saving money. One of the weirdest things today is lastly, women being the aggressors. Some of y'all wow. Like back in my day, you had to work in the world to get some. Now, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, your Instagram. Back out, this up. I don't care if you get mad at all. I don't care if you send me an email, y'all are doin' it. And you know what you're doin'. Your breasts half way out and you like this. You know what you're doin'. You do the front picture and then you do the side picture. And it's not to show up your belly and how much weight you lost. It's to show off the cakes. I'm just tellin' you right now. You know what you're doin' because you want somebody to slide up in them deans and to slide up in something else. So you need to stop actin' like, and I'm a father, I started one more. Know you're not with that picture. I ain't scared of you. So what should men do? Men number one should develop godly intentions for a woman. Godly intentions. You gotta have some godly intentions, fellas. Godly intentions. The keyword is intentions. Next, don't create confusion. Be clear on your intentions. Cause some of us as fellas, we foggy. We don't want a relationship. We want companionship. Or you'll want of many that are being emotionally raped by my presence. Oh ain't nobody gonna talk back on over. Fellas, don't be a side dude. Okay, y'all may not know with that. I'm sorry. Have godly community that hold you accountable. Stop running from accountability, fellas. Some of us are mysterious. You'll be like, you know what's going on with him. And every time you try to get close with him, he's just reallyvasive. You say, hey, what's up, bro? How you doing? Evasive, right? Next, move towards marriage. Stop running after the easy picks out there. Have healthy eyes on your relationships. Accountability, what women should do and no, don't let yourself be led on. Some of you stop, stop it. Stop it. I'm gonna tell you, stop letting yourself be led on. Why? Because you need to demand clear intentions with a timeline. You say, how you doing? I know we've been talking or whatever. What's your intentions for me? If he feels pressure from that, he's a sucker. Because if he not gonna guide your emotions, you need to. And nobody's gonna talk back. So he needs to be like, what my intention is for us to get to know each other. I think you're beautiful, you're godly woman. And what I want to do is, I want us to get to know each other. And in that process, my goal, and based on God's goal for relationships, it's not dating, it's just hanging out and just chill and Netflix is chill. No, I want to marry one day. But we're getting to know each other and I want to make sure that you're able to evaluate me and I'm able to evaluate you. And we can make a good decision and we go through a godly process. Okay, boo, okay. I see how you move and I see how you move and man, a god, man, a god, you're doing your thing, ain't you? Right? Right? And then you got clarity. But if you say, hey, what's your intentions for me? Man, I'm saying no. All this pressure. You know, I mean, we just started going out. You know what I'm saying? Like, you need to be like, I need to know right now, what is your intentions for me? Cause I'm not, I'm not, hold on, hold on, hold on respectfully. You are not going to play with me. I am a child of the king, a daughter of God. And let me tell you something right now, right here in this place. If you don't have clear intentions for me, then you don't have no intentions at all to be with.
Listen, next one. Don't force a man to be where he isn't. If he's not there, some of us emotionally get places that the man ain't and mad at him because you're letting yourself grow in areas he's not.
You created your own heartbreak. He in neutral and you in fifth gear. And some of y'all don't listen to signs because the because of 17 to one. Oh God, help me. So let me let me say this. I got to move. Men, when they want you, they come after you. We'll tell you something. A real man that wants you will be like, you be like, what's your intent? But you didn't got to ask him. He says, sweetheart, these are my intentions for you. Number one, I want to get my disciple to be in our relationship and his wife to mentor us in this process. Oh, you look so good, girl. And my goal is to marry you. But I want to do this right. So I got a list of boundaries that we have. I can't be alone with you at your house and you can't be alone with me at my house. We're not going to be out after 10 because that's sexy time. And you know, once a week, we'll go through the book of John and have some devotional time. And then I want you to meet my family when you meet my mother, I don't bring just anybody to my mother. Your beauty and godliness has earned the right to make it to the stage of my mother's house. And my mother knows that anybody that I bring home, I'm deeply seriously. Why are you crying? Why are you crying, girl? Why are you crying? Are you like that, don't you? Oh, girl, I love you. Give me your forehead.
See all young boys don't know no game. No kid of game. You feel me. You show your little son shows again. Y'all not something no girl, family. You need to get your weight up, dog. Talk to that girl. Talk that, talk my dog. After you finish that conversation, when we get married, when we get married, one another thing is use godly men as a sounding boy for your relationships. Don't talk to your friends only talk to godly men because men, no men. Trust. Don't be a side chick. And let me ask something to that. Stop being a side chick. Lastly, but not least, don't settle. In holiness and honor, I'm done. What's the sex be? Sex should be personal. Sex should be exclusive. Sex should be intimate. Sex must be fruitful. Sex must be selfless. Sex must be complex, multi-dimensional. Sex must be complimentary. I'm done. Verse 5. Not with lustful passions like the Gentiles who do not know god. It says, this means verse 6, one must not transgress against and take advantage of a brother or sister in this manner. What manner? Sexual immorality. Because the Lord is an Avenger of all these offenses as we also previously told and warned you. So finally, I want you to understand this. I've sexually failed in my life. So I'm not speaking from the vantage point of somebody that's perfected this. But one of the things I do know is that Jesus can restore you from your sexual brokenness. Let me say that again. Jesus can restore you from your sexual brokenness. He specializes in it. These are some people that he restored from his sexual brokenness. He restored the woman called an adultery from her sexual brokenness. He restored a lot of the Corinthian church. Reach after six of their sexual brokenness. The Thessalonians, the Galatians, Rayhad and Mary Magdalene who was a prostitute became one of the leaders in the early church. So let me just let you know family is that there's no brokenness that's too broke for God to fix it. And so I want you to stand in your new place in life and say to yourself, from this day forward, I'm going to walk in who God called me to be and being the godly person and waiting for my time to take my leash off. But until then, I am going to leash up my passions and have them on lockdown and to God opens up the door for me to be and do what he wants me to do. But if he doesn't do it, I'm going to still walk. I'll be frustrated, but I'm going to still walk with him. And for God, I'm not believing you for that to be the reality. I want the reality of the opportunity to be the opportunities I can have the opportunity. In Jesus' mighty name, amen. Father God, wonderful is your name. You're the creator of all things and you created us. And so God, but all of us in our creation wasn't born knowing you. And so we're born physically, but we have to be reborn spiritually to be connected to you. That way is through Christ's death on the cross and resurrection and trusting that he reconnected us to you.
Death, bear in the resurrection, place your confidence in them and go for spiritual death, the spiritual life. Till the next time, so we can see you go for spiritual infancy, the spiritual maturity. God bless you, take care, we love you, we love you.