Our scripture this morning is from 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 1 through 8. Hear the word of the Lord. Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you knew what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality. that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in a passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man, but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. Let's pray. Father, we praise you this morning. We behold you as glorious and majestic. And now we ask that you would teach us from your word how to live holy and pure lives, how to be salt and light to the world around us. But Father, we need your help. We praise you that you have given us your spirit. And we ask that you would move in our hearts and minds today. Teach us, change us, transform us more and more into the image of the Lord Jesus. And we pray this in his name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, perhaps there is no topic today that is more talked about than sexuality. Sexuality and everything related to sex has been and most likely will continue to be a major hot button issue. It's not only true because the culture we live in has a very specific worldview about sexuality and the world promotes that view very strongly. But it's also because we as followers of Jesus Christ can struggle to live sexually pure lives before God as He desires us and commands us to live. It's difficult at times to be pure and holy as we live in this world. That's kind of the heart of this series that we're calling Between Two Worlds, that we want to examine what does it mean for the Christian, the follower of Christ, to live a life that is pleasing to God, yet at the same time engage the world around us to share with them the goodness of God, in this case his good sexual ethic and the good news of the gospel. We don't want to be a people that hide away, try to create our own little world, or immerse ourselves fully in the world for the sake of being relevant. See, we must live in this tension. I think it's a good word. We must live in the tension of following Christ and His sexual standards, and instead of living in the standards of the world. You see, the danger of living in this tension, I feel a little bit like it's like running with the bulls. So you can train yourself really well for years, and no matter how well you train yourself, it's not just that there's danger somewhere. Danger is coming after you, trying to destroy you. That's sin, right? Genesis chapter 4 says this, and if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you or its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. See, as we live in the world, sin is crouching, seeking us to destroy us, to take over our life. And so God has put us in the world and we have this tension. How do we do this? I think it's very, very difficult. And it's incredibly challenging to live the life God has called us to live here. So thankfully this morning we have about an hour and a half to cover the topic. So we got plenty of time to deal with it. No, this week, next week, and the week after, we'll be dealing with subject related to this. We won't hit everything, but hopefully together we'll be studying and seeing God's plan for us sexually, and gender, and marriage, and we'll continue to see how we live for God. So this morning what I want to do is I want to examine a little bit how do we live in this tension, and what do we do in view of the world? How do we interact with the world? What's our role? in the world when it comes to sexuality? And then two, what are we to do for ourselves to pursue righteousness and holiness in our own lives? Well, right here from the beginning in our passage, Paul tells us clearly what God's will is. Isn't that nice? You ever wonder what God's will is? Sometimes God just tells us straight out, here's my will for your life. And he says this, it's your sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality. It's clear, there's no debate. God desires for us to be sexually pure and to abstain from anything that is sexually immoral. So we have to define what is sexual immorality? Well, if you were to do a study of the whole Bible, you would see, I think, that the Bible defines sexual sin as any sexual activity that takes place outside of marriage. And a marriage is between one man and one woman. So anything outside of that covenant of marriage between a husband and a wife, any sexual activity outside of that is considered sexual immorality. You know, often there's rebuttals to this that the command seems so narrow and so restrictive. I mean, why is God selecting this as the standard? That's the only place we can experience our sexual life? Well, the reason why God has selected that standard, He's so narrow on it, so restrictive, is because He's good. And if He's good, every command that He gives flows out of His good character and is therefore for our good and our benefit and ultimately for our joy in His glory. Every one of the commandments that He gives about sexuality, the restrictions and then even the freedoms within marriage flow out of His good and wise and generous character. See, He's the same God who was so good to provide for us salvation in Christ, that He provided for us in that He's the same God, the good God that tells us how to live in our life with Him. So all these sexual ethics that God commands are good. They're good, and they're for our joy. And so we should pursue living out faithfully what God has called us to do. And this morning, it's to abstain from sexual immorality. But what does the world teach? It's kind of obvious if you just live, open your eyes and listen, but what does the world tell us? If God tells us to abstain, I think we can infer what the world's gonna teach us. In my experience of living in the world, I think I would sum it up this way, that the world's sexual ethic says that your sexual identity is the most important thing about you, and so be who you are and do whatever you want with your life sexually. It's the most important thing about you. And not only that, but don't let anyone tell you otherwise, especially not God and His outdated book. I mean, that's what the world says, right? Be who you are, live it out, if it feels good, do it. I think most of us understand this, but the challenge is there's not just pressure to understand it, but there's pressure to get in line with this view, isn't there? To fully agree with this view, to say yes to the party line. And so we have a choice to make as followers of Jesus. How do we deal with the world we live in? Well, I think one way that we can maybe tend to live is in disgust at the perversions of the world. We can look at the world around us and just shake our head in disgust. It can be comfortable for us to kind of hole up together and look down on culture and express our judgment. We love verses like this in 1 Corinthians 6. When Paul writes, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. So we can read that and go, yeah, that's right. They're not gonna inherit the kingdom of God. They don't deserve to know God. Look at the filth and the sin and the perversion that they live out. So we can do that, and it feels good, because we do that together. We're kind of protected. We're in power. We're above other people. It's pretty safe to sit in that. But see, we have to keep reading the Bible, don't we? We can't just pick and choose what we want. And right after Paul just said that, in verse 11 of chapter 6, he says, "...and such were some of you." Now we're getting personal, Paul. This is the part I don't like. I want to sit in judgment. I don't want to think about the fact that I was the same. And if it wasn't for the grace and mercy of God, I'd be thinking and acting the same way as the world around me acts and thinks. But I think we must remember, we must remember who we were, that we were lost in our sin and without hope, but God drew us to himself. He saved us through the work of Christ on the cross. We must remember that. And now that we are in Christ, we are brand new creations. The old has gone and the new has come. See, it's because of who we were and who we are now that we can look at the world as not us against them, but actually we can look at it as we are on the team to go and rescue people from their sin. that we're on the squad that's seeking to save others from the destructive lifestyle that sexual immorality brings and that many of us have experienced in our life. Instead of looking down in judgment, we can go to people and invite in. Invite in. See, there's a difference between the two stances. One looks at other people, keeps them at arm's length and says, shape up before you walk in this room. before you walk through these doors, before you come to our Bible study, fix yourself, stop doing that perverse stuff, get better, then you can sit with us. That's one way to look at the world. But then the other way says, no, please walk in the door, come and sit with us, experience the grace and the forgiveness that we have experienced in Christ. And then He'll do the work of changing you. He'll do the work of cleaning up your heart. And you know what? We'll walk along with you through that process. There are totally different views that we can have as followers of Christ engaging in the world. And I think that we need to invite in. We need to show people the glory of the cleansing work of Christ in our lives, that we are new creations. See, remembering that should produce in us compassion, that we were lost in our sin just like everyone else out there. And somebody, through God's grace, showed us the goodness of God and his mercy and grace in the cross. I think we must remember who we are in Christ, and remembering that God saved us moves us to show people our glorious and good God. Not to look at them in judgment, but to let them experience God and deal with Him, and He will deal with them appropriately. We cannot waver from the standards of the Bible. We're not going to water down God's teaching about sexuality and sexual ethics. Yet, at the same time, we can point people to the glory and the majesty of God. That's good, isn't it? We have something to offer the world that someone offered us in Christ. So there's the tension. We live in this tension. And I think part of our role in the tension of following Christ and living in this world is seeking to be a people that are salt and light, that show the glory of God and invite people in the brokenness of their sexuality to experience redemption in Jesus. So that's one aspect. How do we deal with this? But then there's this whole other aspect in our lives. Then there's me, there's us. We still live in this world. Many of us still have the lingering effects of our old life rearing its ugly head. Our flesh still calling us to live in sexual immorality. So how do we deal with ourselves? We wanna be a people that follow God, that live in holiness and righteousness. And so how do we do that? Well, we need to figure that out as well. Now I want you to imagine yourself, it's four o'clock in the afternoon, you've been busy all day working, around the house, at work, whatever you're doing, and you're really hungry, and you get this hankering, is that a word? Hankering for a Big Mac. Now some of you are shocked, like what? Yes, a Big Mac, just go with it, okay? You want a Big Mac, and so you go, to the Golden Arches and you get yourself a Big Mac. Maybe even there's a two-for-four deal or something. You get two of them because you're hungry and you just need a Big Mac. And you eat that Big Mac and oh, that felt good, didn't it? Then you go about your day a little bit longer and a few hours later, say at seven, you end up back home and you walk in the door and there is this feast before your eyes. There's barbecued chicken, There's steak, there's pasta salad, corn on the cob. You can't go, you can't leave yet, no lunch yet. There's sweet tea or Coke Zero, depending on who you are. If you're from Maryland, there's steamed crabs, bushels of steamed crabs. If you're my youngest son, there's chicken nuggets as far as the eye can see, right? Incredible desserts, but you know, you know how you feel that moment you walk in and you see the feast You think oh, I wish I could eat But I filled up on a Big Mac And not only do you kind of regret your decision at four all the sudden you're probably not feeling well either right This doesn't settle very well You realize I could have waited just a few hours and allowed the hunger to point me to something better than I was willing to consume at the moment. But so often when it comes to sexuality, we settle for the four o'clock Big Mac, don't we? Because waiting is so hard. I don't want to wait. My mind, my heart, my flesh wants it and wants it now. And to not have it now is robbing me of something good. I mean, I deserve to have what I want and to have it now. That's what the world encourages us to do, right? Partake, enjoy whatever sexual urges you have. Go for it. They're good. They're good for you. I shouldn't have to wait. You shouldn't have to restrict yourself. I mean, that's how sin works, doesn't it? It convinces us that we should have what we want and have it now. Now, let's be clear before we dive any further that temptation is not sin. We know from the Scriptures that Christ was tempted in every way, yet He was without sin. So if you're single and you're struggling with this desire to be married and enjoy sexual relationship within marriage, you can experience temptation to act out sexually and yet not sin. If you're attracted to someone of the same sex and desire sexual relationship with them, you can experience that temptation and yet not sin. If you're married and tempted to look at pornography or engage in relationship with someone who is not your spouse, you could be tempted and yet not sin. God has given us His Spirit who will produce the fruit of self-control in our life. See, we can fight against the sexual ethic of the world and our own fleshly desires and stay faithful to God and His call to purity. But how do we do that? I think there's a lot of ways, but first and foremost, we must grow our view of Jesus Christ. When our view of Jesus Christ is small, we will struggle to believe that He is and will be our satisfaction. We won't see Him that way. See, we'll think the four o'clock meal, whatever sexual immorality is, lust, pornography, emotional flirting, adultery, that it will, quote, satisfy us. It'll take away the edge. Whatever it is, it'll feel good now. But later you know and I know the effects of that sin are tremendous. We even see one of the effects here in 1 Thessalonians 4 that sexual immorality transgresses and wrongs our brother. Meaning that when we live out sexually outside of the context of a husband and wife marriage, that we are taking something from someone that is not ours, or we are giving something of ourselves away that is not ours to give away. It's meant for marriage. And so we even personally suffer, but we wrong other people in the process. But sometimes you have to fight through and wait and wait and not settle for the four o'clock meal. You gotta wait. I don't know how long sometimes it takes to wait for Christ to satisfy, but I know that He will satisfy because He is the bread of heaven and the living water. And if we eat and we drink of Him, we will never be thirsty nor hungry. God's will is that we be sexually pure. And we know according to John in 1 John 5, that if we ask Him anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of Him. God's will is to be sexually pure. And so we can ask Him for help. And as we do that, as we look to Christ, we will see that He is the glorious one, the one whom we were made for. It's why we need to be pouring the Word of God over us and into our minds and hearts so that when the temptation arises, and it will come often, the Holy Spirit will remind us that all the promises of God find their yes in Jesus Christ. The Word coming to our mind will remind us that He is the feast. He's the feast. And the hunger in our soul and our spirit will point us to wait on Him. Immersing ourselves in the word of God helps us to see Christ as our all in all and the ultimate satisfaction and joy of our life. Psalm 119 says, how can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. When we are immersed in the Word of God, our affections will grow and see the beauty of Christ. And we will want nothing more than to walk and to please Him. So if you're struggling in your own life, the first thing I can encourage you to do is look to Jesus. Grow your picture and your view of Jesus. But if you're in sexual sin, if you're struggling right now, that's hard to do, isn't it? Because the sin that you're dealing with is clouding your view of Christ. It's crowding out. It's seeking for your affection. And so we need to do some practical steps in our life to give us the space and the capacity to actually look to Christ as He truly is. And so I have dealt with college students myself for four and a half years and then 20 years of campus ministry. So you can imagine the number of conversations I've had on the subject and the number of practical steps we've tried to take to help students seek to abstain from sexual immorality. but it was true in my own life. I was caught in the trap of sexual immorality and Christ saved me and yet there still were times that this reared its ugly head and I had to make steps in my life, protections and restrictions in my life so that sin would not have its way in my life and I would be able to look to Christ to make the battle a little easier in my life. So I wanna give you some of the tips that I've used and that I've encouraged others to use. First, use filters or accountability reporting software on every device that you own. The statistics are staggering for the number of teenagers that have viewed pornography before the age of 18. Staggering. Remember, sin is crouching at our door. crouching at our door. See, in my own life, I never sought out pornography. I didn't go looking for it. It found me. It was introduced into my life and that is true of pretty much everybody I've ever met with on this issue. They weren't looking for it, it came after them and now they are riddled with this. So we need to know that and put up boundaries and protect ourselves. And so if your child, your friend, you, your spouse, your neighbor, your coworker has free access to their phone, their iPad, their computer, their video gaming system, their TV, any digital device, They're in dangerous territory. You're in dangerous territory. We need to put restrictions on our devices. Use a DNS server with parental controls. If you have no idea what any of that is, it's OK. There are people that can help you. I would be happy to help you with some of that. There are other people in this room that are incredibly tech savvy that could walk you through how to set up restrictions and filters in your life. I personally, one of the ways I do that is I use Covenant Eyes, and it's an accountability software. It gives a report of everything I've ever looked at on the internet for a week, and it rates it, and so it sends it to different people. I have three different people that look at it. One is, because I'm in ministry, I have my boss. He gets it, because I don't want to have to have that conversation with him. My co-leader, Adam, he gets it, because I don't want to have that conversation with him. But most importantly, my wife gets a report. is I certainly don't want to have that conversation. I don't want to have to look her in the eye and explain my behavior, my sin. I don't want to hurt her again in that way. And so I set up protection. See, I need help. I need help. I'd be happy to help you with that or go do the homework and figure out what to do to protect yourself and your family. Second tip, just keep all devices in public view. Just keep them out in the open. It's much less tempting to look at something you know anybody could walk by at any moment. Third, and this could sound a little strange, but this deals with campus ministry. I think if you live in a room by yourself, take the door off the hinges. Take it off the hinges and take the pins and give them to somebody to hide so you can't put it back on. I tell you that, it's kind of funny, but I actually had a student, a disciple one time, that did that with his roommates. Because he wanted to know at any moment anybody could walk in my room. I just need to avoid, flee from any potential temptation in my life. Another tip, you know the phrase, nothing good happens after midnight? It's true, right? As a teenager, you don't buy it. But it's true. Trust me, I have so many stories to tell you. So make strict boundaries to avoid situations during the day, at night, where you won't be with someone that could cause you to act out sexually with them. Another tip, always meet with a member of the opposite sex in a public place. If you need to meet with somebody, make sure that there's public view, there's a window on the door, you're out at a restaurant somewhere. If you have to do it with work, take every precaution necessary. I remember one time, Lisa was not at home, I had to meet a staff member, she was a woman, we had to meet at my house for some reason, and so we met in our driveway in lawn chairs. It's a little odd for a meeting, but we just wanted to avoid any temptation, any appearance of evil. Next tip, this is the last one. Whatever else you can possibly think of, whatever you can do in your life to protect yourself, to restrict yourself from being able to go after sin, do it. But you have to decide, is it worth it? Is your purity worth it to do whatever it takes? And sometimes it'll be hard. I know the story of a student when pushed to deal with this, walked away from a discipleship appointment. Didn't want to have to deal with it. I don't want to have to give up my freedoms. Later he did, he realized. But it can be so hard. So whatever it takes, we have to ask ourselves, is a life pleasing to God and holiness and sexual purity worth it? Even better to ask yourself, is Jesus worth your purity? Is He worth your purity? See, Paul tells us here that it's gonna be difficult when he says that we should control our own body, not in the passion of lust. I mean, it's hard to live righteous, isn't it? To control and not just live with the passion of lust. It's way easier to do that than to control. But when we do, There's so much reward when God shows up through His Spirit, through His Word, and through the body of Christ. Because this isn't a solo fight. This isn't just you and the Lord figuring this out together, and you just deal with it on your own. See, this is a body issue. This is a body of Christ. The church needs to fight together. People here need your help desperately. Even if you've never dealt with sexual sin first, praise God for that protection. But you have something to offer. You can come and you can help others. I think how we do that is we walk in the light. John says this in 1 John. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship in Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, meaning if we confess our sins, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus' Son cleanses us from all sin. See, when we hide, when we hide, we get stuck in our sin. And we even start to believe we're the only ones dealing with this. And then our unconfessed sin affects our relationships with God and with other people in ways that we sometimes don't even realize. Isolation is one of the greatest enemies of the Christian life, and it will keep us caught in the loop of sexual sin. That's why James says, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. We're a part of the body of Christ. And if we're going to abstain from sexual immorality, to control our bodies in holiness and honor and influence the world to show them the goodness of God, we need each other. We need to come out of hiding and we need to deal with our sin. Now, that doesn't mean you tell everybody everything you've ever done. That probably wouldn't be wise. But we need to tell some people. We need to confess what's going on in our life and not fight on our own. This is what I call the cycle of sin. I've used it for years, just as a simple way to illustrate what happens when we deal with sin. Any sin could be in this. We're talking sexual today. But first, it could start anywhere, but it starts with temptation. Temptation comes. And after temptation comes, we are most susceptible with halts. There's lots of different ways to say this, but halts. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired, stressed. You are most susceptible. I am most susceptible to fall into temptation and to sin when I am hungry. That's mostly for college men. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired, and stressed. And so you find yourself in one of those situations and then you sin. And when you sin, what comes next? Feelings of guilt. Oh, I've done something really bad. Or feelings of shame. I am bad. And that guilt or that shame that comes leads to isolation. And then when temptation comes again, you're alone and it's hard to fight alone. And so we need to figure out a way to break the cycle of sin in our life. Yes, we view Christ as glorious, that He is our prize, but all these practical helps we've talked about aid us in that. Our ultimate motivation is the glory of God, the beauty of Jesus. But we need to remove things from our life, protect us so we can see Him as He truly is. You see, we're so hesitant, aren't we, to admit our sin to one another? It's scary, it's difficult. to actually tell somebody what's happening in our life. Let me remind you of Romans 8.1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because there is no condemnation, we can walk in the light. We can confess our sin. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't consequences to our sin, especially if we are unrepentant, as Paul deals with in 1 Corinthians 5. But if we are repentant and we're seeking to live holy lives, there is no condemnation, and we can come out into the light, confess our sin to a brother or sister in Christ, and ask for their help. We need their help to be reminded of the grace and forgiveness in Christ, and we need others to point us to Christ as our prize. So at any step along the way, how do you break that? You go to community. You go talk to somebody. You are more than welcome, open invite to talk to any elder. Any elder, we would love to help you, but we are not the only ones that are qualified to help people through their sin struggles sexually. Everyone here is a minister of the gospel, if you know Christ. And so anyone can help one another. So go to someone, get into community, come into the light. See, if we don't, then we become the hypocrites that our world so often says we are. That we say one thing, we say live purely, live holy lives, and yet we're here struggling, living impure. We need to come into the light, confess our sin, trust that God, through His Spirit, will empower us to self-control, to live holy lives. We're not alone in this, we can help each other. And what a beautiful picture to the world of helping one another in our sin. So here's some questions to think about as we wrap up. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to abstain from sexual immorality, even if it means you must significantly restrict yourself? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to protect yourself? Will you today confess any sexual sin to someone a brother or sister in Christ, and allow them to remind you of the grace of God in the gospel, and then to walk alongside you as you seek to be obedient to God in your sexual life. Will you confess your sin? And finally, will you immerse yourself in the word of God to remind yourself of the beauty, of the satisfaction, of the fulfillment, and the pleasures that are found in Christ? Immerse yourself in the Word of God. God is good. He provided for us in Christ and He can provide again today and tomorrow and the next day. When temptation comes and we go after that four o'clock snack, you say, oh, no, no, no, wait, wait. I have provided you my son and I will provide again and again. Isn't that a good God? Isn't He so good to take care of us and provide for us? Let's trust Him that we could be used in the world to invite people in to experience the forgiveness and the redemption found in Jesus. And that we, as we do that, can seek to live together to help one another live holy and pure lives with Christ as our ultimate satisfaction. Let's pray. Father, we praise you for your goodness and your grace in our lives that we were lost. Such were some of us, we were lost in our sin. You cleansed us, you redeemed us, you forgave us, you've made us new in Christ. Help us to look at the world as those lost sheep, your sheep that need rescuing. Would you help us to look with love and compassion, to remember that we were there too. And Father, at the same time, would you help us to live holy and pure lives? Would you help us to put practical things in place that will keep us free from the struggles of sin so that we can look upon the beauty and the glory of Christ, who is our all in all? We pray that He will become great in our lives, and that You will grow our view of Him and our love for Him, and that we will be so satisfied with Him. We will never look to anything other than Him. We pray it for Your glory and our joy. In Jesus' name, amen.