- Yeah, it's cool. Hey, my name is Ryan. I get to work with our students here at Rockpoint Church, and we're so proud of all of you who were baptized last week, and we're excited to follow Jesus together with you. If you've got a Bible, go ahead and grab it, we're gonna be in Proverbs 5. You're always gonna get the most out of this time when you have a Bible in front of you, so go ahead and grab one. I'm gonna pray, and we're gonna jump in. Jesus, thank you for all my friends who are here this morning, both those who are online, those who are listening weeks later on vacation, those who are in the warehouse with us, and God, those who are right in front of me right now. God, I pray that you would encourage us this morning with your truth on some tough subjects. And God, anything I say that distracts from the truth, would you just let it fade away. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Okay. True story, I was talking to a friend of mine recently and he said, "Ryan," he said, "can you believe all this stuff we keep hearing about CBD? Can you believe all this CBD stuff? It's everywhere, I can't believe it." And I said, "Yeah, it's been around for a while." And my friend said, "Yeah, but I mean, it's on billboards and there's stores and it's everywhere and I just don't know how I feel about this stuff." And I'm like, "Well, I mean, I use it sometimes. It's okay, there's some good stuff in there, but sometimes there's some questionable stuff. You just gotta be informed, you know?" And we talked about this for a minute and my friend goes, "Wait a second. Are you talking... I'm talking about CBD oil, the cannabis stuff. What are you talking about?" I said, "I'm talking about "Christian Book Distributors," the magazine." And, I learned in that moment that definitions are important, okay? I learned that definitions are important. So as we jump into Proverbs 5 this morning, I need to give you some definitions so that we're all working from the same place, all right? So first of all, I know it doesn't make me popular in our world today, but I need to define marriage, adultery and sexual integrity. So first of all, marriage. Marriage is holy matrimony between one man and one woman for life, and that's it. And that is the biblical definition of marriage, number one. Number two, adultery is finding sexual satisfaction outside of a Jesus centered marriage. That's adultery, it's any sexual satisfaction outside of marriage at all. Jesus talked about that when he said, "Anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart." So we have all struggled with this in some way, but that's what adultery is. It's sexual satisfaction outside of a biblical marriage. And then thirdly, I like the phrase sexual integrity, and I think that that is kind of the overarching principle of this whole chapter in the Book of Proverbs 5. I like sexual integrity better than the phrase sexual purity, because having worked with teenagers for 15 years in the church world, sometimes they think of the phrase, sexual purity, almost like virginity that once you lose it, it's gone, you can never get it back. But in scripture, God makes all things new. Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation and his mercy is new every morning. Amen. So you can lose your sexual integrity, but you can get it back. It is not gone forever. So I like the phrase, sexual integrity as opposed to sexual purity, and I would encourage you to use that phrase from now on as well, just because I think it's more clear. Let's look at Proverbs 5:1-2. This is the smartest man who's ever lived talking to his son, other than Jesus, his name is Solomon. And in Proverbs 5:1-2, it says, "My son, be attentive to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding that you may keep discretion and your lips may guard knowledge." So we're gonna talk about marriage, adultery, and sexual integrity this morning. That's what this chapter is about. And I wanna look at some words of Jesus briefly, 'cause I think he sets us up in the right direction. Matthew 19, you can see it right here. You can stay in Proverbs 5. The Pharisees came to Jesus to test him. First of all, don't test Jesus, he's the boss, okay? But the Pharisees came to test Jesus. They said, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" And Jesus answered them and said, "Have you not read..." That's... Okay, I don't know if that's supposed to be funny, but it's pretty funny for a Jewish rabbi to look at some Pharisees and say, "Oh, you must not have read the Bible." Okay. I don't know if it's supposed to be funny, I think it's funny. But Jesus says in verse four, "Have you not read in the Bible that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female," two genders, verse five, and he said, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together let no man separate." Verse seven, they said to him, "Why then did Moses allow us to get divorced?" And verse eight, Jesus said, "Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to get divorced. But from the beginning it was not so." Jesus is saying from the beginning, divorce is not supposed to be an option. And verse nine, Jesus says, "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery." Jesus had a high view of marriage. Jesus had a very low view, an intolerance for adultery, and we should have the same, I think. So my first question for you as we get started right now, have you, like Solomon says, "Have you inclined your ear to what God says about marriage and adultery and sexual integrity?" Have you inclined your ear to what God thinks or are you a know at all? Are you in charge of your own life? Do you determine your own truth based on your own feelings whenever you feel like it? Or maybe, is the God of the universe smarter than you? Let's look at verses three and four in Proverbs 5. It says, "For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword." Now, Solomon is gonna talk about sexual immorality and adultery by talking about the quote adulterous woman. Now, just to be clear, he is not saying something generally about all women everywhere, that's not what he's saying, so don't get distracted by that. Because in Proverbs 8, the wisdom that God used at the beginning in Proverbs 8 is referred to as lady wisdom, okay? So men are not above or below or any smarter or any not as smart as men, this is not a gender statement. This is just a personification of adultery and sexual immorality. This is just an illustration essentially. And verse three it says, "The lips of a forbidden woman," or an adulterous woman, or basically when you give in to sexual immorality of any kind and compromise your sexual integrity. He says, "The lips of a forbidden women drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil." What this is saying is that there's more than just sex going on here, there's flattery. And that's important, if you know anyone who's committed adultery, if you know anyone who's ever had an affair or heard of anyone who's had an affair, there is more than just sex going on there. There is a woman who is not being loved by her husband and she finds love somewhere else. There's a man who is not being respected by his wife and he finds respect somewhere else. And then there is sexual activity that follows, but there's flattery involved. And verse four clarifies in the end, "She," meaning adultery, "is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword." If you commit adultery on your spouse, it'll taste bitter, it will be gross and it will cut you and there'll be scars. It is not a good idea. And there's a biblical scholar named Duane Garrett, and he says something about this Proverbs 5 that I think is a really, really good quote. I wanna read this for you, quote, "The Bible does not hide from or obscure the power of the temptation to find and indulge in sex outside of marriage. In words that are refreshingly clear and direct, this text in Proverbs 5 warns the readers of the nightmares that await him should he give into this area and at the same time, promises profound sexual joy to those who do things God's way. If the church is to do its duty, it must be no less clear in its teachings." What I think that means is the whole world is talking about sex all the time. Why are we afraid to talk about it? We're followers of Jesus. We know the author of life. We know the one who invented sex in the right context, in a biblical marriage for good purposes. We know him. Why are we afraid to talk about it? Why do I have so many teenagers that I've worked with over the years who were like, "My mom and dad will not talk to me about sex at all ever." Why? Why is that the case? There's billions of people in the world, last time I checked, somebody is having sex with somebody, okay? And as followers of Jesus, we should not be afraid to talk about the things that Scripture talks about. Let's look at verses five and six. It says, "Her feet go down to death," so we're again talking about the adulterous woman or giving into sexual temptation here. It says, "Her feet go down to death, her steps follow the path to Sheol, she does not ponder the path of life, her ways wander, and she does not know it." See the path of life is taking the long view of life, that's to ponder the path of life. It's not just to be impulsive and do in the moment what you think is right. Interestingly, isn't it funny that our world right now is telling us over and over, "Do what you think is right. Do what you want to... Do what feels good at the moment, man, just you do you, just do whatever you feel like you wanna do it and it's right. And do it right now and do it quickly." That's what the world tells us. But God's wisdom says, "Take the long view. Look long-term, don't just be impulsive." See, I think tattoos are pretty cool. I don't have a tattoo, but I love talking to them about people that have them like waiters and waitresses. There's always a cool story behind it and it's a neat point of conversation. And teenagers ask me about tattoos all the time. And my advice to teenagers, when they ask me about getting a tattoo, especially when they're 15, 16, 17, I just say, "Hey, look, just wait a little bit. Just give it some time. Don't rush this, okay? I know that you wanna get that giant tattoo of the Titanic on your lower back, but I'm telling you, in 20 years that's gonna sink, okay? And it's gonna be a tragedy, okay?" Followers of Jesus, we need to take the long view, we need to take things into consideration. How's this gonna matter in five, 10, 20, 30 years? Not just be impulsive. That's how sexual immorality creeps into our lives, when we are impulsive and we don't ponder the path of life. Look at verses seven through 10, it says, "And now, O my sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her," underline far, "and do not go near the door of her house," underline do not go near, verse nine, "lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless, lest strangers take their fill of your strength and your labors go to the house of a foreigner." This idea, and I hear this from teenagers a lot as well, they say, "Well, how close can I get to sin before it's wrong?" And I'm just like... I hear that question, that's such a dumb question, like I... Look, how close to the edge can I get on the north shore before I fall off and die? Not a good question, okay? How close to this bonfire can I get before it burns me? Not a good question. We should not be asking how close to sin can we get, how much can we get away with? That's not a good question. The right question is how close to God can I get? And how far away from my sin, can I run away? Have you ever wondered what's God's will for your life? Have you ever wondered that? I've wondered that all the time. I wish there was a Bible verse that says, "This is God's will for your life." Hey, look at that, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5. It says... It says, "For this is the will of God," right there, "This is the will of God," What is it? "your sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God." If you know Jesus as your savior, and that word, by the way, to know, in verse four that says, "You should know how to control your own body." That word is actually a process of knowing, that word would be better translated as learn. Each of you should learn how to control your body. You don't wake up one day and you're perfectly sexually moral. That doesn't happen. It's a process, man. It is a journey. You got to struggle and struggle and fight and fight and don't give up. I was meeting with a high school guy a few months ago, and he was talking to me about his struggle with pornography, and I kept encouraging him. I was like, "You're doing great. You're doing great. Keep going." And it so funny, he was like, "Why do you keep saying that? I told you I'm struggling." I was like, "I know. That's the point. You're struggling. You're fighting the battle. You're not quitting. You're not giving up. You're not giving in. You are working at it. Sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some, but you are fighting the battle of your sexual integrity, and I am proud of you. And you are doing excellent" See, to maintain your sexual integrity as a follower of Jesus, it does not mean you are perfect. It means you are fighting. It means you are making progress. It means you are actively following Jesus and killing your sin and loving God, and you stick with it. You don't quit. You don't give up. That's God's will that you abstain from sexual immorality and that you learn how to control your own body, and that takes time. I think we got to start to give our teenagers a little bit of grace. We're very hard on young people today, it bothers me sometimes. Last time I checked, you all struggled with your sexual stuff too when you were younger, and they're struggling today, and you didn't have the same technology they did, most of you, so you didn't have to fight the same battles. We need to give some grace to our young people. We need to encourage them. We need to pray for them and we need to walk with them and not be so afraid to talk about this stuff. This is real stuff. This is real life. Sex, marriage, adultery, sexual integrity, it's not off limits. It's not taboo. It's not gross. It's wonderful. In marriage, the way God intended, it's a wonderful thing. And we need to not be afraid to talk about it. Look at verses 11 through 14, because unfortunately, this is what happens if you do quit, if you give up, if you stop fighting the battle for your sexual integrity as you follow Jesus, this is what happens, verses 11 through 14, it says, "At the end of your life, you will groan when your flesh and your body are consumed, and you say, 'How I hated discipline and how my heart despised reproof. I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.'" See, Proverbs 15:32 says, "He who ignores discipline, despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding." So let me ask you this question. What teachers and instructors and congregations are you surrounding yourself with to help you fight the battle for your sexual integrity? Or are you trying to do it by yourself and you're losing the battle? I don't think we were intended to follow Jesus alone. I don't think we were intended to fight for a healthy marriage or our sexual integrity by ourselves. I think we're supposed to have teachers and older, wiser, godly people that invest in us and walk with us and give us wisdom and give us grace and we need to listen to them, 'cause if we don't, we'll be filled with regret. Let's be happy, shall we? Yes. The next few verses are straight from the Bible, so if you think it's inappropriate, sorry. Verses 15 through 19 are talking about sex in a godly marriage. We're gonna talk about sex, yes, we are. Verses 15 through 19, "Drink water from your own cistern," they're talking about healthy sexuality in a marriage, "flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad?" No. "Should your streams of water be in the streets?" No. "Let them be for yourself alone and not for strangers with you." The two become one flesh. That means you and your spouse and no one else. Verse 18, "Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe, let her breasts fill you at all times with delight, and be intoxicated always in her love." And the focus of verse 19 is the end, where it says, "Be intoxicated always in her love." As followers of Jesus, when the two become one flesh, you combine your bank accounts. Wonderful. You combine where you live, you live together after you get married. Wonderful. But you also get to combine and come together sexually, that's part of the two becoming one flesh. And sex in a godly marriage is good. Nod your head. Yeah, it is. It is. But we are always to be intoxicated with our spouses love, meaning we are always supposed to be in love, we're supposed to be pursuing being in love together. That's the focus. Proverbs 18:22, it says, "He who finds a wife, finds a good thing." Marriage is good. Every aspect of marriage is good. Trust me, it's good. It's really good. So my question to you is are you fighting to stay in love? Part of your sexual integrity is your commitment to your marriage. Are you fighting to stay in love, to stay intoxicated, to always be in love? I have a wedding ring on right here and I'm gonna hit 10 years this September, which I'm really excited about. And I've been working out a lot so I can't get it off. It's on there. Okay. This is my ring right there, this is my wedding ring. And I remember before I got married, a lot of my friends told me, "Oh, man. You don't wanna get married. You don't wanna limit yourself. You don't wanna be so limited to just one woman. Give me a break, you don't wanna do that. Don't limit yourself, keep your options open." You know what? That was the dumbest advice I've ever gotten in my life. You guys, marriage and a wedding ring, a wedding ring is not a limit. A wedding ring is a license. It's a license. Me and my wife, we know each other more deeply and more intimately than I know any other person on the planet, anybody. And no one will ever know me as well as my wife knows me. This is a license for deep connection, in sickness and in health, in riches or in poor, till death do you part. A wedding ring is not a handcuff. It is not a ball and chain. It is a license. It is a good thing. God created us for relationships and that includes marriage. Verses 20 through 23, it says, "Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulterous?" Meaning don't do that, stay committed to your spouse. Verses 21 through the end, "A man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he has held fast in the cords of sin. And he dies for lack of discipline and because of his great folly he is led astray." In Proverbs 6:32, it says, "He who commits adultery lacks sense, he who does it destroys himself." I'm gonna talk in a minute about myself and I'm gonna share a little bit of my testimony on this topic with you. But before I share that, I just wanna tell you that if you're feeling guilty right now, if you're feeling some grief right now because of your past, because you know that you're less than perfect, first of all, the person next to you is feeling the same way. Second of all, there's this great verse from 2 Corinthians 7, and it talks about two types of grief. And it says that there's a godly grief that produces repentance when you stop and you turn and you go the other direction. And a godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation in Christ without regret. Don't you wanna live your life without regrets? I do. But there's a worldly grief that produces death. Worldly grief would be beating yourselves up, would be spiraling down into depression, just lower and lower, woe was me, I'm terrible. I'm terrible, I'm awful, I'm less than perfect. I screwed up, woe was me, woe was me. And it's really selfishness. That's worldly grief, when you just focus on yourself to the point where it makes you depressed. But godly grief, you stop and you repent and you say, "God, I'm sorry," and you come to Jesus. And Jesus says, "Anyone who comes to me, I will not cast out." And you will have no regrets. It's okay to feel convicted. It's okay to be like, "Hm, man, I really kind of screwed up in this area." That's okay. That's okay. But don't allow yourself to have a worldly grief where you just struggle and wallow in depression. Get up, turn around, walk towards Jesus, leave your regress behind, that's godly grief. That's called conviction. That's a good thing. Okay, I want to tell you about myself. And I wanna talk about myself, not just as a married man, but also before I was married and how did I pursue sexual integrity in my life, okay? So let's get real practical. First of all, as a teenager, I met Jesus as my savior as a teenager, okay? And a couple of things for me personally, as I sought to follow Jesus with my sexuality, was first of all, as a teenager, I did two things. Number one, I found some local church mentors, older, wiser, godlier saints who knew their Bibles, who were walking the walk and talking the talk, that I would seek out and spend time with and say, "Please help me figure this out. How do I do this? What do I do in this situation?" Local church, older, wiser godlier saints, number one. And number two, a small group Bible study. As a teenager, I got into a Bible study with a group of guys and we started just getting together to hang out, to study scripture, but as we did that, we formed deep bonds and relationships and we ended up being very transparent and honest with our struggles. And that small group of guys, just getting together to talk about scripture, that was life giving and life changing for me as a teenager, as I tried to follow Jesus and maintain my sexual integrity. Okay, let's keep going. So as a young adult, as a young adult, so this is me, I'm not a teenager anymore. I'm not married anymore. I'm not seriously dating anybody. I'm just kind of living the single life as in 20 something, finishing up grad school, a young adult. Number one, I got an accountability partner. Now you might've heard that phrase before, an accountability partner, but let me clarify something that a lot of Christians mess up on this when you talk about an accountability partner. This is someone who's relatively the same age and definitely the same gender as you, that you are both followers of Jesus, and iron sharpens iron. You try to make each other better. But here's the thing, a misunderstanding about accountability, if you and I were accountability partners, you and I, I can't make you accountable. It doesn't work like that. I can't make you... I mean, you could just be... You could just lie. I can't make you be accountable to me. Accountability partner is not someone who makes you do something. If you and I were accountability partners, I make myself accountable to you. Does that make sense? When I struggle, when I screw up, I call you, I make myself accountable in a relationship to you and I say, "I'm struggling, I need some help here." And then you and I talk about it. And you make yourself accountable to me. That make sense? It's not me making you do something. It's me making myself do something. It's not you making me do something. It's you keeping yourself accountable to me. That's an accountability partner, iron sharpens iron, two people following Jesus and talking about this regularly. My accountability partner and I still talk every week. It's been 20 years and we still talk. And that's important. Second of all, this is kind of funny. Okay, dating Jesus, as a young adult. So I hit this point and the reason I did this, as I said, I needed to take a break from dating, I had actually dated in high school, it was a huge mistake. It wasn't the girl's fault. I dated a girl in college, it wasn't her fault. It was my fault. I was an immature Christian. I was selfish. I didn't understand what relationships were about. And I made mistakes. And I was not a spiritual leader. I didn't even know what that meant. And so after having some experience of having dating relationships and them not being honoring to God and learning from that, I had a season before I met my wife where I said, "I'm just gonna be single and I'm gonna date Jesus." And I really did. Every week, I got dressed up, I went to go get a flower and I went to a restaurant, a pizza place 4.99 special on Thursday nights. And I went there and I just sat there and I dated Jesus. And I went and sat there for a couple hours, read scripture, I would journal, I would pray, I would just listen to God, I would talk to God, and I just... I thought to myself, "You know what? One day I might be married, but if I'm not content with just me and Jesus, I'm never gonna be content no matter who I marry. So I need to be content." And so I just dated Jesus for a while and I was content. And then of course, ta, da, na, I met this amazing woman. And then we started, contentment out the window, and then we started dating. We started dating, we started courting and we got engaged. Now in this season, when I met my wife, we started dating, we did ministry together. We were serving together. We met at a local church. We started dating, but we really started courting. It was very serious, very intentional dating. And then we got engaged. And some things we did when we were dating and courting, we had both been in difficult relationships before and we thought to ourselves, "Why do the same stupid thing over and over and over again, hoping for a different result. Why don't we try something different?" So you know what we did, we did something different. There was a Tommy Nelson study through the Book of the Song of Solomon. It was very practical and helpful, and we took that as a blueprint and we gave ourselves some boundaries and we said, "We are not gonna be alone in a dark car together ever. I will never come into your apartment. You will never come into my apartment. And we're gonna date in the light, we're gonna date in public. We're not gonna go for the easy fix of sex. We're gonna slow that thing down and wait. We're gonna have some boundaries." And we didn't kiss each other until we got married and it's not 'cause we didn't want to, let me tell you. Have you seen my wife? Okay. We didn't have boundaries because it was easy. We didn't have boundaries because we wanted to. We had boundaries 'cause we wanted to do things God's way. And it worked out really, really well. And you know, our world talks compatibility right now. The world, our secular world right now, is saying the most important thing for you in a relationship is compatibility. That's why you got to live together before you get married so you can figure out for compatible. That's the... No, you don't. Character, character over compatibility. Your compatibility will change, your hobbies will change, okay? You're not gonna figure out everything you need to know about someone that's potentially gonna be a spouse, by just living together and playing house. It doesn't work like that. Your character is more important than your compatibility. Who are you? Who are you when no one's looking? Do you love God? Do you love people? Do you know your Bible? Character qualities that don't change. That's what I was seeking. As I was trying to maintain my sexual integrity, I was trying to do things God's way, I said, "We're gonna have strict boundaries when we're dating and courting and when we're engaged, and we're gonna look for character over compatibility." And then lastly, as a married man, right now, a couple of things we're doing right now to preserve our sexual integrity in our relationship. Number one, we just make our marriage a priority. My marriage is the most important thing in my life, second only to Jesus, my marriage and my wife. And my marriage is more important than my career, it's more important than my hobbies, it's more important than my finances, and it's even more important than my kids. I love my kids, I wanna be a good parent, but I don't think we're supposed to have a kid centric home, I think we're supposed to have a marriage centric home. And my wife and I are just committed to our marriage. And if any of these things get in the way of our marriage being healthy and godly, we're gonna reevaluate them and make sure they're in their proper place. Second of all, as a married couple, we go on regular date nights. Now I don't have family in town, so every time my wife and I go on a date, it costs money and it takes time and it's hard sometimes to find babysitters. But our babysitters are a blessing to us. They're actually helping us have a good marriage, so thank you for those of you who babysit for us. But a regular date night, and I'm not gonna get specific about what you need to do or... Whatever, you can figure it out. The point is, do you have regular times, not just Valentine's Day and your anniversary, I mean, regular times, every six weeks, once a month, every other week, every week, do you have regular times when you get away from the distractions of life and even get away from your kids and just love each other and stay in love? Remember earlier, we were talking about staying in love, being intoxicated, just to stay in love and just spend time together. And I've also learned, just to put your mind at ease, as a married couple, those date nights, those don't always have to be amazing. Those don't... Sorry, this idea that the church has put out there that your date night is to be amazing every week, 52 weeks a year. No, whatever. Go get some Taco Bell, sit in a park. Sit in a park, chill, relax, look at the ducks, just enjoy having a babysitter. It doesn't need to be this amazing, romantic, phenomenal, incredible... No, man, come on. Just get a break. Just get a break from life and focus on your marriage. That's the point. And lastly, accountability. Ever since I got an accountability partner as a young adult, I still have an accountability partner, I've two actually, that I talk to regularly, because I wanna do things God's way. Right now we're gonna go into a time of communion. And communion with God is an amazing thing, and I just want you to know that there are two ways when you take communion that you can do it wrong. The first way to take communion by doing it wrong is by not knowing Jesus as your savior. So if you're a follower of Jesus, we invite you to take communion with us, if you wanna grab your elements, you can, but anyone who's a follower of Jesus. You don't need to be a member of this church, but you need to know Jesus as your savior, number one. And then number two, the other way you can take communion wrong is by doing it too quickly. 1 Corinthians says we're supposed to examine ourselves, so take a few minute now during the song, examine yourself, pray, talk to Jesus. Jesus said, "Anyone who comes to me, I will not cast out." Take a few minutes, get right with the Lord, and then I'll come back up and we'll take communion together.