Battling Impure Thoughts? Explore God's Design For Sexual Purity.

June 23 The Beauty of Sexual Purity.mp4
Ross Sawyers: [00:00:20] I am grateful today for the good plans that God has in the midst of difficult and hard weeks for a community, What I'd like to do this morning is just kind of talk through briefly, the events of the past week with, Gateway Church, their pastor, things for us to think about today. And then, I love that in God's timing, as we walk through the Ten Commandments, that were on the seventh command today, about not committing adultery, which would include any kind of sexual immorality. So we'll move to the scripture, as our encouragement, in just a moment.

Ross Sawyers: [00:01:06] But I'd like to just say a couple of things. One, there are a wide range of emotions that people would have this week depending on what your background is, and what circumstances are that you've been in. And so we've run the gamut of anger, of sadness, of fear, and shame; those would be at least four, emotions today, and maybe some combination of all of them. And I'd like to just speak to those who have suffered, and been sinned against, with some kind of sexual abuse, in your past. One, I'm sorry for that, and I know that moments like this can raise all kinds of thoughts, it can evoke memories, as someone, expressed to me, that can never be erased. So while there can be forgiveness, things like this trigger that kind of pain from the past.

Ross Sawyers: [00:02:25] There's also a shame that can rise up in a person who's been abused because the abuser tends to be a master at making the abused feel like they're the problem. And I want you to know today that if you've been sinned against in this way, you're not the problem, and I hope that you're finding a freedom in Christ that only he can really bring from that kind of hurt and that kind of pain. I find the scripture to be encouraging in moments like this. Psalm 34:18 says, "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." And what I know about God today is that he is a God who is experienced in Christ, the greatest suffering anyone could ever experience. and he walks alongside the sufferer. So I can encourage you today in knowing that God's the one that can actually see the depth of the pain and hurt. No human can see the depth of pain that's there for you, but God can, and he'll get in there with you as you invite him into it. He's near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 119:28 says, "My soul weeps because of grief; Strengthen me according to Your word." So we can grieve and weep, simultaneously being strengthened in the Word of God. In First Samuel chapter 30, we also find that David, who was in a moment of despair, the second king of Israel, that he strengthened himself in God. And what I would say today is that the place we find strength is strengthening ourselves in God himself, and strengthening ourselves in his word.

Ross Sawyers: [00:04:16] There's a second group of people that I would speak to this morning and that is, just the church, and that this is just one more blemish on God's Bride. The church is described as the bride of Christ, and in moments like this, it is one more blemish on the bride. It both erodes trust in the leadership of churches. and in churches as a whole. It reinforces for people who don't know Christ, why should I bother following after your God if this is the result from your leaders? And that's fair. This is one more example, as one counselor put it, of a power differential and an abuse of authority. One person I was talking to said, he was at work and was walking by the water cooler and heard a couple of guys talking about what took place. And I said, what'd they say? And he said, that's messed up, and that's not the language they used. And I said, well, what does it make you think? And the person said it gives me empathy for the lost and unbelieving person that has trouble believing what we're talking about. It's fair that it would raise a question in someone's mind of why should I bother with what you're talking about?

Ross Sawyers: [00:06:01] I found encouragement, though, in an interview with the woman who's come forward, Cindy, on this. And she quoted Genesis 50:20, and it says, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive." And I'm grateful that the one who was abused herself is the one encouraging from Scripture about her God, who can take that which is evil in humanity and can turn around and work that for good? And who knows the kind of preservation of people's lives today that God might bring out of what is a horrible, scenario. So we want to continue to pray for her and for others who are in similar scenarios. We'll pray for the church, to rise up and be stronger than ever because it can if we walk in these things.

Ross Sawyers: [00:07:07] Well, so the question I'd like to ask us and consider this morning, is what do we do with this? As Christians, how do we respond? How do we come from a biblical worldview, from a God-centered lens? How do we move ahead in another moment that makes it difficult for us? How do we respond to it? And as I mentioned at the outset, we've been working our way through the Ten Commandments. It's no accident today that God has us in the seventh command. And what I'd like to do is, is talk about, a big idea, and then I'm going to tell you how we're going to get there. And where I want to focus is on the beauty of sexual purity. It has been so distorted that sometimes we forget that God has a good plan, a good design, and there's beauty in sexual purity. And the way we'll get there, I want to lay out from the command, it's a prohibition so we'll start from a negative place and we'll move to a positive spot. But I want us to talk about God's view of impurity and sin, and what lies behind these actions when people commit them. And then I want us to pivot and talk about God's good and beautiful design, and then what can we do from here to be inside that design? And what I would say to every person in the room today, and if you're online, is that God takes us in this moment, on this day and we want to ask God today, what does he want to do in us? It's easy to get over here and start firing away at a leader in the community, anybody can do that. It's harder work to get the log out of our own eye and look at the speck that's in there and say, all right, God, are there any sexual impurities in me today that need to be cut away and moved out? So I'm asking today that we look in our own heart today, not at the heart of the person next to us, not in the heart of someone else, but in our own heart today, ask God, will you search us in such a way that we can live inside the beautiful design of sexual purity in the way you've laid that out for every human being?

Ross Sawyers: [00:09:15] And so let's begin by thinking about the devastating actions of impurity. And we read in Exodus chapter 20, verse 14, and by the way, if this will just be okay today, I have a lot of volume in what I want to say and the way I believe God's led me this week into our moment this morning. And I don't have a lot of time to bridge with much compassion stories that will let you know I care, and I care deeply, and I love deeply. But could we just pretend today that you and I are really great friends, which I think most of us are, at least from a distance? You know way more about me than I know about you.m But can we just pretend today that we're at the coffee shop? I don't like coffee, but I hang out at the coffee shop, that we're at the coffee shop and you're my best friend, and we're just having a conversation. We don't have to figure out, how to make sure that you understand what I'm saying. We can just kind of be really blunt with one another and have a really direct conversation. The problem is, you don't get to talk back to me. However, you have email and text and all kinds of ways that you can respond. You might not agree with everything I say today, but this will be my encouragement to you. Will you take God's Word and overlay it on your situation, and your circumstance, and let God speak to you in His Word? Our feelings are valid, our opinions are fine, and our experiences are valid, but they're not good leaders. God is our leader and His Word is our leader. So we want to put our experiences and our emotions under the word. So I'll give you resources, but I just want to cheer you on, to study what God has to say about these things. I'm giving it to you in brief, and there's way more that can be done to study. Is that okay? We're good with that. All right.

Ross Sawyers: [00:11:12] So let's think about adultery. In Exodus chapter 20, "You shall not commit adultery." In Hebrew, that's what the Old Testament is written in, it's two words, no adultery. There's no fluff around this, it is about as clear as it could possibly be. If you are one of God's people and he's speaking to Israel, and this would be for us today, then, as my people, there's to be no adultery. The word adultery means corruption. There's not to be anything to corrupt the marriage bond that God has established, it's not to be corrupted, and that's what adultery does.

Ross Sawyers: [00:11:50] We find in Exodus as it unfolds, that the penalty for violating this command is death. God just sets out from the outset, he is a holy and pure God, and he has expectations for those who are his, as his people, and the penalty is death. We don't see that carried out, very often, throughout the Old Testament. And then there's this widespread, rampant adultery and divorce that moves through their culture, not unlike today, and in second Samuel 11, we see an example that if you have a biblical literacy that you've had for quite a while now, you may or may not know this story, but King David is the second king of Israel. And David is, it's the time of war and his men are out, he stayed behind. He's on the roof of his house, he overlooks, and he sees a beautiful woman bathing. And he asks his men, he goes, who is that woman? And they tell him that's Uriah the Hittite, his wife Bathsheba. So he knows, this is one of his key men, and he knows that's who it is. And he says, go get her for me. And they go to get her and they bring her back, he has sex with her, and then she ends up pregnant, and then there's a murder. There's all kinds of devastation that comes out of this impurity. But there's a pattern here that we can all learn from. He saw her, and then he took her, and then he ate. That's Genesis 3 when sin entered into the world. Eve saw, she took, and then she ate. That is the pattern today, we see, we take what's not ours, and we eat. Adultery is devastating to a marriage, to a family, to a culture.

Ross Sawyers: [00:14:04] Jesus has more to say about this in Matthew chapter 5 verses 31 and 32, and I'll come back in a moment to 27 and 28, which deals with more of the root of what goes on, it was said, “It was said, ‘WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’; 32but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." What's Jesus doing here? He's countering Deuteronomy 24:1-4. where there had been permission because of hardness of heart, for there to be divorce. And when there was, there would be a certificate that was given, to demonstrate and prove, that a divorce had occurred. Jesus is saying by the time they get to Jesus's day, there's kind of all these easy ways to commit divorce and so forth. And Jesus says no, the only way for divorce is by way of sexual immorality, that actually breaks the bond that God creates in Genesis 2. We'll spend some time on that in a moment. And so for that reason, Paul would later add in First Corinthians 7 that if someone is married to an unbelieving spouse, if that unbelieving spouse chooses to leave, they're free to leave. Those are the only two things we see in Scripture. And Jesus says, if this occurs and it's not for this reason, if divorce occurs, it's not for this reason, then the person who has divorced the person is guilty of adultery, the innocent party is guilty of adultery because of the divorce itself, because that violates the bond God still sees as valid that marriage bond of the first marriage, and then the person who marries is guilty. I know this one creates quite a bit of angst, for people. So does that mean if I'm in that situation, that I continue to live in an adulterous marriage? No, it begins that way, but there would be confession and repentance needed before God when we understand what he says about marriage and divorce, and then the marriage continues, because he still calls it a marriage, and it can go on then to be honoring to God. This is worth studying, and it's worth spending some time on. These are the things he says about adultery. Now, let me tell you, in our church, there are a number of people that there's been adultery in their marriages, and God has restored and reconciled the marriage. This is not that you have to, this is, that we want to move, and Jesus is moving everything towards can we reconcile and restore? Now all do that, but some do that. Everything I talk about today, there are people here that have experienced God's forgiveness and restoration and have been able to move forward, in a way that only God can do.

Ross Sawyers: [00:17:12] There's a second category here as we talk about sexual immorality, then it's not just adultery literally itself in the marriage, but it's any kind of sexual immorality that he's referring to. So premarital sex, when we think about that, we can read First Corinthians 6, verses 9 and 10, it says,"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God." It's quite a list, and it's an expansive list, of what God is referring to, that are things that will allow us not to enter the kingdom of heaven. The word fornication is the word for premarital sex, that's not a word that I generally hear anybody use for the most part, so when you read fornication, it's talking about premarital sex. And I would say today that includes a middle school student, a high school student, a college student where it seems like for 4 or 5 years we just get to go lose our minds for a bit, it includes that. It includes 20-somethings, it includes 50-somethings, this includes everybody. God has a beautiful design, it does not include people having sex outside of the marriage relationship. Why is that? Because it's a sin, not just against God, it's a sin against the body. First Corinthians 6:19-20, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." Your body is God's, and he has a design for your body, and when we intertwine two people sexually, you're creating a bond physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. And he's given us an admonition to say no.

Ross Sawyers: [00:17:12] I asked a guy the other day, and I said, hey, what would you say as a 20-something-year-old guy, I said, what would you say to teenagers and college students? He said, I don't know, he said, I'm still working through my own guilt from my own sexual sin in those years. And he said I don't know what you say that can get them to actually hear you, and to understand the consequences, they can be lifelong consequences of battling what we did in our early years sexually. That's how intertwined it gets into us. So sometimes I just wonder, can we just say, we don't get to say this anymore, but can we just say God said this? And you don't need a psychological reason, a sociological reason, or any other kind of reason other than are we going to ask the question today of the first command of an ultimate devotion to God only, is it not good enough that God Himself has laid out, this is the way that you will have a free and flourishing life. You might not understand all of it, but can I just honor God enough to say I'm going to do it his way? And can we respect his sacred name enough to say, you know what, I have the greatest respect for God and his name and his character, I'm in on his way. Is God enough in our conversation?

Ross Sawyers: [00:20:54] One expansion of premarital sex is living together, or we've made it where it sounds better today, it's cohabitation. This is a sin against God. And in the stats that I was reading the other day that someone sent me, evangelicals, that's us, the majority of evangelicals today are living together, considering living together, or are open to the possibility of living together. That's the Christians, that have just kind of settled in, this is the way we do life. You do it for convenience, you do it for financial reasons, you do it to test the relationship. No, that's sexual immorality. And please don't deceive yourself and think it's because you love that person that you're having sex with them outside of marriage. I'm not saying you don't love the person, I am saying in the moment you're having sex with them outside of marriage, you don't love the person, you love you. And you're about self-gratification and getting what you want out of that person, you're taking from them, you're not giving to them. Love gives, it doesn't take.

Ross Sawyers: [00:22:29] This would include, by the way, going on trips together, and staying in the same hotel, the same Airbnb, staying in the room together is included, all of that is sexual impurity. In Ephesians 5:3 it says there's to be no hint. It's interesting. in this article, it says you can't talk to 20-somethings this way because they're just gonna ignore you, like, this is an old way to talk about it. Well, how am I supposed to talk about it? I mean, so I'll just make it really simple, as I said a moment ago, if you're going to say you're a follower of Jesus and you're looking through a God lens, it is a sin against God, that's my simple way to say it. Cohabiting, the overnights, things that go on on college campuses, a 30-minute drive, I don't want to drive home. No, figure it out, your purity is far greater. If you're wondering what a guy is thinking, I'll just give girls a hint here. If you want to have an idea of what a guy is thinking when you're spending the night at their house, I'll be glad offline to give you a really good idea of that. I've had this conversation for 40 years now, I know how a guy thinks, including myself.

Ross Sawyers: [00:24:01] Pornography is devastating the minds. I have a friend who said, he works with college students, he said I don't ask anymore if they're looking at pornography, I ask how much they're looking at it. This is a male issue and a female issue, this is not just a male issue, 30% or so of women are addicted to pornography. This is a male and female problem, and it's the result of a hypersexualized culture. When someone's viewing pornography, whether in a still picture, a streaming picture, Pornhub, or whatever it is, that is sexual immorality, its sexual impurity, and it's a sin against God. You're sinning against someone's daughter, and you're sinning against someone's son, you're using them and taking advantage of them. Pornography, please don't buy the lie that it doesn't affect anybody else. It affects you; it affects everybody that's in it, and it's killing your soul. Therefore, it's crushing everyone around you. That's included in this command.

Ross Sawyers: [00:25:28] LGBTQ plus, I want to read from Romans chapter 1, verses 24 through 28, and then just refer you to a sermon that I did, last year on March 26th, 2023, called A Holy Sexuality. I took that title off of Christopher Yuan's book, which is fantastic. And so if you want more details on this topic, I'd be glad for you to go back and look at that one. But just for today, "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper." It's interesting that this is a month that's called Pride Month when the Scripture says that God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. I'm with my friends at Breakpoint who have declared this Fidelity Month. Could this be fidelity month before God, a purity before him?

Ross Sawyers: [00:27:02] And then Jesus amps it up here in Matthew chapter 5, verses 27 and 28, he goes more to the root of what's going on, and that's lust, “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; 28but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Jesus goes on and he just says, here, look, the problems with the heart, and lust actually reveals the human heart, it reveals what's going on. And he says the problem here is what's beginning in the heart and in the mind before it ever reaches a physical kind of expression of that lust.

Ross Sawyers: [00:27:42] Some of you in here are old enough to remember Jimmy Carter. some of you might have read it in your history books, I have no idea what's in our history books anymore, but right prior to the election in 1976, Jimmy Carter was asked if he had committed any kind of immorality. And Jimmy Carter responded, and he said, yes, I've committed adultery in my heart. He said. I've lusted after several women. Well, everyone was concerned that his squeaky-clean image was going to hurt him in the election. He took care of it with that comment, in the news media took off with it. They had no idea what to do with what he was talking about because they didn't understand spiritual things, but there's probably not one of us those escapes what Jesus says here. If we've had a long, lingering look. that is a sexual sin against God. Jesus goes to the desire and to the contemplative gaze.

Ross Sawyers: [00:28:47] Now, let me say that in every one of these things I've just described, it's devastating. And there are people in our church today, men and women, that are freed from pornography. There are men and women today that when I've asked them, I'll be honored to do your wedding; I'm going to ask you to not live together or have sex together anymore. There are people all through the years who have taken up that challenge before God, and they've separated out, they've figured out a place they could stay. And I would just say today, by the way, your purity is more important than an $80,000 wedding. And I would up and take care of what you need to take care of to preserve your purity before I think real hard about this kind of wedding that I've dreamed about my whole life. Jesus said in Matthew 5, to take drastic action against our impurities. He said, cut off your right arm and cut out your right eye; the right eye was the best for vision, and the right arm was the best arm. I don't understand that, I'm left-handed, but Jesus said it. I'm going to believe what he said. What he was saying is not to literally go do that, but he's telling them, look, you need to take whatever drastic measures you need to take. If you have a job where you're on a computer all the time and you keep going to the porn sites, you need to chunk the computer and get another job because apparently, you can't handle it. That's the drastic kind of thing he's saying, and you're saying there's no way. I get that, but I'm telling you, your purity before God matters more. So are there any drastic measures that we have taken? People have done that; they've taken drastic measures and are doing well today in the way that God has done it for them.

Ross Sawyers: [00:30:31] Let me just say here that there are things behind the scenes of these devastating actions of impurity. And what we know is that Satan is behind it, Satan is real. In First Peter chapter 5 verse 8, it says that he's been prowling about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Satan is on the prowl. Last week I talked about Genesis 4:6 or 6, and God told Cain, he said, sin is crouching at your door, and it's waiting to master you. That's what Satan's doing, he's standing at your door, he's waiting for you just to crack it open just a little bit, and bam, he's going to kick that door wide open. He gets into you and he sets up a room in you, and the Bible calls this a stronghold, and he starts with that stronghold, and he just starts building up the lie all around it, and it starts to resist the truth, the heart gets a little bit seared, and I can't hear the truth anymore. And Satan's got that stronghold, something needs to kick that down. We'll get to that answer in just a moment, but Satan is after you. He's after every pastor in this area, he's after every elder, he's after every person that's in our churches. He's after us, prowling about, and he's just looking for you to give him an opening. And he gets those openings through the world, were not to love the world, love God. He gets those openings through TikTok’s, and social media outlets, streaming on Netflix, Apple TV, and YouTube TV, he has all kinds of ways that he's getting in there. If you just open the door a little bit, he's going to kick it down. And then he works through our own flesh, our sinful flesh that has twisted desires, and it's after things other than God Himself, Galatians 5:16, 17 and 19.

Ross Sawyers: [00:32:34] So I've shown you the last couple of weeks on our website. 121cc.com, there's a tab on there called Got Questions that is kind of in the middle of the page, and then you just click on Ask Me. And I've been putting in all these kinds of questions, so we have a biblical tool for you to be able to go and overlay the scripture on these quotes. You could ask, what does the Bible say about divorce? And it'll give you a good pathway for it. What does the Bible say about pornography? It gives you a pathway for it. And so just an encouragement for you, that's one spot among many.

Ross Sawyers: [00:33:14] But I want to pivot here, those are the devastating kinds of things and what's behind it. But I want to go to a more beautiful picture of sexual purity because I'm afraid we live as if there's not this beautiful picture, and there is, this is God's good design. It anchors in Genesis chapter 2, verses 24 and 25. When I was in seminary years ago, there was a guy in our class, and my cohort of ten, his name was Chris Green, and he's a Lutheran pastor. And everything we talked about, he would always speak and say it goes back to the garden in Genesis 1 and 2, and we just got where we started laughing at him because it didn't matter what we talked about, he said, you got to go back to the garden in Genesis 1 and 2. And do you know what? He's right, that Lutheran pastor is right. We need to linger in Genesis 1 and 2, this is where God sets up the beauty of his design, and in verses 24 and 25 he says, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." See, God has designed that sexual union to happen in the marriage relationship between one man and one woman. The word joined means a permanent bonding, it's why there are all the warnings, and it's why there are all the commands. Because God is the one that set this design, and we bond permanently to another person in that marriage relationship, "And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." It's a vulnerable relationship, it's a committed relationship, and it's a covenant relationship with God. But then as we move through Scripture, we see in the Song of Songs that in eight chapters it's poetry talking about the romance and the sex between a bride and a groom. So God lays out the beauty and the enjoyment and the delight of that sexual union.

Ross Sawyers: [00:35:13] And then in Ephesians chapter 5, verses 31 and 32, we see him give us the reason for why this union. If we look back at it now, we understand, it was unfolding for the people of the Bible. In verse 31 it says, "FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH." What does he do? He goes back to Genesis 2. And then he says, "This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church." That ought to cause all within us to know that God has designed marriage in such a way, that the husband is a picture of Christ, and that the wife is a picture of the bride. And every time we look at a husband and wife that's a Christian, we're looking at a picture of Christ in the church. And we grow in, and I'm not suggesting we're perfect in that, but we're growing over a lifetime in intimacy so that we more and more look like Christ in the church, in the ways that we treat one another. Oh, it's a beautiful picture, and it's in that sexual union that there will not be anything more explosive than in the sexual union between a husband and a wife, to give a glimpse of the new heavens and the new earth, and what our intimacy with Christ will be like, it's only in that design.

Ross Sawyers: [00:36:45] For someone that's single today, in First Corinthians 7, Paul lays something out, and oftentimes we just don't like what God says. It's clear what God says, but what Paul says is it's actually better not to marry, it's better to be single and to be undistracted in your devotion to the Lord. So a husband and wife are a beautiful picture of Christ in the church, and singleness is a beautiful picture when someone's undistracted in their devotion to the Lord. This culminates in Revelation chapter 19, verses 7 and 9, it says, “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” God is preparing his bride, and he's making us more and more like him. And on that day when we're with him, we'll be at the marriage supper of the Lamb, "Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” How do we get invited into the marriage supper of the lamb? Well, it's through Jesus Christ.

Ross Sawyers: [00:37:53] And when we looked at First Corinthians chapter 6 a minute ago, I read you the bad news, I'm coming back to all the good news. But in verse 11, years ago, there was a worship pastor named Dennis Jernigan, and Dennis Jernigan had moved into the world of homosexuality, he didn't see another way out of that world. He was reading this scripture one day, and he saw where the adulterer, the fornicator, and the homosexual do not inherit the kingdom of God. But then he read verse 11, and this is the invitation into the marriage supper of the lamb, it says, "Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." We can live today in the Word. I started this by saying, let's look at where we are today. And I hope for so many of you, and I know for so many of you, as you listen to this, you are listening as a forgiven person for this sexual impurity because this is what you were. There's the possibility for every one of us to be where? This is what you were, but now you've been washed. Jesus Christ, on the cross, took on all the sexual impurity, all the guilt, all the shame, all of it to the detail. And on the cross, his blood was shed, and it covers all of it to the detail. His grace matches and overwhelms any sin within any of us. But you were. But you were. Are you in that place of were? Has Jesus written you into his story? He's a God who's about reconciling, forgiving, and drawing back. And Travis talked earlier, in Psalm 23, he's a God of pursuit of us. Even as ugly as our sin can be, he's gracious in his pursuit.

Ross Sawyers: [00:40:15] So when we're on that were side of things, how do we walk in this? And I have a list of too many things, maybe something will be helpful. But this is what I would say of how we can walk in this more beautiful picture of sexual purity. Everyone today, we can walk in this today. We don't have to wait till tomorrow. We don't have to think that we're unworthy and we never can, that's the beauty of Christ. So how do we do that? Well, I would say a few things, right? One would be an ultimate devotion to God and his sacred name, I've mentioned that already. It begins with just submitting to God himself, and we do that by surrendering to Jesus once and for all. I heard somebody say a few years ago, it was really helpful, that there's a point where we get exhausted by our sexual sin. It comes up empty, the lure of Satan. Somebody said this to me earlier, it's a good word, Satan lures us in with his temptation, and then he shames us after we do it. That's what Satan does. And we can know that when we're finally exhausted by that, that Jesus is waiting for us, and pursuing us, in our exhaustion, so that we don't have to be weary anymore, but we can be filled with him and his life.

Ross Sawyers: [00:41:37] The third thing I would say that we consider here and that I'm afraid as a church, I don't know how well we do this anymore, I've mentioned this quite a bit in the last probably a couple of years more so, but I rarely hear people talking about confession and repentance. I don't know if we don't know how to do it. I don't know if we just like the general, God forgive me my sins, and then we move on. But God is specific, and we can't repent from generalities. We can repent from, God, I looked at this yesterday, and I went to the site, and I went there, and I hid it, and I sinned against you, God, that is specific. God, I lusted after this woman, I'm sorry for the way I looked at her. I'm begging you and asking you for help today, and I'm turning from that. Confession and repentance, that's an ongoing cycle of our lives as Christians. We're in a fight here for freedom, and confession and repentance are a way in to be to be free. Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, David, after his sin of adultery, Psalm 51, is a psalm of confession and repentance before God. It's a model for us if we're not sure of the words to use.

Ross Sawyers: [00:42:57] And then I would say, believe what God says about your forgiveness. God really does forgive, and there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and we ask God to help us to believe it.

Ross Sawyers: [00:43:12] And then we fight to win the battle of the mind. I think this is probably where the biggest battle is fought, is in the mind, and we can win the battle of the mind. Psalm 119:9 says, How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. Philippians 4:8 says that we're to think on things that are good and right and acceptable and true and lovely. And depending on your age, you may or may not know what wallpaper is, I don't think very many people have wallpaper anymore. But years ago I heard a teacher say what we need to be doing is constantly re-wallpapering our minds, so we're replacing. This is somewhere where the drastic measures come from, that we're asking God to replace that which is sexually impure and instead place pure things. We're responsible for what we're putting into our minds, we can stream things, listen to things, and we can read things that are good, and pure, and uplifting; they start to recover the mind and get rid of those things. Probably a better modern-day look at that would be, that we just need to ask God to be streaming some different videos, through our minds, than those that we've allowed to be streamed in there.

Ross Sawyers: [00:44:34] Years ago, in a seminary class, I had Doctor Jack Mcgorman, probably the godliest professor I ever had under his teaching. And he was standing behind his lectern one day, and, I don't know, I guess we were praying that Matthew 5 passage. He was 67 years old at the time, and I was about 25 sitting in that class. And he sits there, a 67-year-old man puts up his fist, and he said, "Every day I have to put up the boxing glove against lust, every day." And I was sitting there as a 25-year-old and I thought, dear God, does it never end? And it doesn't. If you want freedom, it's a fight to stay free, and it's a fight in the mind to put the things in the mind to allow us to be free. How do we do that? Colossians 3:5, we daily kill sin. Every day, I'll sit before God, and I know the places where I'm vulnerable in sin, and I will name those off. And I will ask God today, will you kill those sins in me today? Will you kill the pride, kill the selfishness, kill the unbelief, kill the impure motives, kill the lust, kill the anger, kill the jealousy? God, I need you to kill that today, so it doesn't kill me. And if you're sitting there today with any kind of secret sexual impurity running around, it is crushing you today, and it is crushing everyone else around you. Kill sin or it will kill you, the Puritan John Owen said.

Ross Sawyers: [00:46:20] Put on the armor of God, we're putting the shield of faith against the fiery darts of the enemy. Yield to the Spirit of God. Today, God, I'm yielding to you, Holy Spirit. Escape temptation. First Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it." God is one who will provide an escape, we don't need to put ourselves in ignorant spots, but when we get in spots, there's an escape route. The question is, will you and I take that escape route? Verse 12 of that says, "Take care, lest you fall."

Ross Sawyers: [00:47:03] In the late 80s, a pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church had an affair, he committed adultery. I was the youth minister on his staff, the pastor talked to us right after it happened, and this is what he said. He said I know that pastor, and I know his wife, she's absolutely beautiful. And he said, gentlemen, if you think this can't ever happen to you, that's the day you need to be most afraid. First Corinthians 10:12, Take care, lest you fall." He's crouching, and he's waiting, and if we think he's not, it's that moment where the most vulnerable.

Ross Sawyers: [00:47:47] Secure sacred spaces. Can I say this to the unmarried and to the married, the marriage bed, in Hebrews 13:4, is to be undefiled. The marriage bed is to be saved for marriage. You don't need a boyfriend, or a fiancé in the bedroom ever, that is a sacred space, and that's for God, a husband, and a wife. That's not to spend the night together. That's not to take a trip together. It's a sacred space. I got the coolest text after the first service, or the second service. A young man was sitting in here, and he was going to pick his girlfriend up this afternoon to be in a hotel together. And he told the people he was sitting with, he said, we're not going there. That's obedience, it is a sacred space. And I know not everybody agrees with me, but I would say this to husbands and wives, if you have a TV in your bedroom, get it out. You're inviting other people into your room; I know how your husband thinks. You tell me, is that really what you want in your bedroom? It is a sacred space. Be undefiled as husband and wife.

Ross Sawyers: [00:49:17] And then here's one that I'm just, again, I'm just being direct, these are the kinds of conversations I have with my friends, so now you know what it's like if you're with me one-on-one. But have peer-to-peer courage. I'm tired of people coming to me, and I'm the first one to let them know about a sexual sin when they've been in your life group, they're in your family, and you could have had the conversation. That is all of our responsibility, is the purity of the church. Peer-to-peer courage is the way I would say it. Will we be able to step into people's lives and help them free up? And will we allow people to do the same in ours?

Ross Sawyers: [00:49:55] And I would add to that parent-to-peer courage. I met with a guy, we met for the first time a couple of weeks ago and could have been last week. And he was telling me about his daughter that while she was at a Christian university, she started fighting lesbianism and they ended up as parents in the conversation with her. I said, what would you say to parents that are in that spot? That is a good question, he said, there's two things that come to mind. I'll say this to young parents today, make sure there's an open bridge of communication early with the child. Because they were invited into the conversation with their daughter when it was hard, and when they see things differently. The second thing he said, the way we picture this, she's on the ridge of a rooftop about to fall off the roof, and we're one of the only ones that are actually speaking the truth and helping her to spare her from that fall off the roof. Parent-to-peer courage. Peer-to-peer courage.

Ross Sawyers: [00:51:09] Then the last suggestion of the 58 I've given you, is to advocate for the sexually abused. We can get mad about it, but we can actually get in the mix. And we can volunteer at places, we can get involved in ministries, we can get in things that help the sexually addicted to be able to come out of sexual addiction. There are so many ways that we can advocate so that people can be broken free from sexual impurities.

Ross Sawyers: [00:51:41] Well, this is what I'd like to do if we could, to close our time. I want to thank you for being willing to step in here. God is so good, and he has such a beautiful plan, and his desire is for us to be in it. I'm going to ask, we're not going to sing a song to end today, we're going to pray, but I'm going to ask you to come here with me and get on bended knee. And here's three things that I have in my mind this morning. One, it would be good if you could just bow before God and confess any kinds of sexual impurities that you've yet to confess and repent before God in this space. We'll also have counselors up here, and if you've been sinned against, and are walking in that and don't have anyone to walk with, we want to walk with you in that. And so you just come and ask for help, if this is an uncomfortable setting, you can find us in a more isolated space, and we can get you to, women with women, and men with men. So however we can be a help, we want to be a help.

Ross Sawyers: [00:52:56] And then to the church as a whole, can we commit to praying together for the purity of the church? So when people think about the church, they think about the purity of the church, and they think about God's design because he actually sees people in our student ministry, and in our college students that go away, and in adults and the way they're walking in their marriages today, and just think, man, I love that. So we want to pray for the community and for the church as a whole. So I'm just going to invite life group leaders, and others, just to come and let's just cover this area. It'll be a quiet space, Travis is going to play over us a little bit, and then I'll wrap it up with a prayer after a bit. And, again, any way we can be a help. I hope you'll hash these conversations out with your life group, with family, and with people who know the Word so that we can come under the Word today.



Recorded in Grapevine, Texas.