 It's good to see you. You guys ready for Red Hot? Okay, so tonight we are gonna be talking about subject of singles. We're gonna be talking about dating and we're gonna cover questions, especially related to dating and singles in the area of sex. So this will be PG-13. If you have children with you right now, you might put headphones on them, play Lion King or something like that. Cause we're gonna be answering some very specific questions and I say this every time we do Red Hot. My goal is not to give you my opinion. My opinion doesn't matter. I'm gonna try the very best I can to give you an answer as it comes from God's word. And where it's my opinion or my slant, I'll tell you where it's specifically God's word I'm gonna tell you. And when I don't know the answer to your question and I'm guessing I'm gonna fake it until I make it. That's just the way that it's gonna go. And then next weekend, we're gonna be talking about specifically marriage and family and my wife Jane is going to join me on stage. So at least for one of the services. We'll see if we can get her on for all three but I think we're gonna get her for at least one. So that's gonna be good. So save all your really hard questions for next weekend. Jane will appreciate that. So if you don't have the address, I don't know if they can put it up on the side screens. There it is, radiant.church slash Red Hot. You can go there, type in your question. It's going to be filtered in the back and we're gonna be taking questions from both Portage and Richland and our online viewers. And so we're gonna go ahead and get started. Week number one, here we go. This is from Addison Porter and Richland. Is it okay to tell a girl, I have been reading the book of numbers and I realized I don't have yours as a pickup line. Woo, Addy, that's a smooth question. It's like, she's gonna ask you if you've read the book of Job, which is actually the book of Job and if you got one, maybe I'll give you my number. If you don't, you're out of luck. So there you go. It's as biblical as it gets. Okay, this is Jeff in Richland. It says, is it wrong to use dating apps to try and find a partner or should I be pursuing church functions, small groups, Sunday mornings, et cetera to find a Christian spouse? That's a great question. We're living in a time where technology is a tool and like all things, technology can either be really good or it can be really bad. It's not an issue of is technology good or evil. It's an issue of the person using the technology. So what I would say to you is that you could not use a dating app or you could not go to a dating Christian dating site and you could just stick to the small groups, Sunday services, stalking in the lobby, those kinds of things. And yet the motives of your heart could be wrong and what you're pursuing and what you're looking for could be wrong and yet you're not righteous because you didn't use the app. And yet I know people that have used Christian dating apps, Christian dating sites who are godly and are righteous and have actually met their husband or their wife on those sites and are very, very happy. And so I think what it really boils down to is not so much what you use as why you use it and how you use it. I think if you have your heart, if you're mature and the Lord, if you have strong convictions of what you're looking for, if you're working on becoming the right person instead of finding the right person, I believe if you put what Jesus said in Matthew 6 verse 33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and then all these other things will be added unto you. You know, one of the things that God will add unto you when you put him first is the right person, the desire of your heart to be married. He'll lead you as you're seeking God first and whoever it is that you're gonna run into is seeking God, you'll intersect. But if you're just kind of looking for, you're looking for your needs to get met or if you're looking for the wrong things in a person to potentially be your quote partner, if you're looking for a partner in life, that's great. If you're looking for a partner in extracurricular activities, let the hearer understand, then your motives are wrong and it's gonna get all messed up anyways. So one of the keys that you need to remember is this. If we're looking for marriage because we want our needs to get met and it's all about self-satisfaction, we're gonna be disappointed. But if you look through the lens of what marriage is as self-sacrifice, how can I lay my life down for somebody and serve somebody else? And you're letting God shape you and form you, then you can go to church, the Sunday school class or a small group and God can cross paths with the right person there or it can be on a dating app, it can be at a Christian roller skating party. I don't even know if they have those anymore. That'll date me. At a Christian concert, any of those types of things. If your heart is right, you'll know when you meet somebody that has similar convictions and values. And if I don't think that there's anything wrong necessarily with dating apps, other than you just need to go into any environment where it's about singles and you just need to know that not everybody is going to be as spiritually mature as you are. A lot of people are gonna wear the tag Christian but that just is getting them through the door so that they have access to you. So I would be careful about that but there's nothing wrong about that. Okay, here we go, next question. This is Megan from Richland. How do you stay content being single when that is a desire of your heart and many people in your immediate friend group are in relationships? So the desire of your heart is to be married and the Bible is very specific about dating in 1 Corinthians. Paul says that if you are single, you are complete in the Lord. But if the desire of your heart is to marry, there's nothing wrong with that. So it's a strong desire that you have. You want to be married. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, you need to, again, you need to have very strong boundaries and very specific things that you're looking for in the person that you wanna get married to. Number one, you need to marry in the Lord, okay? Do not go missionary dating, which is, you know, I go to the gym and I met this guy, he's got an eight pack and not an eight pack of beer, he's got like literally an eight pack and wow, he's amazing. And then you talk to him and he's not a Christian and so you lower your standards to go date him and then when the pastor asks you, is he a Christian? You say, well, he believes in God. He'll come to church. Well, the devil believes in God. So you wouldn't date the devil, even if he had a six pack, okay? So don't date him. But if the desire of your heart is to be married, I understand how difficult that that could probably be. Here's what Paul said, not specifically about dating, but in general in life. He said this, I've learned to be content in whatever station or place or situation in life that I find myself, which means, how is it that you stay content? Well, you can still have a strong desire for something, but yet be content because contentment is not satisfaction. Contentment just means today I am thankful and I am grateful and I am whole in Christ. Listen, if you are single and you're a young person or you're single and you're in your, even in your thirties and forties and you find yourself single, there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing missing from you other than you may have a strong desire in your life to be married. That's all right. God knows that and if you'll trust him, ultimately he'll give you the desires of your heart. But you need to know that you're not going to find somebody who's going to make you more complete. You cannot be looking for somebody to make you feel whole. You are complete in Christ and you can be content in Christ. I'm not saying that. Paul says that. Paul was in prison. Paul was beaten. Paul had a demon assigned to him to torment his life. He was light about. He was betrayed by those who were closest to him and in shackles, in a prison, he said, I've learned to be content in whatever state I'm in. If I'm rich, I'm content. If I'm poor, I'm content. If I'm warm, I'm content. If I'm cold, I'm content. So if Paul can be content in those stations in life, we can also be content. And that contentment begins by recognizing our completeness in Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit to fill us and encourage us. And then on a very practical note, you need to have community around you. You need to have people that are friends, obviously in this situation. It's like a lot of my friends are already married. I can see where that would be frustrating, but in your immediate group friends and relationships. But find some people who are kind of in a similar place, who are single, or find some couples that don't mind you being around them. Sometimes they might be the one that knows somebody to kind of set you up with. And they know you and they might know somebody and they can be a pretty good filter and a pretty good buffer. It's not bad to have a wingman to get you out of bad situations or get you into good situations. And so that's what I would say. You are complete. Don't stop praying. Don't stop trusting God. And let me just say this last thing to Megan. Don't lower your standards. Do not lower your standards and be like, all right, in my 20s I was holding out for a godly man who is good-looking and has his act together and actually has a job. In my 30s I'm like, well, it doesn't matter if he's good-looking as long as he loves God. In my 40s he can be ugly and hate God and I'm dialed in. Don't lower your standards. God is able. Everybody say God is able. The Bible says nothing is too difficult for me, says the Lord. So trust God. All right. Number three, here we go. Anonymous. These are always fun. Does God plan who you will marry? Is there such thing as the one? The one. Or as, you know, Kip said in Napoleon Dynamite that La Fonda was his soulmate. There is a right one. It's the one you choose. Because as soon as you enter into covenant and marry someone, they become the right one. So many people believe the lie. I married the wrong person and I would be so much happier if I could just get out of it and we kind of think of it like this maze or this labyrinth that we have to go through and I made a wrong decision and I would have been happy if I'd married this other person. We've watched notebook far too many times and so in difficult times we think maybe I married the wrong person. No, as soon as you say I do, as soon as you say I do, they're the right one. Now God knows who you're going to marry. God knows everything past, present, and future but God does not determine it because if God determined it, Paul would not have given the admonition that if you're going to marry, make sure that you choose to marry someone who is a Christian. In other words, it's your choice. You choose. When we make bad decisions, he gives us criteria about what we should look for. Second Corinthians, he says, don't become unequally yoked with an unbeliever because what fellowship has darkness with light. And so there are criteria in the Bible about how we should choose but once we choose, that is the right person and marriage is supposed to be for life. Now listen, I know that there are times and certain circumstances that bring about the end of a marriage but if you are trying to rebound off of divorce and you're looking at marriage in the future, make sure that you don't repeat the mistakes of the past in yourself or in what you're looking for and make sure that you choose wisely. It's like Indiana Jones, choose wisely. You only get one chance to make the choice. As soon as you put a ring on the finger, that person is the right one and you stay married, you work it out. Jane and I have said this so many times, this summer we'll be married for 28 years. This is our 28th Valentine's that we just celebrated together and I love her so much. She's the greatest gift other than salvation that God gave me but that doesn't mean that we have always gotten along. Jane is a sinful human being and there's been some things along the way that I've had to deal with. I've had to overlook some of her weaknesses because obviously I'm a saint and I never sin and I know the voice of the Lord all the time and every choice I make is always right. She hasn't yet figured that out. I'm thinking by year 40 she'll get it but I've had to overlook some things. But let me tell you that it's in the seasons where you are tempted to give in or to give up, it's in the hard times when you fight your way through the hard times that actually make the circumstances appropriate for you to experience the good times. And we just think so many people give up when it gets hard and they don't realize that just on the other side of that things are gonna be so much better. It's because you don't have a great marriage because you found the right one. You have a great marriage because you choose to be the sacrificial one, lay your life down for the other one and the two become one more and more and more, okay? That would be my answer to that. Andrew, online. Well, thanks Andrew for showing up here. This is a PG-13 question. Is masturbation still sin if you're single and not viewing pornography? Well, let me tell you what Jesus said is sin. Jesus said that out of our heart flows sin and part of what he described as sin was sexual immorality and he described lust. And when Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount he said this, he said, if a man, you've heard it said that if a man has a sexual relationship with another woman, he commits adultery and don't commit adultery. But Jesus said, I say to you that even if a man looks upon a woman with lust in his heart, he's already committed adultery. What Jesus is dealing with is he's talking about the heart issue, the heart issue. And if I just be really frank, if you are single, I don't know how you could possibly masturbate without having a fantasy or a visual or an imagination within yourself where you are fantasizing about sleeping with somebody who is not yet your wife or your husband. And so actually it would be lust. One of the most under talked about aspects of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives is the fruit of the spirit. And the last fruit of the spirit that's listed is self control. When it comes to sex in our culture, we think we have to just do whatever we have to do because we have these urges, we have these desires that are natural and so we just have to act on them. But what about self discipline? What about self control? And so I suppose there could be a way, I remember reading James Dobson where years ago he talked about the subject and he said that theoretically if a person could masturbate without thinking about an individual just for a sexual release, that it would not in and of itself necessarily be sinful, but my experience in dealing with people and being a human being is that that is probably not going to be what happens. Especially in our culture today where pornography is so prevalent, so available, that's right here on our phones. And things now that 20 years ago would have been called porn, we just call primetime TV. And we are in a lust culture, we are in a porn culture, we are in a self gratification culture. And I think that the most righteous thing that a single person could do in our culture today, submit their sexuality to the Lord Jesus, ask for the Holy Spirit to give them self control and to live pure before the Lord, and don't mess around with this stuff because it could lead you to places that you never want to go. That's what sin does. The devil deceives you and tells you, well, this isn't really that bad, but he will take you further than you want to go, it'll cost you more than you want to pay and he'll keep you there longer than you wanted to stay. That's just how the devil works, so don't. Okay, there you go. That's my answer, don't. Sarah, in portage, is it okay to live with my boyfriend if we know we are getting married? Thanks Sarah for that question and hello, portage, good evening. Let me just say this, marriage is marriage, dating is dating, and when you date and act like you're married, you actually deceive yourself and you affect your witness to others. So the Bible says Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians to abstain from even the very appearance of evil. So if you are living together, and I'm talking about like a couple who has moved in together, they're shacked up together, and our intention is to get married, we're committed to one another, you're living together, even if theoretically you could remain pure throughout that whole time until you got married, what are your neighbors, what are your coworkers, what are your friends, what are your families thinking? None of them are gonna buy that you're being pure. You're acting married when you're not married. So, and by the way, I would say that most human beings who love each other to the point of wanting to get married if they live together are putting themselves in proximity of massive temptation, and I'm yet to meet anybody who did not cave into that reality. I've probably talked to hundreds of singles that say, oh, we're living together, it's cheaper, we're living together, you didn't have a place to live, we're living together because we bought this house and we're getting married, and when I asked them, are you sexually involved? Most of the time they'll lie to me at first and tell me, oh no, no, no, we're not. And then when I dig a little, well, a little bit, and you can't a little bit, let's just be honest. It's like, or we have but we're not. You mean you haven't for the last 48 hours because you felt bad about it. And in 48 hours from now, when that's all worn off and your sex drive is stronger than the guilt and the conviction that you had after you did it, then you'll do it again and then apologize again. Just don't do it. If you need to speed up your wedding, do that. There is a, we spend far too much time and far too much money investing in weddings and not enough time being concerned about marriage. So we spend $50,000 for our big day for one day and what do we care about? What everybody thinks, oh look, they really love each other. It's orchestrated and the families are there and the dinner's awesome. What God cares about is what happens on day two. After the wedding ceremony is over and now you've got a marriage. And statistics have proven that couples that live together before they are married have a 400% increase in their divorce incidences, 400%. Because there's nothing special about it and trust has been broken, especially in lives of Christians. There is something special about living separately, being pure, coming together, entering into covenant and then moving into the home together and building a family. It's not only something special for you, it's a gift that you give each other. It's also part of your witness to the culture at large. That you know what, that's all the world does things. That's not how we do things. I wanna carry my wife across the threshold and say now we are a family and come in. So I believe that within this framework, the Bible is very clear that we are to abstain from every form of evil, fornication, which is sex before marriage is considered sin on the same category as all other sexual immorality. That falls under a big banner in the Bible of everything from impurity and our thoughts to licentiousness, which means we have no boundaries all the way to homosexuality and sex before marriage. It's all under the umbrella of sexual immorality. And listen, you don't wanna start marriage off with a bunch of shame and guilt and baggage. You wanna start off right in Jesus. So do it right. It's gonna cost you, it might slow your process down. Your wedding day might not be as significant. You might have to live with a friend, sleep on our couch for six months, but you will be glad that you did it because someday when your kids ask you, mom and dad, did you live together? You'll be able to say, no, we did it right. So think about that. Okay, here we go. Adele in Richland. Is every person destined to be in a relationship or are some people destined to be single? Well, I don't necessarily think that God destines or predetermines our relationships. I believe that God knows, obviously God has foreign knowledge, but the Bible's very clear that when it talks about relationships, that relationships are our choice. Relationships of marriage, relationships of friendships, those are choices that we make. God does not predetermine those choices. Now, here's what Jesus did say. Jesus did say some people have chosen to remain single. He's the word Unix, but Unix is another way of describing singleness, at least in biblical terms, like in literal singleness. He said, but some people have chosen to live single for the sake of the gospel. Paul writes in First Corinthians that, let me just read this to you. First Corinthians, he says in First Corinthians chapter 7 verse 35, I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any strain upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. And what Paul's saying is, look, if you're single, you can devote yourself completely to the things of God. If you get married because you have a strong sex drive or you want to be married and family is something that you want to build with your life, that's great. But just know this, you're going to have divided devotion between the things of God, in other words, serving in ministry like in Paul's case, and taking care of the needs of your family and your marriage. You're going to have a divided attention. So there are some people for the sake of the gospel who have chosen to not get married. They've just said, you know what? I'm not going to get married because I'm called to be a missionary or I'm called to give myself more towards prayer and intercession in the local church. And I want to be able to do that. There's widows. We read about Anna in the Jesus narrative where she had been married and became a widow, but then chose not to remarry and devoted herself to singleness so she could serve the Lord completely. So there are some people who for the sake of the call of the kingdom, choose to remain single. And then there are others who are like, look, I want to marry. And Paul says, if you choose to marry, you're not sinning. You're making a good choice. Just know that it's going to be a different dynamic. So it's important for us to know that God does not destined that stuff. So don't allow the enemy to lie to you and say, there's nobody out there for you. You're just destined to be single if the desire of your heart is to get married. But there are some people who say, you know what? I don't really have any desire to get married. And if that's you, then there's nothing wrong with that either. If you say, you know what? I want to stay single. Kind of like being single. Let me just also say this. There are several people that I know that struggle with same-sex attraction. They're just like, look, all my life, I've been attracted to people of the same sex and I've asked God to change my heart. I just don't have an attraction to people of the opposite sex. And so they would say, I'm gay or I have same-sex attraction. But yet for the sake of being devoted to Jesus, I know that gay relationships or homosexual sex is considered sin. And so I've got this battle going on on the inside of me. And so instead of allowing my feelings to drive my actions, I've chosen to be celibate and single throughout the days of my life so that I can surrender and submit my life to Jesus. And I've got great friendships. I've got communities of people, but I'm never gonna, I'm not gonna act on those desires. I'm gonna submit that to Jesus and they single for the sake of devotion to Jesus. Do you know what? People like that have my greatest respect because the temptation or the desire is not necessarily sinful, acting upon those is. And so there are people that do that. There are people with heterosexual desire that have chosen to remain single because they're on a mission field. And you know what? I have the utmost respect for those individuals and those people. So the answer to your question is no, every person is not destined either to be in a relationship or to be single. God says you choose. It's whatever you wanna do. It's what you wanna do as only as if it is unto the Lord. Okay, probably this next question, here we go. What does it look like to be a spiritual leader in a dating relationship? That is a fantastic question. Kevin from Portage, appreciate that question. What does it look like to be a spiritual leader in a dating relationship? Well, number one, every single one of us are called to be leaders, okay? Doesn't matter who you are, male, female, young, old, new, Christian, been in the Lord for many, many years. Every single one of us are called to spiritual leadership, beginning with leading ourselves. Number one aspect of leadership is leading ourselves. And leadership equals influence. One of the things that I would say is that in a dating relationship, as in a family and a household, there is an added responsibility of leadership that God has given to the husband or to the man. And I think that there is a massive deficit in our culture of men who step up as spiritual leaders. And I'll tell you what will radically change our culture is when men stop allowing themselves to be led by culture, led by their feelings, and instead of letting other people step in their place and lead, and men step up and say, my number one responsibility before God is to lead myself into righteousness and then to lead my family into righteousness. And I'm an advocate of that. That doesn't mean that wives, and it doesn't mean that women don't have spiritual leadership on them. They absolutely do. We're called to submit to one another. But God has appointed husbands to be the head of the household. And First Corinthians says the head of their wives. And if you're in a dating relationship, guys, you need to set the tone spiritually. Don't be dragged into this, oh, go to church with you, it's okay. And make your girlfriend be the spiritual one. Here's what I have found is in a dating relationship, even when two people are Christians, if there is one who is significantly weak in their faith and is just a nominal Christian, and the other person is very devoted, if there isn't a hunger in the person who is less mature in the Lord to grow, what will happen is the one who is more mature will be pulled down to their level. It happens almost all the time. So I think what it looks like to be a spiritual leader, whether you're the young lady in the dating relationship or you're the man is we need to influence the other individual to love Jesus more. We do that with our words, we do that with our actions, and we do that with our example. You need to provoke the person you're dating to love Jesus more because of the way you encourage them and because of the way that you pursue Jesus. So don't allow yourself to just coast, be a spiritual leader. I'll tell you, I'll give credit here to my son-in-law, Zach, who is our Richland campus pastor. My daughter, Ashley, when she was growing up was a loved God all over. Most of her life has just had a really deeply sensitive place in her life towards Jesus, and she was a leader in and of her own right. When she went to Colorado and she met Zach, Zach was a leader, and when Zach could not date her for a year because there was no dating in that little internship, that was the only reason I sent her. And after the year was up and they were both going into year two, Zach came to me and he asked permission to pursue Ashley. And I gave him some instructions. I said, you be the spiritual leader, do not over-communicate your feelings to my daughter, and don't touch her anywhere that you don't want me touching you. I don't know if I said that. Sounds good. But Zach and Ashley did it so well. Both of them provoked one another to love Jesus more. They had very clear boundaries about how they dated, about where they would go, about who they would be around, about how much time they would spend, what their physical boundaries were, what their verbal boundaries were. And I'll tell you what, they did it so well. I am so proud of them, and that's why I am so honored to have them leading our youth ministry here at our Richland campus. Same with Preston and Lizzie over at Portage. So it can be done, but the thing I appreciated about Zach is Zach was a spiritual leader of that relationship. He's the one who instigated the conversation, what are our boundaries gonna be? We're gonna be at prayer meetings. We're gonna pray together. We're gonna have fun. We're not gonna put ourselves in these situations. He led that relationship so well, and I'm so proud of him and Ashley as well. And my grandson, Owen, who is the coolest thing on the face of the earth. Okay, so I think I got time for one more question. How do I move forward trying not to have sex if I have had, if I have in past relationships? How do I move forward trying not to have sex if I have done it in the past? Well, that's a great question. Song of Solomon 8, chapter eight, verse four says, do not awaken love before it's time. There's a reason why sex is meant to be within marriage. Marriage is the safest relationship that there is. Because in marriage, a biblical marriage, it's a covenant for the rest of life, and we can be vulnerable, and we can be transparent, and we can be unashamed, and sex can be expressed fully. When we've had sex outside of marriage, and we've done that in previous relationships, what's happened is sex has now, or the desire has awakened within us, and the guard has kind of been let down a little bit. Here's what I want you to take away about sex. Sex is atomic. Sex is nuclear. Just like a nuclear power plant, if it's utilized well, it can power an entire city. But when nuclear power is used wrongly, it can blow up a city and wipe everybody off the face of the map. That's what sex is. Sex can bond and sex can destroy. So what I would say to someone who, in this case is, and I love your heart, whoever you were who said, look, I want to serve God. I don't want to go back that way, but now it's like that guard has kind of been let down, and it's easier to kind of give into it. Now, first thing I would say is you need to have a spiritual, a spiritually mature friend or leader that you confess your sin to and ask them to pray for you. The Bible says, pray for one another, confess our sins to one another so that we can be healed. That way, it's not just you confessing it to God. You have somebody who's accountability and you say, I have sinned and I've confessed it to God, but I need to tell somebody so that not only you can pray for grace and forgiveness over me, but you can hold me accountable. Number two, you need to go before the Lord and ask him to not just forgive you, but cleanse your heart. And you need to then examine within your dating relationships where you did fail. It's like, okay, what were the things that were the gates, the openings for temptation where I let down my guard and I need to make sure that I don't repeat those because here's insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So if you're dating a guy and you end up over at his apartment, it's just you too at one in AM and you actually have feelings for each other, don't be shocked when you go back there. So find out where things went wrong, create some boundaries and some accountability for yourself. The most important part though, is not the external things that you do. It's the internal work that you do where you repent. You say, God that was wrong, I repent, I'm not gonna try. I'm saying to you, Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, I'm not gonna put myself in that situation. I'm gonna be pure until marriage and ask the Holy Spirit to give you an empowerment to do that. And then there's so much I can say about this, be careful about the company that you're around. Because if you're around people that think that that's no big issue, no big, oh, whatever. Yeah, I mean, we sleep together, we're having sex together, I had a hookup culture or whatever, if you're hanging out with somebody who's flipping through Tinder all the time and in a hookup environment, don't be surprised if that is something that rubs off on you. You wanna know where you'll be at in five years from now, show me your closest five friends. I can predict your future. And so if you wanna live a pure life, get around some pure people. Get some accountability in your life and God, God will help you, God will help you. Okay, maybe one more question. That was pretty quick, here we go. You guys good for one more? Okay, here we go. The message often heard in the churches, don't touch, side hugs, leave room for the Holy Spirit. How can the church meet the need of appropriate touch? Side hugs are appropriate touch. I think, here's what it boils down to, it's not necessarily touching. I used to have an old lady who has since gone home to be with the Lord, she was in our church. She used to come with her daughter and her son-in-law and she would come up to me every weekend, she would take my hand and just hold my hand and tell me that was an incredible sermon. And I miss her doing that because that touch was just so encouraging, her holding my hand like that. Again, it's not about the legalism of the touch. We all need hugs, we all need encouragement. We need a high five, we need face-to-face conversations. It boils down to what our motivation is. And where side hugs came from, if we can just be honest, is predatory old people who are like, oh, it's church, greet each other with a holy kiss and they're moving in for the French. You know, it's like, that's not what Paul had in mind, folks. Or they're coming in for the full frontal, come here, sister. And they wanna remember, ah, squeezing and pull you close or you know, a little slap on the behind for a word of encouragement. So, because people have been inappropriate and had wrong motives and they've been predatory old side hugs, it's like, okay, this is safe. Now, not everybody's a toucher and a hugger. Pastor Mike Popeningen, who was just here two weeks ago. By the way, did you guys enjoy Pastor Mike? Isn't it awesome? Come back. Pastor Mike is not a hugger. He was on staff with me for 16 years and it took me that long to get him to relax. I would come on and give me a hug, bro. Like this, but he would always be like, okay, you're touching me now. Pat, Pat. And he's not a hugger. So, you need to respect where people are at. You need to respect the level of closeness. But yet, I understand that there's a need for, you know, sometimes we need a hug or need a handshake or when you pray for somebody, we coach our prayer team. Where it's appropriate to put your hand on people. It's because we're in an accusation culture and the reason why we're in an accusation culture is because we're in a predatory culture. And the reason why we have a predatory culture is because we have a porn culture and we have no self-discipline and we would go a long ways if we really would submit our touching to the Holy Spirit and just say, okay. And learn a little cultural discernment. You can kind of tell, okay, what is appropriate. So I'm just, you wanna hear the most spiritual answer? Use common sense. We have lost common sense. Common sense is very uncommon. And we need a little bit more of it. So I would say to the level of your friendship or relationship, you can tell when somebody is uncomfortable. I like side hugs for the most part, unless it's Jane and then I smack her in the butt and I kiss her, I chase her around, do all that kind of stuff. So, all right, there we go. That's ending on a spiritual note. Okay, everybody, let's stand up together. You guys good? Red hot, the M word came up tonight. It's just a matter of time. Let's just bow our heads and I wanna invite our prayer team that can go ahead and step into place tonight. Lord, thank you that you are God who cares about every aspect of our life. You care about our body. You care about our souls. You care about our spirit. Lord, you care about our desires. You care about our appetites. And you care about our pain, even when it's loneliness, even when it's unfulfilled desire. Lord, nothing escapes you. And Lord, tonight, right now, I pray for the lonely, the single person who's here and the desire of their heart is to be married. Desire of their heart is to be loved. And for some, it just feels like that may never happen. It feels like all they've ever experienced is disappointment. Lord, today, I pray that you would come up alongside of them, really, and put your arm around them. What we need more than anything is we need to touch from our Father. I pray, Lord, that, Holy Spirit, you are the comforter and you are the encourager. And Lord, I pray that you would help those of us who are married and do have relationships to include those who are single and isolated and solitary, include them into our families, include them into our lives, and to pray for them and encourage them. And I just pray today, Lord, for the lonely ones. Maybe there are a lot of single people who are listening, who aren't lonely, they're doing great, but Lord, tonight, I just pray for the solitary one, for the one that feels overlooked, for the one who feels forgotten, for the one who's single and they never chose to be single. They were left by their husband or their wife. Pray for single moms tonight. Feel overwhelmed, raising kids, paying the bills. They never wanted it. Lord, I just pray that the comfort of the Holy Spirit and the encouragement of knowing that God you see, you are the God who sees, would meet them in a very, very sacred, special way. Lord, tonight I pray for those who, as I've been talking about sex and failure before marriage in that arena, I pray that tonight instead of walking out of here feeling ashamed and feeling guilty, I pray that God, you would come and you would offer amnesty and forgiveness, mercy, and freedom, and a clean heart, a reset in their lives. Lord, for the person that's listening, that struggles with same-sex attraction, Lord, would you forgive us for being easily judgmental towards people in that situation and would you give our brothers and sisters who struggle in this arena grace beyond themselves to live for Jesus in spite of the wrestling match going on on the inside of them, that it really is possible to live for Jesus and not yet have to be defined by our broken desires. God, today we're just your children and we say we need your grace. We need your grace. In every situation, in marriage, in dating, in our desires, dealing with our past, looking forward into our future, Lord, we need your grace. We need your touch. We need to know that we're not in this alone that you are with us. And whoever you are, wherever you are, and any of those things describe you, I pray for the peace of God and the invitation of the Lord to draw near to him, even in your weakness, even in your shame, even in your suffering and receive from God what you can't receive from anyone else. And tonight before we dismiss in a very serious and a very serious way, I believe that the things that we talked about tonight are real life stuff and the Lord sees it and we don't have to hide from God because of it. We don't have to put fig leaves over these areas of our life, but we do need to submit them to the Lord and we can invite him to come and to give us grace and to meet us in those areas, those temptations, those desires, those dreams. So tonight I'm gonna pray and when we dismiss of tonight, you just need prayer. You need someone to pray for you or pray with you over one of those areas. Don't be afraid to come up because somebody is gonna think something's wrong with you. It can be just a desire of your heart. It could be a consecration in the Lord. It might be a confession, but if you tonight, you need something regarding what we were talking about tonight, I'm praying that you'll come up and receive prayer because God will meet us here. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Holy Spirit, send us from this place full of joy because we know that our God sees us. He knows us. Meet us here, break all the shackles of shame and guilt off of us and release freedom in our hearts, hope in our hearts, dreams in our hearts that only you can do. You are the God who says I give you the desires of your heart when we seek you first. So we go today in the grace and the power of the name of Jesus. Everybody said amen, amen.