Springcreek Community Church

We're beginning a brand new series today, Pure Sex, and today's message I'm calling

Lies the Church Tells About Sex.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we are looking to you today.

We truly believe, I truly believe that this is a message you want told.

And God, there are so many, so many of us in this room that desperately need to hear.

We desperately need to sync up our lives with your values and your teaching and your clear

instruction because, God, it is the path to true fulfillment in life.

So I just pray, God, that no matter where we may be at, no matter where we are in our

hearts right now, that you'll just meet us in those places and guide us towards your

heart.

In Christ's name, amen.

Yes, this is church, and yes, we're talking about sex.

And I've got to tell you, the easiest way in the world to talk about sex in church is

the way 99.9% of all churches do it.

And that is to deal in vague generalities.

And then to sprinkle your talk with alarms and concerns about the moral degeneracy of

our times, to push all the Christian hot buttons, and then walk away from the subject feeling

morally superior to everybody else and being convinced that nothing you've just said applies

to you or anybody else in your congregation.

But, you know, as one who is accountable to God for the things I say and I teach, I'm

not content with that kind of approach.

I agree with Randy Alcorn.

He was a powerful Christian writer.

He wrote,

Sex was not invented in a dark alley behind a porno shop.

It was made in heaven where purity reigns.

As Christians, we must look at sex through the eyes of God, despite the bad press given

it by misguided believers.

Sex is God's gift to humanity.

May husband and wife never be ashamed to enjoy together what God was not ashamed to create.

You know, some people question the appropriateness of talking about sex in church.

And I think that's a good place to begin.

Because maybe even some of you in this room right now question whether or not a church

is about four weeks to talking, frankly, about matters of sexuality.

You know, we just sent a mailer to our community.

Maybe some of you right now in this room came as a result of receiving a flyer in the mail.

Of the about 30,000 homes we sent this flyer to, only two people called to complain, to

express something negative about receiving this in the mail.

One lady I actually spoke with.

The lady I spoke with said she was a believer and was very angry at our church for sending

this flyer to her home.

And I asked her why.

She said, what if my sons had gone to the mailbox and picked up this flyer?

I don't know how old her boys are, but she seemed to imply they were middle school age.

I asked her, was there something on the flyer that you felt was offensive or you think would

harm your kids?

And she said, yes.

Words like porn and best sex ever.

Now, everything within me wanted to ask her if she knew where the word porn came from.

Because I'm confident she didn't.

Because if you know anything at all about the etymology of words, you would know that

the word porn actually comes from the Bible.

It actually comes from the New Testament.

It's a Greek word, pornea, which means sexual immorality.

And it's a word, you know, like today we use the word pornography.

It means sexual immorality, graphic, graphic sexual immorality, things that are written

or things.

That's where the word comes from.

But it comes from the New Testament.

And guess who was the first one in the New Testament to use this word?

Jesus.

I didn't want to tell her, Jesus said this word.

It's okay for us to use the word.

I didn't use that with her.

I wanted to.

Very tempted.

I didn't do that.

But I really wondered if this lady let her kids even read the Bible at all.

Because unless you take an exacto knife to God's word, there's sex in practically every

book in the Bible.

I mean, start with Genesis.

In Genesis, people are knowing each other right and left.

Now, no one doesn't mean knowing somebody's name or knowing their favorite color, because

every time somebody knows somebody in Genesis, they have a baby, okay?

And then you move on through Genesis and you find all kinds of twisted sexual stuff.

You find Abraham having sex with his handmaiden.

And then you have Judah having sex with his daughter-in-law because he thinks she's a

prostitute.

I mean, that's so wrong.

On so many fronts, I don't even know where to begin with it.

And then there's Joseph, who is seducted by his boss's wife, followed by the exodus and

what they do around the golden calf.

And if you haven't read that in some time, it'll blow your hair back.

Then there's all these explicit laws that God gives at Sinai about the sexual behavior

of his people that, for good measure, is repeated in greater detail in the book of Deuteronomy.

So I figure the first five books of the Bible are totally off limits.

You move into the time of the Judges.

And you think, I'll be safe here.

And then you run into Samson, who's a he-man with a she-weakness.

You think, well, let's get beyond the Judges.

Let's talk about the kings.

You get into the kings.

And who do you run into?

David, who commits adultery in vivid detail in the pages of the Bible.

His son is not much better because he's the closest thing to a sex addict in all the Bible.

So you say, well, maybe I'll be safer in these poetry books like the Psalms and the Proverbs.

A major theme of the book of Proverbs is prostitution and infidelity.

The Song of Solomon.

It's an erotic love manual for married couples.

Move into the Prophets.

And you get guys like Hosea, who marries a prostitute who won't quit her profession.

So I figure the whole Old Testament is off limits to these kids, right?

And then you move into the New Testament.

Here's Jesus using that porn word.

Hanging out with prostitutes who are washing his feet with their hair and kissing his feet.

Move into the time of the Acts when you've got Gentiles coming to Christ

who a part of their checkered past has been sexism.

A part of their idolatrous worship.

And these church leaders are trying to figure out a way to guide these believers

into appropriate expressions of their sexuality that honor God.

Move into the time of the Epistles where Paul, who writes half of the New Testament,

is trying to teach people how to live.

And he takes two whole chapters in Corinthians to talk about the bedroom between a husband and a wife.

I mean, you're just not safe anywhere in the Bible.

I felt like Jesus did when he dealt with the self-righteous of his day

and had to say to the Pharisees again and again,

have you not read?

Have you not read?

Because everything within me wanted to say,

have you never read this Bible you claim to love?

Do you let your kids read the Bible or do you have a special version you've cut out all those parts?

And just so I'm really clear on this,

Victorian prudishness about sexual matters

is as wrong in the eyes of God as wife-swapping.

Because both are distortions of God's gifts.

And you are not more right with God

because you embrace standards that are more restrictive than His.

It's a sinful choice.

And it's the only type of choice that made Jesus very angry.

Jesus didn't get angry,

did not display His anger toward the prostitutes,

toward the morally degenerate who came to Him owning their sins.

He displayed His anger toward those who were self-righteous

who somehow thought that they held to such high standards.

Those are the ones that Jesus got angry with.

Friends,

it is time for the church to get as honest about sexual matters

as the Bible is about these realities.

Because people are hurting and destroying their lives

through ignorance of what God has said.

And if we're afraid of words,

if we're afraid of sexual language,

if we're fearful of talking about sex,

then the message we send is we're embarrassed by it

and our kids are going to go to the world to find out about sex

and they're not going to turn to us.

Just to give you an idea of just how frank and straightforward

the Bible is about sex,

I put a verse in your notes from 1 Thessalonians 4, 3-5.

Paul writes,

This is the will of God,

your sanctification that is growing to be more like Christ,

your sanctification that you should abstain from sexual immorality.

There's that word porn.

That each of you should know how to possess his own vessel

in sanctification and honor,

not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.

Now in this letter that Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica,

Paul makes a statement.

He says,

Each of you should know how to,

possess his vessel in sanctification,

his own vessel in sanctification and honor.

Now I have a book in my library that's a Greek lexicon.

It's kind of a dictionary of Bible words.

The original New Testament was written in Greek.

This lexicon was put together by Bauer, Art, Gingrich, and Denker.

I had to pay a hundred bucks for this book

when I was at Dallas Theological,

conservative Dallas Theological Seminary,

because this book has been,

the defining lexicon,

dictionary for Greek words for the last hundred years.

It's put together by top shelf Greek scholars,

none of which were from California.

Okay?

Bauer, Art, Gingrich, and Denker.

I looked up this verse,

1 Thessalonians 4, 4,

in that book.

And it said,

the way to translate this Greek word for vessel,

skuos,

the way you translate it is virile member,

or penis.

In other words,

what this verse would literally say

is that each of you should know how to possess his own penis

in sanctification and honor.

Now, some of you can't get beyond the fact

that your pastor just said penis.

But what I want you to understand

is that Paul is making a very important point.

That there is a way to be male and sexual

and still honor God.

That we can possess our manhood

in such a way that brings glory to God.

Instead of dishonor.

And by the way,

this is a good verse if you have boys that you're raising.

This is a good verse to teach them.

That there's a way to express their sexuality

in ways that are appropriate to God

and does not violate his will.

So I guess what I'm saying is this.

If it's in our Bible,

should we be afraid to say it

and teach it

and live it?

Let's face it,

the church just doesn't have a good track record

when it comes to talking about sex.

In fact,

most of the history of the church

has been filled with distortions and mixed signals.

If you were to summarize

the teaching of 2,000 years of church history

in regards to sex,

it'd be summarized in three D's.

Sex is duty, dull, and dirty.

Because that's been our history as a church.

You start within 100 years

after the New Testament was completed,

you have some early Christian leaders

teaching that sex,

sexual intimacy between husband and wife is wrong.

You have,

you have an early church father

who is saying

that when a husband and wife

come together in the bedroom

to consummate their marriage

that the Holy Spirit leaves the bedroom.

Distorted.

Add to that Augustine of Hippo

who was a 4th century theologian,

highly respected in the life of the church,

believed that unless you were trying to have a baby,

sex was always wrong.

Pope Gregory I

at the end of the 6th century

went a step further and said

sexual pleasure can never be without sin.

When you come to the Middle Ages

in the history of the church,

the church began to forbid

the expression of sex between husband and wife

on certain days.

You couldn't have sex as a husband and wife

on Saturday, Wednesday, or Friday.

Why those days?

I have no idea,

but you were not permitted.

You also were not permitted to have sex

40 days prior to Christmas,

Easter, or Pentecost.

When you add in all the days

that were feast days

when you weren't allowed to have sex,

and all the days

of so-called female impurity,

one historian estimated

that there were only 44 days in a year

where you were allowed to have sex.

Throw in a few headaches

and it makes for a miserable year.

You know, in the 1600s,

in the 1600s,

the Puritans thought sex

was to preserve the human race

and should never be enjoyed.

When you get to the latter part

of the 19th century

and you have all of the Victorians

who are known as prudes for a reason,

you have all of the Victorians

who are known as prudes for a reason,

they thought the less sex, the better.

You weren't allowed to say the word leg

in public when the Victorians were in power,

when their views held sway.

You weren't allowed to say the word leg.

They went so far

that they felt like the legs of a piano

enticed lust,

so they put men's trousers

around the legs of pianos.

I'll never look at a piano

in the same way again.

Now, when you consider

how out of sync,

these negative, repressed ideas

are about sex

and what God has actually said,

it's little wonder

that the world does not look to the church

to set its sexual ethics.

When all the church has said

is no, don't, and you better not,

the world says,

we're better off figuring this thing out on our own.

I'm not going to look to you guys.

So not only has the church distorted

and confused God's message about sex,

sometimes it's told out-and-out lies.

And I'm going to give you three

that are still prevalent,

today.

Rules or lies that keep you stuck.

The first one is this.

Lie number one,

rules will keep you right.

This is something that you hear a lot in church.

Rules will keep you right.

The church has typically

smothered the teaching of sex

under an avalanche of thou shalt nots.

And because of this approach,

many churches have inadvertently

created an environment

in which sexual deviancy

and sexual addiction thrive.

One leading expert on addiction today

said that,

we believe that

fundamentalist Christians

were the most sexually compulsive group

in America.

And I'm inclined to agree with that.

I agree with that

because of this rigid approach,

this rule-keeping approach

to the spiritual life.

Because all rule-keeping does

is turbo-charge lust.

The Bible's very explicit

about the failure of rules

to curb our sexual behavior.

Look at what the Bible teaches in Colossians 2.

Do not handle,

do not taste,

do not touch.

Such regulations indeed

have an appearance of wisdom.

But they lack any value

in restraining sensual indulgence.

Since then you have been raised with Christ,

set your heart on things above

where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on things above,

not on earthly things.

The Bible acknowledges

that it sounds spiritual,

it appears spiritual

to lay down a bunch of rules

around sexual behavior.

It looks like wisdom.

But the Bible is always going to say,

but the Bible is always going to say,

but the Bible is also very clear

that this lacks any power

to restrain sensual indulgence.

You know, over the years

I've met with a lot of men

who battle with sexual temptation.

And within minutes of talking to those men

I can tell you whether or not

it's an issue that's alive and well with them.

The moment they begin to tell me

what they're doing

to battle with those impulses,

I know whether they're getting free

or whether they're sunk.

When I hear a list of rules

given to me about their behavior,

I know that no matter how spiritual

they may think,

they sound,

those rules are having

the opposite effect on their life.

Again, listen to what the wisdom

of the Bible actually teaches.

Romans 7, 8.

Sin found a way

to pervert the command

into a temptation,

making a piece

of forbidden fruit out of it.

What the Bible actually teaches

is the more rules

you set up to live by,

the more you set yourself up

for failure.

Rules are kind of like

the wet paint don't touch sign.

The moment you see that,

what do you do?

You go over,

is that really wet?

You know, and we're touching.

We want to know

because it said wet paint don't touch.

So because it says don't touch,

I'm going to touch.

There is something about being told

not to do it

that taps into the adolescent part

of all of us

that wants to break the rules.

It's kind of like they say

there are always three ways

to get things done.

You can ask someone to do it.

You can pay someone to do it

or you can tell your teenager

not to do it.

That's the idea.

Telling someone not to do it

is probably one of the surest ways

to make sure that they do do it.

Making something forbidden,

is the way we tap into that

adolescent desire to rebel.

One of the most quoted preachers

in all of church history

was a guy who lived in the 18th century

by the name of Charles Spurgeon.

Listen to what he said about rules

in his life.

He wrote,

I have found in my own spiritual life

that the more rules I lay down for myself,

the more sins I commit.

Philip Yancey is a best-selling

Christian author today.

He has written many wonderful books.

Listen to what he said.

Legalism fails miserably

at the one thing it's supposed to do,

encourage obedience.

So if rules don't work,

then why did God give us a list of rules?

Why did God give us this list of commandments?

Why did God do that?

I mean, obviously God must have known

that this is the nature of humanity

to break rules.

Why would God do that?

That's a good question.

That's a legit question.

And the Bible talks about that too.

Notice Romans 3.20.

Therefore, no one will be declared righteous

in his sight by observing the law.

Rather, what happened through the law?

We became conscious of sin.

Now I want you to imagine for a minute

a conversation between humanity and God.

Where humanity, we come before God

and we say,

God, what is it that you want from us?

Just tell us.

And God says,

I want you to love me with all your heart.

I want you to trust me

and I'll guide your life from now on.

Just love me and trust me.

And we say, okay God,

tell us what to do and we'll do it.

And God says,

no, you don't quite understand what I'm saying.

I want you to love me.

I want you to love me and trust me

and let our relationship guide us.

Okay God, that's fine,

but give us a list.

Tell us exactly what it is you want.

I don't want to give you a list.

I want you to love me

and I want you to trust me.

Now just specifically,

what is it that you want?

And God says,

okay, I've written down a few things

that reflect my perfect holiness.

And at Mount Sinai,

he says, here you go.

And we look at that list and we said,

we can't do that.

We can't do any of that.

God didn't give the law

because he thought man could keep it.

God gave us the law

because man thought he could keep it.

Man thought that he could live in such a way

as to attain a righteous standing apart from God.

And the law was given to us

to expose the sinful nature of our heart,

to make us conscious of sin,

to make us all realize that we're sinners

in need of a savior,

that we can't keep the law on our own.

We can't please God on our own.

Bottom line is this,

if you struggle with an area of sin,

no list of rules is going to set you free.

I don't care where you read it.

I don't care who told you that's so.

It's not so.

There's only one way to set the captive free.

And it really goes back to that verse in Colossians.

Paul puts these ideas side by side.

He says, don't taste, don't touch, don't handle.

These regulations appear so wise,

they don't help you to restrain sensual indulgence.

And then he tells us a key.

He says, set your hearts on things above.

What he's saying is,

is you can't shut down.

You can't shut off the channel,

you can change channels.

You can't repress a part of yourself that God has given,

but you can express it to God in appropriate ways.

You know, addiction specialists today say

that the best cure for addiction is intimacy.

That if people who are addicted

can really connect in intimate relationships,

really be known, be loved at the deepest levels,

if they can become intimate in their real world,

they can break the power of addiction.

Long before addiction specialists realized that was true,

God said in these words,

He said, if you want to be free,

if you want to be free from the things that enslave you,

if you want to be free from these types of temptations

and this kind of falling in your life,

then you need to connect your heart with God's heart.

Because only God can set us free.

You cannot simply be set free

from this type of sexual wounding in your life

through willpower alone.

Only God can transform the heart.

He reshapes our hearts, our desire, our will,

so that we can do and want to do

what He wants us to do.

Here's the second lie.

The second lie is that shame,

I mean, is effective in curbing sin.

It's a big lie in the history of the church.

In the opening video montage,

you saw two girls in gym class,

and there's a boy that's running around the gym,

and one looks at the other,

and do you remember what her friend said?

Mary, I see what you're looking at,

and Jesus does too.

What was that?

That was an attempt to shame her,

and it probably was effective.

But what you need to understand,

if you were to watch this movie,

that comes from the movie Saved,

you would understand that

both of these girls like the same boy.

And what this girl is really doing

in her attempt to shame her friend

is confessing what's going on in her own heart.

Which, by the way, is what shame always is.

Those who shame others are shame-based people.

Listen to what someone shames you for,

and you're hearing a veiled confession

of what they struggle with.

Because when I shame you,

I take the knowledge I have of my own heart,

and I put it on you.

That's what shaming,

that's what shaming is all about.

Shaming is an attempt to control you.

By tapping into that sense of shame,

that sense of badness that you feel

because you're a broken human being,

because you're a sinner like me,

I want to tap into that sense of shame

and get you to do things my way.

I want to get you to conform, so I shame.

The Bible says sin and shame go together.

In other words, if you commit sin,

you're going to experience shame.

It's a part of the human condition.

So shame is universal.

I can tell you this about shame.

Shame makes you want to hide.

This is exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden

when Adam and Eve sinned.

They departed from God's plan.

They experienced shame for the first time in their life.

They hide from God.

That's what Genesis 3.10 says.

Here's the most basic thing I can tell you about shame.

Shame drives sin underground.

It drives it into darkness.

It drives it into secrecy.

Now here's the thing.

Jesus never once,

never once in his life,

never once in his lifetime in all of the New Testament,

shamed somebody to get them to do what he wanted.

Not once.

You won't find it in there.

I challenge you to find it in there.

He doesn't do it.

He doesn't use shame.

Jesus leads with love and acceptance

because Jesus has no interest in driving your sin into darkness.

Jesus has every interest in bringing your sin out into the light

because into the light it can be forgiven.

In the light it can be healed.

So Jesus doesn't use shame.

But shame, when it comes to sexual sin,

is the lock and step walk of the church.

We use shame all the time.

I want you to think about maybe Christians you've been around,

maybe people in your own family,

maybe even you yourself,

words that you have used to describe those who commit sexual sin.

I'll tell you the most common ones.

We say deviant,

sicko,

pervert.

And when we use the rhetoric of disgust and shame,

I want you to know that anybody in your life who is sexually wounded

or sexually broken or sexually struggling

will never come to you for the love of Christ.

You say, well, good.

I'm glad.

I don't have any tolerance for that kind of stuff anyway.

All I can say is I hope you don't have kids.

It's been estimated that half of the kids in America

have had exposure to pornography.

Half.

Christian kids,

non-Christian kids,

homeschooled kids,

public schooled kids.

It doesn't matter the category.

Half of the kids have been exposed to pornography.

The average age now,

thanks to the internet,

for first time exposure to pornography,

is 11.

11 years of age.

Here's what I know.

If you use the language of shame

when you see on the evening news

those stories that really bothered you

about sexual deviance,

and you use sicko, pervert,

you use those words.

Here's what your kid thinks.

Number one, they know because of what you've told them

that pornography is wrong.

You've done a good job of teaching them

that that's something wrong.

And in their heart,

they are battling between that feeling they feel

that this is wrong

and that feeling over here

that they like what they saw

and they want to look at it again.

And they feel ashamed

and they feel isolated

and they feel ashamed.

And they feel ashamed.

And they feel alone

and they already know what you think about them.

They're a deviant.

They're a sicko.

They're a pervert.

And they've made one decision you can count on.

They are not coming to you to disclose that to you.

As a mom, as a dad,

I don't want my kid to ever make that decision.

I don't want to slam a door in their face

before they have a chance to come to me

and say, Mom, Dad, I've messed up.

I did something.

I'm ashamed of.

I want my kids to know

that no matter what they do,

I'm still their dad,

they're still my daughter,

and I love them.

No matter what they do,

that doesn't change.

I'm going to love them.

I may be disappointed.

I might have to discipline them for what they do,

but my love for them

is not going to change based on their behavior.

And I'm not going to use the language of shame

to slam a door in their face

before they have a chance to come to me.

And share their heart.

Jesus talked about this with a very real example

about two people who went up to the temple to pray.

He said,

The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself.

God, I thank you that I'm not like other men,

robbers, evildoers, adulterers,

deviants, sickos, and perverts.

Or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week.

I give a tenth of all that I get.

But the tax collector stood at a distance.

He would not even look up to heaven,

but beat his breast and said,

God, have mercy on me.

Be a sinner.

Jesus said only one of these men

went away from the temple that day

justified in the eyes of God.

You know, C.S. Lewis is known

as one of the greatest defenders of the Christian faith.

C.S. Lewis talked about the tendency

among Christian people

to look upon sexual sin as the worst of all sins.

And he says that's not right.

Listen to what he wrote.

If anyone thinks that Christians

regard sexual promiscuity as the worst vice,

he is quite wrong.

The sins of the flesh are bad,

but they're the least bad of all sins.

All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual.

The pleasure of putting other people in the wrong,

of bossing and patronizing and backbiting,

the pleasure of power and hatred.

Therefore, a cold, self-righteous prig

who regularly goes to church

may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.

Friends, when are we going to learn?

Shaming does not curb sin.

Shaming is an indictment on the shamer.

Here's the third lie.

The church has told

that premarital sex will make you feel bad.

This is a theme that runs through many sermons,

discussions, and even Christian books

that you're going to read about sex.

It's the insistence that if we have premarital sex,

we're going to feel bad about it.

If you go to bed with your boyfriend or your girlfriend,

you'll be wracked with guilt,

and more likely,

you'll wake up the next morning feeling lonely and used.

Now, there's no question,

sometimes that's very true.

Maybe even most times that's true.

But sometimes, after a one-night stand,

or after sex with your girlfriend of two years,

you may feel lousy,

you may feel ashamed,

you may feel alienated

and totally down in the dumps,

but sometimes it's not true.

Sometimes, even after sinful sex,

that is, sex that violates God's will for your life,

a person will feel great.

Now, it's weird to me

that so many Christians insist

that people will feel bad after premarital sex

because that's not what Jesus taught.

Jesus understood the human heart

and he understood how out of sync we are

with the human heart.

Often, with our own sinfulness.

And he told a story,

a story you probably remember well

if you've grown up in church,

about a young boy in Luke 15

called the prodigal son.

This is a boy who insists on his inheritance.

His father gives in.

The kid takes the money to a far country

and the Bible says he wastes it all there.

Wine, women, and song,

having a good old time

as long as the money held out.

The turning point comes in the story

in Luke 15, 17,

where Jesus says he came to himself.

Now, before this moment in the story,

before this awakening,

the prodigal son was not in himself at all,

as often we are not in ourselves.

That is, we're not aware of our fallen condition.

The Bible teaches the heart is deceitful

above all things and beyond pure.

Who can understand it?

The plain sad fact is this.

We don't always feel bad

after we do something wrong.

Now, I'm not saying that

because you don't feel bad,

it isn't bad.

I'm not saying that at all.

What I'm saying is that our feelings

aren't trustworthy.

We don't judge right and wrong

by how we feel.

Now, there's a philosophy that does that.

It's not a Christian philosophy.

It's called existentialism.

Existentialism, as it's popularly believed,

is if it feels good, do it.

The antithesis of that is

if it doesn't feel good, then don't do it.

And I'm just telling you

that's not a Christian way

of looking at things.

The Bible doesn't teach that.

And here's the problem

with thinking that way.

Little Susie Q, who grows up in church,

and all the time she's heard her pastor

and she's heard her Sunday school teacher

talking about the fact that

if you engage in premarital sex,

you're going to feel guilt-ridden

and lonely and isolated

and miserable in the morning.

And Susie Q listens and believes

what her pastors are saying

and for years and years and years

lives according to God's plan.

Finally, she's in her mid-twenties.

She's still not married.

She's been with the same guy

for a couple of years.

One night, in the heat of passion,

she gives in.

She has sex.

She wakes up in the next morning.

Maybe she feels bad

and maybe she doesn't.

And if she doesn't feel bad,

I can tell you what's going to be on her mind.

You know, that preacher

has been telling me for years

that this would feel bad

and it doesn't.

Maybe everything else he told me

about sex is wrong, too.

I guess what I'm saying is this,

is if feeling bad is the only resource

the church has to diagnose sin,

then in the absence of feeling bad,

Susie Q is going to keep right on having sex

and doubt the teaching of her church.

I believe the church needs to send the message

that premarital sex is bad for us

even when it feels great.

Now, I've begun this series

by indicting and critiquing the church

and I've done that for a reason.

Because every other book

and every other sermon I've ever heard about sex

begins with the culture

and lays out the culture

and says everything that's wrong with the world.

And you know what?

The world looks at the church and says,

look in the mirror, buddy.

Look at your problems.

Look at what you have done

to add to a repressed, distorted view of sexuality.

And so I want to clean our side of the street.

That's why we've done this message.

We want to say, listen,

the church has not gotten this right either.

But we're going back to the Bible

and I want you to know,

I want you to hear this really loud and clear.

I will not participate in a conspiracy of silence

about the things that God

was not embarrassed to include in His Word.

And I will not perpetuate

myths and stereotypes and lies

that the church has told

because it's easy to do it

and get amens out of it.

I'm going to stand up here

and boldly declare what God has said

because that 11-year-old boy

who's had his first exposure to pornography

who doesn't know where to turn

needs to know where to turn.

And if somebody isn't being honest about it,

he's not going to know.

And I'm standing up here

for every young girl and every young boy

who feels pressured in a dating relationship

to give up that precious gift

that God has given them in their virginity.

Who's feeling that pressure

by a boyfriend or a girlfriend

to give up the precious gift of God.

I'm standing up here for them.

I'm standing up here for every businessman

and every stay-at-home mom

who's addicted to erotic online chat

or who's flirting in a relationship

that is not with their husband

or with their wife.

I'm standing up here

for every one in three women

and every one in seven men

who sometime in their life

have been on the receiving end

of an unwanted sexual advance.

Sometimes,

sometimes these people have been abused.

They've been hurt.

They've been wounded.

They've been taken advantage of.

And somebody's got to stand up here

and boldly declare what God has said

because if they don't,

these people are going to say,

well, the church doesn't have the answer.

The church is not going to help me.

They have no idea what I've been through.

I'm standing up here

for the Peggy Neals of the world.

I met Peggy Neal a few years ago.

Peggy Neal had cancer.

She was dying.

Her boss attended

Spring Creek Community Church.

He said,

would you come and see my secretary

because she doesn't know the Lord

and she's about ready to meet Him.

And I said, sure,

but you're going to have to come with me.

And so I went with this guy

and went to visit Peggy in her home.

And sure enough, Peggy had cancer.

She was a beautiful woman,

a single mom,

been a single mom for many years.

You could tell at one time

she had just beautiful flowing hair,

just absolutely attractive features.

Chemotherapy had significantly altered

her appearance.

She had a lot of hair.

She'd lost most of her hair.

It had disfigured her somewhat.

Still just an amazingly beautiful soul.

And Peggy and I were talking.

We were talking about cancer.

And what she told me next,

I wasn't prepared for.

She told me about the church

she used to attend.

It was a church well known

for its high standards.

A church well known

that it publishes all of its rules.

It's always out there.

It's always about holiness.

It's always about doing things right.

This is the kind of church

I knew the church instantly

she was talking about.

And she told me that years before,

the pastor of that church

had come on to her in a sexual way

as a single mom.

And it broke my heart.

It broke my heart to know

because what she said was,

Keith, I lost all faith in ministers.

And I became disillusioned with the church.

And I gave up on God

and I walked away from it all.

That's what she'd done.

And she was about to meet her maker.

And one guy

one guy in a position like mine

a position of respected

and trusted authority

had used that to his own advantage

and tried to use it in a sexual way

to take advantage of this young single mom.

I said, Peggy, I don't know what to say.

There's no way.

I can't think of a thing

I could say to convince you

I'm not like that guy.

I can tell you that I'm not.

I don't believe myself

to be that kind of person.

But I can tell you about somebody.

Who's never given up on you, Peggy.

I can tell you about somebody

whose heart broke

the moment that pastor came on to you in that way.

And his name is Jesus.

And Jesus has never written you off.

And you may have walked away from him

and you may have walked away from what

appeared to be his representatives.

But I want you to know

that Jesus just loves you, Peggy.

And he loves you so much

that he has pursued you

and he has made sure

that I showed up here today

to tell you how much he loves you.

And that, Peggy,

regardless of the fact

that you received

and you were on the receiving end

of things you never deserved,

that there are parts of your life

that are broken.

And this decision to do life

in your own way apart from God,

he can forgive.

All you have to do, Peggy,

is lay your life out before him.

Own the brokenness of your own life.

Lay it out before him

and he stands ready to forgive

and heal everything in your life.

And you know, that day,

Peggy Neal

bowed before Christ

and found him

as her forgiver and her leader.

A week later,

she asked me right after that,

can you baptize me?

Now, Keith, I can't go to church

and I can't even get in the bathtub anymore.

Can you baptize me?

I said, sure, Peggy.

And I took her boss the next week

and I had a cup of water

and she's laid out on her couch

and I took this water

and I sprinkled it over her forehead

and the smile,

I tell you, the smile,

I'll never forget.

Just the sheer delight she felt

being washed and cleansed

in these baptismal waters.

It was incredible.

A couple of weeks after that,

I got a call in the middle of the night.

It was Peggy's 17-year-old daughter

and she asked,

can you come down to Baylor?

I think mom's dying.

I think this is it.

I said, I'll be right there.

I took off from my home in Garland.

I went down to Baylor.

I walked into the room.

The whole family is gathered there.

I walked up to Peggy's side.

I took her by the hand.

Peggy was not conscious.

I prayed with Peggy.

When I got done praying,

I said, Peggy,

it's okay.

It's okay.

You can go home now.

She took one more breath

and she went into eternity.

Into the arms of her father

who never gave up on her,

who loved her through it all

and her healing was complete that night.

I stand up here for Peggy Neal

and I stand up here for you.

I stand up here for you

because I know that some of you

carry the burden of a secret.

Things you've never told another soul.

Things you've done.

Things you've never experienced.

Things that have been done to you.

Things that you in no wise deserved.

And it's hurt you.

It's distorted you.

It's caused you to live in a lot of shame.

And I'm here to tell you,

you don't have to live that way anymore.

You don't.

God loves you incredibly.

And He stands at the ready

to bring into the light

what we're so ashamed of

and through His love and acceptance

set us free.

And for those,

for those of us

who have such brokenness

around this area of our life,

who knows that it causes problems

in our relationships today,

that as we bring that to Him,

God will, as a gentle Savior,

heal and touch that part of our life

and make it whole and complete

in what He meant for it to be.

I wonder if you trust Him

with that part of you today.

Let's pray.

God,

I just lift up everyone in this room.

I know, God,

that You are so real,

that You are so loving,

that, God, You are so for us.

This is a message You want told

because, God,

so many people who live in secrecy

also live in shame.

They've lived under a cloud for years.

They've been so afraid

to share this with another soul,

what they've done,

what's been done to them.

And, God, because of that,

this sin has only increased

its grip in their life.

And rather than become free,

they've become shackled

by a past

that they cannot shake.

And, God,

I just want to say to you,

I just want them to experience

Your love today.

I want them to know

that, God, You came to set the captive free.

You came to forgive

the broken ones like me,

like everyone in this room.

You came.

You died on the cross

so that we could be forgiven,

so that we could be restored,

so that we could be healed,

so that we could know

that we are loved.

Help someone today, God,

to enter into this

intimate relationship with You,

whereby You change our heart,

You change our desires,

You change our will

so that we can do the things

that we truly long to do.

In Christ's name, amen.