The Sexual Captive, Part 3

Today on Summit life. The gospel message from Jeannie regarding the gospel provide you with the law that satisfies the birth of your soul is the gospel that gives you power over your passions, even for things like such, it is the gospel that releases you from the shame of past mistakes by washing you in Jesus blood and say behold all things.

As always, I'm your host Molly. That's can't can't believe you're looking at different factors that can hold people back from saving faith. Beginning late last week we looked at the story of a woman at the well, discovering how her desire for romantic love had taken her Death. If you miss those messages. You can hear them any time@jdgreer.com today we are turning our attention to the story of another woman who was caught in the act of adultery story familiar to us off finding freedom from sin.

Conclusion to our message title. The sexual judge of what universally describes in the Pharisees brought a woman through Jesus, who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst they said to him, teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery about the law. See, Moses commanded us to stone such women to what you say there set up a test for him to see what is going to do so.

Jesus, if you know the story got kneels down, he starts to ride in the dirt. But after a while, Jesus looks up and says all right you want to stone her what he was about seven this group what he was up for The first known now. Another awkward silence pursues with Al Qaeda stare at each other knowing that they'll have said a lot about want to draw garage gold and this woman looks back at Jesus and she says to Jesus, are you essentially are you the stomach to use a Xerox of iron where your accusers that I have been left Lord of the says verse 11 what is probably the most remarkable statement that gives us the greatest picture of the gospel that you might ever have heard, neither do I condemn you go and from now on sin no more. What captivates me about Jesus response to her lesson is the order of what he said. He said neither do I condemn you go and sin no more. What what what what captivates me is I would tend off let me order notes. I would say if you don't know and send more.

Then I will commit you but he was telling her to change, not in order to date acceptance. He was telling her to change because she had been accepted to see from these stories. I have three. What I would think a revolutionary ideas for those for whom sex keeps you from fully following Jesus. The first what is this number one you got understandable one that sex is not just the physical thing, the Bible presents sex as a covenant relationship in which physical oneness is to be accompanied by oneness in every other area financial oneness spiritual oneness emotional oneness oneness of residence by a lifelong covenant. Sex outside of that kind of covenant is half human ritual party disintegrates you been reading a book recently called Holt it's a scientific study written by a couple of neurologist showing that multiple sexual partners having multiple sexual partners, especially when you're drunk showing what it does to your brain, may make the case that it actually rewires your brain in a way that makes genuine, lasting, selfless relationships much more difficult. The authors use the metaphor of tape which you probably heard before cyst you think of you to a piece of duct tape. He put around my arm, which has a lot of hair on it and you ripped off a piece of duct tape is not a pleasant experience for me because when you ripped off a piece of duct tape. I get little pieces of the tape that are on my arm and a lot of my arm and held that an element duct tape so you take that piece of duct tape got pizza me all over and you go to somebody else and you wrap around their arm the same. It's good to have a little bit of the same effect, but not quite as much because it's lost some of its stickiness in these authors say there's something like that happening in the sexual act and read the book say congratulations. You came over the exact same thing. The apostle Paul said in first printed sex one ascends immorally only sent sexually sins against his own body. What I'm trying to do when that point is just that you see the God's rules are not arbitrary got the designer got his reasons for he does, but also need you to see that at the end of the day we obey what God says. Not because it makes more sense to us. We obey because his God is there maybe some of you that are convinced by what I just said got all the tape thing about Ajit Bob about you about it if that's where you are.

I want you.the reason that we obey is because Jesus is God. Because Jesus makes the rules.

Jesus gives his word.

They were searching for marriage is honorable on the bed is undefiled, but the sexually immoral, and the adulterous God will judge. Jesus did not come to give a party platform that you're supposed to vote on the came as the Lord gave commands us of these commands are to be obeyed and we obey him, not because his ideas make better sense than the other ideas out of the marketplace we obey him because he is the God of the universe who died for our sins and was raising the dead to say this lesson is your pastor having seen this so many times that it's hard to even it's is beyond description. There is nothing, nothing that will destroy the work of God in you faster than sexual. Nothing sexual sin blinds the eyes. Sexual sin dulls the hearts sexual sin corrupts the motives we have a little while. Lord Harter Jesus was put up on the cross and the blood flowed from his body for the kind of sin that is lauded in 50 shades of gray and it is hard for me to see how you could immerse yourself in something that cost you the life of your Savior without extreme torment of soul that would remove any enjoyment from reading a book like that.

One of the valid complaints that women bring up about guys looking at porn is that it distorts how they look at women. It creates unreal expectations on the same way you are reading about these unnatural things that are so disconnected from the reality of true covenant faithfulness that it is destroying your capacity to be involved in a real covenant marriage is the one you sent sexually sins against his own body's own ability to love. Oh yeah 1 to 3 because I like the story when you understand what all my friends are reading.

Yeah, and your husband was a Playboy because of the helpful articles that are written in it. Get real. This is serious.

Sex is not just a physical thing in the water since sexually even if it's a facet of my sins against their own body. Sexual sin destroys your walk with God.

It tears apart your soul. It captivates your spiritual emotions decimate your spiritual power. It obliterates your abilities for faith destroys your capacity to help a committed relationship reference God does not exaggerate. It does not exaggerate when he speaks with such seriousness about the damage that sexual sin does to you and about the offensiveness that it is the him he is not over speaking is that is not his style number two. Sex is driven by soul thirst our craving for sex comes, it often is driven by the vacuum that is left by the absence of God in our hearts. That's what you see one on the woman in John four and Josh now so years ago.

Such is not the answer sex is just an expression of the question the state of our soul is thirsty. We thirst for love. We want to perfectly accepting unconditional love. So we look forward first of our parents don't get it from our parents. We developed all kinds of dysfunctions right but that's the first place that were supposed to experience on conditional love and we don't get it from our parents. Not every time, but a lot of times that leads to massive dysfunctions and relationships throughout life. Things you hardly ever shake that love exists that love exists. You went wandering from when you didn't get it from your parents. It exists, we thirst for purpose want to know that were important when one ugly matter to somebody we thirst for peace of conscience. Everybody struggles with guilt like that were like what the man in Costco's front conference, but the trial wakes up one morning under the sentence of death.

Nobody will tell him what is charged with. Dr. says lets us wonder life when we believe in God or not get the sense that things won't work in the boat. Some of us will have any idea why we feel so condemned. We thirst for peach of conscience who we feel guilty want somebody to tell us were okay and we look for answers to all those things in romance and sex, but they can't provide it because the only one who can give us perfect love is God the only one who can give us real eternal purpose is God the only one who can declare as innocent as God. We can do what this woman in John 14, giving ourselves a way to more people. Without this compounds the problem multiplies her guilt and makes us thirstier because there's a deep and a part of us that knows about the role as a part of us that they keep going after this and it just destroys the web strategies are that you got a guy floating in a sea of loneliness, despair, low self-esteem, nearly 10 hardly easy to see this really is a purpose is drowning in a water bottle to 5 foot two will had a life preserver.

What you do if you're drowning in the ocean life preserver fortune are you.

You claim to it with all your might. This guy clings to this girl. He suffocates the light out of her because he's looking to hurt the things she was never designed to give him this woman in John for his calling to different Lifesavers and it is killing her. The compounds or get what somebody says to me. I struggle with guilt about my past. It is always sexually related always sets God's way is a profound statement of covenant loyalty and marriage sex outside of marriage is often a quest to find something you can only fight in God. It is multiplies your thirst now before I wonder alas point. Sometimes I have God say to me at this point builds the wall okay. Yes it is that it is not yet how like sex for a girl like a deep soul me but for guys it just feels good. Is this unapplied us about F2 risks and one for many guys sexual prowess is a source of identity read this thing that that men go through three major stages in the life of building their identity in high school, except its athletic prowess that you establish where you rank among guys is how athletic you are in college. It is sexual prowess when you're in your 40s. It is earning potential for a lot of guys it absolutely is something that establishes their manhood. But beyond that, an idle listen and idle is anything that commands your obedience to talk about Esau.

Esau was a guy who was was he came in one afternoon is really hungry still seems like it's all he wants to die.

So he trades his eternal birthright for a cup of lentil soup because he can't say no to his stomach and the author of Hebrews says that is a picture of sexual immorality that there are people who are forfeiting their soul because they can't bring into captivity.

Urges of the body so they sell their soul so they can have satisfaction for this search. So for guys, this is an idol that has more weight to build their sexual urges have more weight to them. God himself does to sex for them is also driven by idolatry. God is going to have that kind of weight in their life and the back of a take God so lightly that they get so quickly enslaved.

All these other things to number three. The gospel liberates us gospel liberates the sexual captive. The gospel liberates sexual captive.

If you're familiar with your Bible, you can hardly read John four without think about Jeremiah 213 for my people. Jeremiah said God says have committed two evils.

One that forsaken me, the fountain of living waters instituted, cued out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns about that hold the water that case you don't know cisterns like a whole.

They would dig to collect rainwater and EE drawls. This comparison is like this is the cisterns you build to to drink water from the is telling them that they have drawn from wells that can't and won't satisfy you mature enough yet to realize that not everything your soul feels like satisfies it will actually do that thing for me physically. Imagine you're dying of thirst just got have something somebody into a nice warm cup of pancake syrup nice liquid it smooth. It taste good when you get done with that glass of pancake syrup.

You're not going to be less thirsty, thirstier, they say that when you're dehydrated it see you have this incredible desire to guzzle seawater. The limited essays satisfy just when it touches your mouth, there's a split second I need a nanosecond of satisfaction and almost immediately. This multiplied craving that just leaves you thirstier goes to work. That is how bodily pleasures like sex work when they're done outside of God see things on earth can't satisfy you because you're not just made of things of earth God made you yes out of the dust of the ground, which means that physical things like food, such satisfy us, to 1° but you're also made out to heaven to and when you pursue earthly pleasures at the expense of heavenly ones.

It's like drinking saltwater because we have the breath of God put into us and we had the image of God instilled in us. So if we try to satisfy earthly things without taking into consideration heavenly things earthly things actually just multiply Arthur's and I love by the way, I love the contrast here between the cistern in the spring thing about cistern if it fails to rain what happens. Your sister and rise up, what happens if your neighbor, thirst, dirt and trash in your cistern that clogs up right with you spring go spring is never dry up its independent claim it's independently resourced by some outside area you throw dirt and mud and and and trash in it. What happens, that spring will just bubble up and push through what Jesus is doing is putting a fountain of life in you. That does not depend on everything in your life going correctly all your relationships made an order is a source of joy that comes from a never ending supply because it is the finished work of Christ, of the eternal love of God. And when people in life. Throw dirt in Charlotte Internet spring. Just what it is burst through is nothing in yes you get discouraged.

And yes, things go wrong, but that spring is so powerful it pushes through all the dirt and junk that people put you the gospel liberates you from this downward cycle of sin.

It shows you a love that is better and more sustaining than what you have sought insects the love you are seeking here this does exist. This is not in 50 shades of gray or twilight.

It exists in the love of the heavenly father let me fill one that feels like their normal work because they give themselves away to too many people may because they been abused or raped gospel tells you that you have incredible value is the son of God himself spilled his blood for you to restore you to beautify you to call you again in white to make you sort of you not fly a lot in the complaint about that to you a lot and the airline but I almost always lie with rewards my loyalty to them by constantly losing my luggage. No matter what flight I'm unaware I'm going down there rather than any good on you complain to the person at the desk but your lost luggage. You know you're a move I get back to you week or so and was a great as long as I don't need underwear for the next week that should work out fine. Or if it's on the way back or ride our like oh yeah my four-year-old I bought this like toy for her on the bank usually can understand what shows up seven days later and she didn't remember that been anywhere they lose my luggage. Honestly because they don't care about my luggage. It has no value to them that has value to me.

If I were in charge of it.

I would lose it if they would give me permission. If I do check a bag.

I would tear down myself.

I would walk onto the cargo.

I would put it there. I would do all that work for them. Save the money if they would let me because that's my bag. It has value. I'm to make sure just where I needed to go right, they don't care about has a value to them so they lose it when I hear a girl say to me. I've already gone this far. Why not keep going. I'm damaged goods. What I hear. And that is I no longer value my body. Jesus valued your body and soul so much that he died to cleanse it, and to make it new. He gave the supreme sacrifice so that you will be clothed in white, dressed in righteousness, so that he could save all things are new and you are spiritually a virgin in my eyes again for you guys. It is the gospel that will give you power over those desires is the gospel discovery did you power those desires. The Puritans build ghetto 400 years ago guy that they had.

It had a great statement I love to use all the.they called it the explosive power of a new affection explore the explosive power to affect what they meant by that was that there we've only small attractions in our lives in the way that you bring them under captivity relate to push them out is that you you possess a much larger affection is any sense I wouldn't want to tell a story coupled to, because the less I got is look at me like I lost my mind. So let me let me explain. See here as well as when it happened a few weeks ago and arched her back up in old what couple years ago on a small group of guys and in a big favor just offhand. We would talk about this, but I said that I told this group of 22-year-old guys they can turn their sexual desires on and off like a light switch. You should have seen the expression on their faces when I said that one of the Mexican-American Lagrange of the one of said look we knew that you were older but we had no idea what happened to a man's body in his 30s that you cannot she make that kind of statement and I said I know I Ayana seven dollars but you really could you turn your sexual desires often on floodlights which they so there you you are on a separate is ISO so here you are you are with your original girlfriend you are at her house together by yourself.

The lights are low nobody's home out all rights of one thing certainly knew another I don't know which are called anymore and when I was in college at somebody with a baseball diamond. But you know whatever, you get the whatever place you are in your past the point of no return. Those passions are alive. There's nothing else you can think about right right and that train has left the station and the like their all non-like that's more talk about right there you there's no way to turn over that were either as I write.

Just at that moment when there's passions are stronger than you have ever felt them in that moment, in walks that girl's Navy seal father just got back from Afghanistan. Boom off like a light switch off gong why is it because you suddenly lost all interest in your girlfriend not really it's because your attraction to your girlfriend was displaced by a stronger affection. The affection to keep all the parts of your body attached to your body.

Your desire to stay alive, brought into captivity.

Your sexual passion for what I told these guys was the problem. The reason you can't control yourself sexually is not that your passions for sex or too strong. It's not your love for God is so weak.

The only way you're ever to bring that into captivity is when your love for God is increased, then sheltering a book on pornography in starting up with this Ethan Jeffers is a porn is a sin of imagination, so we need to counter it by enlarging our imaginations. The answer to porn is to believe the truth but that's so much more than just an intellectual consent when you let the truth capture our imagination.

We need to meditate we need to ponder we need to wonder at and sing the truth.

The way to be free from sexual captivity UC is by being more lovely Jesus that is such a weighty passion that brings into captivity.

All this was once disabled and how does that happen how you grow in love for Jesus like that. Look at it see him lifted up see him bleed for you see the greatness of the sacrifice that he day for you see how great a price he paid to redeem you, and then learn to think of a small thing to bring your bodily desires under control for him to see many of you can't believe because your sexual captives for some of you it's because you are enslaved to your sexual desires and you can't take the Lordship of Jesus seriously because of that. Others of you are captive to the guilt and shame of your past is the gospel that liberate you from both because the gospel provides you with the love that satisfies the thirst of your soul is the gospel that gives you power over your passions, even for things like sex. It is the gospel that releases you from the shame of past mistakes by washing you in Jesus blood and say behold I make all things new. The message of last week was look and live the message this week is calm and drink drink until your soul overflows. The tragedy is that love that you're looking for exist many you are.

Think of this first thing in as if in the rain thirst in the rain. Imagine you been to New Orleans this week you're dying of thirst 17 inches of rain coming down all you do is open your mouth. It's everywhere love of God is given as a gift to many of you are dying of thirst in the rain, drink, drink the blood of Jesus and let your soul overflows as he will be in your spring of living water well enough that cure for life isn't just more tunability or setting up more boundaries. This can definitely be helpful but they don't get to the root of the problem. The only true cure is to fall more in love with Jesus, that every desire fades in comparison and that happens when we fix our eyes on Jesus sacrifice on the cross. You're listening to Pastor JD Greer on Summit life.

You are loved so deeply and accepted so fully that the only thing you should be experiencing in Christ is for you freedom from yourself and your sin, and even the burden of just doing good things and like to introduce you to a brand-new resource is a 20 day devotional called what is the gospel, while religion keeps telling us that we need extra layers dedicate one month to removing all the add-ons that have made Christian living Hebert in complicated let God reveal the beauty of the gospel in the ways he knows you need to hear. We like to get a copy of this devotional written by Pastor JD to you right now it comes with our thanks when you donate to support this ministry suggested getting level is $25 or more. Every penny you donate to the gospel. This ministry for an additional gift of only $10.

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