Well, let's begin. Father, thank you for the opportunity to, again, dig into what your Word says about various topics tonight, dealing with hedonism, this quest that people have for physical, mental, emotional comfort, to pursue pleasure in life rather than actually pursuing holiness and realizing that the true pleasure of life is walking with you. Father, for that is something that goes for eternity. Do give us insights tonight as we think through the various case studies that we, again, might not just see lessons for ourselves, but learning how to help other people with the problems that come up when we don't walk with you properly, in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, tonight is hedonism. We're going to be looking at the issues of pleasure, 1 John 2, 15 and 16 gives us an idea of what God thinks of the areas of pleasure, but maybe just start with a definition. The pursuit of pleasure, that's hedonism or sensual self-indulgence. There's a philosophy and it's a theory that pleasure is what brings satisfaction in life. And hedonists believe that that is the highest good in life. It's the proper aim of all human life is achieve the greatest amount of pleasure you can while you're alive. But then they're not looking at Psalm 73. And then I consider their end. It makes all sense because they only look at the here and now. They don't look at something beyond. That philosophy gets you in a lot of trouble in a lot of other ways very practically as well. The first John 2, 15 and 16 gives us the strongest warning we really need concerning that is that the things of this world, the lust of flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life is not from God. It is a worldly endeavor. These are things that are passing away. They're not eternal as is God. hedonism is completely contrary to godliness. And that doesn't mean that we can't experience pleasure and enjoy pleasure and thank God for pleasure. But it means the pursuit of our life is not about pleasure, not about pleasing our bodies, not about pleasing our eyes, not pleasing our emotions or our mental capacity. It's about learning to please God and learning that those, as I pursue those things, what really is important in life is something that starts bringing pleasure. I did hear John Piper at the Shepherds Conference and I read his books years ago, Christian Hedonism. Yeah, that's what I looked at the title like, what? That's a juxtaposition, that doesn't fit together. And he tends to write a little esoteric. I think I get what he's talked about. With the Shepherds Conference, he had one of his sermons was very simple, and if I explain what he's talking about. Oh, okay, if we're actually walking with Christ the way we should, the greatest pleasure in life is gonna be walking with Christ. And that should spill out to everything. So if I've really got the right relationship with Christ, then my greatest pleasure is Him. Hence, Christian hedonism. I still don't care for the word hedonism because it has such a negative connotation. But actually, that is true. Really, my greatest pleasure should be as I'm serving Christ and it's pleasing Him. And in pleasing Him, I find satisfaction in life. I find pleasure in that. There's a joy. So we'll talk about some of the verses. There is physical pleasure, the lust of the flesh. And you understand that the temptations that were faced by Eve in the Garden of Eden and Jesus in the wilderness also were in these same areas. There was an appeal to the flesh, there was an appeal to the eyes, and there was appeal to pride. And Eve fell to all of them, and Jesus resisted all of them. But the appeal to the physical, the lusty eyes, well, we'll start with food. There are several things that are related to that. But Jesus answered to the devil when he said, and Jesus was pretty hungry, I don't know about you, but going four hours seems like a long time between meals, right? Four days would be like crazy. 40 days? I would say it's safe to say that Jesus was hungry, okay? And that's why Satan would attempt in that area. If you are the son of God, then turn these rocks into bread. Now, the problem wouldn't be that if Jesus did that, doing a miracle, the problem would be is he's not relying upon God to meet his needs. And so it's, I'm going to meet my own needs, my own way. Well, certainly food is part of one of the things that we need. The question is, do we have the right balance for it of understanding its purpose, its source, thanking God for it, instead of letting that be the focus of life? So Jesus said, man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, that's Matthew 4.4. 8.3. Be humbled. He humbled you, and this is referring to what God did in the wilderness wandering, so teaching the second generation. He humbled you and let you be hungry, fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's the context. So God purposely set them in a place they could not provide for themselves. Would they be willing to trust God to provide for them? And they had to, but yet there was a lot of grumbling that they had all the way through it. So related to food, the first one would be gluttony. Gluttony is habitual greed or excess in eating. Satisfaction is sought in the excessive amount of eating. It may or may not be accompanied by the food has to taste good. Volume is important for the glutton. Proverbs has a lot to say about it. Proverbs 23, 20 and 21. Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine or with a gluttonous eaters of meat. For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty. Drowsiness will clothe one with rags. Proverbs 8, 28, 7, he who keeps the law of the serving son, but he was a companion of gluttons humiliates his father. Now, gluttony is a wrong perspective of food. And it's seeking to acquire it and then consume it quickly. Gluttony does not include feasting. There are times when we can feast. Yes, we will eat more than normal. That's part of celebration and feasting is part of the celebration of God. Here is what he's provided. Let me give you a couple examples of that. Genesis 19.3, he urged them strongly so they turned aside to him and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread and they ate. Now that's Abraham feeding the angel of the Lord and the two other angels. Now did the angels need anything to eat? No. But Abraham was doing it as part of hospitality and serving a good portion out of that hospitality. And so the feasting is an important part of that. Exodus 12, 14, Passover itself. Now this day will be a memorial to you and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord, feast to Yahweh. Throughout your generations, you are to celebrate as a permanent ordinance. It is a feast. Okay, and if you like land, it's a good feast. If you don't like land, well, sorry. Okay, but it is a feast. Land's expensive now, right? But it was in memorial, but a feast, and so there were certain things prescribed for it. Leviticus 23, there were various appointed feasts for Israel. Passover, unleavened bread, Pentecost, first fruits, that's when the grains are coming in. There's a feast at the Feast of Trumpets and one at the Feast of Booths. So prescribed feasts throughout the year are reminding people this is what God has done or in celebration like first fruits, the harvest is coming in. We're gonna have a feast now because well, there's food available too, but it's the focus becomes it's in celebration of what God has done. Okay, and that's part of what feasting should be. uh even the ones that are christianized so sunday is resurrection sunday uh in the european areas became easter there's a spring festival and one of the traditions that's common is you have a feast at easter i wonder how many people are going to have a feast this sunday and have nothing to do with god of why there would be a feast and that would include christians It becomes more important about what we're going to have for dinner and who's going to be there than the reason you're actually having a feast. It is part of the celebration of what God has done in the resurrection of Christ. You can see there's a different perspective now that needs to be there. So the glutton doesn't take those things into account. It just becomes more and more about the food. And it can be volumes of food, life, starts focusing in on food. And it's always the quest to have food, get more and more. And there'll be various levels of gluttony, but instead of seeing food as something that's properly understood with God providing it and what God wants you to do with it, the focus of life becomes the food. Okay. Can someone be underweight and a glutton? Yes. They can. Can they be overweight and not a glutton? Yes. Yes. Okay. So it's not about your body mass. It's something else that determines whether it's flattening or not. How about the Epicurean? Okay. This is pursuit of pleasure in fancy foods, the gourmet. Gastronomists, I think is another word they will use for that. Now the pursuit in this one is quality, not the quantity. Okay. That's why you go to a very fancy restaurant. Uh, I don't like French restaurants. It's presented very beautifully and there's nothing to eat. I got a couple of twigs and, you know, I want a steak and they give me this little medallion of something like, I'm sorry, I'm bigger than that. You know, I don't think, I don't think that would have fed my kids when they were six. Okay. You got boys. Could put a little piece of meat that feed into your boys. No, no. Okay. So avoid French restaurant, but the Epicurean, well, that's part of it. It is part of the presentation. Now I have to be careful. We do have the CIA students here and that is part of their presentation. They get graded on that. Okay. I can, I'm a guy, so I don't really pay that much attention, but I can appreciate a nicely laid table setting. It's pretty and it's part of, you know, trying to make you feel welcome, that you're special. All right. The Epicurean is just focused on that though. And so I can't just, I have to have something special and always the quest for the new thing. That's going to be the problem. It can also be related to, I have to have these kinds of foods because it shows I'm wealthy. Right? Yes. So what about someone who maybe seeks high quality food, but because of health reasons, like choosing organic or stuff like that. So it's not really a problem. It's more like a status thing. It's a status or that I have to have certain level of accommodation. It's not about, and it isn't necessarily about your health. It could be experimental. What's the latest trend and that kind of stuff. But again, and it's not, there's nothing wrong with going to a fancy French restaurant and they'll go getting a burger afterward. You can take your wife out, you can take a date out and it's very nice. There's nothing wrong with that. As long as that's not the focus of life. You can have pleasure in those things and appreciate, you know, something that was well done and actually presented nicely. But it does look pretty on the plate rather than You know, I just went through the Navy chow line. Flop, flop, flop. Why not just give me a bowl? You just give me this plate with things divided. It doesn't matter. Okay, let's face it. It is nice to have something presented nicely, right? Okay. But here's a couple of warnings. Proverbs 23, one through five. When you sit down to dine with a ruler, consider carefully what is put before you. Put a knife to your throat if you're a man of great appetite. Do not desire delicacies for deceptive food. Do not weary yourself to gain wealth. Cease for your consideration of it. When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. Wealth certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies for the heavens. See the tie here between the delicacies that a king can afford and suddenly you want the same thing. It's a pursuit of wealth, status. Proverbs 23, six through eight, do not eat the bread of a selfish man or desire his delicacies. For as he thinks within himself, so he is. He says, do you eat and drink, but his heart is not with you. He will vomit up the morsel you've eaten and waste your compliments. Yeah, the company actually isn't really good. Okay. Psalm 141, four, do not incline my heart to any evil thing. The practice of deeds of wickedness with men who do iniquity, do not let me eat their delicacies. They saw a warning and Daniel one, eight through 10. Remember the story that Daniel and his three friends decided they would not eat the King's food. But instead, they would basically eat vegetables. They did not want to violate the mosaic law concerning what foods they should or should not eat. But the king's food was going to be much better than what they're going to get. They're going to get vegetables. He was giving these men he was training the finest that he had. It actually would take a miracle for them to look better than the rest of them. And God did provide a miracle. because they're not going to have the same kind of proteins. And God provided that. I know vegetarians tend to go to that one like, see, vegetables are better for you. No, they were trusting that God was going to provide something and show something. Because it wasn't just enough, they would survive. They had to look better. This could not be detrimental to you in any way. And they did. So their focus on food was correct. not desiring the things that would be appealing to you that looked appetizing. I'll just eat some plain food here because I don't want to violate what God's already told me to do. Their focus was on God, even in their diet. That's the important thing out of that. Now there's some eating disorders, bulimia nervosa, that's purging after you eat in order not to gain weight. So you basically have a glutton And then they don't want to gain the weight. So they induce vomiting. So they get rid of the food they just eat. So it's gluttony compounded with vanity. I don't want the consequences of what I'm doing. And it's a very serious disease that leads to all sorts of gastrointestinal problems. Another one, anorexia, is also a eating disorder, but it actually has more to do with vanity than anything else, vanity and control. It's an irrational belief that they're fat, and it is irrational. They can be skin and bones. They still think they're too fat. And so they have an incorrect amount of food intake. They don't get enough calories, and they're always exercising to burn off what they get. and it can and often does result in death. It gets so far and you actually destroy your heart and destroy your organs. And even you can get it corrected, you may already have done so much damage, you're not gonna make it. So it is a serious disorder. Then there's alcohol and drug abuse that fits in with this as well. Now, Wine is used to celebrate. Psalm 104 verse 15. Wine which makes man's heart glad so he may make his face glisten with oil and food which stains man's heart. So scripture isn't condemning it. It is used to lessen pain. Proverbs 31 6. Give strong drink to him who is perishing and wine to him whose life is bitter. It does affect your mind. That's what's being talked about there. Wine can be beneficial, a blessing, Proverbs 3 10. So your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. In fact, throughout scriptures, if there's a lack of wine, you're being judged. Because that's part of the produce that is part of what life is. Problem is a mental one of what you do with it, your view of it, that causes lots of problems. Here's some proverbs on that. Wine is a mocker strong brink of brawler and whoever's intoxicated by it is not wise. So as soon as you cross the line and you're buzzed, you're already on the road to intoxication. So you've already crossed the line. Your past celebrates anything else. You're now after something else. And anybody who has problems with alcohol or even in the past, they will tell you that's what they're after. They want that buzz. They want to be able to forget. They want to be able to deal with their problems by forgetting about them, at least temporarily. It doesn't solve anything. Problems just get worse, right? But you can see it's a wrong view of food. It gets tied in thinking there's something here that will make my life easier. Proverbs 23, 20 and 21, do not be with heavy drinkers of wine or with gluttonous eaters of meat. The heavy drinker and glutton will come to poverty and drowsiness will clothe one with rags. And it does, it will cause impoverishment. Proverbs 23, 29. through 35, who has woe, who has sorrow, who has contentions, who has complaining, who has wounds without cause, who has redness of eyes, those who linger long over wine and those who go to taste mixed wine. Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly, the last it bites like a serpent, stings like a viper. Your eyes will see strange things, your mind will utter perverse things. You'll be like one who lies down in the middle of the sea, like one who lies down on the top of a mast. Drug can't walk straight, teetering, tottering. And then this is last one's bad. They struck me, but I did not become ill. They beat me, but I did not know it. When shall I wake? I'll seek another drink. And that would be a good description of drunkards. Their life becomes sucked in by this. And yeah, you can see a lot of practical damage here as well. There's sorrow, there's woe, there's contentions. It hasn't helped anything. and you have wounds without cause. You don't even know how you got hurt, but there it is. Okay, but what's the real problem behind it? It's a wrong view of what life is about because it's seeking a solution in something that is not a solution. Solutions can be in God. If you have sorrow, where should you take sorrow? Yeah, if you have things that are troubling you in care, pass all your cares upon the Lord because He cares for you. If you had anxiety, well, we take it to the Lord. So it's a wrong view of life, but it's a common one. All these are related to food. Another area where it's physical is going to be sexual. God has provided for a proper expression of sexuality within marriage and only within marriage. So different levels of this, perversions, anything harmful or defiling. As our society has gone down the road of more perversions, they do things that are actually harmful to themselves. That's not what God wants, okay? Love is kind. You can just start with there. If you're really loving, you're gonna be kind to the other person. You don't have to demand anything from that other person that actually hurts them, period, okay? Marriage itself is sacred, Hebrews 13, four. Marriage is to be held in honor among all. The marriage bed is to be undefiled, for fornicators, adulterers, God will judge. Okay, so there's perversions, and that could even happen within marriage, and it's wrong, because it's not loving. It's selfish, that is improper. Then there's fornication, adultery, and rape. 1 Corinthians 6, 9, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, adulterers, effeminate, nor homosexuals. Fornication is sexual activity among unmarried people. If it's consensual, the dowry is paid, and a forced marriage is done according to the discretion of the girl's father, Exodus 22, 16 through 17. If one is engaged, it's treated as adultery. because there is already a promise. You don't belong to yourself. You belong to somebody else already. And if it's rape, where a man forced himself upon a woman without consent and the man is going to drown, he's to be executed. Pretty serious, right? The one about if it's consensual and the father does agree, well, there's a couple of them. One ends up is that, He has to marry her, and he may not divorce her all his life. So you treated her badly. Now you're in a marriage, and you can't divorce her. You know what? You may just have a miserable life. Don't get her upset, OK? She has ways, OK? And if she doesn't, she'll find out from her friends, OK? Adultery is consensual sexual activity with at least one of the party is married. The penalty for that, death. And then there's abominations. Anything in the list of liticus 18, that includes incest, consanguinity, that's relationship with someone who's too close a relative, homosexuality, bestiality, the penalty for all of those, death. So cross-dressing itself is an abomination. Now, obviously our society doesn't like any of that, does it? So if someone says that, you know, you hate homosexuals, I'm like, I'm very tolerant. They should die, but I'm not going to force that. I'll let God take care of that. And then I give the warning is by your own sexual practices, you're shortening your life. I don't know what the current statistics were because I haven't looked this up. I know in, The 90s, the late 90s, the average mortality age of homosexual men was 47. It's like 30 years off their life. Uh-huh. Now, the AIDS crisis was in full bloom then, so there might be some medications that's extended up a little bit. But the other thing they don't talk about in any of this stuff is the gastrointestinal diseases these guys have. They're nasty. And no one talks about that. No one talks about having to have colostomy. You have to carry your bag around with you everywhere, because you destroyed yourself. No one talks about that. It's not love. It's perverted lust, period. And it's very dangerous. But no one will talk about that side of it, because that's how perverted our side is. God's solution to it? Yeah, actually, it was execution. Okay. So yes, we are tolerant society because we're not executing. We want to help them help them repent. Okay. Those are all physical. Then there's another side of physical pleasure and that's comfort. Okay. Now there's nothing wrong with being comfortable. As long as that's not the pursuit of your life. Okay. If comfort becomes the source of your satisfaction life, now there's a wrong view of it and it's perverted. It's okay in the winter to have heat available. So you're a little more comfortable and not walking around with your kneecaps bumping up and down and your teeth chattering. You can get the heat up enough so that you can stop that. Okay. Those of you from the tropics, you can heat it up a little more than that. 69, 69 degrees. Even if you do keep your coat on and it's already 80, okay. And it's okay since we have the wonderful technology of air conditioning to go ahead and use it in a hot summer day. But is that what your life is about? No, it actually isn't. So the idea of pursuing comfort as a, Satisfaction life becomes a perversion. And the two areas of this, one is sensuality, usually also associated with immorality. Romans 13, 13 and 14, let's behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality. Notice there's a separation there. Sensuality is the comfort that comes from sensory experiences. Not in strife or jealousy, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. That's an important verse. Make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. God provides. That's not to be the pursuit of our life. 2 Corinthians 12, 21, I'm afraid that when I come again, my God may humiliate me before you. I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not depend on the impurity, immorality, sensuality, which they have practiced. Notice he's separated that. It is a separate sin itself. The pursuit of physical comfort and pleasures, sensory experiences. Galatians 5, 19 through 21. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident. Which are immorality, impurity. Here it is again, it's a separate category, sensuality. adultery, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, ending, drunkenness, carousing, things like these of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. So often associated with it, but this idea that I have to have sensory experiences that are pleasing to myself. It's okay to have those things, but that's not the pursuit of life. That's the point. And then the pursuit of comfort, the sensuality leads to other sense. Ephesians 4.19, they having become callous and give themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. So the pursuit of one thing leads to other things. Let's just keep compounding. 2 Peter 2.18, speaking out arrogant words of vanity enticed by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error. So it becomes, an enticement of temptation, okay, to pursue those things that will give you sensory experiences that you find pleasurable, whatever they are, okay? That's not the purpose of life. You can enjoy them. I like a nice chair that's comfortable. It's better than sitting on a wooden bench that's only that wide and Much better than the pews if you go into an old church where it's like, I can't even sit on you, the pew's only that wide, you know, and a straight back, and it's like, okay, we're just gonna make, we're gonna give you a lot of pain here, okay? Let the preacher bring the pain, you know? So yeah, there's those things. But if you don't have nice seats or something, is that really what's important in life? No, the focus has to be proper. One of the things that probably has come into the United States is that this pursuit of sensuality has become so commonplace because it's affordable here. It's become expected. If you went to a church in a poor area of the DR, what would you find? Or Puerto Rico, either one. What kind of church would they have? Puerto Rico, I was surprised. I don't know, there was not one church I saw that was like, that was like poor, I don't know. Okay, well, they can get a lot of money. Yeah. You need to go with us and we'll show you the poor areas, okay? I'll tell you what kind of chairs they have. The plastic ones. They got those plastic things, those resin chairs. That's what they have because they're cheap, okay? They're everywhere. If you went to Mozambique or another, you know, jungle area of Africa, what do they have for seating in their churches? All these stumps. Not much better. Usually it's benches and they're about that wide and they're long and there is no back. It's just the bench. That's it. That's what they have. And if it's a church meeting outside, it would be stumps or a log. Okay. Now, if you had a set, you're going to start a new church, you invite them in and you had benches like that. You thinking any Americans would come back? okay make my point right is we're so used to it what happens now if you go into church and it's august and there's no air conditioning right you've been in churches where they had little fans where the hymnals and bibles are there's a fan always stuck there i grew up with that Now we have an expectation. And so it comes up, we expect a certain level of comfort, otherwise we're not staying. Well, what are we there for then? So again, it's not wrong to have nice seats, but what are we now catering to? Or are we really trying to make sure people have a right understanding? So it's just something for us to think about ourselves too. It can be distracting when you're not comfortable though. Like it can take away from trying to pay attention. It can be, but it's also, why is it distracting to us? We're so used to comfort. Yeah. Being inside is better. Yeah. So for them, it's just like, this is bad. Come on, stop it. You know, so they had actually the benches. That was the one place that we went to the mountains. Yeah. We went to the little. church thing where they had to send chairs. So the mosquitoes are going to eat you alive. So remember when we were meeting outside a couple years ago? Okay, we didn't have the nice chairs, we had those chairs. Or you stood, or you sat over on the picnic tables, or you brought your own chair or something. And you have precious times of worship, right? Because the mindset was different. That's what I'm talking about. We are just so used to catering that we don't think twice about how much we actually pursue the sensuality within our society. It's just part of what we are now. That just becomes a challenge as we have to be careful. What are we actually pursuing? What's actually important to us? How much effort is going to be put into achieving whatever level of comfort you demand, as opposed to what the focus is supposed to be, right? It seems like there's been like, uh, it's like me, it's just a pet peeve of mine, but there's a lot of churches, like where the mentality come as you are, like, I've seen people with pajama pants at church and like baseball caps. So what's that all about? It's a lack of reverence. So it is a complete lack of reverence. So what is being pursued instead of reverence, it's all about comfort. Come as you feel comfortable. Our associate pastor here a couple of years ago, Jim Zeger, he was coming, it was about a little over an hour for him to get here. He tried all the churches, even a friend of his, a pastor he knows there, only about 10 minutes from him. And he tried going there, he wanted to help and everything else. He said, but I can't get past, irreverence of the people while the guy is preaching, they're wearing their pajamas and they're eating their breakfast while he's preaching. And he said, I can't stay here. Yeah, so let's see, I'm gonna come worship God, pursuing sensuality and gluttony. At the same time, because that becomes part of it, And the reason that churches are now saying, just come as you are, it isn't from the standpoint as we're not here to judge you, we wanna give you the gospel. It is, we want you to feel comfortable. That immediately goes into, and what are they willing to preach on? Any of those churches of that mindset, and we don't have a dress standard here except modesty. It quickly ends up as they're not gonna talk about sin, because that makes people uncomfortable. So it fills together. What are we actually doing? Why do we do what we're doing or the pursuit? And that is one place that pops out, even within churches. So these are warnings. We don't want to yield to the lust of the flesh, the desires of the flesh. We're not ascetics. So we mortify the flesh, we beat it. That's not what we're talking about either. Okay, now there is a proper place to mortify the flesh. That's a biblical term, but we're not going to set a system that we think we're holy because we do that. That's not holiness either. That's the opposite. It's a perversion of the same problem. It actually is a perversion of this lust of the flesh. My desire is I see this, the idea of my flesh is evil and the spirit is good. So I'm going to do things by flesh. That's not what God creates your flesh for either. we have to have the proper understanding and pursue it God's way, okay? So less the flesh, the next is the less the eyes. This is the visual mental pursuits. We'll start with eye candy, pornography, okay? Matthew 5, 28, I say to you that everyone who looks on a woman with lust for her already has committed adultery with her in his heart. Job 31.1, Job gave the way to deal with this. I made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze on a virgin? I'm not looking. Okay. Last scene with men. Second Peter adds to it. Second Peter 2.14, having eyes full of adultery. What? Eyes full of it? He is talking about the sensory experience of I'm looking and that's where my mind is going. So it's a visual that affects the mental. Eyes having eyes full of adultery, they never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, a curse to children. In Leviticus 20, it uses the term, uncover their nakedness of people other than your spouse. To see them without their clothes on, with being in modest. All this is dealing with an improper view of humanity. And usually it's presented as the guy with the problem wanting to look at the woman, but it goes the other way too. especially now our society is getting more perverted. A lot of women now are addicted to pornography. Like that doesn't even make sense. And yet it's how our society is perverting the mindset even of our women. Okay, that's pornography. So that's the most blatant and the easiest to identify. But aesthetics are similar to sensuality. It's having things pleasing your sight And that's fine as long as that doesn't become the quest that dominates, okay? And that easily results in materialism because you need the material things in order to have the visual things I want around you. All of us have gone into homes that are very beautiful and they're done nicely. And we go, wow, this is nice. And they have a maid, they have butlers, they have people taking care of all that stuff, right? And you go home and go, I'm the maid, I'm the butler. I can't get it all done. So okay, I have my pile. My piles are nicely ordered and therefore I'm happy, right? I don't have a secretary to file everything for me. Okay, there's nothing wrong with having, you know, things look nice. Okay, it's decorate, okay? Why do men get married? Well, a lot of reasons, but one reason they should get married is she will make the place look a whole lot better than his man cave. All right, so how would I decorate? Well, my office is decorated the way I like. I have insects on the wall, right? The only ones Diane would allow me to have before I had my own room was the butterflies and moths because they're pretty. Okay. someone a Riker Mountain. Okay, she wants to appoint it. She wants it pleasing and that's fine. But what happens if it becomes that becomes everything? That becomes the focus. Then you don't get to have pets. No pets. Or kids. No kids, no pets. She it changes things. What are the priorities in life? And actually use that one, right? If you want a nice home, no kids, no pets, because they're going to mess things up, right? Or maybe it becomes about showing off wealth, which you can figure into the next one too. So again, there's nothing wrong with having things look nice, but is that where we put our energy? So a good passage dealing with this, Matthew 6, 19 through 24, do not store for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy. Thieves break in and steal. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in or steal. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. That's going to be the part of the problem. If your treasure is having all these things around so it looks a certain way, that's what you treasure. It's fine to have it, as long as it's not your treasure. Okay, the eye is the lamp of the body, so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. If your eye is bad, the whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. So you see the tie immediately into there's a materialism that comes with that. Okay. Other things that are related to that, visual experiences. All right, without giving away, I'll give you one. Actually, it was something we talked about in the prayer last night. Pete's mother-in-law is in the appropriate place, but the nieces and nephews want an aesthetic experience for a person who can't even recognize it. So they want to move her out of places actually taking care of her with the condition she has and say, wouldn't it be nicer if you're in Colorado and you see this beautiful view of the mountains? Well, the pursuit of aesthetics just ended up you can destroy the person, okay? So that's pushing it too, but there are people like that. They're so enamored to have certain things a certain way or having something pleasing them, they lose the practicality of what actually has to be accomplished, okay? This one will figure into pride too, the aesthetics of a vehicle, okay? You gotta wash it all the time, they gotta keep it just right. Well, everybody's seen my vehicles. You know, I don't believe that. I did try and get some of the rust off and I primed them a year ago. Well, actually I primed them, this is 2024, I primed them in 2022. Maybe I'll get a color code on it this year. I don't know, maybe not. I see there's a pragmatic standpoint. If it looks nice, fine. If it doesn't, fine. But does everything go into that? Okay. And I'll give myself on this one. I got a, about a 66 Mustang and I cherried it out. I spent a lot of time making that look just right. And the whole time I'm hand sanding, the whole thing spent most of the summer when I got off work, I'd be hand sanding. I even sanded the hubcaps so I could paint them to match the car. My dad says, look, I got this electric sander. We can get this all done in one day. Oh, dad, I'm going to. I'm going to get it just right. So all summer on that finally had a painted metallic blue at a scene of running horses in the back that matched it, had hubcaps matched. It was, it was cherried out. It looked good. Lasted maybe two months. Parking lot at school. So remember the day it was, Okay, I didn't do well on that test. It's raining and the lens of my glasses kept falling out. And I get to my car and someone backed into and smashed it. And my dad's words rang in my head. It's an old car. It gets you from point A to point B. Why are you doing this? The aesthetics of it. Prestige, I like to see it. There's nothing wrong with seeing a nice-looking car. I like going to car museums. I like seeing nice-looking cars. Like, wow, someone can have it look nice. But does that mean it needs to be the pursuit of your life to the point where it's eating up the time of your life? And that's why I tell that story. That's when I learned is the problem was not having a nice-looking car. The problem was how much time it was sucking up because I wanted it that way. Now that now moves into the next one, which is pride or evil. They're both private life. Why did I want it that way? Not just so that I could see it, but I could show it off. Right. I've had people, you had a 66 Mustang. I had a 64 and a half Mustang too. Now that would have been a real collector's item if I had kept it, but it was an old car. And I said, if you want those, you can have it. I had to work on that thing every weekend. No, thank you. I'll take a modern car. But it was the pride of it too. And that goes next on pride or ego. We are to be subject to ourselves to Christ as a slaves or be humbled. Pride is the original sin and Satan, it came quickly on us. Pride was part of what Satan enticed Eve with, right? Okay. It was, it looked, it was good for food. It was desirable to the eyes and desirable to make one wise. And that's what enticed her, okay? Pride. Proverbs 11, two, when pride comes, then dishonor with a humble as wisdom. Matthew 18, four, whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Philippians 2, 3 through 7, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. With humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also with the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he exists in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as a thing to be grasped. He emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of men. That's the example we're supposed to have. James 4, 6, repeated in 1 Peter 5, 5 and 6. He gives grace to the humble. Therefore it says, God is opposed to pride, he gives grace to the humble. God's opposed to pride. So pride pops out in a lot of different areas. It could pop out in your car. It can pop out in vanity. It's not just women who fall to this one. There are guys who fall to it as well. Proverbs 11, 22, as a ring of gold and a swine snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion. Her vanity actually makes her not look so good. Because the pride pops out in that. Proverbs 31, 30, charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. OK? First Peter 1.24, all flesh is like grass with all its glory, like the flower of grass, the grass withers and the flower falls off. Where's it gonna go? Ray Comfort had this picture of the fellow, I think that by, and that was, it was in his 80s. Wisdom guy all wrinkled up and shrunk, you know? And he would show this picture and the caption is like, Mr. America, 60 years earlier. This was Mr. America in 1924. Look, you can look like Mr. America, too. And you will, if you get old enough. Vanity, it goes quickly, right? I feel like all those stars and everything, they end up getting all these facelifts and they look so artificial. It's like, I'd rather just see a normally aged person than these women. Yeah, it's all tightened and they look like they're going oriental because they keep tightening the eyes. What's wrong with you? All right. They're like, I earned every gray hair here and I've earned every wrinkle. I'm not hiding them for anybody. The pride's right there, see it? It's up before the hoary head. All right. But beauty is faint. It's going to fade away, period. Fame, it is fleeting. You're not going to be remembered in the future, Ecclesiastes 111. No remembrance of earlier things, also the latter things, which will recur. There will be for them no remembrance among those who come later still. even among baseball statisticians or something, you know, throughout. Well, who won the World Series in 1939, and who was the most valuable player? I'm sure there's someone who can probably pop that off, right? Then I'd say, and who won the Nobel Prize that year? It wasn't their interest. Yep, that was important at the time, right? So who was a valedictorian in your high school class, and what happened to them? Ben Davis, he became a doctor. Say what? I have no idea. I don't know. I remember the 12 people were supposed to be lesions. And I remember I was invited to go on and you had to fill out this sheet and you're like, I'm not filling that out. It's a brag sheet. Forget it. I don't need it. So that was fame for a few moments. They got a special place in the yearbook. I think once the last time I looked at my 1976 yearbook, It's like all those honor societies. Now you're in college, like, oh, I got into this one and that one. And later, it's like, what the heck? It's good for nothing. They don't even care about it on your resume. It's like useless. Not usually. Well, if you get your college ring, you can have your honor society on your ring, which I do. But I can't get the ring on, so it's never done me any good. I think I wore it twice. Wow, isn't that impressive to people? Maybe if they find it in my box, I wonder what this is. Curiosity. That was a waste of 70 bucks. 70 bucks was a lot of money back then. Man, I could have bought a car. Not a good one, but. Okay, fame. Fame is fleeting. You're going to be forgotten. And yet, how much people pursue that. Power, ultimately, it only comes from God. It will hold your response for use of it and you will be replaced. All right. President Joe should understand that he's going to be replaced. I thought I heard an amen. Okay, Daniel 4 at 3435, the wisdom that Nebuchadnezzar got. The end of that period of being an insane guy out in the back 40 grazing around out there, I Nebuchadnezzar raised my eyes toward heaven. My reason returned to me and I blessed the most high praise and honored him for him who lives forever. His dominion is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, but he does according to his will and the host of heaven among the inhabitants of the earth. And no one can ward off his hand or say to him, what have you done? If that's true for kings, it's true in every area of life. You will be replaced. If you live long enough, you will see who replaces you, but you may not even see that, will you? Proverbs 13, one, every person to be subject to the governing authorities, there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. That's where it comes from. Ecclesiastes 4.16, there is no end to all the people, to all who were before them, and even the ones who will come later will not be happy with him, for this too is vanity and striving after the wind. Ecclesiastes 2.18 and 19, thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool, yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun, This, too, is vanity. How many foundations are there in the United States that were started off well, had a good purpose, and they were left to fools? Almost all of them. Very few stay true to their things. So whatever it is, so lust the flesh, lust the eyes, boastful pride of life, all these things, there is a place for it. There's a place for power. There's a place for fame. There's a place for beauty, not vanity, but beauty, okay? I hope you comb your hair in the morning, okay? I was thinking last night, I'm like, man, I didn't even shave. That's not a good way to impress Pete, right? What kind of passion do you have? You're kind of a roughneck over there. there's a proper place for all these things. But when it gets out of the balance, that's where the problem comes. And that's where the counseling is going to come in, in this whole area of hedonism. How do you get people to understand what God has actually said about the subject, and where they have shifted off someplace, so that they think life somehow has meaning and satisfaction in these pursuits, rather than in God himself, and doing it his way. So that's where the case studies come in. So let's start on those. Conversation with a young man in your church, you find out that he's been struggling with his lustful thoughts. He watches a lot of TV. Now we'd have to say media, because TV in all sorts of ways, media, questionable movies. Recently started viewing pornography on the internet. What can you do to help? So what is the identifying, presenting problem. Lustful thoughts. So the idea that the presenting problem, he has lustful thoughts. What is the identifying problem emotion? He's struggling. Now that at least clues you in that at least He recognized the lessful thoughts are wrong. You're going to be running into a whole lot of them out there that don't even recognize that anymore. They think that's normal. It should just be the way it is, right? But he at least understands it. So there's the emotion. I'm struggling with this. So there could be a mixture of emotions with that and not struggling. What's the identifying problem behavior? You're on pornography. Pornography is going to be part of it because it's the initial behavior has now led all the way down to actual pornography, right? So there's more behaviors that began that, but now you've gotten to, it's gotten so bad, he's now into pornography. But you know, like when we watch media or movies where things have been accepted with more revealing of building or modeling or whatever, even in cartoons with, when you look at superheroes, the guys have all the armor and then the women come out with bikini, like how you gonna go to war with that? You know? It's the attraction and that it's accepted. And then now you move into like maybe sitcoms and now these, it all turns into soft porn. And it's just like, it keeps moving towards that to where you just go and seek it out. I think that's the whole purpose of mediating was to desensitize you to the next level. Right, right. So it's not just the pornography, it's what led to it, but now it's gotten so bad, he's actually pornography. Now that's important to recognize because you're going to have to deal with more than just the pornography. That's just the more identifying behavior that is now, it's gotten that bad, but the other behavior is bad too, okay? So he's feeding these lustful thoughts by what he's allowing to his mind, it's now gotten into pornography, okay? What is the problem thinking here? A lot of it I think is what Mark just said, right? Okay? it's become accepted. So it just consumed more and more and more. And here's a guy who's presenting cases that it's started here and it gets more and more and more and more. And it's a downward spiral down into the pit. Also like a general belief that it's harmless. And that's where it is gotten. Okay. Is it harmless? Is it possible to ask some questions? Yeah, go ahead. Like his views of, what are your views of pornography to see where he's at, you know? Yeah, you want to, definitely. Questioning? Ask a lot of questions. Okay. Okay, what is the view of his pornography? What else you might ask him? What triggers, what are the triggers? Okay. How often you watch it? All right, how about asking, what do you think about when you're watching it or looking at it? Do you see it? Right, that too. What's your emotions when you see this stuff? Now back it up a little bit, ask some questions about, well, what about this other stuff you're watching? What does that make you think? Okay, again, when you're counseling someone, it's better to ask questions than it is to make statements. If you ask questions and let them come up with the answer, they will see it a lot better themselves, because now they can recognize it. How does this make you feel? What does it make you think? Is that a good thing to be thinking? What do you think God thinks about you thinking this way? You're watching this movie. Jesus says he's with us always, so he's sitting there on the couch with you. Do you think he's enjoying this movie with you? Tell me about that. Would you invite Jesus to come watch this with you? Because he's with you. Okay, prod those things, ask questions, because the person has got to start coming to grips with what's really true here. Now, one reason you can do with this guy, he already says he's struggling. So there's some indication he knows it's wrong. But you want to back it up to try and get to the core issues, okay? I also add on to that too. It's like another problem with this as well is when let's say I've been sneaky and then I haven't been caught. So now I feel like, well, I can do it again. more because I have been caught. Or I twist it in my mind, let's say like I'm a, you know, worship leader. Well, God is still using me, so it must not be bad enough. And you try to reason with yourself doing that. Right. But even, I mean, it's hard to say, but if he's struggling with it, he knows he's wrong, right? So theologically, I think he should be okay knowing he's wrong. But what I find is the questionable material usually is, I'm bored, so I want to watch TV. But let's be honest, in today's society, there's nothing that the world has to offer. I mean, there's very few movies you can actually sit down, even cartoons. So now, OK, I'm tired, I'm exhausted, and I want to watch something, but there's nothing to watch. Then you have to figure out another form of entertainment. It could have not even started with pornography. It could have been he probably defeated pornography, but because he's tired, exhausted, he wants entertainment. And he's seeking it instead of seeking another form of entertainment. Just don't think that you can just skip it, because that five seconds triggers something. It entices, the desire awakens up. And that five second here, and that five second, and even if you forward it. But eventually, that leads to the pornography. You can't help it. Sometimes it even happens when you're on YouTube. That's true. You could be looking for a car. I remember one time I was looking for RCs to build KMRC. And sure enough, a woman pops up with a RC. No women like RCs. But this one did. And she was dressed a certain way. So it starts right there. So now you have to say, OK, what am I going to do? Am I going to keep reaching to RCs? And I'm going to get myself in trouble? Or do I say, you know what, there's a hobby shop around here somewhere. Let's go drive and we'll take a look there. You have to make decisions. Because a lot of times it doesn't just start here. I mean, it doesn't end in pornography. It starts with something like entertainment. You know, wanting to watch something or not doing the work dominates. He watches kids with his movie. He's like five seconds ahead, just in case. That's a lot of work. I'd rather just not watch the movie, you know, but that's me. I'm lazy. But after a while, you got it. My son asked me, and I'm like, we're not watching nothing, OK? If it's not, you know, I'm not going to sit there and watch a cartoon and be two seasons in, and then one of the characters is gay. And that happened to us. with two seasons in the great anime, you know, everything good. And I don't know where two guys kissing. It's like we're pumpling with the controller and, but it's already soft. We saw it already. You understand now that's something I struggle with, but. Well, we're glad you had enough self-control. You just didn't shoot the TV. Well, that's what I wanted to. You know, you watch something that should be neutral. Like, one year I went to my dad's to watch the Super Bowl. I don't have a TV connection, so I only see it at my parents. And, you know, you're watching the Super Bowl. Fine, it's a sports game. Then the halftime show comes on. And the halftime shows are, like, totally demonic. And it's like, you know, I don't go see the Super Bowls anymore. I'm not into sports anyway. you know, there you are doing something that should be innocent. You're watching a sports show. There should have nothing to do with women in skimpy outfits and all this other stuff. But then all of a sudden, halftime, and boom, there it is. Well, you also have the cheerleaders, right? Yes, I was just going to say. No, and you start to realize when you do, when you study scriptures and you see, there is no such thing as neutral, realistically. It might be presented as that, you know, but it's not neutral. Go to a kid's football game and look at the parents. All right, so you want to. you want to help this guy sort of understand that as you clarify his thinking is that there is no neutral here. All right, so what about the whole claim that I have freedom to view such things? It doesn't affect me. Can I say something? Go ahead, Savita. Um, it seems to me that at the beginning of this, um, this, uh, the young man says that he has been struggling with lustful thoughts. So before he got into watching the media and all these other things, he was already having a thought life that was sinful. Yeah. And so it seems to me that that needs to be addressed first because I don't know who was that pointed out, but you know, sin, Begins in your heart and James says that that it begins in your heart and then it takes root and then it grows and you know eventually you end up dead. So I think the the first thing that needs to be addressed is you know his thought life. Why are you indulging in that? And that's what you're trying to do. You're going to start asking questions to try to clarify what is he thinking you're identifying that. And as you've identified that, and you're gonna start with what's obvious and you're working your way back, is this isn't just pornography, it's all this has come up because there's already a problem right from the beginning. This is just revealing where the problem lies or maybe enticing it. So now you have to start teaching biblical commands concerning the area. So volition, right? He's making a choice. And a lot of times people don't recognize they're making choices. They think they have to, but you're making a choice. Period. Okay. He's making a choice to do things that are feeding these sinful thoughts. Okay. The rational. What is he is, what is he thinking in terms of his rationality? That's not that bad. Not that bad. You're not actually doing it. Is he thinking about holiness? All right, where should our rational circle be? I'm thinking through things, but I'm thinking through things in terms of what does God say about these things? How should I then proceed based on what God said? That's not there. Or if it is there, it's certainly squashed by everything else. Okay, for the personal, this pursuit, right from the beginning, it's certainly on the worldly side, isn't it? At minimum. So he's somewhere in here is what are your thoughts toward your purpose in life? How is it you're going this way? What are you actually after? What do you think life is about? And does this fit with that? What does God say your life is about? Does it fit with that? So you want to start prodding there. So you're going to have to teach the biblical commands, and then clarify biblical thinking for him. So that deals with a lot of the verses we've already gone with. You're gonna have them memorize some of those things. Okay, here's Romans passage one, make no provision for the flesh to pursue its lust thereof. Okay, make no provision. Get rid of your stuff. You have to, right? Scripture just the other day, as you said before, like boredom, I think there's Proverbs 19, 15 says, thoughtfulness casts us into a deep sleep and an idle soul shall suffer hunger. And I think like a lot of sin starts like in that idle time where you let your mind work instead of letting your body do something constructive. I haven't missed in a long time since I've ever been bored. Even when I try and take an opportunity to get bored, I got too many things to do. But that is a lot of our society, right? They have free time. Yeah, Mark. I'm just saying, like, isn't that so funny. So it's like when people don't understand that, especially, you know, they're not safe. And then you trying to speak to them about it. They're like, Oh, you don't have TV, you don't, you don't do these things. It's like, how are you having fun? It's like, I'm so busy. I can't even, I can't even remember when me and Chris just sat down and watched like a two and a half hour movie. Like when? Right. And it's just funny to me that it's like, on the, when, with worldly eyes, it's like, they think that you are missing a whole lot but we're not you know they're missing a lot yes okay and they substitute something that's worthless for the opportunity. They could have had to do something very worthwhile. And something about idleness, maybe a warning to parents, I don't know. But when I was a kid, I had a bedtime that was a certain time, like nine o'clock, eight o'clock, whatever, but I couldn't fall asleep until 11 o'clock. So I needed something to keep my mind busy. And obviously, you know, I'm sharing with my sister, I have to have the light out. And I just started daydreaming. And if you know the staging became like this soap opera thing and it was like I had all these characters it's like the same characters just the story but it was like so full of sin you know like when I was younger it was like full of all this occult kind of things and witchcraft and stuff when I got older it was like other kinds of sin mixed in and yeah it's important to um you know maybe make sure kids like have something to fill their minds with. and a good book and they can read out of the covers. Well, I wasn't, you know, because I wasn't raised in a truly Christian family, you know, maybe a Christian would be like their kids would know if you have the kids memorize the Bible, you can say, you know, if you can't sleep at night, repeat your memory verses or something like make sure you have something that they know like to use so they don't end up falling into a trap like that where they just start daydreaming and it goes out of control because they don't want to think. So now you're going to have to start. You've You're gonna teach biblical commands concerning all these things, including, and you can see this, there's a wide range of things you're probably gonna end up dealing with, even to idleness to all the rest of it. You know, deal with the presenting problems first and work your way backwards. So one here would be a Proverbs 6, 27, can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Okay, this is not something you can handle, okay? The mind has to be trained to think about the right things, right? Think about whatsoever things are good and honest and just and pure and lovely, a good report, virtuous, praiseworthy. How does that fit? So Flipkens 4.8 makes a good TD guide, make a big banner and just put the verse there and stick it in it. If it doesn't match this, then don't watch it. Psalm 1, the godly man avoids the counsel of the ungodly. So if this is where you're, going to be entertained, or to be amused, well, what do you expect? Now, of course, that also applies to stuff that might be legitimate, including watching news, or something, you know, a learning channel, or something, right? Well, are you still pursuing what God wants? That's the biblical mindset you want. Are you pursuing those things which God says you should be doing? Or are you letting other things take you away? Psalm 119, nine through 11, how can a young man keep his way pure by keeping for me thy word? With all my heart I sought thee, do not let me stray from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I'm not lessened against you. So yeah, so it goes something that Michelle said is train them, memorize verses. Get the person to start memorizing verses. You always want to be doing that with people you're counseling, is get a verse that is going to the immediate problem. Help them clarify how the problem developed, understand the true nature. Now, is all this going to happen in one session? Probably not. It might take you a while to dig through those things. But before you leave any time, always get at least one thing, very practical, that they can do. They're going to make a choice. In this case, one would be is you are going to make a choice here. You're going to flee lust and pursue godliness. Okay. What's the practical side of that? Well, you're going to work through that stuff, right? A, get a filter so you can't get this stuff. It's going to be harder for you to stumble into it. get an accountability, get software that reports to somebody else. It's not just basic stuff, right? So you're gonna start there, but you wanna keep working back to what Sabita was talking about earlier is to the core issues, okay? But you wanna start with what is most obvious, gain a commitment there so they can start seeing some success and then keep building on that and working your way back to the heart of the real problem, okay? Because again, the idea is to get to that personal circle. What do you think life really is about? What you don't wanna do is end up what ends up happening a lot of these, like this kind of cases. Okay, you got rid of the pornography. Congratulations, instead you're just watching soft porn and you won't talk about that way. You're watching the romance novels or reading them or something and it's all in your mind, at least you're not looking at pictures. Your pictures in your mind are much more vibrant than anything else that can even be Photoshopped. So that's not going to solve the issue. It's what's behind it. And that's why Sabita was saying, you want to get to that. That doesn't mean you're not going to even say it. You might just start at the beginning and say, here's your problem. How are we going to get to it? Let's start working practical things. That's going to be the rare individual, unless it's a situation where the person's not a Christian, and now suddenly becomes a Christian as you share the gospel. The gospel is going to come in here, and they become a Christian, you may be able to get to the first issues right from the beginning, and have a changed life. But if you're dealing with someone who is not a Christian, you're going to work your way back and keep pointing to the gospel to them. A Christian who's struggling with these things, you're going to have to keep pushing them toward what is true godliness. You don't seem to understand it. All right, let's go to the second one. You developed a good friendship with a woman who is boarding on being morbidly obese. She has a wonderful personality, fun to be with. You've noticed that when she eats, she can really pile it on. You've also noticed she talks a lot about food. How can you help her? So presenting problem. Morbid obesity, okay. All right. So morbid obesity is beyond fat. Actually, fat is used to present as a good thing in scripture, okay? Not morbidly obese, that's beyond and morbid obesity is detrimental to your health, okay? There's where it's gonna go. All right, so how did she get to morbid obesity? You already noticed that when she eats. So what is that? Blotting. Blotting. Okay. So there's presenting problem. Probably emotion. She hasn't stated it. You just noticed it. What questions will you ask to find out what the problem emotion is? When did she start eating more than usual? Okay. You're going to do that. But for her, she might say, I've always ate this way, but I wonder, look at, I didn't start this yesterday. You said that she talked a lot about food. She's talking a lot about food. Okay. So ask them direct questions, right? Yes. What their weight was like when they were younger. Maybe you can pinpoint them. Well, you might, but let's start with just the simple things first. The problem emotion. Okay. She obviously has some emotions related to food. talks a lot about it. Well, how do you feel about food? It's just ask some direct things, right? I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah. What does food do for you? Other than just keep making you larger and larger and larger. Okay. Ask a more direct one. How do you actually feel about your weight? Do you like being like this? You may find there's a mixture of emotions. She enjoys food, but she doesn't like this part. Okay. Before I even looked at these notes, I had almost this exact scenario, Sunday night. And it was with a woman and it's like, it's very, you know, it's just, it was funny how this came up like that. We talked for probably Sunday night. Okay, so what's the problem behavior? Overeating. Overeating to the point of morbid obesity, point of physical harm. Problem thinking. You're gonna have to ask questions on this, right? Okay, why do you eat so much? See if you can start asking some questions related to if she finds security in food. Is it just a lack of self-control? Is it this has been her training and she thinks this is what you're supposed to do? you know, sort of is something she's thinking something you got to explore that to try and think what is she actually thinking about to explain why she does that? What's the reasons for her behavior? What is she trying to achieve? Is she seeing if she can get on that 600-pound show, you know, and win some money or something? Who knows, right? Find out, you ask a lot of questions. Okay, you're gonna have to teach biblical commands concerning it. So what are some biblical commands or at least identifying what problems she's got? So volition, any biblical commands about her choices? Okay, any of the verses about blotting would fit here, right? Here are biblical commands. You are choosing to eat. This is a choice. This is what God says about your choice. For her rational, hopefully you've explored that. What's behind your reason? Does she even recognize it's a problem? A lot of times they don't even really recognize it. There's a whole thing in our society now, it's like, celebrate fat. What? You constantly find yourself almost like lying to yourself when, uh, over the past year, I used the first, uh, first Corinthians three 18, but no one to see themselves. That was my biggest issue. So, uh, actually good Friday of last year, I started like on a weight loss journey to healthier. And I dropped 120 pounds since last year. That's why it's a woman like reached out to me. I think I found some of it. Yeah, it was blinds myself. The whole thing was, you know, portion size. Like when you, when you, I would look at it or just like not look at the ingredients at all, not look at the number of calories. I would just say, okay, I'm going to eat a sleeve of girl scout cookies. You know, that's probably one 200. Yeah, probably not. That's probably a lot. Yeah. And it was just constantly like, like when I, when I finally decided to lose the weight, I hadn't gotten a scale in like a year. And I stepped on, I was 347, so I was morbidly obese. And the first thing that came to my head was, my pants probably weigh this much. My belt must weigh like 11 pounds. Next thing I know, I had myself down to like 325. And I just had two cups of coffee. And I was justifying. I was lying to myself. And when I really looked at it and I got into scripture about it, that's literally how I lost the weight. It wasn't really that difficult when I just started applying like all these concepts, find out this, the sin wasn't as it wasn't just the food, it was everything that caused the food to go in me. And it was, yeah, so I just, I constantly looked at the first minute 318, like no one to see themselves, because I just, I was constantly deceiving myself. And even to this day, like I round up on calories now, and I say, Okay, this is what I eat for dinner, I'm gonna round that up to the nearest hundred, then just Go, go the opposite direction instead of justifying. And that's what you have to do with this woman is your actress changing her mindset toward things but you gotta find out where it is first. Yeah. So we're talking about counseling situations, right? I mean, but this woman has not actually complained about her weight or how much she's eating or any of those things. So if I was a good friend, I would just directly say to her, you're shortening your lifestyle by being so heavy. And you need to get some exercise. And that's why it was presented this way. It's that you have a good friendship with a person. You're noticing them as, are you going to say anything? Or do you go find some young, strong men to be pallbearers? Because it's going to take young, strong men to carry her. But what if you're not self-deceived? Do you know how to lose weight? You know how to eat healthy, but you can't stop thinking about food and you can't stop the cravings. That's why you have to start exploring what's behind it. And that becomes the next one. So what's in the personal circle? Why is your focus so much on food? Okay, that may lead you to all sorts of things. I mean, here's a common one I've seen. Mama, every time the kid does something good, what's the reward? everything's always food everything's it's always a food celebration not a pat on the back or you know something to have it's always food and so you've actually trained the person to think that food means good food is my celebration food is my reward or people praise you when you eat a lot like oh she has such a good appetite or um could be hurt she also faster uh shame having shame, self-worth issues that, you know, not pretty enough or hurts, past hurts. And they just stuff their face just to kind of quiet down the thoughts or how they feel about themselves. Hey, here's one that pops up along the idea of shame, is a woman who's been raped. She purposely will become morbidly obese. and will be unkempt because she wants no man ever attracted to her. I mean, you don't know where it's going to go. And that's why you have to ask a lot of questions. Don't assume, ask questions. See if you can find out what's behind this. What is it that's attracting you so much to food? Why do you have it this way? Okay. And it may take a while to explore to find out what's really there. If it was related to being raped, You may not want to be anywhere near telling you about that if you're a good friend. But you may be able to start getting somewhere just if you start seeing areas of self-protection. Or her idea is like, I look just fine. It's a vicious cycle to just like drinking, you have all the side effects of drinking, being hungover, being tired. And you say, I can take a drink to get rid of that feeling. You're overweight and you can't. You're like, I would love to go make a dinner for myself, a nice healthy dinner. And you say, But I'm tired, so tonight I'm going to order a pizza. Yeah. And always order something that's comfort food, right? OK, another thing here is going to be the personal circle. You're trying to find out what's there, but you're also teaching. What are the biblical commands concerning this? Here's how God says you should be food. So as Alex said, what changed you? Getting a godly perspective on food flipped everything around. because now you're able to do the things that were necessary because your whole view of food now changed. And until that does change, yeah, it's always gonna be a struggle because you're struggling against what you actually really want and some other pressures on you, okay? Sometimes it's a replacement too. Like for me, I was an alcoholic, so I replaced alcohol with food. She might have something that she's replacing in her life too. Teach some biblical accounts about what just self-control is, because that's going to be an issue. God wants to be self-controlled. How is this demonstrating self-control? What does God want in your life? Without the emphasis on it, it's not your appearance he's concerned about, it's your heart, it's your mindset that goes with your heart. So what is his? If it's wrong view of food, then If it's about food brings me comfort, then well, what should satisfy you? Where does God want you to go? That's where you're gonna have to lead them, okay? If life is about food, you're gonna go this direction. You're gonna have to start identifying these reasons why the excess, because if you don't get to the underlying problem, dieting isn't gonna work. You're going to have success for a while. You may even do radical things. They can lose a lot of weight, but still not going to work. It's going to come right back up. That's why most people are on the yogurt diet. Okay. I don't like it this. So they get down to their ideal weight, but nothing's changed in their habits or mindset. And they're going to be right back where they were. Okay. There may be radical things have to be done. They might even have to have surgery, but you know, they don't do, the tie in the stomach, unless you already demonstrate enough self-control to lose weight, they won't even do it. There's a stewardship aspect as well. How much money are you spending on food, especially with inflation on food so much? How do you afford this? I can't, you should see my, now you got a whole new letter here, right? My dead load is as large as I am, okay? The delayed response on that one. A direct memorization of scriptures dealing with the underlying issues as they get exposed. Use the Matthew 4, 4, 1. Man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. How would he even know his word? So you're going to have to be doing some discipleship. Secure some volitional commitment on something, diet, exercise is certainly gonna be part of it, but more so is how about getting them to memorize some scripture, get a commitment. Can you memorize at least one scripture this week? And then we're gonna talk about how that affected you, how it changed your view of something, okay? Plan and carry out biblical behavior. And you'd be very pragmatic on this part, right? Portion size, let me start with it. Here's one, don't serve family style meals. Leave it on the stove, go put your stuff on your plate, eat your plate. If it's still sitting there, it disappears. Okay. And if you have a lot of sons, they will make it all disappear. We get a, a nice loin or something, you know, about that big. And it's, we think two meals, maybe even three. When you get one, what did you boys do? Didn't even notice it. Another piece, another piece. I'm always asking, are we up to four pounds? So then of course. I just had a question. Is it okay to get the person to understand that enjoying food is not the problem? you know, you can with, you know, the understanding that you have the fruit of the hospital, which is self-control, exercise self-control, you can still enjoy food and still look forward to having food. It's not, food is not the problem. Correct. So I'll go back to what Savita said about the last one that you got to get to the underlying issue. That's where you're going to be working the most. The, the diet and all that kind of stuff is actually secondary to get your mind right. have a right mindset. The other stuff should be the pragmatic stuff of how do you get now back into control so that you can end up without the dangers you're currently in, because the morbidity of lucidity is you're gonna shorten your life. You won't be there for your kids or grandkids, or you won't be here for ministry, okay? Maybe they have a death wish. You don't know what you're gonna find, okay? Could be all sorts of things that pop up. But as they move toward doing the right things, of course, identify those things and encourage it. All right, number three, you've been called by a friend to help deal with their spouse. They're getting drunk every weekend for the last few months. They deny having a drinking problem and claim that since Jesus turned water into wine, it must be okay to enjoy it. How can you help? Okay, presenting problem. Drunkenness. Okay. And ignorant pride. Okay. Probably emotion. Defensive. Okay. Just because the drinking is the identifying problems and the emotion may be related to a different issue. Okay. The drinking is only one issue here. The response to even having pointed out as a different issue. They're related. but he has an emotion, he's defensive. Okay. That's an emotion or a behavior. Defensiveness is an emotion. Yeah. You're, you're hitting something that's, that's hitting him where it hurts. And so the reaction is going to be a defensiveness, but there's an emotion right behind it. What would the emotion be? You don't know yet. Okay. So the emotion is still a question. Could be fear, could be pride, could be. Okay, but defensiveness is an aspect of an emotional expression. Okay, the only reason I know this is because I was always accused of, you're being defensive. Why do you say it? Because it's the way you're saying things. Oh, there's emotion in my voice. You're defensive, okay. All right, behavior is obvious. Right? Drinking to excess. Problem thinking. Denial. Denial. Okay. Denial. He's got a problem and a denial that of what the scriptures even say, right? Even trying to justify the Bible allows a little wine justifies my excessive drinking. There's, there's a real rational problem there. Okay. denial as Ed just said, they're not drinking. So the book of commands to start with. This person also seems to be misunderstanding or misusing the bible just because jesus turned water into wine does not make it okay for you to get drunk every weekend so understanding of god's word seems to be not there yeah so he knows it enough to use it for his own purposes you're going to find that's very common for people right i know the word well enough to use it to justify myself. So here's an effort. So drinking is contrary to godliness. It's dissipation. Yeah, just call it what it is. First Timothy three, two and eight deals with that. Do with the other ones. Wine's a mocker. Strong drink is a brawler. He who's intoxicated is not wise. You're not wise. You can be direct. Okay. So drinking to becoming drunk is sin, call it that. They're justifying getting drunk, that's contrary to godliness, be direct about it. Okay, you're gonna explore, well, why do you wanna get drunk? And why are you only getting drunk on weekends? Probably because I'm gonna lose the job. Well, what's gonna happen though? After a while, it won't stay just weekends. Well, what's happening to his family? What's happening to the relationships he has? What's already happening because of it? Let me start trying to point out where the effects of what is already going on is happening. All right, we already know that drinking tends to be, from what Proverbs 31 says, those who have no hope. So what are you trying to escape through drinking? What is it about the buzz that you want? Okay, what is the... Numbing, that's trying to numb feelings. So, point those things out, expose it. Okay, that's part of teaching the biblical commands concerning it. Clarify biblical thinking. You're going to have to... you're always gonna be starting with the gospel, but where does this fit in for this person? Is this person claiming to be saved? If so, how does this fit with that claim? If they're not, then clarify that where you're gonna go from a biblical standpoint, here's the descent down. So you go to Proverbs, here's the steady decline into a mess, okay? reeling back and forth and don't even know what happened to you, don't even know why you're damaged, how you got hurt, because that's where it's going to go. And if he's already getting drunk every weekend, I can guarantee he's probably already having some of that. Okay, press for some kind of commitment. It may just be, so you can get them to agree to accept help. Okay, you may be going a long way on this one, just from the, if you can get them just to recognize it is a problem. Okay, because they're already trying to say it's not. Okay, understand in all counseling, these are the last couple of cases. They're not people who came to you for help. These are people you recognize the problem was or someone else brought it to you. They want you to help them with somebody else. So not all counseling is going to be received because they don't even want it. And you may not be able to do anything. If a drunk does not want to change, can you help them? No. You know, the only thing you really can do is try and get them to understand they do need to change. There becomes a desire on their part. Something has to change. And sometimes interventions work where enough people come in to say, this is actually what's happening. Here's reality. Because there's a disconnect from reality on purpose. Here's what you're losing. There's medical issues with drunkenness. There's loss of job. There's loss of family. There's all these things are part of it. it can be really bad, okay? All right, number four. As you walk by the men's bathroom at church, you hear agitated voices. You stop to find out what is going on. You discover one man is asking the other to continue a homosexual relationship. The other indicates he thinks it is wrong, but the first man continues to plead for one more episode. What will you do? And the answer is not, Get the pastor. That was what I thought first thing. It's like, on this one, I'm getting the pastor. Yeah, OK, we're getting the big guns. No, I actually had someone say is, you throw in a hand grenade, and then I'll clean up the mess later. OK. No, that's not the answer. OK. Well, it depends on who it is. It won't be a hand grenade, but if it's my son, I might get a two by four. And that's not for your son. you know, be the other person. Okay, what is the problem? Obvious, right? Okay, perverted sexual relationship aggravated by an aggressive partner, okay? Intervene and confront. Okay. So not to take what Michelle said lightly, but you may need to go get help. All right. You definitely shouldn't interfere. You should get, you should get help. You get help. Okay. And the same thing that it's, it's the women's bathroom. You hear it. Okay. Uh, you, you get some help. Okay. So don't feel like you have to be able to solve everyone's problem. You don't, but you do have to get things started. So you may have to go get some help. Okay. Problem. Emotion. Okay. There's at least there's agitated voices. So there's at least some anger. There seems to be some fear there. One is pleading. There could be quite a few different things. I hope you do realize homosexuals are extremely insecure people. They By hands down, they are the most insecure people I've ever had to work with. So there's going to be a lot of stuff there. The problem, well, the homosexual relationship to begin with. But there's also the aggressive pleading of the sodomite. Something serious is going there. You have two people you're trying to work with. Problem thinking should be pretty obvious, right? Now one's recognized it's wrong and the other one? So on a pursuit, okay. So one's correctly trying to cut off the relationship and the other is fearful of a future without it. And so pleading, now pleading for one more episode. Do you think it's gonna stop there? Of course not. It's like, oh, one more chocolate before I go to bed. And the only time that happens is when there's no more in the bag. And there's no more in the house. There's one more in the bag. You can't leave just one. That's Lay's potato chips. And then you don't want to eat it because you can only one is never enough. So. All right, so one's recognizing God's design for human sexuality, repenting, the other still maintaining a perverted idea. So you're intervening. So it's not going to be sitting down and just having a nice chat with folks. OK, you're going to be very strong and direct or get someone who can be. Would it be helpful to have at least two people? Would that count to make them feel... Well, you can start with the fact that you just overheard this. So are you going to go in the bathroom? What you want, because it's the men's bathroom. In my case, I would probably go to you or one of the other men in the church that I knew was maybe an elder, someone who was a faithful churchgoer. rely on their judgment. But for them, I would think that would be best to maybe have like two people go and not just one. But someone's got to go in. Right. All right. And you're in front. And it is a confrontation. And you may have to end up separating them. You might tell the one who's saying no. It's like, I'm going to talk to you later. You go. We're talking to the other guy, OK? Or you may have two people. You're going to go see so-and-so, and I'm going to deal with you. all right but it's not going to be a passive thing you have to be very active you have to intervene okay volitionally each is choosing what they desire either pursuit of sinfulness or a fleeing from sin okay Isn't it possible in a case like this that one of them might start to become violent if someone else walks in on them? Could be. And then what would you do? Just like back down and walk away? Assuming you're the guy, of course, because I wouldn't go in there to begin with. No, that's where you want to have extra help. You may or may not have that available, but you're going to want to have that. And if they are going to get violent, you're going to have to be ready for that. If you're not ready for it, you better make sure you have someone around you. You got a security guy. Okay. They're the ones with the hand grenades. Also could be borderline criminal activity. You know, boys, you know, exposure and these an exposure, uh, you don't need a prison and be a pedophile as well. Good thing you can be dealing with all sorts of stuff. At one point, it'd be very easy if you had the police come, too, because this would be against the law. We don't have that now. It used to be, right? Yeah, very much so. I have a question about this. Yes. Now, I disagree with this position, but I've heard it said that for homosexuals, as long as they're not acting on their desires, they're okay, that there can be homosexual Christians. Now, I disagree with that because God created man and woman. So I guess my question is, Why do people say that, that you can be a celibate homosexual and a Christian? Well, the same way that guys try to justify their involvement with pornography. It's just in my mind. I've heard. Not just in your mind. The sin is in your heart. It may or may not be expressed outwardly. And yeah, that's become a very common one. There's a whole realm within Christianity, especially liberal or woke Christianity trying to push this idea. Well, as long as they're celibate homosexuals, that is the same thing as saying it's just as long as the guy is celibate in his pornography, celibate in his fantasies, celibate in his womanizing, celibate in his, there's a problem in the heart and it has to be dealt with. So I mean, that's just very direct. There's a direct correlation. The problem with the homosexuality though, it's also perverse. And that perversion itself is something that is contrary to God's desire for man. And so our goal has to be is what Jesus told us to do is take every thought captive to obedience to Christ. So the quote unquote, some of the homosexual who thinks he's justified by that is not taking every thought captive to Christ, just as the guy who is a girl watcher, he's not taking every thought captive to Christ, okay? Or any of the others where it's a mind thing. We happen to be teaching toward what does the scripture say we're supposed to be, not with this, well, how far can we go to tolerate somebody in their sin? That's kind of the mindset that as long as they're not harming anybody else, it's okay. That's not true. You're harming yourself and God's against that too. So you are harming other people. Okay. And if it's, and you have other relationships and this is still in your mindset, you are harming other people because you're not in the relationship. You should be not having the interaction that you shouldn't be. You're harming other people because you're viewing If men are viewing women as sex objects, here's a man who's just using other men as sex objects because he's still maintaining the same mindset. Now it's just a perverted one, but it's still the same sin. Okay, so these are serious issues. So you're gonna have some strong conversations with them. Now, the one who's unrepentant, okay, this is a church. Okay, this is the bathroom at church. This isn't you walking by, you know, in a public place. Even in a public place, you might want to intervene and tell the guy, leave this other guy alone. He said no. Why do you not get that? Okay, and give the other guy an opportunity to escape. But this is a church, so you are going to be pursuing all the steps that go into church discipline as well. Okay, the same what you would do if you heard some guy pressuring a woman about being sexually active, you do the same thing. Okay, now we threw this one in this homosexual because that was the case that came up, but it's still the same thing as if he was pursuing some woman to oppress her. Because essentially he's looking to fornicate or adultery, or rape. In this case, he's pressing, so it's already stated unwanted. If he's doing that for a woman, wouldn't you intervene? So don't get so wrapped up with the homosexuality itself that you don't see that the same principles apply across the board. Does that help, Savita? Yes. Sorry. So it's really two issues in this one. There's the general homosexuality issue. And then there's the force, you know, the one person trying to force himself on the other. It's really two separate issues that are overlaying each other. Okay. And you have two individuals. So one, you're going to help. He is repentant. They need to grow. You need to get them in counseling with, he's going to grow and keep encouraging them away from this old lifestyle. because this is going to be used against them and you need to get him to where he's going to stand strong and the other one's going to be had to confront it with is this is sin it's flagrant sin and this has to stop immediately now you're going to get in counseling is do you or do you not want to change do you do you not want to do what god wants so it's more confrontive okay especially when they are a threat to somebody else Okay, so there's a lot here. You're going to pursue sin or you're going to flee from sin. You're going to eventually try and get into what is the reason for your desires this way. Why are you forcing that on somebody else? Okay, sexual perversion usually has some element in it that sexual activity is required for meaning of life. Okay, whether that's acting with somebody else or it's masturbation or something like that. There's something in there. It is actually the old mindset of the Greeks in 1 Corinthians 6.13. There is a Greek saying that is actually expressed there. The body is for food and food is for the body. They weren't talking about food. They're talking about sex. That is just part of normal life. It's just natural. So of course, whoever, wherever, whatever, that's where society is. That's a hookup culture. We're just animals. We're just doing our animal thing. Well, we're not just animals. We're humans. We're made in the image of God. He has a different purpose for us. All right, the last one, let me just quickly go over this one. Person who's been part of your church for the last year asked you to come over and talk with them. They tell you up front they are considering finding another church and proceed to tell you about all the things they don't like about the church. Boy, that's happened a lot. They don't really care for the music. They find the service a bit too long. They list out several things they do not like about the facilities and inform you they wish there would be some candles and some liturgy to set a better mood for worship. You ask why they've been coming. They tell you they're intrigued that people at the church seem to be joyful about walking with the Lord. They profess to be Christians, but they do not really understand why the people at church could be so happy. You notice they're well-dressed, their home is immaculate, decorated very nicely by someone who obviously knows what they're doing. In answer to your question, you find out their church involvement consists of sporadic attendance on Sunday morning, service only. The devotionalized is the daily bread. Favorite pastimes, concerts, art museums, travel to nice hotels. What will you do to help them find joy in Christianity? Identifying problems. I'm gonna leave. You're not scratching my itch. I'm not getting what I want from church. Yeah, that's an old one. All right, problem emotion. Disgruntled, okay. The pastor's sermons give him bad emotions. All right, problem behavior. Okay, he's threatened to leave, but what's behind that behavior? Yeah, there's a sensuality here. Okay, he picked that one up well. Okay, most people is like, but that's exactly the problem. This is a person who's keyed into the aesthetics have to be there. And it's a pursuit of selfishness. Okay, anything in here about them serving, trying to help anybody else? No, it's everything. It's about me. There's actually very little evidence here of a natural walk of Christ. They do the daily bread. It's not even five minutes. Probably doesn't even read the scriptures with it. Okay. Problem thinking. This one's actually not pretty hard to figure out. Life is about me. Okay. It's selfishness. Not about God's glory. So volition, you're choosing what you're doing with your time and resources. Here's the things you're choosing to do. You go to concerts, you go to museums, you travel nice hotels, you can ask them, say, what kind of meals do you order? See if they were an epicurean on top of all this stuff, right? All right, you have nice clothes, that's very good. Where are you seeing choices about actually serving anybody else? At what capacity do you serve God? Is there anything there? So see if they are making choices. So why are you not joyful in Christianity? What do you think they have that you don't? Well, they're happy. Well, what do you think's making them happy? So why are you sad? What about Christianity is a bummer to you? Oh, you don't have candles. So the aesthetics of it. So where's the real relationship you have with God? It may not even be there. Okay. That's where you're going to start exploring because that's the rational. There is something here. They're not finding joy because they don't know where it's going to lie. They're seeing it as an outward. So the personal circle, what relationship do you actually have with the Savior? Okay. You can even ask the diagnostic questions. If you died today, Where are you going to go, heaven or hell? Okay, I'm going to go to heaven. Why would God let you in? I'm a good person. I'm a good person because I have good taste. He needs me to decorate. And why do you want to go to heaven? Actually, that's a very good question. There was a statement that some person made, I think it's very accurate. Everybody wants to go to heaven. Just most people don't want God there. They like the whole scenario of having a concept. They just don't, because I wouldn't want to. They want to have another own imagination. Okay. Why do they believe this? What do they believe the scriptures teach about the purpose of Christian life? What it should look like? How do their activities match the goals of Christianity? What do they actually know about Christianity? They may not actually know a whole lot. So are they actually pursuing God? Are you interested in pursuing God? Would you be interested in pursuing God? Okay, a volitional commitment? Maybe you want to start in some discipleship? We can explain how to walk with God and why they're joyful. Yeah, why would you want to go to heaven? Do you know the people you're talking about here that you don't like? They're going to be singing those songs up in heaven. They may have candles too. Some people need candles in heaven. No, God is the source of light, so no candles in heaven. No candles, all right. No candles in heaven. No sun nor moon either. It'll make worship better according to him. Okay. Secure some sort of a commitment, like you need to be doing something actually to gain joy, you have to serve the Lord. The joy of the Lord is our strength, but it's from the Lord, because you're pursuing the Lord. If you're not pursuing the Lord, and you think the things he wants and does are negative to you, then you've got a problem. You might want to go volunteer at a homeless shelter and find out what it's really like for people. Ouch, that might get my suit dirty. Uh, you know what, how about volunteering and going with our missions team after you're trained? All right. Challenge them on some stuff. Okay. All right. So next week we're going to be doing, um, counseling situations. Um, we're just gonna be going right into the situations because a lot of stuff will come out as we're, uh, getting into it. and I imagine there'll be a lot of stuff going to pop up just in the discussion of it. So it's going to be a little more open-ended discussion for next week. But I hope this is helpful. Hedonism is a problem. The pursuit of pleasure for the sake of pleasure rather than glorifying God with the pleasure he allows us to have within the proper context. The problem with this area of sin, like so many areas of sins, it's The thing itself usually isn't the problem. It's the out of balance pursuit of it. That that becomes what you think life is about rather than praising God for what you have. You sit down for a meal, you should thank God for it. Whatever it is, even bean soup, okay? Sorry, we didn't. We didn't have prime rib, sorry. Whatever it is, can you be thankful for it? And the answer is yes. Because I can see this is something God provides for me. But if I'm given something a little better, I can praise God for that too. I have the contentment because I'm looking at God provides. Same thing with everything else. If you can turn the heat up and it's cold and you can be a little warmer, or you can't and you just keep your coat on, thank God for the coat. If it's just hot and miserable, well, thank God he allows you to sweat. And I'm not being facetious with that, but that means I have to have a different mindset. Can I see things through God's purpose, his design, that whatever circumstances I'm in, I can be content. I can pursue a different kind of life so that the joy of life really does become what Piper talked about, a Christian hedonism. My greatest pleasure actually is knowing and walking with my creator. And everything else comes out of that. And hence, Christianity is something that should bring great joy to you. Your personal walk with the Lord should bring great joy. Just being going down to help someone, like going down and helping Ronnie. I haven't even talked to you about it, but I'm sure you both had a great time. you know, even if it is down in the city. So it would be nice to some nicer place, but you know what, God's good. And that's when we would, I'll see things and our pleasures there. All right. So I will let you have the pleasure of being able to go to bed. Father, thank you for your many blessings to us. And for tonight, as we've talked about this subject and ranging scenarios, Father, we recognize that within our own selves, there is always these enticements toward the lust of flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. Father, even as we walk with you, even if it's for many decades, there always is something that will pop up because we're still in these bodies of flesh, we're still living in a sinful world, and we are longing for that day when we'll have glorified bodies and dwelling with you, and sin will be no more. until they continue to protest for your Holy Spirit, to see the real purpose in life, the real pleasures in life, and their sources being in you, not in the things of the world. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Good night, Pastor. Thank you. You're welcome. Good night. Thank you.