Morgan Teruel: Hey. Thanks so much for listening to Sandals Church. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We hope you enjoy this message.
Speaker 2: I was never taught purity. It was never modeled for me. I went through most of my life just with this tainted understanding of what love and intimacy was. I began to seek the Lord and purity was something that I eventually desired, but felt I could never have because of my sexual brokenness. My love for Christ is what motivates me to to seek his wisdom.
When I read his word, it's fulfilling me and satisfying me in a way that my life wasn't before. Like, if I could go back, I would say to my old self, what you truly desire is intimacy, love, acceptance, and wholeness. Seek Jesus and this is what you will find.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: Hey, guys. Welcome to Samples Church. It's so good to be back. I'm glad you guys are all here today. And, man, I just want you guys to know this series is incredible.
Pastor Claude has outlined an amazing, amazing series, and I came back and he gave me the topic of sex. Right? And so I'm gonna do my best and and pray that in this series called Unbreakable, I don't break our church. Amen? Amen.
Yeah. Pray that I'm not on the evening news. You know? Pastor says something incredibly stupid. Right?
My wife is praying right now. But, you know, here's what's amazing. Whether you're married, single, whether you're young or old, the book of Proverbs is a book of wisdom. And it talks about the things we don't wanna talk about. It talks about desires.
It talks about needs, fears, relationships. It talks about all kinds of things. But one of the things it talks about the most, think about this, is sex. Isn't that interesting that God wrote a book about wisdom, and he thought it needed to cover the topic of sex? And so we're gonna talk today about sex.
And I don't know where you are. I don't know what's happening in your life. I don't know what you've experienced, but I believe God has a word for you today. And so here's what all I'm gonna ask. Whether you're a Christian or not a Christian, whether you attend Centrel's Church or you found this message on YouTube, would you just pray and say, God, is there something I need to know from you?
Because here's the truth is, most of our parents didn't tell us what we needed to know. Amen? But your father in heaven did. He was not afraid to tell you what you need to know when it comes to sex. So let me just begin by praying.
We're gonna have some fun, not too much fun. If you're too excited, start praying right now. But I'm gonna pray that God speaks to you today. And here's the thing you need to know about God, he will never lie to you. Here's the sad thing, everyone else will.
And we live in a culture where we're being lied to about sex every single day. But God wants to speak the truth to you today. So let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I pray for those of us who are married. I pray lord that sex would be something that we enjoy with each other and that we would work through any issues, god, that we're facing.
God, if we're single, I pray that we would double down on our commitment to weight. And God, if we're young, if we're a teenager here today, I pray God that we would block out the voice of the Internet and we would listen to the voice of God because you care for them and you want what's best for them. And God, I pray that they would listen because so many of these things they've never heard. And so, God, I just pray that all of us, whether we're married, single, young, or old, would just understand, God, that you created sex and you have something to say about it. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
So today I wanna talk about how to heal from sexual brokenness. Now, some of you are gonna say, Oh, that's not me. Well, then you don't know you. Number 1, don't forget it. We are all sexually broken, all sexually broken.
Man, I remember a couple of years ago, we were in a small group. We had a 4 year old. He took his pants off, and he was chasing everybody in the group. I was like, that dude's got some issues. He just discovered them a little sooner than most of you.
Some of you are gonna be 40 or like, I have some issues, pastor. It's just true. Listen to me, parents, when you're raising children, you're gonna find out they're sexualized before you wanted them to. So all of us have sexual brokenness. So let me talk about what that is.
And maybe you've never thought about this, but every single one of us have thoughts we don't want. None of the women are nodding. You do too. You're just sneakier than us guys. But my wife's always asking me, what is it ladies?
Why do you ask if there's a moment of pause and you say, what are you thinking? Let me just help you out. You want to know what a thought is ladies? A thought is a word that's not ready to come out. That's what a thought is.
It's not ready. It's dangerous. It's dangerous. It's not ready. And if it comes out too soon, there will be consequences that follow.
So let me process my thoughts, and my wife always knows when it's bad. She's like, What are you thinking? I'm like, How much I love you. Right? I mean, we all have thoughts we don't want, all of us.
Even if you're married and you love your spouse more than anybody in the world, there are times where you're things you're like, Yeah, I could let that go. I could let that go. Even my wife, I know it's hard to believe, but there are things about me she doesn't like. You know? That's That's why we don't let her preach.
Right? You know, we're not giving her the microphone. But listen, all of us have thoughts that we don't want. Okay? So ladies, don't judge your husband for a thought.
Praise God he didn't act on it and celebrate that. Next, let's just be honest. There's experiences we wish we didn't have. Amen? Like, I I I wish I didn't find pornography on the playground in 2nd grade.
But I didn't choose that. Somebody left it there, I found it. I was exposed to pornography before I was even sexual. I didn't know what it was but I was drawn to it. I wish that didn't happen to me.
I wish that Hugh Hefner who invented Playboy Magazine didn't have nearly the impact that he's had on my life. But he did. It's not a good impact. Every single one of you, you've had one of 2 things. You've had good sexual experiences and you've had bad sexual experiences.
Let me tell you something, both of them outside of marriage are a problem. So there's bad sexual experiences, right? Maybe someone did something to you and you were sexualized and it wasn't your choice. That affects you. That affects you.
That hurts you. That wounds you. Something that's supposed to bring intimacy, comfort, and love is painful. It's not your fault, but it happened to you. Okay?
It's not wrong to say I'm broken. If you come up and hit me with a baseball bat and break my arm, that's not my fault, but I still have a broken arm and we have to deal with it. And some are like, it works fine. And you're just walking around, you know, and nobody wants to be in group with you because you're just whacking people with your brokenness. So we have bad experiences.
And maybe it didn't it wasn't supposed to be bad, right? You fell in love. I ran into a a young woman in our church. I remember when she was 16 years old and her parents, right, this is what parents do, fix my kid because we spent no time talking to them. Here you go.
And I met with her, and she was in a sexual relationship with her boyfriend, and I encouraged her to stop. And here's what I told her, I said, if you're having sex now at 16, I want you to imagine yourself at 30. How many partners do you think is healthy? She said, but we're in love. This guy's the guy.
They broke up 2 weeks later. So I saw her, I said, do you remember our conversation? Listen to me, teenagers. I said, what's the number? You know what she told me?
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And then and then there's good experiences. Man, you know, you have an encounter, and then you get married, and maybe your spouse doesn't do wanna do what that other person did.
Even a good experience can become a problem in marriage. Somebody's more free, somebody's you know, doesn't have the same issues, the same wounding, the same background, and now all of a sudden, you're playing comparison. You see, even a good experience can be a a problem. Here's the thing you need to know. The more sexual experiences you've had outside of marriage, the more difficult it's going to be to enjoy sex in the context of marriage.
Every single psychological survey spells this out. You see, God was right all along. But you never hear that, do you? You never hear that. And we just follow the Kardashians in relationship after relationship, celebrating maybe it'll work out this time, and it's never gonna work out.
Come on now. You see, the best thing for you if you're a virgin, listen to me, stay a virgin. Don't be embarrassed, be proud. Be proud. Don't ever be embarrassed.
If I could go back and talk to young Matt Brown, that's the thing that I would say to him. He says, a guy, as a young teenage man, I lied. Have you had sex? Yes. Multiple times.
With who? Oh, you wouldn't know her. You see, pre the Internet, you could just you could just make it up. She she was far away because I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed.
You see, men seem to exaggerate the number. Women, you minimize the number. But we're both lying, and it's not good for any of us. So here's the thing. Just own that.
Look, here's my experience. It is what it is. And we're gonna talk about how to heal from that. But let me tell you something, lying won't heal you. It won't heal you.
And then here's the thing, even if you're a Christian today, some of us, here's our brokenness, we struggle managing our desires. We just do. Can we stop pretending like we're all the pope? Even the pope has desires. I don't know what they are, but he has them.
He has them. The worst thing that ever happened to the Catholic church was pretending priests weren't sexualized. You see, the costume doesn't change the content of your heart. And that's not to put down Catholics. Every Christian domination has issues.
And the number one issue is we pretend these holy men aren't men. I had a woman tell me that one time. I hate all men everywhere. I said, I'm a man. She says, no, you're not.
You're a pastor. Listen. Everybody struggles. Everybody. On different levels with different issues, everybody struggles.
For some of you, your struggle is you don't know you have a struggle. Peter says this, the first pope, dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. And there is an epidemic of Christians today who say, God has given you sovereignty over your body. It is a lie from hell. God has given us agency, they say.
Listen to me. Jesus died for you on the cross with a price that could never be paid by anybody with him. You've been bought. You are not your own. And anybody that tells you otherwise is lying.
It's lying. If God didn't care about sex, he sure talked about it a lot. Read Genesis. My gosh. Soap operas to just look at that and follow it.
We all struggle with desires, everybody. I did a police training. It was it was it was virtual training where they put you in a simulator and you gotta go into people's homes, you gotta confront homeless people, you gotta deal with violent criminals. And let me tell you something, it was intimidating. It was intimidating.
And I only got killed once. You wanna know what happened? You're a pastor. Got called to a scene. There's an attractive woman in the house.
Yeah. I noticed. I noticed. She took her shirt off. Oh, no.
And then I got shot in the face. There's all these cops. All these cops are dying laughing. Look, pastor, look at her breast. And the cop said the cop said, her boyfriend shot you in the face.
I said, I didn't even see a boyfriend. I didn't know there was 2 people in the room. Listen to me guys, gals, let's start with the ladies. When you get attracted, your IQ drops in half. Yeah.
I don't care how smart you are, you get dumb. He's okay. Guys, you have no IQ when you're attracted. I like you a lot. I am man.
But here's the thing, here's the manipulation in our culture. It's not it's not desire, it's love. It's love. Well, let me help you out here. Here's what I think the difference between desire and love is.
Desire seeks to have its way with what's desired. I want you. I don't care what it costs. I don't care what it does to my marriage, to my future, to my finances. I want you.
I cannot live without you. That's desire. Here's what love is. Love seeks the good of what is loved. You know what that means?
Love says, if what's best for you is not me, then that's what I want. Man, let me tell you something. God doesn't desire you. He loves you. And many people that say they love you, desire you.
And this is why so many young people destroy their lives. They think it's love. It's desire. It's desire. And so that's the thing is we need to teach our young people, you're going to have desires.
We need to stop acting shocked. You see, in the Bible, sex is not taboo, but in the church, it is. Why is it that we can't talk about things that God is constantly talking about? Constantly. So how do we heal from sexual brokenness?
We admit we're broken. We're broken. Listen to me, parents. Your kids are broken. Not my kids.
They don't kiss their way until they get married. They're probably lying to you. They're probably lying to you. Just just understand, your kids are sexually driven, and the world is constantly trying to trip them up. So the worst thing you can do is pretend it's not real.
Number 2, here's my challenge. Whether you're a Christian or not, whether you go to sandals or not, here's my challenge. The book of Proverbs is a book of wisdom. I mean, wouldn't you guys say our culture could use some wisdom when it comes to sex? Here's what you need to know.
God invented sex. I mean, some of you guys, you think it was just some accident. Adam and Eve were rolling around. Eve was like, what was that? He's like, I don't know.
And the next thing you know, man, right, woah. That's not what the Bible says. In the Hebrew, this is what Eve says. She says, with the help of God, I have become pregnant. You know what that means?
God told Adam, here's what you do. You're gonna like it. Come here. Come here. Come here.
And I know it's scary. I know it's scary. Listen to me. Every single one of you, whether you're 18 or 80, God made you a sexual person. K?
Now, we're not all as sexy. Right? I mean, let's just be honest. Some of you are too sexy. Like, you're like California Adventure.
You need to chill out, man. Slow down. Some of us are not Sperry Farm. Amen? We're just kinda we're just kinda You're just happy to be there.
Amen? There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. But here's the thing. God created sex, God created you as a sexual person, and here's the thing, God has given instructions for sexual behavior.
So Proverbs 5, if your parents listen to me. If I could go back and do parenting again, I would start all of my kids in a Bible study with me in Proverbs at 12 at age 12. And we would go as slowly as we needed to. Here's the exciting thing about Proverbs. There's 31 days, you can do 31 chapters.
Sometimes the the chapters feel a little long, but you need to know chapter 5 is coming, and chapter 5 is on sex. And you know why that is? Because God loves his sons and his daughters, and he wants them to know. So Proverbs chapter 5 verse 1, my son, pay attention to my wisdom. I wonder if we would had sex ed in public schools if the church would have taught it the way we were supposed to.
You know why the schools had to take over? Because the church wasn't doing their job. We wouldn't talk about it, so they had to. How'd that work out for us? You see, the school system has a different playbook than we do.
They have a different code. They have a different goal, a different agenda. Here's God's agenda, you, what's best for you. I tell my kids this all the time. I don't care what your friends say.
I love you more than they do. He says, turn your ear to my words of insight that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge. You know what that means? Most of our friends are dumb and they don't know it. You know how you know who the dumbest person in the room is?
The one that's talking the most. He said, for the lips of an adulterous woman, drip honey. Some of you, oh, you lost me pastor, chauvinistic scripture, God hates women, this is why I'm not religious. Well, let me tell you something, in chapter 8 when we get to wisdom, she's a woman too. She's a woman too.
What he's talking about is in a culture where women were basically in prison cells until they got married. So you didn't need to worry about your girls getting out. It was your stupid son that had freedom. He said, Son, there's women out there that are dangerous, and you will destroy your life. And here's what you need to know, the lips of an adulterous woman, drip honey.
You know what that means? Listen to me, parents, I lose every time. I lose. I lose to the internet, I lose to Hollywood, I lose to entertainment, I lose to music. They can all lie.
You know why that is? Because it's what we wanna hear. For the lips of an adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil. You see, here's the truth, you might not like my sermon, but you love hers. You love Oh, preach, preach, adulteress, preach.
Preach. But in the end, she is a bitter gall, sharp as a double edged sword, and her feet go down to death, her steps lead straight to the grave. You see, sex is like fire. It can warm your house or burn it down. God wants it to warm your house.
And let me just say this, God is not trying to prevent pleasure, He's trying to help you avoid disaster. You see, sexual sin always makes a convincing argument to those who want to hear it. Here's what I hear all the time. Porn has liberated women. Okay.
If that if that's true, why do women who are porn stars have the highest rate of any profession for suicide? Drug addiction, depression, and psychosis. Like, if it's so liberating, why do they struggle so deeply? Here's the thing, sex is not just sex. It's not just a physical act.
It affects your soul. It affects your soul. You see, God cares about you. Porn doesn't liberate anyone, it enslaves everyone. And for those of you who are battling a porn addiction, listen to me.
Here's one of the things that was fundamental in my victory over this issue. At first, all I thought about it was bad for me. And then I thought about what what about the participants I'm watching? You see, I had to get the focus off myself and think about what was happening to them and it helped me. Because by nature, I'm a pastor, I wanna help people, I don't wanna hurt people.
And when I quit thinking about myself, it helped me care about them. And I went, oh my gosh, this is terrible for you and it's terrible for me. Proverbs 30:20, this is the way of an adulteress. Listen to this, She eats and wipes her mouth and says, I have done no wrong. That's where some of you are today.
You have all kinds of excuses. So let me explain what adultery is. Adultery is sex outside of the context of marriage between a man and a woman. And that's hard in our culture. So if you're gay, listen to me, I love you.
The Lord loves you. But God has a plan for your life. And that plan, listen to me, is almost always against your desires and not just your sexual desires, against almost all of your desires. But even for those of us who are heterosexual, and you drive me crazy. Now, I'll take the gay people in our church every day over you guys.
You know why that is? Because they get it. The gay people in our church, they get it. They understand. Look, this is serious.
And the headros are like, oh, we messed up again. Stop it. Stop. You know, stop. Well, it's just so hard.
No, it's not. If you can't conquer lust, get married. It's real simple. Well, you don't wanna marry that person, you just wanna sleep with that person. Break up.
End it today. But this is what people say. Here's what I'm like, it's okay if we love each other. Go back to the definition of love and desire. You see, ladies, most men when they say I love you, what they mean is I really really want to have sex with you, but they don't say that.
And then I hear this, oh, it's not like we're hurting anyone. Like, right, we minimize My wife, man, God bless her. She is addicted to murder mysteries. Like like, no wonder she can't sleep. Like every single night, it's like it's like, who murdered this person?
And it's always the husband. Like we like we know it. You know it. I know it. He did it.
He did it. So my wife were on vacation, and she found this murder mystery series. I'm not recommending this show. I'm not telling you to go watch this show. Okay?
I watch this show because I I love my wife. But the show is called Candy. Yeah. Some oh, yeah. All the sinners.
Yeah. I watch that. Yeah. And Candy, her name is Candace. Candy goes to church, sings in the choir, volunteers at school, works in the PTA.
Right? She's perfect. She's bored in her marriage. She's bored in her marriage. She's frustrated.
And so she meets a guy at church, they play volleyball together. And she says, I'm attracted to you. I wanna have an affair. Now, this poor guy's just dumb. Guys, remember what I said happens to your IQ?
You know, he's an engineer, goes straight stupid. He's like, So she invites him over to her house, not for sex, to discuss an affair, and they put a pros and cons list on paper, right? Because if you're gonna sin, at least try to outline the consequences. Like, right, pros, lots of fun, it's It's gonna be great. Cons, we could get caught.
You know, they had they had some cons on there. There were way more pros than cons. But you know what never made the cons list? You know what wasn't on there? Candy murdering his wife, Betty, with an ax 41 times.
That didn't make the cons list. And you know what Candy says in the show? She says, you know what? This as soon as we get attracted to each other, it's over. It's over.
She murders his wife. You know, like, spoiler alert. That's what the bible is. A spoiler alert. This is where your life is going.
Candy murdered Betty with an axe in her own home 41 times. It's not a made up show. It's a historical documentary. You see, the Bible says, listen to me, adultery will cost a man everything he has. You see, if that idiot who's an engineer, brilliant in the world, stupid when it come to wisdom, if he read Proverbs, he would go, this could go really bad.
But Candy said, I'll tell no one. No one will know. They had it all figured out how they would never get caught. But emotions got involved and his wife was murdered. Proverbs 721 to 23.
With pervasive words, she led him astray. K, ladies? It's not just women who lead people astray, it's men with smooth talk. And I would say this, the women in our church who have fallen over the years, it's always to a guy who's smooth. And he'll say what your husband doesn't say, you're beautiful, you look great, I appreciate you.
He'll say everything you wanna hear. And you know why? He desires you. So her lips are smooth, right? Her voice is smooth.
And at once, he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter. Like a deer I mean, I I felt like that was good. Like, I'm like, Lord, I got it. I'm like, I got it. Right?
The cow got killed. It's dead. The Lord's like, no no no. We need another verse. Like a deer stepping into a noose.
Okay, Lord, I got it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like an arrow piercing its liver. Do you know one of the most painful ways to die? Having an arrow go through your liver and having the rust destroy your liver, it's a process that takes about 3 weeks.
It's horrible. Fevers, chills, swelling, it's one of the worst ways to die. In many wars, when they discovered that they were shot through the liver, they would ask to just be killed. Listen to what God is saying. This is gonna kill you slowly, and it's gonna be painful, and it's gonna be ugly.
The author goes on to say, adultery will cost you everything, Everything. Like a bird, he's still not done. Still not I feel like we're good. Right? Move on to the next point.
No. Like a bird darting into a snare. Ouch. Little knowing it will cost him his life. And so what do your friends say?
Oh, the Bible's outdated. It's written by men. You think a dude would write that? You know what a dude would have wrote? Go for it, man.
It's gonna be awesome. That's what a dude would have wrote. That's what a guy would say. You know what dudes don't say when they're at a bar playing pool drinking beer? They don't say this stuff.
Well, you I mean, have you ever been stabbed in the liver? You ever seen a bird in a snare? You ever seen an ox slaughtered? That's not what dudes say. Dudes are like, oh my god, she's so hot.
This is not written by dudes. It's written by God. God is saying, man, you are headed for disaster. But man, sex is something that has to be controlled. It just is.
It's not a desire where we just follow our heart. It's not your heart you're following. Proverbs 2 16, wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words. You gotta decide. K?
If you're not a Christian, do whatever you want. Don't blast me on the Internet. Don't call me a hater. This is how we're living. This is what we're trying to do.
Look. You run your house. Let me lead this house. It amazes me in our world today that the haters wanna tell us what to do in the church. Look, just live your own life and we'll stand before God and we'll see who's right.
And if I'm wrong, God, he'll judge me. It's fine. But you're on your own. But let me lead this church. It blows me away.
Last time I talked on sex, some woman said, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I went to her page. She's a yoga instructor. You know what I wouldn't give instructions on? Yoga.
And I've been to a yoga class, but I can't teach you anything. Isn't it amazing? And everybody, after what she wrote, like, preach. I'm like, that's my job. When she's something you can say stretch, but you can't say preach.
How to heal from sexual brokenness. This is the key. Understand we're all broken. Young, old, gay, straight, we're all broken. Number 2, make a decision to to listen to what God says.
That's all I'm asking you to consider. Don't blast me, just consider. And if the world's so right, why is everything so wrong? If you're a Christian today, make a decision to honor God sexually. Make a decision.
I know how difficult this is. When I gave my life to Christ, alcohol was done, weed was done, my sexual habits were were extraordinarily difficult. So learn from my struggle. Make a commitment today to end sinful habits and or addictions. If it's an addiction, you can't handle this alone.
If you could, it'd be handled. Stop lying to yourself. At the end of service and you don't have to come up today because, you know, everybody's gonna be staring at you, oh, that guy struggles with sex. We'll talk to you privately. We don't wanna embarrass you.
We don't wanna shame anybody, but we do wanna help you. Next, set up boundaries for your protection. Proverbs 5:8:9, keep a path far from her. You know what? If I'm attracted, I'm attracted to women.
K? Men aren't my issue. Okay? I think we're gross. That's my just that's my take on it.
I think guys were more blessed in that. K? My wife says you're gross. I'm like, I know. I I know.
If I'm attracted to a woman, you know what I do? I'm out of there. I'm out. I'm out. Like, if you're super good looking, you come up to me at the gym, I don't I might just pastor Andrew is seen.
I might just walk away. I just like, right in the like, right in the middle, like, he's real. No. He's real. He's real.
It's not my fault you're pretty. I'm going this way. You know? I just I don't do it. I don't do it.
I've seen too many pastors fail, fall, mess up, blow up their life, blow up the church, screw it up. I don't wanna do that. There's too much at stake. It says, do not go near the door of her house. You know in that TV series, Candy, they meet at a hotel?
And there's this scene where he's at the hotel door, she's in it waiting for him in lingerie, and he's about ready to knock on the door and listen to me. He goes like this, and he stops. And he walks away, and he stops, and he turns around, and he goes back. You know if he walks away, Betty's still alive. Betty's still alive.
Don't be afraid to walk away. It's not cowardice. It's wisdom. It's wisdom. Lest you lose your honor to others and your dignity to one who is cruel.
You know what's cruel? Sexual sin. You know who's good? God. Next, this is huge.
Get an accountability group with people who love you and love God. Love you and love God. Let me help you know how they love God if they love his word. There's a lot of people today that say, I love God's word, but I hate the church and I hate God's word. Then they don't know God.
Because God's word says love the church, and God's word says listen to his word. But here's the thing, if you've blown it, you're like, oh my gosh, pastor. There's no hope for me. Man, there is hope for you and Jesus. There's a woman in the Bible, and she is caught in the act of adultery.
Now that's unfortunate. Right? I mean, in the act, the Bible's like, she wasn't, like, almost done, they hadn't just finished. In the act, bam. And there were witnesses.
You know what Jesus said to her? He said, has no one condemned you? She said, no, Lord. He said, then neither do I. Go and leave your life of sin.
Look, I don't know what you did yesterday. I don't know what you did last week. I know this, the blood of Jesus Christ can cover all of that, and you can be a new person today. Not an adulterer, but a daughter or a son, a child of God. And just so you know this, when Jesus tells the disciples people always say, well, Jesus had a different standard.
When you hear Jesus' standard when when he got done talking, the disciples were like, who can even get married? Like, that's how inspiring his marriage talk was. They were like, bachelor to the rapture. Right? They're like, yeah.
And you know what Jesus you know what Jesus said? He said, this is hard. This is difficult. Man. But here's the thing, he didn't just die for you, he wants to empower you to be able to do difficult things.
Next, you gotta practice self control. A man without self control is like a city broken in and left without walls. You gotta practice self control. And here's the thing, you can do it with God's help and accountability and practice. Practice saying no to your desires.
You wanna know people who are destroyed? People who continually give in to their desires. Last point, here we go, Celebrate sex within the context of marriage. Right? Come on, married people.
Amen. Amen. Someone needs to tell my wife. Amen. Amen.
So how do you how do you celebrate sex in the context of marriage? Because here's the thing you need to know, single people, sex ain't always great in marriage. It isn't. You wanna know why? Because marriage is work.
You got little people that are selfish and psycho. Right? And they're constantly trying to destroy your sex life at every possible angle. You know? Oh my gosh, mom and dad, are you guys intimate?
You know? It's crazy. Here's what you need to do. Work through your healing and your sobriety together. Here's what you do married couples.
You make a commitment that no matter what is shared, we stay together. No matter what is shared, we stay together. And then you get it out on the table, and you work through it. You wanna know how you don't have a real marriage if you can't share everything? Just say, here it is.
Here it is. Because you know what all of our worst fear is? If people knew, they wouldn't love me. Here's the good news. Let's start with this.
God knows and he still loves you. Here's my prayer for you. Your spouse will know and still love you. Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. You know what flows from your heart?
Lies. Have an open and honest conversation about sex. You know when you do this? Not when you wanna have sex, guys. Okay?
You don't come home when you wanna have sex. We need to have a talk about sex. That's not when you do it. You say, hey, next Tuesday let's go out to dinner and let's talk about our sexual life. Let's talk about it.
Listen to me, single people and young people, nothing you've ever heard about sex is real. It's all a lie. Right? Every song, we did it all night. Listen to me.
If you're doing it all night, you ain't doing it right. I'm just I'm just telling you, you're doing something wrong. The average sexual encounter. I'm talking about sex, 3 to 7 minutes. 3, 7 minutes.
I'm not talking about before. I'm not talking about cuddling after. I'm talking about so let me let me ask you this. Is your soul worth 3 to 7 minutes? Is it?
So here's what I want you to do. Have an honest conversation, and I want you to work through these couple things. Because just because you love each other doesn't mean that you can talk with each other. So here's the first thing you share with your spouse. Here's what I want.
Just say it. And some of you are embarrassed to say it. Here's what I want in my sex life. K? Here's what I want, and you just put it out there.
And and and let me say this. If you're the spouse and that makes you uncomfortable, you say, let's talk with it about a pastor or in our small group. If they won't say it in the small group, it's probably outside of the the norm. Here's what I want. Here's what I'm willing to do, willing to try.
Here's what I'm uncomfortable with. The bible says love does not demand its own way. I'm uncomfortable with that. Okay? You didn't marry yourself.
Some of you think you did. And then here's the thing, here's what I won't do. I won't do it. And that needs to be it. And there can be no guilt, no manipulation, Soft limits.
That's what you gotta do. Here's what I want. Here's what I'm willing to do. Here's what I won't do. Here's what I'm uncomfortable with.
You gotta learn to talk about it. You gotta learn to talk about it. And so that's what I just wanna challenge you guys. Our vision is to be real. We need to be real about this issue.
The Bible says that marriage is a beautiful thing, it's an amazing thing. He goes on to say, guys, don't ever fall in love with a woman who's not your own. Listen to me, this is the Word of God. If you're uncomfortable I apologize, take it up with Jesus. Here's what He said, may you always be in love with the breasts of your wife.
That's God, that's God. My wife makes fun of me because I like mint chip ice cream. We go to 31 flavors, I look at all the flavors, and then I order mint chip. Pray for me because since COVID, I can't taste peppermint. So I know.
I know. We all have our sufferings. We were having mint chip the other day and because we're in a communist country. Right? Now it's not green anymore, so you know.
And and I was like, this is great chocolate chip. And my kids were like, yeah. It's mint chip. I'm like, I didn't even know. But here's what I tell my wife.
I say, you better be grateful that I love the same flavor over and over and over again. You know? I'm faithful to mint chip, loyal to the end. Even if Mint Chip doesn't appreciate it, I am loyal to Mint Chip. You know why that is?
Because I believe marriage is a beautiful thing. And and and here's the thing is, listen to me, singles, you don't have to be married to serve Jesus but you do have to be married to have sex and be a servant of Jesus. Stop playing games with yourself. The Lord himself was single, and he told us this is hard. But listen to me, single people, marriage is hard.
You know what you're gonna do today, single people? Whatever you want. You know what I'm gonna do today? Whatever Tammy wants. You know?
Right? Come on, married people. Everybody's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Our marriage is like, you know, it's like Christ in the church. Yeah.
Exactly. A mess. Alright. But just think about this. Our world lacks wisdom when it comes to sex.
Honesty. K? And and and this message isn't perfect. God's perfect. Let's talk about this.
Let's share these things. I'm always going to lose to the smooth talk of the adulterous woman. Someone's gonna twist this sermon into I hate you, I love you. We may not agree about many things but I love you and I care about you and I want you to live forever with Jesus. We may not agree on sex but here's the thing, I hope you can agree that you felt loved, you felt cared for, and you felt like somebody tried at least to tell you the truth.
So let me pray for you. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I pray that as a church we would not be judgmental, Lord, not be against anybody of any sexual orientation, Lord, but but to invite people into our struggle. We're all broken, all of us, gay, straight, young, old. God, help us all to just try to navigate these desires in a way that honors you.
Heavenly Father, right now, send your wisdom upon us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.