Your Commitment to Purity - God Will Make a Way
1 Corinthians 10:13
Sermon by: Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - Nov. 26, 2006
“No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” (1 Corin 10:13)
*It’s a whole lot harder to grow up today than it used to be. There’s no doubt about it. I’ve heard a hundred people say it, “It’s a whole lot harder to grow up today than it used to be.”
*Last Tuesday, USA Today online had an article with this headline: “Almost 4 in 10 U.S. children born out of wedlock in 2005” (1)
*Yesterday My Way online news had a long article with the headline, “10 Is the New 15 As Kids Grow Up Faster”
*Here is a little of that in-depth article: “Diane Levin, a professor of human development and early childhood at Wheelock College in Boston, is among those who’ve taken aim at toys deemed too violent or sexual. ‘We’ve crossed a line. We can no longer avoid it _ it’s just so in our face,’ says Levin, author of the upcoming book ‘So Sexy So Soon: The Sexualization of Childhood.’” (2)
*Staying pure may have never been harder, but God will make a way for you. This is His promise for you in 1 Cor 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
*God will make a way for you. Let’s look into His Word tonight and see how.
1. First of all, realize the seriousness of sexual sin.
*This is one of the most important things we need to do, and this can be hard to do with our media telling you just the opposite 24/7. They give us shows like “Sex in the City” five nights a week, and then we can switch over to “E” and watch 80-year-old Hugh Hefner living like a king with his three 20-something girlfriends. You can’t go through the channels on your TV without seeing something designed to be sexually appealing.
*As far as our media is concerned, there are basically only 2 sexual sins. One is unprotected sex, but the greatest sex sin in their eyes is judging other people’s lifestyles. That’s the media’s view, but God’s Word is clear: Sex outside of marriage is a sin. God wants it to be one man and one woman for a lifetime.
*There are many places to see this. Let’s look for a few minutes at Matt 5:27-32.
27. "You have heard that it was said to those of old, `You shall not commit adultery.’ 28. "But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
*Reading these verses, we can see that there is no question that pornography is a sin...
29. "And if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. 30. "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”
*Of course, Jesus is not telling us to literally gouge out our eye. It wouldn’t do any good anyway, because the problem is not in our eyes or our hands. The problem is in our hearts. What the Lord is doing in these verses is showing us the seriousness of sexual sin.
*Then in vs. 31-32, Jesus said: "Furthermore it has been said, `Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.”
*Now, we are not here to beat-up on divorced people. There is probably not a family here in this church that has not been touched by divorce. And God loves divorced people, but God hates divorce.
*Why? One reason why is because it hurts so many people. Divorce hurts husbands and wives. It also hurts children.
-And nobody knows that better than divorced people. Nobody ever went through a divorce and said, “Boy that was fun. Let’s do it again.”
2. God makes a way for you to escape sex sin. First, we have to realize the seriousness of sexual sin, then repent from sexual sin.
*Of course we need to repent of any known sin in our lives. And all of us need to repent in some areas of our lives, because none of us is perfect. And God wants us to repent. This is the first thing Jesus stressed, when He began to preach. In Matthew 4:17, Jesus began to preach and say: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
*One of the best pictures of repentance in the Bible is the parable of the prodigal son in Luke’s Gospel... This rebellious young man squandered all of his inheritance with prostitutes and wild living, but after he lost everything, he repented... *Here is how Jesus described it in Luke 15:17-20a.
“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.’ And he arose and came to his father...”
*That’s repentance.
*God often tells us to repent. What did Jesus say to the woman who was caught in the act of adultery in John 8?
-He said: “I do not condemn you; go and sin no more...”
*“Go and sin no more.” That’s repentance.
*In 2 Timothy 2:19, Paul said it this way: “The solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are His, and Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”
*That’s repentance.
*Eric Ritz once said that most of the time what you need most to change “is to simply admit you need to change and ask directions [from] the One who has the power to change you.”
*Then Ritz told about a lady who got lost driving through the state of Pennsylvania. She stopped and asked a man how far it was to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. *And the man said: “Well, the way you are going it is 24,995 miles. However, if you will turn around and get back on Route 22 going east, it is about 5 miles.” (3)
*Many times in life, the best way to get where we need to be is simply to turn around and go in the opposite direction. That’s repentance.
3. God makes a way for you to escape sex sin, but we have to repent. And we need to run away from sexual sin.
*As Paul told young Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:22, “Flee youthful lusts...” That’s not just sexual temptation, but it certainly includes sexual temptation, and it makes sense. God tells us that there are times when the best thing to do is run away, and sexual temptation is one of those things we need to run away from.
*You don’t have to try to stand there and be strong. God says, “Run away!”
*Ron Hutchcraft made this point after the terrible tsunami 2 years ago. He said, “When the massive tsunami hit South Asia in Dec. of 2004, I immediately flashed back to a real life lesson I had about tsunamis a few years ago. I was in Kodiak, Alaska, with our On Eagles’ Wings team of young Native Americans. They had just finished a string of grueling days of outreach so we took them to a special spot on the ocean for a few hours off.
*Many of us were fascinated with the beautiful formations we saw just under the water near the shore. That’s when our host told me about what happened after a major earthquake in Anchorage some years earlier. Folks who were at this shore area watched the ocean suddenly recede dramatically, and that left all the underwater formations and shells totally exposed.
*They seized this unusual opportunity to go in and collect all these treasures of the sea, not realizing that the sudden disappearance of the water was the first sign of an impending tsunami. Moments later the monster wave suddenly [swept over] everything in sight, including the people who had run right into its path. Many people lost their lives that day because they ran to what they should have been running from.” (4)
4. God makes a way for you to escape sex sin. Run away from it, but also renew your mind with Godly things.
*Paul taught us this in Romans 12:1-2, where he said, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
*Now when we talk about renewing our minds, this is not just for young people. All believers need to renew their minds with Godly things. Certainly we fathers need to renew our minds.
*Listen to these findings Davon Huss gave on male spiritual leadership in the home: The reality is that 68 million of our nation’s 94 million men don’t attend any church, in spite of the fact, that 86% of them grew up with some sort of church background.
*Research has also revealed that if a child is the first person in a household to become a Christian, there is a only a 3.5% probability that everyone in the household will become Christians. If the mother is the first to accept Christ, 17% percent of the homes will see the rest of the family trust Christ. But if the father is first, there is a 93% probability that everyone else in the household will follow.
*And Davon Huss said: “When father goes first spiritually, good things happen at home. Let’s all pray together that God will call even more men to spiritual revival and renewal. Never has there been a generation in our nation, where is has been more important than now.” (5)
*Dads and all of us need to renew our minds with Godly things. You will never hear better advice than David gave us in Psalm 37:3-5, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.
*Feed on His faithfulness. I like that, and we can do that all day long, but remember that spiritual renewal is a life-long process.
*Melvin Newland gave great insight on this from the life of W.A. Criswell. Dr. Criswell was one of the greatest pastors of the 20th century, but after being married for 50 years, he said: “Sometimes I love her so much I could just eat her up... At other times I wish I had eaten her up.”
*“So it is not always easy,” Melvin said. “Expect progress, but not perfection.
*One of our problems is we think that when we do the right things, God will just make us into perfect little saints who never think wrong thoughts or want to do the wrong things again. But that’s not true. As long as we’re residents of this world Satan is going to be seeking to entice us to slip back into his grasp again. So expect to be making progress, to be getting closer to God, but don’t expect perfection. We’ll never be perfect this side of heaven, but we can be forgiven, and be growing upward in Christ as long as we live”. (6)
5. God makes a way for you to escape sex sin. Renew your mind with Godly things, and rely on God to cleanse your sin.
*Thank God for 1 John 1:8&9, which says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
*Cleansing comes through confessing. That means agreeing and admitting. We agree with God about our sin. We see it the way He sees it. And we admit to God that we have sinned.
*And just because you may not have sex sin to confess, don’t think you have nothing to confess to God.
*As John Piper once said: “The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night.
*For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts.” (7)
*And so we drift, and so we must confess. Cleansing comes through confessing, but mostly it comes through the Cross. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
*That could never happen without the Cross, because on the Cross Jesus Christ took all of the guilt for all of our sins.
*W.A. Criswell once said: “In a dream I saw the Savior. His back was bare and there was a soldier lifting up his hand and bringing down that awful cat-o’-nine-tails. In a dream I rose and grasped his arm to hold it back. When I did, the soldier turned in astonishment and looked at me. And when I looked at him, I recognized myself. (8)
*Jesus died for our sins, but He rose from the dead. And He offers full forgiveness for all who will trust in Him.
Conclu:
*So staying pure may have never been harder, but God has made a way for you.
-Realize the seriousness of sexual sin.
-Repent from sexual sin.
-Run away from sexual sin.
-Renew your mind with Godly things.
-And rely on God to cleanse your sin.
(1) usatoday.com - Almost 4 in 10 U.S. children born out of wedlock in 2005 - Posted 11/21/2006 4:14 PM ET - ATLANTA (AP)
(2) breitbart.com - 10 Is the New 15 As Kids Grow Up Faster - Nov 26 (2006) 6:56 AM US/Eastern - By MARTHA IRVINE - AP National Writer
(3) KERUX ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION - ID Number: 3105 - SOURCE: Dynamic Preaching (www.sermons.com) Disk, Winter 1992 "A" - TITLE: Why Change Is Possible - AUTHOR: Rev. Eric S. Ritz - DATE: 1/1/92
(4) KERUX ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION - ID Number: 20103 - SOURCE: A Word With You By Ron Hutchcraft #4797 - TITLE: The Killer Tide - AUTHOR: Ron Hutchcraft - DATE: 5/31/05
(5) SermonCentral illustration contributed by Davon Huss)
(6) SermonCentral Sermon: “Transforming Our Hearts & Minds” by MELVIN NEWLAND Rom 12 1 2
(7) John Piper: A Hunger For God-Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer - Found in SermonCentral Sermon “Not As Full As I Like” by John Jones Eph 3 14 19
(8) W. A. Criswell, Expository Sermons on Galatians found in: Charles R. Swindoll, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart and 1,501 Other Stories, (Nashville: Word Publishing) 2000, c1998
