College Football and Sexual Immorality

Bless us, speak through him, help him to motivate us, motivate us through him. We pray in Jesus' name, everybody say, Amen. Let's welcome him. Well, thank you. So this isn't my first time here, but I think the last time I was here, any of you would have been freshmen at the time, might be seniors now. It's been a while since I've been here, so thanks for having me again.

My understanding is that you are already being taught the Bible, and in particular the gospel of Jesus Christ on a regular basis. So I get to teach a whole different topic. It's good to be with you guys. So in the history of preaching, there's a few topics people, I think, find very uncomfortable. And one of them, and I'm just going to say the word just to get it out, it's sex.

And a lot of people who go to church or have been to church, sex is like a bad word. It's a dirty word. If you've been at all taught about the Bible, you know that unless one of you in here happens to be married already, Sex is actually completely off limits if you're supposed to be following God. What I have found is that the world that we live in will bombard you with sexuality, with sexual innuendo, with sexual pictures.

It'll bombard you with teaching about sex. And yet the church seems to sometimes want to shy away from it because, I admit, it can be a sensitive topic. It can be awkward for people. and in particular there's a lot of shame that's associated with people who are involved in sexual sin and so I figured I'm only here for a little while I can eat tacos even if I feel uncomfortable so I'm going to talk about what the bible says about sex with you guys because I actually have a concern here and my concern is that if if we just pulled all your phones out right now but there's a high percentage of you who would actually say you're Christian who if we went through your history and we went through the stuff you're looking at that you'd be pretty ashamed if anybody else was looking at it too.

And it's things that you know that your mom and your pastor and maybe your girlfriend would be really unhappy to know that you're trying to take pleasure in when you're all by yourself. And I'm here to warn you because the Bible warns you in Proverbs 7 that the writer says, at the window of my house I have looked out my lattice and I've seen among the simple, I've perceived among the youth a man lacking sense And so this Proverbs 7 that you can go read the whole thing on your own you going to see this whole chapter is about this man who lacks sense So it starts out by describing him as someone who lacks sense He's simple. Nobody wants to be called simple.

But what this guy does is he goes out and he meets a woman dressed as a prostitute who's wily of heart in verse 10. Says she's loud and wayward, her feet don't stay at home. So he's looking for this girl that he knows is the kind that he wants. This isn't a girl he's looking at for a wife. He's looking for someone that he can just have one night of what he considers fun with.

And here's one of the problems with the way we talk about sex sometimes in Christianity and in the church, is that we pretend like sex isn't fun. And if you're sitting here and you've never had any experience whatsoever with it, praise the Lord for that. But some of you know that the reason why it's so attractive to you is that it actually feels good.

There isn't a whole culture of people that are keeping strip clubs and Pornhub and prostitutes in business because it's not fun for people. The fact of the matter is this. Sex was given by God for a purpose. And the purpose was actually for an amazing amount of enjoyment between a man and a woman who choose to go into a covenant relationship before God in marriage.

That is the purpose of it. And those of us who decide that we are going to go away from God's purpose and try to enjoy a good gift of God through the different means that he has told us is an acceptable way to enjoy it, we're going to suffer. Now you might not suffer right away. I wish that anyone in here that chose to walk away from God even for just one moment, I wish that God would discipline you so sharply and so quickly that you would experience such dire consequences for your bad choices. that the first thing you would do is say, wow, I don't ever want to do that again.

Because I'll tell you what, if you touch a hot stove tonight, you're going to recoil quickly and you're never going to want to be near one again. You're never going to want to at least touch one again. But some of you are going to touch a hot stove called a prostitute or called a girlfriend that you just think you love and you just want to do some stuff with.

And you're going to keep getting closer and closer to it because you're not going to feel those consequences that should be natural for someone who is trying to follow the Lord. And so my goal for you is to understand these things that it says here in Proverbs 7. In verse 21 describing this woman who attracting this young simple man You guys are going to a university If there anything you should actually be annoyed that someone would call you it would be simple or stupid.

At the very least, you should all sit here and think that someone should look at you as at least moderately intelligent. He says, with much seductive speech, she persuades him. she persuades him these alluring people out there and I'm not trying to paint women as the only problem here we get enticed by the lust that's within us but you see some of these billboards you see these women that show off their bodies they show off more of their body than they ought and that's what catches your eye when you're scrolling through Facebook and you see a girl in a long skirt and a long sleeve shirt you don't really think much about it most of the time but it's when you see somebody in a bikini or something like that, that's when it becomes interesting. Or maybe some of you have done what I'll admit I've done in the past, and that is that I've watched a workout video where a woman that was hardly dressed was doing pull-ups or something like that, and I was pretending I was trying to learn an exercise, right?

And I justified it in my mind, and I sinned against the holy God when I did that, and I sinned against my wife. These are things that we ought not do. And yet we're persuaded by seductive speech, smooth talk. And then here in Proverbs 7.22, this is the one I want you to etch in your mind here. All at once he follows her. So this is the guy who's out there.

He's simple. He's easily persuaded. And it says, as an ox goes to the slaughter or as a stag is caught fast. So this guy is following his own lusts to destruction. And when I say this guy, I mean everybody in here that does the same thing he's doing. And so if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, let me talk to two categories of people.

There's people in here who you have been born again. You believe the gospel that Jesus Christ literally came into the world and died for your sins bodily. and that he rose again bodily in fulfillment of the scriptures and he was raised for your justification. And God can actually look upon you with favor only because he sees the righteousness of Christ instead of you If you one of those people you should be so disgusted by the flesh that you still carry that actually is somewhat enticed by these things.

And I am not going to say it's easy. And I'll share a secret with you. I know to you it probably seems super wrong. Forty-five years old, this stuff doesn't go away just when you get older. okay it's still a battle with the flesh to try to say i want to put my eyes on things that are not worthless that are not wicked things that will honor god and in my case the wife that i know in your case the wife you don't have yet or don't know yet the wife you shouldn't be dishonoring if you're not a believer in these things i'll challenge you i'll challenge you that you can't avoid all this stuff.

You don't have the strength to avoid prostitutes or just whores. Or you don't have the strength to avoid doing things with your girlfriend. And let me tell you something, it's not just about intercourse. All the stuff that we do and the lights are off when we're alone, that's all wrong. And this is the way you can think about it. You think about your future wife.

You think about what stuff you would like to know she's doing with her current boyfriend. and then you draw that line for yourself. That's an easy way to realize there's really nothing that's acceptable until you're married. And so this is a way to think about these things but what I want you to do is I want you to know that there is a God in heaven who has power to help people to deal with these things.

And before it gets bad for you, before you make a mistake that lasts you a lifetime, before you have consequences that you're going to have to deal with for 70 years, you get on your knees and you ask that God to help you. and that is the Jesus that we preach is the Jesus who not only saves his people from their sin the penalty of it but he saves them from the power of it by the renewal of the Holy Spirit and the regenerating power of God and so that's what we're here to tell you about we want you to know that there's people here who will talk to you privately about things there's people who want to help you, we've all been through this stuff you guys didn't invent sex, ok? We've all dealt with all these temptations and all these difficulties, and I've dealt with them from both sides of the fence, being a Christian and being a non-Christian and making a lot of mistakes. And so I'm here just to tell you guys I love you.

I hope that this was a challenge for you, and I hope that you will turn to the Lord Jesus Christ alone to help you with all these issues. So I'll be here tonight to talk to you at the dinner.