Slowing Down

Slowing Down

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The BODY - The Gifts

The Body and The Gifts:
(Thiselton) - "To try to rank some gifts as "more essential" than others, let alone as necessary marks of advanced status to which all should aspire, is to offer a blasphemous challenge to God's freedom to choose whatever is his good will for his people both collectively and individually. The unexpected "greek word, see spelling on right" [hen hekaston auton], which in a different context might seem redundant, here intensifies the emphasis each single one of them (thus inviting single as a comparably redundant intensifying device in English). How dare anyone boast or exult in his or her own gifts as if these were a status symbol, or devalue other people's gifts, as if God had not chosen them for the other?"

Interesting botch of research

The Power of Sex

THE POWER OF SEX

A story. I remember the first date I ever had was in the 3^rd grade, I fell in love with a girl name Gina Apa-something. Well, anways, I took her home from school one day – on my bike… and back then, I wasn’t rich enough to afford those fancy pegs on my bike, so the way that we worked it out was that she sat on the seat and I kinda stood on the pedals – and here we were, this awkward looking couple of kids biking home and I remember there was this Christmas tree lot down here on fairgrove, a couple blocks from this church and Gina had this wonderful idea – she told me that her family didn’t have a Christmas tree, and that I should get her one… and since we were by this Christmas tree field, I should go out and grab her one… and I remember this being one of the biggest mistakes of my life – we bike into this lot and I’m paying no attention to which turns we’re taking – and this place is huge. And keep in mind, I’m like 8 or 9 years old. And we finally find this tree and as I’m trying to pull it out of the ground – I hear someone yelling at us from somewhere in the distance, and I can’t see over even the tiniest of trees – and he’s yelling, the dang tree won’t come out of the ground, Gina’s freakin’ out, and all of a sudden we hear these dogs barking! And so next thing you know we’re trying to bolt out of this Christmas tree nightmare from hell looking for the exit and we’re just turning left and right, left and right with dogs barking somewhere in the distance until we finally make our way out.

And I guess the moral of the story goes something like this – don’t steal Christmas trees, but also, know that some things are really bigger than they seem.

And within our current topic today, SEX is bigger than it seems. What people say about having sex is totally different than the experience that follows it.

This month we’ve been tackling issues of purity. Just last week we talked about purity, how you and I are made in the image of God and because of this we are called to live these lives of purity. We are called to live lives that are in step with God’s demand for sexual purity.

And it’s this whole understanding that the body was not made for sexual impurity that we’re going to be talking on a very sensitive subject today – and that’s the power of sex.

There is so much power in sex. There’s the power that sex has to help you live your life to the fullest, and yet there’s enough power in it to destroy lives because of sex. I’ve seen lives and relationship reach these peaks of unity and bonding because of sex, and on that same token, I’ve seen lives destroyed by sex, lives torn by the destructive and deceptive nature of it.

Just by nature, the word “SEX” has great power. I mean, we live in this culture that is totally saturated in the topic of sex, and literally, you turn on the tv and you’ll bump into a commercial about sex, you turn on the radio, and there will be some mention of sex, you drive down the freeways or down the street, you may just see something that alludes to sex.

And I’m not just making this up, but there’s great power in sex. And if you don’t believe me here’s something for you to do. After service or Sunday school today, I want you to go to McDonalds, and while in line, go up to the cashier and say, “I’d like some food please”. And right after you, ask a friend to ask the same cashier, “I’d like some sex please…” and just see what happens to the place – there’s power in that word alone.

So I think we all agree that there’s power in the word, the thought, and action of sex – and what I want to try and cram into your heads within the next half hour is to get you to see that there is a huge difference between what the world teaches us about sex and what the bible teaches us about sex…

There is a huge difference between what you hear about sex from your non-Christian peers and how you, as a Christian are supposed to respond to that.

Last week we touched on one incident in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 5. And it is important to note that the Apostle Paul in this book of 1 Corinthians is talking about themes of spiritual maturity, themes of growth as a believer and almost abruptly comes this passage in 1 Corinthians 5 that reads:

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.”

So the apostle Paul abruptly incorporates this passage into his talks on spiritual maturity and living as an apostle or servant of Christ and he talks about this man, whom at this particular time in the Corinthian church is sleeping with his father’s wife!

And the way that the apostle Paul describes this practice is that he says this kind of practice doesn’t even happen among pagans. I mean literally, there are those outside of the church who would look at a practice such as this and their faces would just be in utter disgust over what is going on in this church!

And it was Farrar and Thomas who interpreted the situation saying, “Apparently this [person] was some nominal Christian, who was living in open sin with his stepmother, and thereby braving the curse of Leviticus 18:17” which reads, “Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.”

And it’s funny how just reading through a passage like this in Leviticus, or even here in Corinthians that I am reminded of just how far our culture has already come to suppress and forget about the severity of this issue…

You see, we live in this culture that thrives off of the idea that SEX IS NO BIG DEAL. But I’m here today to tell you that it is a big deal. I mean, did you know that when I LOVE LUCY came out that Lucy and Ricky were so afraid of communicating sex to the culture that they wore 19 pairs of pajamas and slept on two single beds that was 5 or 6 feet apart?

But today we see on tv shows the blatant opinion that sex is casual – that it is no big deal, that you can sleep with as many people as you want, as often as you want and walk away from it without feelings of guilt, without feelings of shame, and especially for those of you who are Christians… without conviction.

It’s been a while since we got into this war over in Iraq and the middle east. And I remember the moment the U.S. went to war – I mean, it was all over the news… every single station was reporting on this happening – “X” amount of soldiers killed in cross fires, missiles being launched, civilians and troops being massed murdered by bombings…

And I remember watching the tv and looking at the rows of dead people and thinking to myself, “this is BIG”. Those are dead people lying across the screen – but now, months later, the idea of dead troops and war is so suppressed and so widely communicated that it doesn’t seem as big…

And sex works in that same way – we learn at an early age that SEX IS A BIG DEAL, we learn that sex is something (especially if you’re not married) that creates these bonds between the people who do it right? You’ve heard about the flower and how every time you have sex it’s like you’re giving away a petal until you’re out, or casual sex as being like this duct tape on a hairy arm that eventually loses it’s stickiness – and somewhere between what you’ve learned when you were younger and now, sex has become… just sex –

But it’s not a small issue is it – the giving away of your body isn’t a small issue, isn’t it?

Going back quickly to our passage today in 1 Corinthians 5, the consequences of indulging in our sexual appetites or cravings is something that most times isn’t taken as seriously as it should be.

Another lie that our culture tells us about the power of sex is that SEX IS PURELY PHYSICAL. If there is anything that I pray that you get out of this message, this is what I pray that you will get and stick into your memory banks… but sex is not purely physical – there is no way that you can have sex with the person of the opposite sex and not experience something…

Sex is highly emotional and in my very strong opinion, highly spiritual. Because not only are you giving away your physical body, you are emotionally attaching yourself to this person.

I remember talking to a good friend of mine once about the idea of casual sex, and don’t worry, he’s a guy – but I wasn’t as shocked as I was very heart broken over the idea that the idea of casual sex, or sex being purely physical was something breaking into the seams of our youth culture today.

But you see, we fail to recognize that not only is there no such thing as casual sex, but along with sex comes the attachment of the soul, and all the emotional insecurities of non-commitment.

God created sex to be with one person for the rest of your life…

Which leads me to another false view that culture teaches us, and that’s that GOD IS DOWN ON SEX.

Or in other words, God doesn’t want us to have sex. You know growing up in church, we heard many different messages on purity, on sex, on anything and everything on this topic – but for some reason during these sermons and Sunday school lessons, all I heard was NO, YOU CAN’T DO THIS, NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT… and slowly but surely I began to develop an inner dissatisfaction with the church and with Christianity because I felt like God didn’t want us Christians to have sex!

The idea that God is down on sex is a horribly, uneducated comment. The reason it’s horribly uneducated is because God created sex. Sex was God’s idea. If you believe that God created humanity then you believe that God created sex. He said Adam and Eve go for it! Do it! Have sex! He created them that way. It wasn’t an accident that Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel – but it was God’s intended purpose for man and woman to have sex…

Feeling a bit queezy yet?

I got a couple more of these… but here goes, another lie that our culture teaches us is the classic argument that EVERYONE’S DOING IT…

Does this phrase still get passed around today? I remember growing up in high school – apparently everyone was doing it, and I was the only person in school that wasn’t. But anyways, this has got to be one of the lamest lies I’ve ever heard of in my life – everyone is not doing it. As a matter of fact, abstinence and saying no to sex is going way up. Statistics tell us that 40% of all high school students will graduate from high school without having an intimate date…

You are not the only one that’s not doing it.

And there are so many other lies that go around about sex and this is why it is important that we as Christians speak the truth about the realities of sex and not let a subject as big as this become taboo within the church.

Going back to our biblical passage in 1 Corinthians, I want you to join me in chapter 6 starting in verse 12 where it reads,

“’Everything is permissible for me’ – but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible for me’ – but I will not be mastered by anything. ‘Food for the stomach and the stomach for food’ – but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”

Paul states that the body was not made for fornication – like we spoke last week, we were made in the image of God, and because of this newfound value, we are to live certain lives according to who God created us to be…

Like it says in 1 Thessalonians 4:7 “God has not called us into uncleanness, but to holiness” and further more like we read in Romans that we are to present our bodies “as instruments of righteousness unto God”, we are called to present our whole bodies as a living, holy, reasonable sacrifice to him…

The extent of our very existence is “glorify God and enjoy Him forever…”

How do we do this when we constantly encourage others around us to belittle the beauty of God’s creation?

How do we do this when we say nothing to our friends when they pressure us or others into following a worldly philosophy of sex?

How do we do this when even though we may fail at times, without anger, without conviction, without authority, continually to push God, the reading of the Word, and prayer out of our everyday lives?

I’m telling you this, that you will never be able to reach that solid foundation, you will never feel satisfied no matter how much sex you have in your life, if your intimacy is not founded in Christ and so long as you continue to live in sexual sin, you will never find what you’re looking for…

Just like that U2 song – “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” – look to God and I guarantee you’ll find it.

Similarly – we are taught by are peers that having a physical relationship is good. We are pressured everyday, have you kissed your girlfriend? Have you given yourself to your boyfriend – brothers and sisters – true intimacy is never going to be found there! And isn’t that what you’re looking for?

Girls, isn’t there a longing deep down inside you to be found, to be sought after, to be valued, to have someone who loves you for not just what you are on the outside, but your personality on the inside – aren’t you looking for someone who would appreciate even the weirdest qualities you may possess?

Let me tell you how to ruin that… pursue having sex with your boyfriend, and you’ll quickly see that the advice that the world gives you regarding sex is a complete 180, a full world’s length distance from what your heart is craving.

Guys, you want to know the quickest way to fail in life and to be divorced before you turn 40?

Continue indulging yourself in sexual sin. Carry that mindset that you can get whomever or whatever you want and if you ever become dissatisfied move on to the next one, and I guarantee you, you will grow up to be exactly who you don’t want to be by 40.

Young people listen up. I’m sorry if I’m guilt-tripping you. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to preach the Word of God faithfully, and what I’m seeing from the Word is that there is a huge disparity, a separation between what premarital sex, and indulging in sexual immorality in the world’s perspective and what that looks like through the eyes of Christ.

Let me close chapter 6 of 1 Corinthians, I’ll read it to you…

Verse 15 reads,

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body…

And the apostle Paul closes with the statement, “Therefore, honor God with your body”.

Hey church – I’ve heard this verse misused and abused by people saying that this is a verse that goes against piercing your bodies or tattoo-ing yourself, but it’s not saying that at all – this passage refers to the damage that goes on by indulging in sexual impurity.

Paul says that our bodies are members of Christ himself, so not only are we made in the image of the Almighty God, but in partaking of communion with Him – we are members of Christ himself, we are consequently united with our Jesus Christ – that means that we share a common love for that which is holy, righteous and pure, and on the reverse end, we share a distaste with God for those which seek to defile that…

And in closing, the wise words of Paul where he says, “flee from sexual immorality” – last week we spent some time talking about how sin within the church is like this yeast, this tiny amount of yeast that spreads throughout the entire body… and sin similarly has this way of creeping into the church body and destroying relationships.

The Apostle Paul, with wisdom says, flee from sexual immorality. And guys, I may have mentioned this before, but I believe this is something that applies to all men, at all ages, in all different walks of life, whether you’re a father or 10 or a son of 10 years old… In the midst of temptation, especially sexual temptation, don’t fight… run.

Run because often times we have this “macho” personality right? We have this mentality that “it really can’t be that bad”… and it’s only until we’re face-to-face with these trials and temptations that we begin to see one of two things, (1) I can handle this (2) or I totally underestimated this battle.

Ladies, again we’ll close this sermon with something for you. Offering yourself physically to a guy is something that will only benefit you within the context of marriage. Don’t buy into the lies that sex is no big deal, that it’s purely physical, that everyone’s doing or that God is down on sex… Don’t be afraid to shut off that tv or that radio when someone or something is trying to advertise to you that you are not pretty enough either –

Remember, we need strong women of God in these years to come.

Finally, brothers and sisters, let me close with the Psalm that reads,

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.”

Do not neglect your relationship with God and your reading of the Word… implant it into your brains and pursue purity in your everyday walks…

PURITY MESSAGE

MESSAGE ON PURITY GIVEN: SUNDAY, MAY 17,2009

PURITY

I remember the last time that I ever spoke on something remotely close to the topic of purity was about 2 years ago when I had the opportunity to speak at a retreat for another youth group. But it was because of that day that I had been fearful to ever preach on this topic again.

One of the main reasons why I had this fear of preaching or speaking on the topic of purity, or even as we’ll talk about in the weeks to come, SEX, was because of the dangers that could possibly follow or couple with speaking on such a sensitive and hands off topic…

But you see, one of the biggest problems with churches today is that there is little talk on the issue of purity and sex and even smaller communication on what how sex and the Christian faith are related… and instead of taking the opportunity to speak and give Christ’s input on purity, you guys get exposed to teaching on sex culture by the media or by popular culture…

And what ends up happening is that we dip so deep and so normally into this idea of American sexuality that we slowly begin to forget where the church stands on issues of purity, what the Bible says about living a life contrary to the impure…

And we’re left callous – distant – we’re left with the thinking that people in the church know nothing or are highly unqualified to talk about issues of sex and purity. I mean Pastor’s never have sex right?

Okay, if you’re feeling a little awkward today – good, it just means that it’s been a while since you’ve heard the word SEX from the pulpit…

Our study today starts in the book of Genesis – where we will be reading about how early innocence was shattered because of wrong decisions and how those decisions ultimately lead to a realization of impurity…

In Genesis chapter 3, the author, who is assumed to be Moses writes about the account of Adam and Eve, and how they stumbled into sin.

It’s here in Genesis where God creates the entire world, the universe! And the first two chapter of Genesis describe God’s interaction in the creation of this world and how he creates light from the darkness, how he creates the Earth, the water, the trees, the plants and animals and all the while while creating – there are these pauses in which the author of Genesis writes, and God saw that what he had created, was GOOD!

Good… or in other words, “tob” in Hebrew meaning – unlike anything else, he made this creation that was tob, so impressive and amazing

And the Bible in Genesis starts off with this amazing picture of the way God created the world, the way that he intended it to be and it was TOB!

And on one day he makes human beings, in chapter 1:27 the Bible reads,

“SO GOD CREATED HUMAN BEINGS IN HIS OWN IMAGE. IN THE IMAGE OF GOD HE CREATED THEM; MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM…”

And guess what, I’ll say it one more time, when God looked over all of creation he saw that it was GOOD…

And the reason why I start off with the background of this passage is because that even within the first few verses of the Bible we read something important to know about God’s creation – that not only does he create this inherently “good” world, but he creates us humans all in the likeness of his image – imagine that will you? You and I are made in the image of God…

And so God places Adam, because he created Adam first in this garden, and he looks at Adam and says Adam, why don’t you name all of the animals in this world? And Adam starts naming off these animals, and you know it must not have been too long before God realized that Adam wasn’t filling the loneliness in his heart by naming the octopus, or the elephant – because there’s only so many things a man can do before he gets lonely…

So God creates a woman!

And everything in the garden is going great until we reach this point in chapter 3 today and everything goes south – out of all the goodness going on in the garden, SIN creeps into the picture and we see how the introduction of sin into the garden of Eden has this ripple effect that destroys the purity originally intended for God’s people, men and women made in the image of God.

There’s this pattern that continues to develop within the lifespan of the Israelites – after the fall in the Garden of Eden comes this moment where there’s this loop. It’s this vicious cycle that we see the Israelites making a pact with God, then slowly but surely, they face temptation and although sometimes they succeed through tests and trials, many times they fall and fail hard…

And in the moment of their failures, they cry out to God, and God would hear them and send a savior… and all will be okay until the moment they sin once again.

And this is where our story leads us to today – Purity… well what is purity? The word purity is used throughout the Bible over a hundred times, and somewhere within those hundreds of times that it is used, Christians are commanded by God to live these upright walks with God…

Christians are called to turn and run away from impurity, to flee from filling our minds and bodies with thoughts and images of the impure.

In Hebrews 13:4 we’re commanded to honor marriage by keeping the marriage bed pure, by abstaining from adultery and immorality.

We are called to crave pure spiritual milk seen in 1 Peter 2:2 – we do this by developing a hunger for God and a desire for maturity.

In the book of 1 John, the author says in chapter 3, “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!

BUT… he says, the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him… we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure…

Hey church, we are called and commanded to live lives that are pure before God – and a life of purity, to be made simple is a life that lives in honor of God…

And as I read through the beginning pages of the Bible in the book of Genesis, I did a character study on the person of Adam and the person of Eve. And in doing this I recognized that the sin that gripped Adam and Eve, the first humans ever to walk this planet, the two people who understood, communed, and walked with God, the sin that they stumbled upon is the same sin that we repeatedly see throughout the Old and New Testament and EVEN today… it’s the sin of desire.

And it was Adam and Eve’s desire and crave for MORE that led them to pursue turning their backs to God.

Often times in our lives, the stumbling into sin falls into that one instance, that one moment where you have that decision to make –

1) On one end there is the desire to please God – and although this is the guaranteed, sure-fire way of experiencing the riches of God’s blessings… it is often times the most difficult, the most painful, the most heart wrenching situations

But on the other end…

2) There’s the hunger to indulge in impurity by turning our backs towards God. And although going down this road is always guaranteed to leave you unsatisfied and thirsty – It often times offers the seemingly most reasonable, most entertaining, the quickest solution to all of your problems…

And that’s how believers stumble into impurity – that’s what blinded Adam and Eve from seeing that although they bit into the fruit wanting to be like God – they failed to see that they were already made in the image of God…

They already were living a life of unfathomable purity…

Brothers and sisters allow me to present this to you in black in white… that you’re either living lives of purity, lives that are upright and following hard after God – or – you’re living a life of impurity… one in rebellion to the commands of God.

1 John 3 starting in verse 7 says,

“Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning…

And he goes on to say more about the Christian walk saying,

“Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God. So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.”

But even today, despite the fact that we know so much about the bible, the truth about purity is being attacked in our culture. We’re living in a culture that teaches us to be okay with living a life of sexual impurity that runs contrary to the core values of our faith.

In the early Corinthian church, Paul writes about the condition of the church where he says,

1 Corinthians 5…

“I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you – something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother. You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame… [In verse 6] Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?”

The apostle Paul talks about a situation in the church where the sexual impurity is so deep that there are members within the church participating in sexual impurities that aren’t even common to those that pagans practice!

He makes this illustration that partaking in such impurity within the church although it seems harmless to other individuals is like a tiny amount of yeast –

And I don’t know if you’ve ever dumped tons of yeast onto bread before baking, but it only takes a little bit of yeast to get the bread to rise!

Listen up young people – there maybe those of you in this room today that are allowing yourselves to take part in a lifestyle that is opposite of what Christ demands… maybe there are some of you in this room that truly don’t care about your relationship with the opposite sex…

Your sin affects the church – whether you see it or not.

I remember years ago being able to see the negative affects of sexual sin and how fast it could’ve torn apart the church…

1) Someone stumbled into sexual sin

2) His sin was made known to the church

3) Although he was repentant, gossip and slandering of this guy just pushed him away from the church

Finally at the end of chapter 6 in 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about avoiding sexual sin, avoiding impurity:

He says, “You say, ‘I am allowed to do anything’ – but not everything is good for you. And even though ‘I am allowed to do anything,’ I must not become a slave to anything. You say, ‘Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.’ (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies…”

Folks – You and I are created in the image of God – and guys, to me this message is not as important for me to get to you as it is for the women…

Ladies, you were made in the image of God – you are worth a value that is more expensive than any money can buy – and don’t… I repeat don’t listen to the first hunk of man that passes by you with an eight pack.

I’m telling you those men are a dime a dozen – Any man that spends that much time getting that muscular can’t be spending much time with God at all – well maybe, but I want to challenge you to look DEEPER.

Next week I’m going to be speaking on the power of sex, and how sex carries a very misleading price tag along with it – and ladies I want you to know – If the man of your dreams is not centered in Christ, if he desires to be with you more than he desires to be with God – you better run as fast as you can the other direction…

Forget about those 8 packs, 12 packs, 24 packs – it’s all about the mind pack, the heart pack.

Because, now listen up, this is pure experience talking… He won’t have that 10 pack in 10 years, then what do you do?

Boys listen up… don’t think just because you know that God is the author of love that you got this whole purity thing down… the truth is, you don’t. You have got to deal with your bouts with impurity before you think about taking on a relationship with any woman because she is worth that much…

You were created in the image of God, and she was created in the image of God… I want to challenge you all to live lives of purity – lives that aim for righteousness, and what does that look like…

That means:

- Turning off the tv when you start to lust

- Refraining from listening to music that impairs your judgment or stirs up thoughts of devaluing in your head

- Striving for God and putting to death the physical desires of your flesh

Now listen up, next week we’re going to be talking about a very sensitive subject – and I want to start off by saying now – if you’re living a life that runs opposite of what Christ commands, plain black and white, you ARE NOT LIVING A RIGHTEOUS LIFE BEFORE GOD…