Hey. We’re in a series that we’ve called "I Have a Question," and, boy, are your questions great; overwhelmed by ’em. Thousands already have questions. Let me tell you what to do for this coming week. We’re gonna extend this series two more weeks. Let me tell you what’s happening. E mail me at pastorgreg@seacost.org.
Next week, the topic will be, The Church, what does God say about the church. How ’bout Seacoast specifically, any questions you have about that, me, staff, whatever? I can tell you a couple a questions I’m gonna deal with. I’ll try to get to as many as I can. One of ’em has to do with women in ministry, how does seacoast feel about that, and what does the Bible say and how do justify your stand according to the scripture. So that’ll be good. And then there’s another question -- the questions have been fun. All the questions are good. Some questions come with attitude. Do you understand that?
There’s one, and you’re probably either here in this service or in the earlier service because almost every week you’ve texted in the same question and it says this. It says, "What percentage of our hard earned tithes goes toward paying Greg’s mortgage payment?" I thought -- when I looked at it, I thought, "That’s attitude." And then I thought, "No. That’s fair question. Let’s talk about that. So we’ll talk about those types of things: How do we pay the pastor? What does the Bible say about it: Hey, we’ll talk about anything around here. We’re not afraid of the questions. Not hiding anything.
So if you have questions about church, I’d love for you to e mail ’em in this week. And then the following week, I’m gonna do something I’ve never done. It’ll be a little scary for me, fun for you guys. I’m not gonna put any preparation into the weekend message. It’s gonna be the last week, so it’s gonna be a free for all. You get your fat little thumbs going on your texting, and I’ll answer as many as I can just live, just right off the cuff, and we’ll go from there. It may be a great week. If it’s not a great week, it’s your fault. The questions are bad.
This weekend, I want to talk a little bit about relationships, and specifically, because a lot of questions are sexuality as it relates to relationships. Today, I’m gonna tell you up front, I’m gonna say some things that may very well -- probably will offend some people, okay, ’cause this topic, you can’t talk about the questions I’m gonna talk about -- it doesn’t matter which way you come down on ’em that somebody doesn’t get offended. That’s not my intent. I will use some words I don’t normally use. That’ll be kinda fun. And we’re not gonna do anything just be crass. In fact, the questions are really, really good. They really area. I’m sarcastic and humorous. That’s just kinda how I do.
I’ll let you know when I’m being humorous because some people have sent me e mails and they don’t understand humor. And so what I’ll let do is I will let you know when humor is happening. And I don’t wanna take anything lightly, because every question has context, okay? We don’t -- I mean some questions you just ask just for fun, but every question has context. There’s a human relationship behind it. There’s’ a human component. There’s people, "I want to know." And so we’ll handle it in that way.
My question is -- well, let’s just read some questions. Can we do that? That’ll be fun. Here we go.
"I have attended Seacoast several times and I’ve enjoyed it a lot. Your note about relationships brought up a couple questions I have. I went to a single women’s Bible study with Seacoast once, and I guess I just have some questions. Some of the girls in the group were living with their boyfriends. I’m so glad that Seacoast does not push these couples away. But I was just wondering what stance the church takes on that and homosexuality." Lot of questions on that. These are just -- I’m just gonna read you a few that we thought were representative of just a whole lot more.
Here’s another one. "As a new couple with a history of sexual sin in previous relationships, how do we not have sex before marriage?"
Now this one was interesting. This one was texted last week, I think. "Is cheating on your boyfriend really a sin since we are not married?" Let me just give you a rule of thumb on answering that one. Any sentence with the word "cheating" in it, is probably not good, okay?
Here were go. "What is your stance on premarital sex even if the relationship is monogamous and serious enough to be leading to marriage?"
"Where in the Bible" -- here’s another one. "Where in the Bible does it specifically condemn sex before marriage and living with a boyfriend or girlfriend. I’ve read a lot of verses that condemn sexual immorality, but I don’t see where sex before marriage is specifically noted as a sexually immoral thing. I feel like the term "sexual immorality’ leaves a lot, maybe too much, room for interpretation. Is sex outside of marriage really long in a long term, committed relationship?"
Here’s another one. "My husband hates Seacoast. I am deeply committed to my God and my church. Should I divorce him?" Yeah, you probably should. That was humor. (Laughs)
"Dear Pastor Greg, I’m a believer and want to do all things with God in mind. My husband still wants to do illicit things, pornography, etcetera. He will not go to church, will not join a group. He will not go to therapy, but he’s still a good man in other respects. What should I do?"
Here’s one from Summerville. I don’t know where some of the others were from, but this one just said Summerville. It said, "First, let me say that today’s sermon was an awesome one." You’re right. Okay? (Laughs) "And I know myself, that I have several questions, and you touched on some of them today, but what I wanna know is is what’s God’s stance on divorce? Does he hate divorced people? Does he want someone to stay in a marriage that contains nothing but hate and discontent?"
Here’s another one. "Hi, Greg. Do gay people make it to Heaven? I obviously have my own thoughts on it, but I’m interested to hear from someone who has probably done a lot more thinking and discussion about this. Thanks." (Laughs) Yeah, thank you, too.
Someone last week texted in, "I’m bisexual. Does that mean I’m going to hell?" Okay? Similar question.
Here’s another one along those lines. "I’d like to know how to respond to a friend who is a lesbian and doesn’t believe the Bible is really against same sex relationships. She believes the scriptures that are cited saying same sexual relationships are wrong are not talking about committed loving relationships, but rather against sexual promiscuity," and on and on and on.
And one more. "I have many people in my life with different sexual orientations. I love these beautiful, kind people, many of whom love Jesus Christ. Talk about it, will ya?" (Laughs) That’s what she says. "Talk about it, will ya? I know where I stand, but where does Seacoast stand, and why? Does Seacoast practice the tolerance that it teaches?"
So anybody else wanna just answer these for me, or should we go from there? I really -- here’s my context. We all struggle with various things. I wanna be a compassionate truth teller today. That’s my two goals, compassion, truth telling. You tell me at the end how we do.
Why does God even care what happens between the sheets? That’s a question. Jesus told a story one time. It was a story. He made it up. It was about a guy that got beat up along a road somewhere, and a guy came along -- two or three guys came, didn’t do anything about it. A guy came along and helped him. Remember the story? It’s called -- we call it the story of, what, the Good Samaritan.
Now to understand the shock factor of the story, you’ve gotta understand that Samaritans we’re not considered good by anybody that he was telling the story to. It was Samaritans were racially despised. They were socially despised, called dogs. Theologically, they were heretics, and they were. Just a lot of issues. And Jesus tells the story -- and he could have told the story like this. He coulda made a Jewish man -- ’cause that was his whole crowd. That’s what he was. Coulda man the hero of the story, that a Jewish guy sees Samaritans being improperly treated, and so he comes along and he does the right thing. But Jesus doesn’t.
Instead, he makes the best that Jews have to offer, the priests and pharoses, the villains of the story. Why does he do that? Well, it was shocking to everybody, but the story is kind of a treatise on race relationships. That’s one of the things. And it also is a story about how we ought to treat people, and how we ought to think about people who are not like us. Jesus had some of the same issues. I don’ take he had racial prejudice against the Samaritans, but there were social issues. And he definitely had theological issues. I mean he didn’t agree with them. We see that from other places in his teaching where he confronts Samaritan people.
And what he’s not saying is affirming their theology or anything like that. He’s just saying, "You need to figure out who your neighbor is." And I think that if he was doing that story at Seacoast this weekend, or any other contemporary church in America, or any kind of church for that matter, it wouldn’t be the story of the Good Samaritan. It would probably the story of the Muslim or maybe the good homosexual, because those are two categories of people that often time churches go, "Ah, they’re not really in our neighbor deal. And we kind of ostracize to some degree.
Well, I wanna talk about it, and I wanna talk about issues that you have. We don’t spend a whole lot of time at Seacoast on dos at don’ts. And sometimes I get shots for that. "Why don’t you talk about this, that, or the other?" There’s a reason for that, because I believe and we believe that when you come to God that his Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you and he changes you from the inside out. I don’t think I am your Holy Spirit. You are not my Holy Spirit. In fact, you’re nobody’s Holy Spirit.
Will you turn to your spouse if they’re here and just say, "I am not your Holy Spirit"? Just affirm that real quickly, okay? God is able to do what he needs to do. And what happens is I believe is as we teach the life that God would have us to live, that the Holy Spirit draws us to that and he cleans us out from the inside out. A lot of people wanna clean the fish before they’re dad. That’d be painful. And so what we do is allow the Holy Spirit to do the cleanup work that he wants to do.
With that in mind, I wanna just delve into -- what I’m saying is that we are all sinners. We are all broken. We’re all broken sexually. We’re gonna be talking ’bout sex a little bit here and how it relates to our sexuality. We’re all broken. Alright? Since Adam and Eve. We all struggle with stuff. We all deal with stuff to various degrees. So lets kinda start out with that in mind.
Let me give you five relational axioms. I wanna through a few of ’em and then we’ll sit down and we’ll talk about how they apply to the subject. An axiom is kind of a -- it’s something that we believe to be true. It’s just a collective thought. And I just sat down and I wrote five things that I believe to be true about relationship based on the Word of God, and here they are.
No. 1, we are created. Everything created -- God created every relationally, everything, from the very beginning. Creation is created relationally. It’s interdependent. This action impacts this. You take a look at just the fact that there is life on planet earth, scientists will tell you if earth leaned a little toward the sun, more just a little bit, we would be fried, and it wouldn’t sustain life. If it leaned a little bit the other direction, we would freeze and it wouldn’t sustain life. But it circles and it just all interacts. The planet interacts together. There’s a food chain. And when we get it outta balance and when we don’t relate properly to the planet, we can screw stuff up. And so it’s all relationally.
Man was created relational. God created Adam. And after a while, he said, "You know what? It’s not good that you be alone and so let’s find you a helpmate." So he takes him out to look at all the animals and he says, "You see anything that really appeals to you there?" and Adam said, "Not really, man. I tell ya, it’s just the orangutan’s interesting, but I -- it’s just not there -- it’s doing it for me." And God says, "Okay. I’ll fix that." And so he puts Adam to sleep, creates Eve. Adam wakes up and God says, "What do you think?" and Adam goes, "Oh, my goodness. I think we’ve got something here." And God says, "Okay, get busy." Okay? He says, "Multiply." He says, "Multiply. Be fruitful and multiply," which simply means, "Get busy," alright? "Get busy."
Then God said it was good. And so he’s not the cosmic party pooper, "Let me poop on your sexual parade." He created the whole deal. He’s got the manual for it. And so it’s really, really a good thing.
Adam was created for a relationship, and man was with God. He walked with God. And what happened was is he sinned, and when he sinned, he severed that relationship and it impacted every relationship around him. Because your relationship with God is tied to everything else. It’s tied to your relationships. And shortly after that happened, we find the first murder. And because of that, God set up some basic rules for relationships in a fallen world. It’s God’s top ten. Have you read ’em? The Ten Commandments.
The first three simply deal with the relationship with God, with the relationship with God. He says, "I want you to worship me." And you say, "Well, that’s weird. I mean, is God like a spurned girlfriend or boyfriend that has to hear, ’I love you. I love you. I love you,’ all the time?" No. God’s saying, "The most healthy thing you could do is worship me because you’re wired up for worship. You’re gonna worship something. You’re gonna worship money. You’re gonna worship sex. You’re gonna worship power. You’re gonna worship houses. You’re gonna worship something. You’re gonna worship people. And if you’re gonna be healthy, you need to worship me. You were designed to love me. I love you. And so here’s how you do it."
And then the next seven commandments were vertical. They’re about the -- or horizontal. They’re about the relationship with everybody else around you. And they’re just basic stuff. If you’re gonna get along, hey, how ’bout we don’t lie to one another? Huh? How ’bout that? Let’s not steal each other’s stuff. Okay? Let’s don’t kill people ’cause that’s really harmful for a relationship. This is what’s God’s saying. He’s saying, "You know what? If your neighbor has a wife, it’s his wife. You leave your eyes off of her and you just deal with your own stuff," just basic things. And when we get out of order in relationships, we violate his will relationally, it really screws things up.
Second axiom or principle is this. Love is the default value in God’s relational system. A guy came to Jesus and said, "What’s the most" -- a guy of the law said, "What’s the most important commandment?" trying to trip him up. But Jesus makes a profound statement. He says, "The most important commandment is this. Listen, oh, Israel. The Lord our God is one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength." Easy answer. Everybody knew that, okay? That’s the most important one.
Then he goes on and he says, "Hey, I’ll give you two, alright? I’ll give you two. Let me give you two. The second is equally" -- circle equally. That’s radical. You mean there is an equal commandment to loving God? That’s what he said, "Equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. Know other command is greater than these." Love God, love people. They’re related. They’re tied together. And here’s the truth. You can’t love God and not love people. Okay? You can’t love God and not love people. Our relationship with God will affect how we treat people. If you love God on the weekend and you’re a jerk throughout the week, you don’t love God. Okay? That’s just frankly it. You do not love God. And how we treat people will be the primary indicator of how deep our relationship with God is. You wanna know a deep Christian? That’s a Christian who loves people, gets along with people, and cares for people.
Now, what is love? Let’s let the Bible define it. 1 Corinthians 13:5 says, Love is not sell seeking." It doesn’t seek its own deal. Philippians 2:1 4. I wanna look at just Verse 3. We can read the others. It’s in the outline sheet. But it says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." He says that’s what love is about.
So here’s the question. This is important. Here’s the question that love always asks. Love asks, "What is best for the other person? What is best for my neighbor?" That’s the love question. Now here’s the problem. Axiom No. 3. Happiness is the driving value of our culture, not love. Happiness is the driving value of our culture. It’s in the constitution. Live, love, and what? The pursuit of happiness. It’s an inalienable right as an American. I deserve to be happy. Here’s the problem. When happiness trumps love -- ’cause they’re not the same thing. They’re two different values, competing values -- when happiness trumps love in a relationship, you’re gonna have problems.
Example: you take your two year old to Walmart. They throw a fit. I have had four children. They all acted fairly well at home. The moment we would get to a restaurant or a store or a grocery store, they would choose that moment to test the lines of authority. That’s when they would throw a fit, okay? Now, what is going on? Are they operating on the love principal, what is best for everybody else? No. They’re operating on the happiness principle. I am not happy. Something that I do not have currently will make me happy. I deserve to be happy. You need to get it to me as quickly as you can. And it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks. That’s the happiness principle. It continues through the teen years.
What’s the primary thing that a teenager experiences? Boredom. What are the two phrases that are common amongst teenagers? I love teenagers. I did ’em too. "I’m bored. Whatever." Okay? And so the boredom thing says, "Not what’s in your best interest," it says, "I deserve to be happy. It’s an inalienable right. I am not happy currently. Something I don’t have that you could provide would make me happy," like the car or whatever it happens to be, or some entertainment. "Therefore, I will let you know, and it doesn’t matter who else is involved, I deserve to be happy." So you grew up a little bit. You’re single. I’m sexually attracted to someone. "Having sex with someone will make me happy." Time’s wasting. (Sort of Sings) Let’s get it on, regardless of what the consequences are.
Now, let me tell you what. That’s a great philosophy. It really is. If -- two things. If you don’t care what God thinks and you think this is all there is, that this life is all there is, then you need to get it on as much and as often as you can ’cause time is wasting. Okay? Now, but, if you believe that the primary thing is God and there’s more to life than this, you might have some other considerations.
Married adult. "I’m not happy in my marriage. I m not happy. It’s old. It’s stale. There’s not the romance that there once was or maybe it never was." This is questions all the time. "I wasn’t seeking God when I got married. Now I’m saved. Can get outta my married?" No. That’s not a get out of jail free card. That’s an unfortunate -- jail and marriage. That’s an unfortunate combination. But whatever.
"I’m not happy in my marriage. I deserve to be happy. I’m attracted to someone else who will make me happy. Life’s too short." And this seriously if this is all there is and God’s opinion doesn’t matter, go for it. Go for it, ’cause life is too short. But there are some other considerations.
The love question is this. What is best for the other person? The happiness question is, "What’s in it for me? What’s in it for me?" and we answer that question constantly every day. "What’s in it for me? What’s in it for me?"
Okay, No. 4, successful decision making is more about healthy guiding principles than following a list of rules. I really believe that in everything, relationally, and everything ells. If you have to have a list of rules, that won’t get it. That’s why I’m not gonna take the question and one by one going, "Okay. This is right. This is a good one. This is right, because here’s the rule. This is right ’cause here’s the rule. His is wrong ’cause there’s the rule. ’Cause I’ll be the rule man and the rule keeper answer man and you won’t benefit from it. And besides that, you’ll come into situations that don’t exactly fit the rules. And so there’s a higher thing here at work, and that’s this. Let’s get some guiding principles that we can apply to every situation.
I believe the two guiding principles I’m gonna give you right now will apply to relationships or anything else. That’s a way to live your life. Jesus said, "Do two things. Love God with all your heard, mind, soul, body, strength. And love your neighbor as yourself." They’re equal. So here are the two principles. Principle No. 1 is: Will this honor God? You ask that question about everything. Will this honr God, where I go, what I do, what I say, what I wear in the morning when I get up and I look in my closet? Will this honor God, or will this make me an object of sexual -- will this make me a sexual object? Will this honor God?
And the second political is this: Is this best for my neighbor? Is this best for the other person? Okay? And that fulfills what Jesus said. So if you live your life by those two guiding principles then you’ll probably be okay and kinda keep it between the hedges.
So let’s apply that to the questions. This’ll be where it’s fun, okay? This’ll be where it’s fun. We’ll do some fun things here, for me at least, perhaps not for you. Okay. Let’s talk about sex before marriage and let’s apply those two principles. And as I do this, again, again, again, again, again, these are real questions and I don’t take them lightly. And I also wanna say with what I’m gonna say I’ve said every week. You do not have to agree with me. I’m not infallible. You have a right to be wrong. (Laughs) Humor, okay?
And you do. You do. But if you’re gonna make a decision contrary to what I’m talking about -- studied ’em. I think it’s the Word of God. If you’re gonna make a decision contrary, don’t just go, "Ah, I don’t care what Greg says." No, you study it and you base it in God’s Word. And if you can base it in God’s Word and its good solid theology, then we can talk about that.
And so sex before marriage, singles, these are tough issues. These are really, really -- it’s tough issues today. We are in -- I read an article. It wasn’t by a Christian person. In fact, it was -- I won’t even tell you who it was by ’cause I don’t remember her name. But she titled it, "The Sex Generation." She said the generation that is raising up right now is saturated with sex in one degree because they are rebelling against their parents’ values, which almost every generation does. But they’re rebelling against the values of people who were raised in the ’60s and ’70s. I mean that’s whoa, whoa. Wow. That’s interesting.
And so there is so much counter cultural here. I wanna lovingly present truth. Does this honor God? First question. I ask about your sexuality. Does this honor God? Well, what is God saying? A lot of people wanted to know that. Let’s look at the Scripture. 1 Corinthians 6:9. "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?" That’s pretty strict. That’s pretty serious. "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?" Who are the wicked? Well, he goes on. "Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers" -- and he makes them as a part of the list. So let’s break that down. Alterters, fairly easy. We know what that is. That’s having sex with somebody who you are not married to and they are married or you are married. Okay? That’s adultery. Pretty straightforward. Tears up families, not a good thing. It’s put in the list.
Idolaters are people who would worship something other than God, that there would be an object of worship in their life that is not God. Now that covers a whole lot of us at various times in our lives.
The first one, sexually immoral. What does that word mean? The word is translated in other versions fornicator. We should say that together for fun just to loosen things up. Say it together.
Response: Fornicator.
Okay. Say it again.
Response: Fornicator.
(Laughs) That’s weird. Okay. Alright. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Where does that word come from? It’s from the Greek word pornia, pornia. And pornia is -- do you have it at home? Do you have a junk drawer, usually in your kitchen? You got a place for dishes. You got a places for glasses. You got a place for everything. Then you got a place where it’s just a junk -- just everything else goes in the junk drawer. Sexual immorality or pornia is the sexual junk drawer, okay? It is a reference to every form of sex outside of the marriage context. Okay?
So who is sexually immoral? If you have physical contact, if you touch places on somebody else’s body that you are not married to, you are sexually immoral, according to this. If you have oral sex with someone you are not married to -- somebody says, "Well, is oral sex okay if you’re married?" Whatever floats your boat, gang. Don’t really care if you’re married. If you are not married -- if you have -- it’s not -- the definition of the word is -- that’s not it. It’s if you have oral sex with somebody that you are not married to, you are sexually immoral, wicked.
If you sleep with somebody -- have sexual intercourse -- with somebody you are not married to, according to this Scripture, you are sexually immoral. You’re wicked. If you masturbate to pornography -- that’s in the junk drawer. It’s in the junk drawer -- you are sexually immoral because it’s sex outside of the context of marriage. We could go on. This is kinda fun. It’s getting real quiet and you guys are going (Makes Gasping Noise). "Margaret, did he just say masturbate?" Sorry about that family life. So you could go on and on. It’s a sexual drunk drawer. Now, and it includes heterosexual sex between consenting adults who are not married.
Hebrews 13:4. It says, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure for God will judge the adulterer." Okay? "God will judge the adulterer." So if someone has committed adultery in your marriage, you’ve been hurt and you wanna get back at ’em, that’s not the best. It’s the best. In fact, it will destroy you. Practice forgiveness ’cause God’ll get ’em. It says he will judge it. How will he judge it? You leave that to him, but it will be judged.
Here’s the not as good a part. "And all the sexually immoral." God will judge them, too. And we’re all broken in various ways.
1 Corinthians 7:8 it says, "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion." He’s saying, "I have a gift of being single." That’s what he says. Then he says, "It’d be good for everybody that’s single to do that because there are a lot of benefits" -- he goes through ’em that you’re more focused. Marriage is a challenge at times. Any testimonies to that, don’t raise your hand. And you can do more ministry if you’re single. You don’t have somebody saying, "Spend time with me," and all this kinda stuff.
He says, "I’ have that give, and some of you may have that gift. But know what? If you don’t have that gift, rather than burn, get married." Now I didn’t have that gift. I was burning, so I got married. Now here’s what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say, "If you’re burning, go shack up. Take care of it and just kinda test drive it a little bit." I don’t wanna be light with this, but it does not say that. Okay? He says there’s a couple of options, getting married or remain celibate.
The biblical pattern for sex, beginning with Adam and Eve, Old Testament and New Testament, is within the covenant of marriage. Say covenant together.
Response: Covenant.
Covenant’s a big deal with god. Let me tell you how big it is. I’m reading through the Bible. Some of you are, too. You came to the covenant of Abraham, and God said, "I’m gonna be your God. You’re gonna be my people, so let’s make a covenant." "Great. Let’s do a covenant." "I’m gonna give you a special sign of the covenant." "Alright, special sign." Guess what his sign was. Yeah, circumcision. Circumcision. Can you imagine Abraham’s face when God said, "Cir " -- "Are you sure?" said, "You do what? How ’bout a ring or something? Like a ring. Let’s do a ring." What is circumcision? It is the cutting off the foreskin of a man’s penis. Why did I say that? ’Cause it is serious stuff. It’s not something you do halfway. It’s not something you test out. Okay?
And so that’s how serious God is about covenant. So when you live together before marriage -- and I understand the challenges, the challenges society wise, the challenges financially, all of those things. Yes, I know. But, you live together before marriage, you place your desires before God’s desire. The question is this. Does this honor God? And it doesn’t. It doesn’t, according to the Scripture.
Now, is this in their best interest? And that’s a whole ’nother deal. Let me just -- ’cause you gotta ask that question, too. Research study, Rutgers University, three reasons -- or it’s the National Marriage Project, and three why researchers say living together before marriage is risky. Reason No. 1 that came out of the study is that there’s a higher divorce rate, a higher divorce rate. Perhaps the most compelling widespread argument against living together before married is that several researchers say it increases the risk of breaking up. I’ll just kinda skim through it. They found that out of 3,300 families, married couples who had lived together first were judged to be 46 percent more likely to get divorced, almost 50 percent more likely to get divorced.
Lower quality of life, No. 2. The quality of life of unmarried couples is far lower than for married couples. Let me skim this a little bit. Report lower level of happiness, lower levels of sexual exclusivity and sexual satisfaction and poorer relationships with parents. Annuals rates of depression are three times higher. And, finally cohabiting women are more likely than married women to suffer physical and sexual abuse.
And then the third thing is living today necessarily lead to marriage. After five to 7 years, 21 percent of my cohabitating couples are still doing that, cohabiting without getting married in a study by somebody. One of the top ten reasons why men say that they are reluctant to get married at all is because they can simply live with a woman and enjoy the same benefits.
So, is this best -- in their best interest? For the guys, it seems like it is. For the girls, not so much. Okay? So just kinda consider that. Put it all in the blender and say, "Does this honor God, and is this in our best interest?"
Okay. Let me go into sex within marriage because two things cause more conflict in marriage than anything else, money, and sex. Okay? And the money issue’s gonna ratchet up in the next couple a years, frankly. We’ll probably do more talking about how to deal with kinda those pressures because of the economy that we’re in. But the sex question’s huge, huge, too, in marriage. And so we have to ask, "What is God’s view of that in marriage? What honors God in marriage?"
Hebrews 13:4. It says, "Marriage should be honored by all" -- we’ve talked about that. Matthew 9:15, and it’s not in your outline sheet, but it says this, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Now there’s a sexual component to that. I know that it’s more complicated to that, but there is definitely a sexual component. And it says, "So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. Does that mean that all divorce is wrong?
I’m not gonna take a whole lot of time to talk about divorce; don’t have time today. I’ve done messages on that. I did one whole messages one week about this particular scripture about a year God. If you go to After the Message, which is a link on the Internet site for this message. We’ll send you some in, maybe a link to that site and can do some more study there on your own as you’re feeding -- doing some self feeding. But basically some divorces are biblically justifiable, alright? All divorces are tragic. God doesn’t hate divorced people, even divorced people who divorce for the wrong reasons. God doesn’t hate them. God hates divorce because he loves marriage.
What does the Bible say about the second part office, and that’s: What’s is in his or her best interesting? Because here comes the question. Oftentimes in marriage, you have two people love each other, all that kinda thing, one of ’em is sexually frustrated for a number of reasons, and counseled for years. I’ve heard this over and over and over again. What does the Bible say? 1 Corinthians 7:3 says, "The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife." (Laughs) Interesting way to talk about sex, isn’t it? "Marital duty." "This is your job. Let me give you your job description, marital duty. And likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife."
He says when you got married, you gave the rights away to some parts of you. And you know are both one and you both have rights and responsibilities. And happy and fulfilling sexual relationships in marriage depend on each partner trying to satisfy the other one. I mean husbands, you learn to be sensitive and it’s not about you. And wives learn to be sensitive. It’s not about you. And it’s each other now. And it’s not what makes me happy. That’s the not the primary question, although I think happiness comes in a process. The primary question is: Is this in their best interest?
And so Verse 5, "Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer." I don’t know how else to read that other than you oughta be either getting busy or praying, okay? That’s just kinda the deal. Yep. And somebody said, "Amen. Oh, preach it, pastor." Okay. "Then come together again" -- calm down. Let’s read. We’re running outta time. "Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." Okay?
I’ve heard it said that married couples should not use sex as a weapon. To one degree, I agree with that, that you should never use sex as a weapon toward one another. You know what? If you’re doing that, if you’re withholding sex for whatever reasons, you’re wrong. Don’t do it. Here’s what it says, it says that if you do that, then you open up your spouse to a higher degree of temptation and you may very well be complicit in whatever decision that they make and you’ll be held accountable to God on that.
Now don’t cop out and go, "Well, you know what? I did what I did because well, she wouldn’t" -- no, no. You’re responsible for yourself. But understand, you do have some responsibility to the other person. Should you use sex as a weapon? Yes, against the enemy, he says. He says come together so you use it as a weapon. So how often should you have sex if you’re married? Well, that’s up to you.
Calvin, the reformer, said that he felt like twice a week was a good number to keep the tempter away. I don’t know if Mrs. Calvin agreed, whatever. But you need to discuss that, okay? I’m hoping that this will open discussion between single couples, married couples. Talk about these issues. Talk about these issues.
I don’t have time to talk about pornography. Pornography’s an issue, big, big issue, and this is all I’m gonna say about it. It’s huge today. I had a discussion with my father about it. A mutual friend of ours who was a pastor got reprimanded for some pornography issues and I thought that what they did to him was way overboard, way outta line with what he did. My dad thought it was fine. And I said -- this is a conversation with my 75 year old dad. I said, "Okay, dad." I said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone. Have you ever looked at a naked woman on a computer?" He said, "Never in my life." I said, "That’s right, dad. You can’t even get into your computer. You can’t even open it up." On the flip side, a study I read the other day said that in college, 99 percent of all guys, and 90 percent of women have been exposed to pornography, and many are already developing addictions as it relates to it. Pornography is outside the scale of what honors God and honors the other person for a lot of reasons. It’s gonna be a bigger and bigger issue as we go along. I’ll probably talk about it more. Bigger and bigger issue.
What do you do if you’re caught up into that? See it as a trap. Confess your sin to God. Get some other people in your life to help you walk through it and help you to do what you need to do. Pray. Seek counsel. If your spouse seems to be involved in that and they’re represent, the best thing to do is to forgive, is to forgive and practice and walk through forgiveness. If there is not a repentance, that’s a whole ’nother issue. Listen to my tape on divorce.
Alright. Let’s go onto same sex sexual relationships. Does this honor God? And, again, here I wanna say up front, I wanna be a compassionate truth teller. I have many friends that deal with this issue. I know there are a significant number of people in this congregation and in our campuses at various places that deal with this particular issue. Let’s talk about it from a biblical point of view. Does this honor God? It’s reasonably clear from Scripture in the Old Testament and New Testament that any sexual act -- now I’m not talking about desire or what I’m struggling with being tempted wise or anything else -- any sexual act outside of a marriage relationship between a man and a woman, is defined in the Bible as sin, whether that’s gay sex, bisexual, heterosexual. In fact, there isn’t a bigger deal made of one than the other. This is kinda all thrown in the same category. And the truth is, we have all sinned. We are all -- since the day of Adam, we are all broken sexually in various ways. That’s why we have so much trouble with it.
Let’s go back to 1 Corinthians 6:9. It says, "Do you not know that the wicked" -- I already defined some of the wicked -- "will not inherit the kingdom of God?" That’s a big deal. "Don’t be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor adulterers nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders." He throws homosexual offenders -- he’s talking about guys who are homosexual there, throws ’em into the same category -- offenders who are involved in gay sex -- and he goes on, Romans 1:25, and he says in Verse 26, "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones." That’s lesbian relationships. "In the same way men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for each other. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
Now here’s the question. They’re all thrown into the sexually immoral category that says that, "Don’t be deceived they won’t inherit the Kingdom of God. Does that mean that none of these people will go to Heaven? ’Cause that was asked a lot. And if that is rue, then you won’t see David in Heaven. You won’t see the Samaritan woman who had a lot of husbands in Heaven. You won’t see Rahab the prostitute who actually in the line of Jesus in Heaven. I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. It’s not mine to judge who will be in Heaven and who won’t. That’s God’s deal. But in Romans 5:8, it says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this that while we were still sinners, God died for us." So what does Paul mean? Here’s where it gets tough.
I think that Paul is saying that anyone committed to sinfulness without conviction over their sinfulness doesn’t really know God. Okay? I mean we sin in the past. We sin today. We sin in the future. If there’s a conviction over sin and a repentant heart, even though it’s not carried out all the time, I think that there’s something there. But Paul says if you just willingness just wanna go, I don’t care what God says, I really don’t care. I’m gonna do what I want," then there’s an issue there. There’s a kingdom issue there. And I know it’s not each. More is required of some than others.
I had a guy that came to me a few years go and came to Christ in this church. He was heterosexual. Had an extensive background, good looking guy, raised in a culture that it was just a given. And so he said, "I want you to do disciple me." I said,"Okay." I said, "Okay, but the first thing we gotta do is we gotta learn these principles. Honor God first. Does this honor God? You have to ask that about everything. Anything -- how you spend your money, how you spend your time, whatever it is. Does this honor God? Oh, hey, by the way, sexually, does this honor God?"
He said, "What does that mean?" I said, "That means for you, that you will be celibate. You will abstain from sex until the day you get married." He looked at me like a company looking at anew gate. It was like, "You have got to be kidding me." He said, "You don’t know my background." He began -- and I said, "You know what?" He said -- and then brought up somebody else’s name in the church that was not obviously as cool, hip, and sexually active as him." And he said, "For him, that would be easy ’cause he’s not getting any anyway." He says, "For me, that’s gonna b a challenge?" And is aid, "You know what? It probably will be. And for some of us in various situations, our sexuality and honoring God with it will be a challenge. But you know what? Jesus calls all of us to pick up our cross, to deny ourselves, and to follow him." That’s not an easy teaching. That’s a teaching that a lot of people walked around from. But it’s a teaching that he called us to.
To those of you who in this church feel same sex attractions, I wanna say a couple a things to you. No. 1, I love being your pastor. I love you. I love you just as well as I love anybody. I love you. I think it’s unhealthy to place your identity or to have your initially tied up in your sexuality. I really do. I think that for me to come out here and say, "Hey, I’m Greg Surratt and I’m heterosexual," big deal. There are a lot of layers of Greg, alright? So I think to tie that all together is unhealthy.
I’m not asking you to retreat into a closet by any means. In fact, let’s have open discussions. Let’s have honest discussions. I told one guy after a message like this, he came to me and, frankly, admitted what he was feeling -- and feel is not the issue. The issue is where is sex appropriate. I said to him, "Here’s what I like you to do. I’d like you to go to your small group and talk to ’em about it. You shouldn’t be in a closet by yourself." He said, "They’ll reject me." I said, "If they do, you bring in the big guns. I’ll wear ’em out. You can come be in my small group." ’Cause the church is about loving one anther. It’s not about exclusivity.
Now I asked you to be morally responsible in your decisions about what you do with your feelings. And the last thing I would say is that God wants you to put your spirituality ahead of your sexuality. But I think he wants that for all of us. So I want you to wrestle with would honor God, and what is best for the other person. To all of this, I would say this. If you choose to walk in love -- in other words, honor God or prefer one another, you will avoid excessive heartaches, and ultimately, you will experience joy. Will it be right away? Sometimes it is, often time it’s not. Sometimes when you choose to follow God, say I’m gonna honor you with my finances, I’m gonna honor you with my sexuality. I’m gonna honor you with my thinking, I’m gonna honor you with everything, things get worse. Any testimonies to that? You read through the Bible. Joseph honored do with his sexuality and he got thrown in prison.
But you read the end of the story. You read the end of the story. He finished well. And that’s what I want for you. It’s not about happiness. It’s about joy. It’s not about me. It’s about others and it’s about God. Psalm 106:3 says, "There is joy for those who deal justly with others and always do what’s right." Let’s pray.
Father, I thank you for this wonderful group of people. We’re broken. I mean, that’s what defines us more than anything else, other than Jesus Christ. We are broken. We are fellow strugglers. We’re all on a journey toward you. God, I pray that you would use the words of my mouth and that you would use your words to bring hope and healing into our lives, our marriages, our sexuality, our walk with you. God, I pray that in the next few moments, that we would just spend some time processing what you’re saying and responding to you. In Jesus name we pay, amen.
