Upset the Vows - Part 8

Tim Ross | April 18, 2021

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Transcription

If you have your Bibles, I want you to open them to Genesis 1. This weekend, I am teaching a message on sexuality. We are living in a time in our culture, that Christians are having a very difficult time having conversations about sexuality and about sex because of what secular culture is presenting to us. We also have a lot of people that believe in Jesus that are starting to try to redefined what God intended for sexuality.

There's been a lot of eggshell walking and tiptoeing on the subject because we don't want to offend anybody. I have come to the conclusion that the most offensive thing that you can give someone is your opinion. As believers in Jesus Christ, one of the most offensive things that we can give people is our opinions. We are standing on very solid ground when we don't try to give our perspective, but we give God's perspective on what he has to say about the way that we would call ourselves believers in Jesus Christ should be living their lives.

I have no problem teaching what I'm teaching today, because I have no opinion to give you. I'm going to read the Bible and tell you what the Bible says and you can disagree or agree with him. If you mad, take it up with him. If you get offended, take it up with him. If you get really frustrated with it, take it up with him. You can talk to me, but we'll take it up with him.

Now, here's what I want to say. There are going to be points I'm making this message that are going to make religious people incredibly uncomfortable, incredibly. They're going to be people that have more liberal views that when I read certain things, it's going to make you incredibly uncomfortable. I want you to breathe deep.

Hopefully, you have a breathable mask, I want you to breathe very deep. If you get lightheaded, hold the person's hand next to you whether you know them or not just be like, "I need to be anchored right now, this dude is challenging me. Okay? I want to read the Bible. I'm going to cover a lot and I'm not going to let it go till I'm done. Are we clear?

If you're ready to grow, say let's grow.

All right. I just want to dive straight into this. There's so much I have to cover that I can't just open it up and blah, blah, blah. I told you I'm talking about sexuality, so how about we just go in? Good? Four points to this message, here's the first point. God created our sexuality. God created our sexuality.

Here's what it says in Genesis 1:27-28. "God created human beings in His own image." In the image of God, He created them, male and female, he created them. Then God blessed him and said, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and govern it, reign over the fish in the sea, the birds of the sky and all the animals that scurry along the ground." Can I just pause and say, this one of the reasons why when I get to heaven I want to hunt Adam and Eve down because we're supposed to rain over fish, birds and animals. We shouldn't have to train them.

If this was pre-Adamic fall, earth, we would just tell fish, "You come in my boat, you're delicious."

We would be bareback riding lions on a safari. We would just drive up in a safari and be like, "Lion, Simba, come here. I just want to ride a lion." This got broken after the fall. Our command over animals, birds, fish, the way it was supposed to rein was broken and our sex sexuality was broken as well. Everything got broke when sin came into there, but God created sexuality.

There's some bullets that I want you to have for this particular point that I want you to write down because I think it's going to calibrate us into what it is that we want to do. Human beings are sexual beings. These are going to be some note down things, but I want you to take some good notes. I want you to know that human beings are sexual beings because God created us that way.

The next bullet I want you to write down is, "Through our sexuality, we fill the world and govern it." Through our sexuality, we fill the world and we govern it. The reason why he made us sexual beings and the reason why he stated that in Genesis 1:27, is because we could not fulfill Genesis 1:28 without sexuality. He said, "Be fruitful and multiply." He says, "I want you to govern the earth."

Men and women were put in the earth to govern it, and we were supposed to govern it through our sexuality. We need men and women to do that. If only men were governing, we would all be dead. Because all we want to do is fight. Our testosterone is too much, we would have had four nuclear winters by now. The only people that would have survived are mutants and roaches.

It's not supposed to be all men, it's not supposed to be all women either. We are supposed to govern together. It's the way He created us to do it. He did that by giving us sexuality, and in our genders, male and female, she wanted us to govern the earth that he created. The last one is that, male and female sexuality is central to what it means to be human. Male and female sexuality is central to what it means to be human and this is why it is so attacked. Because it is so central to who we are that somehow some way through the brokenness of sin in the earth we've tried to claim it for ourselves. God created our sexuality.

Which brings us to point number two, please write this down, God directed our sexuality. God directed our sexuality. Well, Tim, what do you mean by He directed? He is the one that guided our sexuality to a man and a woman. Here's what it says in Genesis 2:21, "The Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib and here it is, and he brought her to the man."

He put Adam to sleep. He formed this woman and then he brought this woman and her sexuality to this man and his sexuality. He directed it. He said, "Your sexuality goes to this man's sexuality. Man, your sexuality goes to this woman's sexuality. I made her sexuality completely other than yours because I am a God that puts things that are different together." The reason why our relationship with God is absolutely amazing is because he is absolutely other than us. We ain't like God and He is not like us, so we go good together. He did not give Adam options with his sexuality. He did not say, "Here's your sexuality, even though I created it, I want you to be able to direct it as you wish. Let me bring you a female. Let me bring you a male. Let me--"

"Oh is good, or you know what I know this is early on, I just created-- About 6000 years from now, I know I made it too simple male and female, and I try to direct you to each other, but once you might like, you might want cisgender, pansexual, transgender, non-binary, it depends on what I feel like on this day, asexual."

He directed male sexuality, to female sexuality, and he directed female sexuality to male sexuality. He didn't do it, for them to start it for it to turn into something else later. He said it, and that's the only way we can get to where we are right now, is that female sexuality is directed towards male sexuality. Male sexuality is directed towards female sexuality, God directed sexuality. He did it in the beginning, and He's made no modifications since.

Now, here is what a lot of my friends from the LBGTQIA community say about that verse. That's the Old Testament. It's an old testament so it doesn't count, and really Acts going forward doesn't count. Jesus had nothing to say about the direction of sexuality. Except that he did. In Matthew 19, which we read last week, actually in context of divorce. Jesus makes a statement in red but actually repeats what his Dad did in Genesis.

"Haven't you read the scriptures?" Jesus replied, they record that what? "From the beginning, God made them what?" Male and female, and He said, "This explains why a man leaves his father and mother who were directed to each other and is joined to his wife, which is the only place he is legally, spiritually, theologically assigned to go to sexually. Those two are united into one. Since they are no longer two, but one let no one split apart what God has joined together." God put together the sexuality of males and females to go to each other.

In exclusivity, in a marriage, which brings me to point number three, God protected our sexuality. Now, I have a lot to bring into context here because when it comes to our sexuality and the expression of it, what the church has usually done is point to behavior and preach against it. "You are going to hell for your behavior. You are going to hell because of your attractions. You are going to burst hell wide open because you're having sex." God protects us by giving us His decrees and His commands prior to us ever being exposed to what He wants us to enjoy. God protected our sexuality. I'm going to read a whole chapter, y'all just going to have to deal with it. I'm going to read a whole chapter and is a chapter that a lot of my friends who are not saved, who want to have all the sex they want, hetero, all the sex they want to have homo, they hate this particular chapter that I'm about to read. They don't actually hate the chapter, they just hate one verse in the chapter.

Before I even read it, I want to apologize on behalf of the preachers that have literally taking a cluster of sins if it were a grape cluster of grapes. They've taken a cluster and only picked off one of the sins and tried to make it seem worse than the rest. I want to apologize because that's not the way the Gospel is supposed to be communicated. Sin is sin.

I'm going to read Leviticus 18. I very rarely do illustrations, because I'd like to paint pictures in your mind but I have to do illustration for this one because I need you to see what I see in my head when I read Leviticus 18. In Leviticus 18, God starts to give some protections around sexuality so that we can continue to enjoy it the way He intended us to enjoy it.

"Then the Lord said to Moses, give the following instructions to the people of Israel, I am the Lord your God. Do not act like the people in Egypt, where you used to live, or the people of Canaan, where I am taking you." Here's what God says, "I don't want you to act like you used to do in your past and when I bring you into this place of blessing and prosperity, I don't want you to act like the people over there either. I want you exclusive to me in the way that you live your life. You must not imitate their way of life."

Now, this is a big deal because there was a lot of imitation going on in our culture. We have people defining their sexuality, not based on something they're feeling, but on something they are seeing. It looks cool for them so it must be cool for me. You would think that this is only happening to people that don't know about Jesus or have made a commitment to follow Jesus, but this is happening in the church.

God puts protections around His people and their sexuality and He says, "Don't imitate their way of life. You must obey all of my regulations and be careful to obey my decrees for I am the Lord your God. If you obey my decrees and my regulations you will find life through them." It's all He's saying. "You want to enjoy life to the fullest? Obey my decrees and my regulations. I am the Lord Here we go. You must never have sexual relations with a close relative for I am the Lord."

I'm going to protect you all. You might think your cousin's cute. I don't care how hot they are? Your close relative. Not you fam. Do not violate your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother. [chuckles] You must not have sexual relations with her. Do not have sexual relations with any of your father's wives. That ain't right now for this would violate your father.

Do not have sexual relations with your sister or half-sister, whether she is your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether she was born into your household or someone else's. Do not have sexual relations with your granddaughter, whether she is your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter for this would violate yourself. Do not have sexual relations with your stepsister, the daughter of any of your father's wives for she is your sister, dah. Do not have sexual relations with your father's sister for she is your father's close relative. Do not have sexual relations with your mother's sister for she is your mother's close relative. Do not violate your uncle, your father's brother by having sexual relations with his wife for she is your aunt.

Can we pause real quick, why would He have to say all this? I know some of y'all looking like, "Bro, I'm good bro." You ain't hit nothing yet on this list that I'm like, "Oh, dang. I was just about to ask my tío if we could date." Tío is Spanish uncle. Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law, she is your son's wife so you must not have sexual relations with her.

Do not have sexual relations with your brother's wife for this would violate your brother. Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter and do not take her granddaughter, whether her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter and have sexual relations with her, they are close relatives and this would be a wicked act.

While your wife is living, do not marry her sister. Don't you do that. Don't you do that one. No, don't you do that. For they would-be rivals. Do not have sexual relations with a woman during her period of menstrual impurity. Do not defy yourselves by having sexual intercourse with your neighbor's wife. Do not permit any of your children to be offered as a sacrifice to Molek for you must not bring shame on the name of your God I am the Lord.

Now let me just say for this, if this sounds confusing because who's sacrificing something to Molek right now? This is about abortion. This is about child sacrifice. Now, if you had an abortion, I don't want you to hold your head down, God will forgive you. God will forgive any sin.

Jesus went to that cross and was nailed there and bled out for any possible sin that you could ever do so if you've had an abortion, he forgives you. If you repent and say, "I shouldn't have done that," He forgives you. Don't have another one. It's that simple, but that's what God's talking about. Now, this is the one that a lot of people get riled up about, but you see what we've stacked up until this time and all of these are hetero.

All of this is male or female. This whole look thing got them built up, and ain't it amazing that all this hetero stuff wouldn't even be mentioned, but we'll pull out this verse and try to body slam somebody with it. Do not practice homosexuality. Having sex with another man as with a woman, it is a detestable sin. Isn't it amazing we have this whole cluster, but we'll only pull out this one?

Churches have made their entire doctrine off this one yet they'll have pastors in their church sleeping with the secretary and they'll have Sunday school teachers turning out the little boys at Sunday School. Because when you don't teach the full counsel of God's word, you give people a license to think their sin is okay.

Well, just know I'm coming after y'all. Do not practice homosexuality, go back to that one real quick. Do not practice homosexuality having sex with another man as with the woman, it is a detestable sin. A man must not defile himself by having sex with an animal and a woman must not offer herself to a male animal to have intercourse with this. This would be a perverse act. Didn't know that was in there, did you? Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways for the people I'm driving out before you have defiled themselves in all these ways. He said, "I'm taking you to a place and the reason why I'm even giving you their land is because this is the way they have been treating their bodies and their community. Because the entire land has become defiled, I am punishing the people who live there. I will cause the land to vomit them out. You must obey all my decrees and regulations."

"You must not commit any of these detestable sins. This applies both to native-born Israelites, and to foreigners living among you. All these untestable activities are practiced by the people of the land where I am taking you and this is how the land has become defiled. Do not defile the land and give it any reason to vomit you out, as it will vomit out the people who live there now. Whoever commits any of these detestable sins will be cut off."

Thank you, Holy Spirit. Let me slow down. "Whoever commits any of these detestable sins." Not like, "This was okay, but that one don't do that one." Any of them. "Any of these that are committed, you'll be cut off from the community of Israel. Obey my instructions and do not defile yourselves by committing any of these detestable practices that were committed by the people who lived in the land before you. I am the Lord your God."

Now, I talk to people who, again because they are so identify by their sexuality, both hetero and homo, you read something like Leviticus 18 and they're like, "Oh, there you go again." Bible thumping, Old Testament. My invitation is, whichever one you don't think needs to be in there, take it out.

Just you know, you think this one, "No the Lord wants me to do this one." Be careful though because if you can get this out, without knocking everything else down you might get to have fun doing your thing, but you've now given everybody else permission to come get theirs too. If you just to try to take one of those out, like, "I like my uncle."

Ain't it crazy when you try to keep yours together and then you judge everybody else falling apart. God's not trying to prohibit you as much as He is trying to protect you. There's some things that I want you to write down and I know there's some religious people that are about to-- oooh, your but cheeks are about to, aah.

I promise you, I already know what's going to happen. When he gave me the sermon, I was like, "They're going to tighten up Jesus." It's about to happen." If you just feel a pinch it's just the truth. Please write this down. I hope somebody gets free off this. Attraction isn't a sin, our reactions to our attractions can become a sin. Hear me, attraction is not a sin. Say it with me attraction is not a sin. Again, attraction is not a sin.

Our reactions to our attractions can become a sin. I've read from Genesis to Revelation, I can't find one verse where God is upset about somebody's attraction. He has nothing to say about attraction. He does have something to say about lust. He has zero to say about attraction. Do you know that God makes beautiful things? He's not going to make it ugly, so you'll stay away from it. He just gives you a command to protect you from it.

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve are in the garden, but in Genesis 2, God told both Adam and Eve, that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not to be eaten. Guess what Eve was attracted to in Genesis 3? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The attraction wasn't God's issue. He knew it was beautiful when He made it. He just said you cannot eat it. He never said you can't touch it. He said you can't eat it.

Scripture says, "When Eve looked at the tree and saw that it was beautiful," you know what God would have said if she said, "You know what? God, I'm really attracted to that." He would have said, "No, dah. I made it. I make beautiful things." I know people that are married and you find yourself attracted to other men or other women and guess what? God says when you notice another attractive person, "Yes, I agree with you. They're hot but you already made a commitment to your spouse, so go home."

The attraction isn't the issue is your reaction to the attraction. If I'm in the mall, by myself, which wouldn't have happened. I'm just an introvert and there's just too many people. If I'm walking, and I'm by myself, Juliet is, "That girl is so fine." Oh, that's me. I'm talking about sex next week and I'm going to talk. If I'm walking and I see an attractive female walking towards me, and I see her and I notice, "Wow, she's attractive, I'm not sinning." If I walked past her, my reaction can become a sin. If I follow her around the mall for the next 15 minutes, I'm a creep. If I flirt now, I'm playing with fire. We exchanged numbers, I've already crossed the boundary. We start texting each other and now I'm in an emotional relationship. Even if it never gets physical, what happens is that my attraction is not the sin. My reaction to the attraction became a sin.

Which brings me to my next point I want you to write, attraction isn't planned. I didn't plan to go to the mall and be attracted to another woman. Attraction isn't planned. Our reactions to our attractions are planned. What you do about it is planned. When somebody tells me who is a believer in Jesus Christ, that I have a same-sex attraction. You know what God says to that, "I get it. I make beautiful things."

You're a man and you're attracted to another man, you are a woman and you're attracted to another woman, God has no problem with your attraction. What is your reaction to that attraction going to be? Your attraction if not governed by God will inform how you feel you're oriented. Based on how you believe and receive information about how you're oriented, you'll begin to identify that way. Attraction informs orientation. An orientation can become an identity, if we do not submit all of that to the Lord. There are as many heterosexual people struggling in their sexuality, to submit to God as there are homosexuals who are struggling to submit their sexuality to the will of God. The problem is, the church hasn't been addressing both. We have run people that love Jesus and want to be submitted to Him out of our churches because we won't even normalize the conversation around attraction.

I'm telling you that He made the protections for a reason and after He made it, He wanted to protect us with it after. He directed it, he created it, directed it, then He wanted to protect us with it, but attraction is not the issue, your reactions to your attractions become the major issue. Are you all with me?

Can I go deeper?

Point number four, please write this down, God owns our sexuality. God owns our sexuality. This is the statement here that is going to determine whether you have a Savior

or Lord. Who is the owner? Is it you or is it Him? I'm so worn with my sex right. It belongs to me. I'm identified by it. All right, you created it?

I can only do something and change with something I actually own. If I'm not the owner, I can't make changes or modifications. Anybody here ever leased a vehicle? You leased a vehicle? They tell you, "This is yours, kind of." [laughs] "It's yours for three years and up to 36,000 miles. If you drive past 36,000 miles you will pay for those miles. You cannot paint it. You cannot throw 22-inch rims on it."

"You cannot put a candy paint coating on it if you're from Houston." It's not yours. You're just using it. Your sexuality isn't yours you're just using it. You know in eternity there is no sex. For all the glorification there is on Earth, it's temporal. The glory you'll experience in heaven you'll never think about sex again, and sex is bomb. That means heavens going to be lit.

If we're aren't going to think about sex again, heaven is going to be dope. Let me read you some scripture. God owns our sexuality. Let me read you this. 1 Corinthians 6 starting at the night verse, "Don't you realize that those who do wrong would not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or worship idols, or committed adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or abusive ,or cheat people, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God."

Can I just pause right there? Corinth was off the chain y'all. Yo. The people that were giving their life to Jesus in Corinth, they were book. Wow. When you got to write down male prostitution, you are out there, sir. Thieves, drunkards, those that worship idols, those that are involved in sexual immorality, those that are homosexuals, those are the male prostitutes, those that are having heterosex outside of marr--

Corinth was book. He's writing to a church, y'all. He's not posting an op-ed in the New York Times. You can't believe these Romans are out here acting like this. They're Romans. They're sinners. They're not confessing Jesus. Paul didn't bother speaking to that community. He was only talking to the people in the community of faith. Stop taking your picket signs to people that haven't even said they wanted Jesus as Lord.

If they don't want to live, according to the Bible, don't preach to them about what they can't do. They don't care. Before I gave my life to Jesus, I was in my parent's church sitting on the back row, writing raps, going to the beach. I was trying to find a girl that wanted to have sex today. I was looking at pornography. I was numbing the pain of my past, and I had no conviction of it. I heard every sermon about why I was wrong, but I wasn't ready to commit my life to Jesus. I didn't do none of it. When I gave my life to Christ and I said, "I want you as Savior and Lord," the Holy Spirit started convicting and I started changing. Even when I did slip and do it anyway, I couldn't enjoy it, because now I'm under the conviction because I'm in a relationship with the eternal God who's trying to protect the way I express my sexuality. Once again, those verses that I just read, it's a cluster of them.

I just want you to go back through the entire scripture from Genesis to Revelation, you will never find the word homosexuality isolated by itself. It's always in a cluster with other sins. We need to start preaching it like it's an isolated issue. Sin is sin. Paul makes this whole list. If you do any of these stuff, you cannot inherit the kingdom of God. It sounds like, "Oh my goodness, dude, you're coming hard on the Corinthian church." These next sins proves that everybody he just listed was actually in the church he was writing to.

Some of you were once like that [laughs]. I'm just so dumb [laughs]. Some of you were once like that. That means there was a male prostitute in the Corinthian church. There were homosexuals in the Corinthian church. There were heterosexuals that were having sex outside of marriage in the Corinthian church. There was actually in 1 Corinthians 5, the chapter preceding it, there was a guy that was having sex with his stepmom, which is down here somewhere.

He tried to take that out. He was like, "I'm sorry. Daddy shouldn't have married her, because she is--"

Some of you were once like that. Here's what he's saying. The only thing that's ever going to be in this church are people that were out in their world. I should just free up everybody like, "Sweet, so I'm not by myself." We don't need the hypocrisy in the church where people try to act like they didn't come from the streets.

Well, I got saved when I was five, but remember when you once fell?

Some of you were once like that. Anybody got the testimony that I used to be like that? I used to be like that. I'm not going to point to which one of those on the list I was, but I used to be like that. We would have such a beautiful church if we just admitted we were on the list. We've never escaped the list that describes sin, because we were all sinners and we were saved by grace. Some of you were once like that but you were cleansed. You were made holy. You were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. You say, "I'm allowed to do anything," but not everything is good for you. Hello.

Hello. I remember been a Young Adult Pastor and we had Q&A for two weeks. No question off limits. Nothing scripted. Just coming in hot. Just firing off. This girl got up and she said, "Where does it say in the Bible that cohabitation is a sin?" I said, "Go in there. Just live together and have all the sex you want." I moved onto the next question. Everybody was like, "Oooh.

I love causing tension.

That's what I said. I said, "It doesn't say nothing about cohabitation. Just live together. Have all the sex you want, move onto the next question." 20 minutes later, I came back to her. "You, here's why I didn't entertain your question, because you don't want to live right."

Any time it has to be spilled out to your specific kind of sin.

All right, so what if when I met him I didn't know he was my uncle and we had already fell for each other?

It's exactly what happens. I didn't even try to do that. Holy Spirit is helping me with the sermon.

What if the scenario was like, "God got to have a loophole for like, "Yes, not everything is good for you." Even though I'm allowed to do anything, I must not become a slave to anything. You say food was made for the stomach and the stomach for food. This is true, though someday God would do away with both of them. What you can say though, that's the way I want to say it.

What you can't say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. You cannot say that. There's too much scripture that supports the opposite of that statement. They were made for the Lord. He own sexuality. Your bodies were made for the Lord and the Lord cares about our bodies. God will raise us from the dead by His power just as He raised our Lord from the dead.

Don't you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is a part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never. Don't you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her for the Scripture, say the two are united into one.

This is one of the pop quizzes I like to do when I'm in a group. I usually do it in singles. I'll say, "Hey, how many people have ever been married?" It's a singles ministry, so nobody's raised their hand, or two or three hands would go up because they were married, but then now they're divorced.

Those hands will go down and I'll will say, "Okay, let me ask a different question. How many people have ever had sex?" All these hands go up. I'm like, "Then you've been married because according to Scripture of sex is marriage." The two become one. How many times have you been married?

Move along a little. Some of you have been married a lot of times. We should speak facts. When you know better, you do better. The Scriptures say the two are united into one, but the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. I'll love this next line. Run from sexual sin. Anything you can do to it. You got to dip. I have a friend who lived in Mississippi and we were accountability partners in our early 20s'.

His girlfriend told him to come over. He was a believer in Jesus, so was she. She probably hadn't gone through all the discipleship classes yet. When he went over there, she was in the shower and so he was waiting for her in the living room. She came out of the shower with just a bath towel on. She walked up to him and turned around and she said take off the towel. He remembered those four words and he ran out of the house.

That's the only way you can get away from it. You try to reason with it, you're both going to be at the altar on Sunday. He literally got off the couch and ran out of the house passed his car up the street. This is my early 20s', so this is early 2000. No cell phones yet. He runs to a payphone calls me out of breath, crying.

I'm like, "Hello." He's like, "I did nothing, man. I didn't do anything, man. We must go on date and she came out of bath. She said she was taking a shower, bro. I was on the couch in the living room. She came in the towel. She was still soaking wet, glistening and all. Then she said take off the towel and I remember, "run", and so I ran. I said, "Bro, where are you?" I'm at a payphone, man." I said, "Where's your car?" He's like, "Down the block."

I said, "All right, man. Here's what you going to do." I said, "How long does it take you to get home?" He said, "I live 15 minutes away from her." I said, "Bro, okay. In 19 minutes I should get a call from your house, because if you go back in there y'all just bought to be married." No officiate, no invites, y'all just bought to be married. 19 minutes later, actually, it's about 17 minutes later, he sprinted back to his car. We held each other accountable, but he ran. That's the only way you going to get away from it, you got to run from that. I can say no to Kalamara because I don't like it. Me say no to my wife, bra? Please. No other sin is so clearly affects the body as this one does, can we be honest?

You have sex and then you break up and then they all in your head, you swear up and down. You don't care what they do. You ain't with them no more. Find out what they do.

For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Why did He want you to protect it? Because you are literally sitting against yourself. Here we are. Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you. He's been with you every time you've had sex outside of marriage. He'd been right there just, "This is what we're doing today?"

Who lives in you and was given to you by God, here it is. You do not belong to yourself. God is the owner of our sexuality. You do not belong to yourself for God, bought you with a high price. You must honor God with your body. We have to honor him with our bodies. I know single people, both heterosexual and homosexual and have taken the strength of this verse and bowed celibacy. Not because they don't have a sexuality that they want to express, but because they brought it under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

I know people who have attractions to men and women. I know people in church that are heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, all the sexuals. Literally they've told me, I cry myself to sleep at night because I can't be with the person that I'm attracted to, unless I'm married and unless it's directed the way God wants it to, wants it to be directed.

I've literally cried myself to sleep, but I'd rather cry myself to sleep and keep my relationship with God, than to have the person I want in the bed with me and be disconnected from God. Ladies and gentlemen. This is the message for you this weekend that God created our sexuality. God directed our sexuality. He has protected our sexuality and He's the owner of our sexuality. Won't you bow your heads.

With every head bowed and every eye closed, I'm not going to ask anybody to raise their hands. If they felt like this is a message that blessed them, if you've struggled with heterosexual sex outside of marriage, if you have a same sex attraction, or if you feel oriented towards homosexuality in any of its expressions, I just want you to let this message sink in. For some of you, this might've been a message that just gave you confirmation to a journey you've already been on. For others, there may have been components to this message that you're wrestling with right now. No matter where you find yourself, I just want you to sit with the scriptures, not with my opinion, I want you to sit with the scriptures, and allow the scriptures to speak to you about God's creation.

His direction, His crucial protection and His ownership as relates to our sexuality, whether you're in this room or you're watching us online, my prayer is that something was said in this message that draws you closer to your relationship with God, there is nothing greater than submitting every aspect of our lives, including something so connected to us as sexuality, to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and allowing Him to lead, guide, and direct us in the expression of it.

Holy Spirit, I just pray for every single one of my brothers and sisters, your sons and daughters. I thank you for the grace that you have given us to be able to talk about hard things and normalize them. God, may Embassy City be a church that talks about everything. [chuckles] That if it's in your Bible, we are going to talk about it and if it's not in there, we ain't going to say nothing about it.

God thank you for breakthroughs. I prophesy breakthroughs. In our sexuality, I prophesy breakthroughs. In the healing of our sexuality, I prophesy breakthroughs. In the male and female genders submitted to Jesus Christ, becoming everything you have called them to be doing, everything you called them to do in the bodies you put them in, both male and female, He created them to rein and to rule, and to govern. Thank you, Lord God, for giving us our sexuality. May we glorify you in the bodies you put us in, in Jesus name. Amen.