 Good morning everybody. Hey, can we just go ahead and welcome, this is our first Sunday to be live simulcasting to our other campus in Portage. So we wanna say hello to Facebook live viewers, those who are on live stream and especially our family that are over at the Radiant Church Portage campus. Can we put our hands together and welcome Portage. Love you guys. And so like Pastor John said, and probably Pastor Stefan as well, we're receiving in questions from kind of all over the landscape and that's what Red Hot is all about. It's about answering your hot questions. Gonna do the best that I can. I do not have a lifeline. I do not have a call a friend. I do not have multiple choice and there's nothing on my sleeve. I'm going to do my best to answer your questions on sexuality and family from God's word. And here's what's really important is we're not here to regurgitate what culture says. We're not even here to get my opinion or your opinion. We're here to get God's answers and what the Bible has to say about issues that are relevant and current to you and I today on this particular topic. And so we're doing good. First two services down. Don't let me down 11 o'clock service. Here we go. Let's take our first question. Can you please name the church members who get on your nerves the most? Absolutely none of you. I love all of you. You guys are all perfect. They're all saints. Nobody ever complains. It's awesome. It's the best church in the world, right? And like 14 people agree with that statement. The other of you right now are going, yeah, it's not that good. No, it's pretty good. You guys are pretty good. So nobody gets on my nerves and I wouldn't tell you if you did. So, but let's go ahead and let's dive in and don't forget you can still text in your questions. We've already got quite a few. I haven't seen them yet, but here we go. Question, my teenage daughter or teenage doubts, God, because he believes, so it's a he, that if God were good, then there wouldn't be evil, cancer, et cetera in the world. As a parent, how do I address this? So this is really a parenting question and kind of blended with what next week will be, which is questions on doctrine, Bible, theology, those kinds of things. So let me take it from the parenting angle. As a parent, the most important ministry that we have is our example as being followers of Jesus because our kids catch more than what we teach them. They're gonna follow the model and example of your life. The second most important ministry that you have before you do anything else is helping your kids navigate their own faith experience. There is no grandfather clause in the kingdom of God in which your kids get into the kingdom because you're a Christian. They are going to follow your example and also they're going to be impacted by your discipleship of your kids. We shouldn't pass off discipleship or training, mentoring in God's word to somebody else. The church is here to supplement that. Parents, this is our responsibility. It's a big responsibility. And here's what I wanna tell you as parents, parenting is not for the faint of heart. It's like whitewater rafting. It starts off in the hospital, nice and fun. Everybody's paddling, oh, isn't it cute? They're so cute. But by the time they turn eight, nine years old, it's level four, whitewater rapids. Tuck your feet, paddle, stay in the boat because you're gonna hit some rough waters. And we live in a culture where there's a lot of very challenging things for those who are trying to raise their kids and develop families that believe in God's word that are Christ followers in a culture that is not. One of the questions that we all struggle with is the issue of evil. There's a theological term for why we believe in evil and how evil came to be and why it exists. It's called theodicy. It's a theological term. It's really, why is there evil in the world? And in short, I'll give you a quick 30 second answer on this and maybe we'll probably get this question next week as well. But evil was never God's idea. Evil is the result of man not doing God's idea. And we have evil in the world. There is sin in the world. There is cancer in the world because we live in a fallen world. This world is not the way God created it. This world has been infected with something called sin and death. And the good news is that God's plan was never for it to be that way. And even though we brought it into being, God is stronger than what we have done. And his plan is there is coming a day when God is going to bring sin, death, disease, destruction and the grave to an end. It will not exist anymore. But you and I are living in the now and the not yet. It's not yet what it's going to be, but the introduction of God's redemptive restoration plan has been introduced into the earth. It's called Jesus and you and I are part of it. And so that's a quick answer, but how do you walk your kids through that? Well, number one, you can give them that answer. You can tell them to watch this and tell them to come back next week, ask that question, because that's a phenomenal question. But the most important thing is when you walk with your kids through that is to number one, affirm that they're not the only one who've asked that question. It's like, if you don't ask that question, you're shallow and you haven't thought about life much and you haven't had anybody that you love go through the torments of cancer. Everybody, every one of us. Listen, when we see death and when we see pain and when we see suffering in the world, even the more devoutly you become in your faith, it should not become that we're more callous towards it. We should become more affected by it. C.S. Lewis says this, the reason why we are so affected by death and by evil in the world is because there's something on the inside of us that God put there that tells us that it's not the way it's supposed to be. The fact that you're seeing evil for what it is in the world should actually be an indicator to us that there's something wrong with it and that there is purpose and order and this is not how it's supposed to be. So I would encourage you, if you're a parent, number one, you go home and you need to study and you need to show yourself approved in God's word, get some books, Google it, read some responsible Christian leaders, listen to some podcasts or ask a pastor, you get equipped as a parent and then have those conversations with your kids. Don't just say, well, it's a hard question. I don't know the answer to that. What would you do if your kid got hung up on a class that they needed to graduate with their degree? You would get them help or you would become an expert in it so you could help them. Don't pan it off and say, I don't know the Bible. If you don't know the Bible, know the Bible. How do you know the Bible? Study the Bible. How do you study the Bible? You get somebody to help you study the Bible. There's nothing more important that you will do with your life than to study and to know God's word because it's going to give you the ability to help others that are around you. So it starts with parenting and it works its way on down and we'll probably talk more about this next week. Number two, why are some Old Testament laws ignored by the church today, such as tucking, not tucking, pigskin, kosher diet, tattoos, and others still observed. So the LGBTQ lifestyle and sexuality. So that's a great question. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, LGBTQ stands for lesbian, bisexual, transgender, gay and queer lifestyle. So here's the question in a nutshell. Why do Christians and Bible-believing Christians apply Old Testament scriptures from the Old Testament law that prohibit homosexuality and other things like it? Why do they apply that to people's sexuality but then in the same token, take the same law of Moses that we find in the Old Testament and say, well, we're not under the law when it comes to eating pork or getting tattoos or like shaving the corners of our beard. It should, there are a lot of people, very well-meaning people who argue and say, because we're not under those things in the Old Testament or because we're inconsistent in those things, the church has no business applying those moral trajectories towards people's sexuality. Well, it's a faulty argument and let me tell you why. The scriptures that they're referring to in the Old Testament, the first five books in the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy are referred to as the Torah, the law of God. And in there, you have all kinds of different laws, the Mosaic law that God gave to Israel, including the Ten Commandments. How many, by the way, know that there are Ten Commandments? Raise your hand. How many believe in the Ten Commandments? Raise your hand. How many can quote the Ten Commandments? Raise your hand. There's the challenge. Okay, so learn the Ten. God's top 10, who cares about lettermins? All right, so Old Testament laws, specifically there is a part of the Old Testament law that's called the sexual code, which is Leviticus 18 and 20. And it says this among other things. It says you're not supposed to have sex with a close relative. Mothers should not have sex with their sons. Fathers should not have sex with their daughters. You should not have sex with your aunts, with your cousins, and close relatives. Those are called the incest laws. Then there are laws that say you should not have sex with animals. Beastiality, you should not lie with an animal as you lie with a woman. A man should not lie. So those are laws that prohibit bestiality. Then there are other laws that say that you should not have sex with somebody you're not married to. That's called adultery laws. And then there is part of that code that says in a man, Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20, repeat this and say a man should not lie with another man as he lies with a woman for this is an abomination in the eyes of God. So it's saying that homosexual sex is an abomination in the eyes of God. Now there are people that would say, well that's in the Old Testament. And so if you're gonna tell me that homosexuality is wrong because of the Old Testament, then you're also gonna tell me that I can't eat bacon and that I can't cut my hair and I have to obey Sabbath laws. And they think it's a winning argument, but it's not, here's why. The Old Testament laws divided into three parts. It's divided into civil laws, ceremonial laws and moral laws. The civil laws were specifically given to Israel in the Old Testament because they were the only theocracy which means God was their only king and they were a unique people that God governed and he gave them civil laws. And those were applied specifically to Israel at a time and a place. They are no longer intact or observed by you and I because we're not Jews, Hebrews living in a theocracy. That was finished in the Old Testament. The second part of the law is called the ceremonial laws and the ceremonial laws applied to worship in the temple or the tabernacle, sacrificial system like offering the blood of bulls and goats, the priesthood, the garments, all of those kinds of things. That is no longer applicable any longer because all of those ceremonial laws that the temple had were shadows pointing forward in time to what Jesus would do and complete them as our sacrifice for our sins. So civil laws are complete because we don't have a theocracy. Ceremonial laws in the temple are no longer in observance because we don't have a temple. There is what's left which is the moral law and the moral law is still very much in observance for all of God's people and here's why. It's because it predates the law. It's included in the law and it's affirmed by the apostles and the writers of the New Testament in the New Testament. So there are five, maybe six scriptures in the whole Bible that talk about the issue of homosexuality or LGBTQ and here's where they are. Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, Romans chapter one, first Corinthians chapter six, first Timothy one, 10, Jude verse seven and Acts chapter 15, possibly. So those are the scriptures in Leviticus 18, it says a man should not lie with a woman as with a man, that's an abomination. It's repeated in Leviticus chapter 20. In Romans chapter one, it refers both to homosexual relations between men and also women with women. So lesbianism is condemned within Romans chapter one. First Corinthians chapter six is a very powerful scripture and I wanna read it to you so that you hear that it's found in the New Testament as well. In the New Testament it says in verse number nine or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither sexually immoral. Now let me stop there. Whenever you see the term sexually immoral, it's a big blanket statement for anything that is sexually outside the bonds of one man and one woman in the confines of covenantal marriage. That was God's design. Anything outside of that is covered under what's called sexual immorality and it goes on and it distinguishes it, says not idolatrous, not adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greed, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. So that's a New Testament reference. So you've got all of these references to it and people that would say well in the Old Testament it covers pork and all this other kind of stuff. Well listen, try this out. Let's run that argument for this extreme. If somebody were to say well all the Old Testament we're not under it anymore so it doesn't matter. You can be gay and be a Christian. You can be a follower of Jesus and practice homosexuality because we're not under the Old Testament law because the moral law doesn't apply to us anymore either. Well how about adultery? Is adultery okay today? I dare you spouse to go home and tell your wife hey I'm not under the law. You know that whole adultery thing in the Ten Commandments that's not binding on us anymore so baby I'm gonna go out and have an affair. Go home and try that and find out if your wife stones you or not. And she's not gonna buy your theological argument. How about incest? See everybody has every one of us whether you're a follower of Jesus or somebody who's not a follower of Jesus living in the world. Everybody has a sexual standard. Everybody does. There's an age of consent that we're comfortable with. There's how close of a relative you are. There was just a veterinarian professional who was arrested and it was posted in the paper. He was arrested for having sex with over 300 dogs. And you might think to yourself well that's sick. You're absolutely right. You don't wanna know why you think it's sick. It's because a moral law has been written in your heart by God as well. And it's in the Word of God and we know that. And so homosexuality as well as all the LGBT parts of it are still covered into the Old Testament and still binding on us as believers. Here's why. It's not because God is a cosmic killjoy in heaven saying I don't want you to have any fun. It's because God knows human beings and he knows how he created us and he knows what will cause you and I to flourish. And sexuality is not something that God turns his face away from. Sex was God's idea and he knows exactly how we will flourish and how it will be at its apex and what's best for us. And so God's not trying to take something away. God's creating guardrails for us. When we begin to deconstruct God's guardrails we end up getting our own self-destruction. And so lest you think though that this is just picking on homosexual sin let me just tell you that we are living in a culture where people have gone off the rails on the crazy train when it comes to sexual sin. Sex outside of marriage whether it's with somebody you're not married to whether you're not married and it's anybody in general or whether it's homosexual sex or whether it's polyamory. All of it is man's creation. It's not God's creative nature or his order. And that's just what the Bible has to say about that. Okay, so there you go. That's that question that was from Portage. This one's from Portage as well. How do we keep an undefiled marriage bed? Is there anything sexually that should not be done in order to keep it acceptable to God like oral sex, positions, and et cetera? Well, thanks for asking your question. Hmm, well it's start easy why don't we? Well here's the guidelines. By the way, you may or may not know this but the most sexually explicit book in the Bible is called The Song of Solomon. And it's very, it's written in metaphorical language but it's all about sexual intimacy within the confines of a covenant relationship. Jewish rabbis and Jewish communities wouldn't even let their kids read the book of Song of Solomon until they were over 12 years old because it was so explicit. And this is a reference to the book of Hebrews. I believe it's chapter 12 or chapter 13 where it says I think it's chapter 12. Let the marriage bed be undefiled. And what that's talking about is the marriage bed is sanctified, it's meant by God to be protected, safe expression of sexual pleasure and fulfillment. Song of Solomon says that we're supposed to take pleasure in one another. Proverbs says don't be lured away by the adulterous or the adulterer but find your sexual satisfaction in the wife of your youth or with your husband. Don't drink from other people's fountains. Be satisfied by the wells of your own marriage. Just talking about the marriage bed. So the Bible doesn't give specific guidelines on positions, oral sex specifically but here's what it does say about sex. First Corinthians says your body does not belong to yourself but it belongs to your spouse. And sex was given both for procreation and for there to be pleasure within marriage because sex is not just a recreational sport. Our culture treats sex like yoga. It's just like oh it's fun, it's no big deal, it's just bodies. Now it's so much more than that. We've underestimated how God wired us for sex. Sex bonds us, first Corinthians says, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It takes two and makes them one. It's not just some heightened game of twister. I mean this is spiritual, emotional, and physical. And our bodies don't belong to ourselves, they belong to our spouse. In the covenant sexual relationship, our primary responsibility as a sexual partner is what can I do to please you? And so this needs to be a conversation that a husband and a wife have about what they like, what they don't like, what they're comfortable with, what they're not comfortable with. And if you together come up with positions or expressions that is not physically damaging and is not being demanded for your own self gratification but both are agreeing upon it, not under coercion but genuinely you're having fun, you're experimenting and you're not doing damage and it's within the confines of your marriage, that's between you guys. God doesn't put prohibitions on, I know it sounds spiritual and I'm just gonna say it so deal with it but the missionary position is not more spiritual than any other position because it's called missionary. Okay, that is not evangelism, that is marital bliss. Okay, so, and if both partners are into oral sex, there's no prohibition on that but as long as it's mutual and consensual and it's within the confines of your marriage, God says go for it, have some fun, have some fun. Don't look at me like that, read the book of Song of Solomon, it's in there. I mean, what do you think you're supposed to come to bed? Honey, I have my Bible, let's put this down. Now let's sing a hymn and do our marital duty. No, it's like, have fun, celebrate. All right, there you go. Woo, it's getting hot. Is it wrong for a married couple to choose not to have children even if they are able? It's a great question. I think when we look at marriage, we have to go back to the very beginning, what was God's intention of marriage? God's intention of marriage was A, in Genesis two, he saw that when he created Adam, that when Adam stood in the garden, God said that it's not good to Adam's alone. And so he made Eve as his companion. He made a woman as his companion. That's after he brought the dog to him and he's like, oh, he's a good friend but that's not a companion. He brought a cat to him and he said, no, those are gonna be future demons and he said, no, he needs a companion. And so what did he do? He created Eve out of Adam's side so that they were a part of one another, both reflecting the image of God. And when they came together, there was complementarianism, there was completeness. So the first reason that God created marriage was for companionship. Second reason is out of that union, you'll notice this, here's a standard on anything. Anything that God created and ordered is always fruitful. When God created the plants of the field, he created them with the seed in them so that they would reproduce and multiply. God gave a mandate to the couple, man and woman, he said, now be fruitful and multiply. Now some people, for the sake of the kingdom of God or for other reasons, choose not to get married. Singleness is not less than, singleness has causes for it. The same is true with not having children. There may be reasons why a couple would choose not to have children. But the standard, I would say, a big part of what marriage is supposed to be about is that there would be a natural overflow of fruitfulness so that Malachi says, that's God's intention that out of our marriage, we would produce a righteous seed in the earth. God wants us to have kids and to be fruitful and multiply. That's part of his mandate upon us and part of the reason why he gave us family in the first place is it's the most secure, safest identifying giving, identity giving environment that we could ever have, an institution that God created so that humankind and his image would increase on the earth in an environment of family and belonging. Now, there's nothing that tells you that you have to have children. There's nothing that tells you how many children you should have. There's nothing that tells you any of that type of thing. I believe that that's every married couple's conscience, but I do believe it is, it should be the norm and not the exception that children are the overflow of that, it's just, it's natural. I would say this, you might wait for a period of time, I get that, Jane and I said we're gonna wait five years and we waited five months and it was accidental, but praise God for it. So you might take some time and say we wanna be married for a while and not have kids to kinda get to know one another. Listen, nobody's saying, hey, you have to have 20 children and that's the only reason for being married, that's not the only reason. I would however say this, be careful that you do not succumb to the spirit of this age which is very selfish, very selfish and very self-centered and very greedy and say I don't want kids because of me, because of what I want. I want my freedom, I wanna do what I wanna do. That has more to do with the spirit of this age than it has to do with the kingdom of God. Parenting, discipling and family are kingdom concepts. Individualism, selfishness are worldly concepts. Make sure that you're not falling prey to that because I really believe that there's, I will just tell you this, there is a part of the human heart that awakens when you become a father or a mother. It just is and you understand a part of God. Now there are people that can't have children and let me just say to you, you can still be a parent without having your own children. You can be a mentor, you can be a spiritual father, a mother, you can adopt, you can foster. There are lots of different ways. It has everything to do with the posture of your heart, not turning inward towards yourself but turning outward as an expression of the heart of God towards others and being somebody who's affirming and a mentor and a parent to somebody on any of those levels, okay? Hopefully that answers that question. Livestream asked, how do you overcome a porn addiction? How much does it affect your future family? The word porn for those of you who are interested in this kind of thing comes from a Greek word that's used in your Bible all the time. It's a Greek word, porneia, and it's where we get pornography from. It's translated as sexual immorality in your Bible. Anytime in the New Testament you see sexual immorality or fornication, it's the word porneia. And we get pornography from that. And when I was growing up, pornography was just as much of an issue it is today except back in the 80s and beyond that and even a little bit after that. If you were a kid and you found your dad's magazine or an uncle's magazine or you were at a friend's house and they put a satellite network on and you accidentally saw something or you intentionally found it, it was hard to come by. Today we carry the potential around with us every second of every day. It's on our computers, it's on our phones, it's available to us on cable, as well as print and other types of medias. And if we're being honest, things that a generation ago we would call pornography is now just common network television. We are an over sexualized culture and we have become desensitized to it. Interestingly enough, seven out of 10 men say that they struggle with pornography. You'll find this interesting, seven out of 10 pastors say that they struggle with pornography. And the fastest growing demographic of porn viewership online is young women between 18 and 32 years old. It used to be thought of as just a man's issue, it has now become an everybody issue. And one of the things, because my experience, let me just tell you as a pastor, I grew up as a young kid going to my dad's house six, seven years old and my dad had stacks of porn in the room that I slept in. I can never remember a moment in my life where I was not aware of sexuality because of what my dad exposed me to. I saw things at eight, nine, 10 years old I never should have seen. And it created a battle for me as a young teenage man who was called by God, saved and I wanted to serve God. And I struggled with lust, I struggled with the images that I had seen and those desires that it had stirred up. And let me tell you, if you struggle with it, the greatest enemy against you is not the porn itself, it's how the enemy uses it against you. He will shame you, he will condemn you, he will, first he will tempt you to do it and stir your natural physical passions for sex against you and then he will condemn you and keep you in the dark, keep you lying about it, keep you isolated and thinking to yourself that you can't change it. But Jesus can actually, can absolutely change and cleanse and purify your heart and purify your mind. In the book of Job, it said, I have made a covenant with my eyes that I will not look upon a woman with lust. It says, it says that I made a covenant with my eyes. You can make a covenant with your eyes and you can renew your mind. First of all, you repent, that's first step. Number two is you need to get honest and you need to get accountability. Accountability doesn't make you better but it becomes like a splint or a cast around your broken sexuality so that you have time to heal and renew your mind. And you need to get in the Word of God, you need to have accountability and you need to get God's thoughts about porn. You need to realize every, if it's a woman that you're looking at or a man, it doesn't matter. You're looking at somebody's sons or daughters. You're looking at a human being that was created in image of God that is being exploited for your momentary pleasure. And when you think about it through that lens that it's a fantasy, it's not reality. Most of the time we have to get down to some deep roots of a why we're struggling with it. Most men struggle with porn because it's a drug of choice for them. It gives them a high, makes them feel wanted when that person's looking back at them and makes them momentarily feel sexually desirable and that's a dream, that's a desire that every man has. And for a woman, it's that intimacy, it's that closeness and it's that pleasurable type of thing. We need to break that. We need to get, I have accountability software on my computer called Covenant Eyes and not only Jane gets a report, but I have two close friends that get that report every single month, not because I have an issue with it but because I don't want to have an issue with it. I have accountability. And I consistently am renewing my mind in God's word and remembering the trap of lust and where it will take me. Let me just tell you something about sexual sin. The devil is a liar and he always plays your weaknesses and makes them his strengths. And he knows your greatest weakness many times in a sexualized culture is sex. And so he plays that desire against you and then he will take you further than you want to go. He will keep you longer than you want to stay and it will end up costing you more than you want to pay. Sexual sin is never a private issue. It always will go public and it will always impact the people that are closest to you. Always, every single time without exception. Do not believe the lie that it's your personal little thing that's over here. It's never gonna go any further. It is a germ that grows and multiplies and will destroy you from the inside out. You will not be able to enjoy healthy sex. You will walk around with a cloud of shame. You will always be fearful of being found out and it will transfer even spiritually to your children and become a generational thing that's passed down. And so, nip it in the bud, be honest about it, repent, ask God, change your heart, renew your mind, get some accountability. We have some fantastic community groups and care groups that deal specifically on the issue of porn addiction and sexual purity and freedom. They start up May 7th, plug into one of those and don't do this battle alone. Get somebody to fight the battle with you, all right? We're standing with you and believing God with you. Let's take the next question. This is from Portage. Is emotionally cheating as bad as physically cheating? How do you know that you've crossed emotional lines? So I'm assuming this is talking about a marriage relationship. Let me just say this. Whether it's physical or emotional, your heart as well as your body is covenanted and committed to the person you're married to, period. That's where your commitment is. For a man, most affairs start physically. There's a physical attraction and there's a flirtation that takes place and their fantasy is the sexual, physical part of it. For a woman, most affairs, now this is not true in every situation but Jimmy Evans would bear this out and most marriage resources would bear this out. For a woman, before an affair ever becomes physical, it starts emotional. There's an emotional connection, there's conversation, there's concern, there's care that leads to a physical attraction into the physical act. And so it doesn't matter whether you're male or female, though your heart and the intimate thoughts and concerns and cares and who you turn to emotionally in your life should be directed at your spouse. You're married, that is your confidant. I think this, I'm gonna take somebody off but that's why it's red hot. If you're married, your spouse needs to be your best friend. You don't have a best friend who's of the opposite sex outside of your marriage. Your wife needs to be your best friend and if that wasn't the case, you should have married your best friend. If there's that level of connection and if you say, well, I didn't know her before I got married, then you have no business going that deep emotionally with that person to create that close friendship. There needs to be borders and there needs to be guidelines emotionally in our heart. And if you can't go there with your spouse, then you need to go and get some help and get some help and just say emotionally, we're just kind of distant, we're just connecting. Listen, we have great resources here in the church. There are fantastic Christian counselors available in this city. Go and sit down and it doesn't have to be a crisis. Don't wait before it's a crisis. Just say, hey, I want us to be closer and I don't feel like we communicate well or we need to find some common interest. I want somebody to kind of help us. How come marriage is the only thing that we assume we can have no education and no maintenance and it's just supposed to work? Jane and I have seen counselors, we've gone on retreats, we've gone to marriage retreats. We've done all kinds of things, read books together and we've done that because every marriage needs tuneups and every marriage needs open conversations about our needs being met and those kinds of things. When we get to the point where we're asking if emotionally cheating is as bad as physically cheating, we've gone too far down the road and if you're on the other side of that or maybe that's happened in your spouses, you're uncomfortable with their emotional level of connection with somebody else. You need to tell them that. I'm really uncomfortable with that. I'm really uncomfortable with how much time you spend. I'm a pastor, I know it's a little bit different because there's more, I'm more public profile and more expected of me, but I have some guidelines. I don't go to lunch with women. I don't have counseling alone with a woman. Women, if there's a text with a woman, I include Jane in on it. I have some guidelines like that. Not because I think women are aggressively trying to get at me or I'm trying to get at women, it's just because I want to honor Jane and I never wanna put somebody else in a position where they're uncomfortable and I never want, in today's world, all it would take was one accusation against me for somebody to say, well, Pastor Lee made a move on me, for just the accusation itself. And that's why I'm never in that alone position because I can always say it never happened because Jane was there, I promise you. And I didn't meet you for lunch and I don't text you. So I'm not saying everybody has to have that. I know sometimes in business we have to have, we have to spend time with people of the opposite sex and that's fine, you can be professional. Don't let it become emotionally a strong connection because it never ends well. Interesting fact, by the way, last year was the first time that the majority of affairs that began started on Facebook. They started as inbox connections between old flames or old friends. They started getting on there and connecting emotionally. So be guarded even in that, okay? You hear my heart on that? I'm yelling at you because I love you. All right, there we go, so here we go. Richland, when you are dating, what is considered too far sexually besides actually having sex? Where should the line be drawn? I'll tell you what I tell people that wanna date my daughters. Here's the answer, don't touch her anywhere you don't want me touching you. So if you're dating, just tell the person you're dating. You can't touch me anywhere you don't want Pastor Lee touching you because here's the reality. When we start touching, we're awakening sexuality. It's called foreplay. And foreplay is called foreplay because it's supposed to come before play. It leads to play. And most of you don't have governors on your body enough to stop and to go, oh, that's as far, oh, no, no, you can't stop. No, because God created that once that motor starts running it's gonna go someplace. And I'm not saying that to be crass or to be cruel it's just reality. So I think you need to have really strong guards. Now listen, I know that people in this room have struggled with that, failed that. Again, I'm not saying these things to make you feel guilty or condemned if you have. If you have, what do you do? You turn to the Lord and you say, I'm sorry. He knows who you are. He's not caught off guard by it. And there's forgiveness for those types of things. But don't just throw your sexuality. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter six again another reference to it. It says verse number 18, flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body but sexual immorality actually sins against your body. And then it goes on, it says this, number one responsibility of a Christian with your body sexually is it says glorify God in your body. So ask yourself the question. Is this, the way that we're relating together is this glorifying God with our bodies? Are we honoring God with what we're doing? If Jesus were standing right here, would I do this? Now once you get married, baby go have fun, do it. Here's the terrible part. Is I find so many people are renegade sexually before they're married, they're wild. And then they get married and then they don't have sex. It's like, oh, sex again? And they come out with their car hearts and their furry slippers and their hair is up in a like, Laura Ingalls Wilder bonnet and they're just like, all right, it's Tuesday, you ready to have sex? But man, when you were in the world, you're at the club, you're looking your best and flirting and you're sending little texts and it leads to all kinds of crazy places. What we need to do is act like we're married before we're married and not have sex. And then once you get married, be crazy and flirt and dress up and have fun in the confines of marriage. We've gotten it all backwards and guys, you're all welcome. I just gave you that little shout out for you. So tonight your wife is gonna dress up and guys, take care of your body, work out a little bit. Don't be showing up in your nasty dirty box or trunks in your flannel shirt that's got oil on and be like, brr, hey baby, what you doing? You looking mighty fine. Hey, take care of yourself. Clean your fingernails, brush yo teeth. And if you like it, put a ring on it and then you can touch it. All right, that's as red hot as it's going to get. Are we ready? All right, stand up with me if you guys just stand up. The 11 a.m. always brings the worst out of me. I don't know why that is. But listen, here's what I want you to know. More than anything else is that when it comes to family, when it comes to sexual brokenness, God cares and He's not scared off by your sexual history or your brokenness or your temptations or your questions. You see, our tendency is in our shame and guilt. We think we've disappointed God. We tend to stay away because we feel like God's angry with us. Can I say, God is not angry. God is not angry. God loves you and He created you uniquely. You're beautiful. You're a masterpiece. He takes great pride in who you are. But He sees how the devil has twisted and perverted what He made beautiful inside of you and He's used your own natural drives against you to destroy the potential in the image of God in you. So don't run from God with your sexual brokenness. Run to God with it. Say, God, I'm broken. I've got some history. Your pastor has sexual immoral history as a teenager that Jesus cleansed. And I'm so grateful for it. And I can stand before you now and say at 46 years old, I have lived faithful to one wife. I am pure. My mind is renewed. And it's not because I never had anything happen to me. I was sexually abused as a kid. I viewed porn. I went way too far as a teenager in a dating relationship. And Jesus forgave me and cleansed me. And if He can do it for me, He'll do it for you. Now, by the grace of God doesn't mean everybody has to go through that. But I'm just saying, we don't run from God. We run to God. Because I believe sometimes we have far more faith in the ability of sin to dominate our lives than we do have faith in God's ability by His grace to redeem us, restore us, and make us brand new. And I don't know about you, but I believe the Bible when it says that we're sin abounds, grace does much more abound. God's able. He's able to renew you, forgive you, restore you, change you, wash you, cleanse you. All you have to do is turn your heart towards Him. It's not by might, it's not by power, but it's by grace of God. And I'm gonna pray and we're gonna close and the campus passers here, Stephen at Portage, are gonna come up on the stage and lead us in a time of prayer. We're gonna open up the altars at both locations, but listen to me. And if you're online, this applies to you as well. The first point is surrendering to Jesus Christ, surrendering to God and saying, God, I'm not my own, I belong to you. And enter into a relationship with God through Jesus. If you've not done that, that's your starting point. If you are a believer here today, we live by God's word and we come back and we say, God, your word says this, this is where I'm at, this is what I've been in. And we repent, we turn to God, we ask for His grace and forgiveness and His healing in the places of our life that are broken. And I promise you, God's not mad at you. He's not running from you. Before you've taken one step towards Him, He's taken 100 towards you and He's mad about you. He's a father and He loves you and He's more than able to transform, change your life and give you hope and a future. Let's pray together. Lord, we're so grateful for your word that it's alive, that your truth is a guide, it's a pathway for us and your Holy Spirit is constantly leading and guiding us into all truth. Lord, as your people, we wanna live differently than the world. We wanna be light, we want our bodies, we want our families, we want our marriages, we want our minds and our spirits to be sanctified wholly and completely unto you. Thank you for the hope we have in Jesus and it's in His name that we pray. Amen.