Lust Vs. Chastity Series

Me- Quick Review (Pride vs.Humility, Envy vs. Kindness, Gluttony vs. Abstinence)

Survey(How many have ever been greedy, angry, lazy?) Everybody would have no problem admitting that they have done at least one of these sins. But I would bet that nobody here would raise their hands to admit lust. Nobody wants to admit an addiction to sex.

Lust- sensitive topic to me because it was my thorn in the flesh (background info- struggled with it for 8 years, destroyed many of my relationships- couldn’t watch TV without wanting to look at pornography)

We- I don’t apologize for sharing- many men and women in and out of the church who are gripped by this sin that nobody wants to admit. They are people we never expect. They range from Pastor’s to soccer mom’s. They could be the neighbor next door or the spouse you go to bed with every night. This is a secret sin nobody wants to admit and always destroys people when it’s discovered. I strongly believe that there are even men and women here today who are struggling with this sin. But maybe your scared because you don’t know how to over come it. Your afraid of being judged. I understand because I was were you are.

I don’t hear many pastor’s preach on this subject today because it’s uncomfortable, it’s embarrassing, it’s convicting. It’s a whole lot easier to focus on health, wealth and prosperity, but God is more worried about removing all sin from your life. But I would be failing you as a pastor if I preached on one scripture but I wouldn’t preach on this scripture.

Lust is a topic that is brought up over and over again all through out the bible. Romans 1:25-27-

And now because of technology our appetite for a sexual fix is right at our fingertips. Just press a key on the keyboard or turn the channel and it is readily available.

Lust (Definition)- "Lust is an excessive craving for the pleasures of the body. Desire for something or someone that is not yours. It’s a desire to possess, to own, to consume without caring about the needs of feelings of any other being or the will of God."

Lust bypasses love and moves to passion. Eliminates relationships and turns the other person into an object or thing.

Paul says, “Love never ends” but lust always ends the minute the craving is satisfied.

Quote- “Love is a marathon runner, lust runs the 10 yard dash.” (unknown pastor)

Statistics- let me read you some stats that maybe you didn’t know.

75-90% of pornographic material, if used by an adult, will end up in their own child’s hands

38% of adults today believe there is nothing wrong with pornography (114,000,000 Americans)

47% of Christians today say porn is a problem in their home

Pornography is downloaded an average of 1.5 billion times per month - statistics taken from xxxchurch.com

According to these statistics there is a strong chance that more than one family in this church right now is struggling with sexual addiction. It is a problem that you have battled to overcome for years and yet you feel totally sucked right back in. It is like that with any addiction. Alcohol, drugs, work can all become addictions, but it is sexual addiction that God speaks the most about.

This is the ultimate flesh vs. spirit. Overcoming sexual addiction is an incredible test of self discipline because it is made so readily available today, because we hear all the time sex sells. Because you can’t watch hardly anything today without hearing some reference to sex or hear some joke about sex. Even our children’s movies or what we would consider children’s movies have adult humor in them. And we justify it saying,

“Well its not like my child understands the joke. It’s over their head.” “Well the movie only had partial nudity, it wasn’t a big deal.” I want to tell you from personal experience that it may not seem like a big deal. We may not be bothered by it ourselves. You may be able to watch any R rated movie with full nudity and it doesn’t effect you one bit, but all it takes is a spark for some. All it took for me was not even seeing the site but curious as to what it was and that was how it all began.

We have to decide are we willing to sacrifice ours or someone else’s soul for 2 hours of personal entertainment. Call that extreme all day long. Call me crazy conservative out of touch I don’t care. It only takes a spark to set someone down a path that will destroy them for eternity. We may think, “Well why should I have to sacrifice my “fun” just because someone else can’t control their own problem?” I guess all I can say is why are you so selfish that you wouldn’t sacrifice whatever it took so that you could help someone get to heaven?