Growing up. One of the family Staples, that
the Hensel household was watching the Ian Fleming James
Bond movies. Roger Moore is my James Bond
followed by Pierce Brosnan. You can think Daniel Craig or
Sean Connery. And you have every right to be
wrong, that's just how it is. And in between fight scenes and
saving the world in every movie, there was the sheet scene.
And my dad every time that she'd seen took place would take his
glasses off. My dad can't see past his nose.
When he takes his glasses off, and he wouldn't put them back on
until the music changed in the dialog resumed. and he would
expect me to close my eyes but since He took his glasses off.
He couldn't see. And I had 20/15 vision.
I remember going over to Matt's house, he was on him and I were
on the same baseball team. His dad was the coach.
We went down into the basement. He rifled around and he grabbed
some a VHS tape and he put it in the VCR.
And the images. That came across the screen.
I was not prepared for. I found myself excited, I find
myself intrigued it, showed in detail, what the James Bond
movies implied. I also felt dirty and ashamed.
I was confused. My coach seemed like such a nice
guy. How could he have something like
that in his house? It didn't feel, right?
I remember going to a construction site trailer and
sing the very first calendar where it seems like the the days
on the calendar. Don't matter at all.
The in the internet came out and we would go over to my friends
house. You was the first one to have an
internet connection and over the course of about 2 to 7 minutes,
it would download any image that you typed in.
And then we would wait to see what it would produce.
I remember Twitter and Instagram and interacting with them, and
realizing quickly, that if I was not careful, these platforms
could be incredibly dangerous because I could readily see
pictures that I Probably don't want to see and shouldn't see.
I haven't met actually not too long ago.
I I'm so cool. And I think you guys know this,
I watch farming videos on YouTube.
Yeah, it's really how cool I am like late.
And I'm like, I think I should check up on the farmers and one
of the farmers I watch goes by the big Swede and so I was like,
you know what, I should follow him on Instagram and so I type
in on Instagram, b.i.g. swe, and then It auto filled, sweet, big
sweet. And then a whole well, I
remember Game of Thrones coming out and it was all the rage and
like many of you, I got swept up going bull.
Let's see what this is about. And I love the story line.
But over time the images and the sexual scenes in, that were way
more than I was prepared for and I kept trying to figure out how
I was going to navigate each episode.
I was hooked with the storyline, but it was becoming difficult to
fast-forward and still not see images that would be forever
forged in my brain. I eventually realized for me, I
just could not in my own heart, keep watching One More episode,
so I have no clue. Who is still alive.
What happened happens in the subsequent Seasons, how it all
ends. I'm hoping the dragons do
something, cool. Today, I want to talk to you
about porn. I want to welcome you from all
of our different locations online and inside those of you
joining for the first time or the first time in a long time,
you have to know this. I am so glad that you are here.
There might be some of you right now who are going.
I can't believe this is the service.
I brought my friend to some of you.
You might be thinking of all the weeks that I finally came back
to church. Why this one?
Some of you might be thinking, no, wonder my wife wanted me to
come to church today. Coming.
Nobody knew that this week was coming.
You have not been duped, but I'm so glad that you are here.
I want you to push past all of those thoughts and just hang
with me for just a little bit, even if you're not a Christian
yet, because I believe that today could be a defining moment
in your life. That it could drastically.
Change your health in all kinds of areas, mentally physically,
sexually relationally, and emotionally here at the
Crossing. You've heard us say this a
bunch. We believe that God's way is the
best way. Any area of your life and we
believe that God has a plan a way for you and I to live and
that that way will be the very best way that you could possibly
live every area of your life including sex.
Another phrase we use around here a lot, is this one?
We want to be in your corner. And today, if you would allow
me, I'm going to put on like my very best pastor hat.
And I want to be in your corner. I want to be in your corner.
Rooting for you, encouraging. You equipping you to live and
experience God's best for you. And what I want you to know is
that porn robs you of God's best for you.
I was I have a team of people that I get together with every
so often to kind of flesh out some of the sermon series that
we go on. And when we got to this
particular sermon, though the room was divided and I was not
prepared for this. There was a group of people in
the room who, when I said things, like people know that
porn is wrong. They were like, yeah, of course
they do. That's why, you know, people
don't invite people over to watch it with them, you know?
They're not like, hey, you want to come over today?
7:00. We'll watch some porn together.
People, don't do that least. I don't think they do.
There's a reason why we keep it from our kids.
It's a reason why we usually do it alone and in Dark Places and
we don't want other people to find out.
And I think that as people start to be more aware of the impacts
of porn and how it affects us mentally and psychologically,
and all these different areas as leadership, experts, come out
and start talking about it. IT professional athletes leading
comedians who are all saying, yeah, I'm stopping porn because
it has been disrupting my life. And it is incredibly dangerous.
That people are starting to wake up to.
This is not a great way to live but then on on our staff there
was a group of people in the room and they were going.
I'm pretty sure our people don't know that it's bad.
So then I'm sitting there like well depending on your audience,
how you approach this sermon drastically changes if people
know it's wrong and they just need some help versus people who
don't know, it's wrong and they need convinced.
And they started telling me horrible stories, they would
tell me stories, that they've heard that people are going to
marriage counselors and marriage.
Counselors are encouraging for them to watch porn.
Trying to get the wires to understand that this will be a
good thing for her husband to participate in. and I'm Going,
how? They're telling me stories of
young women in our church in our junior, high or not know Junior
High and high school. And in our Collective, age range
or young adults, who have accounts where people pay to
access pictures, they take of themselves and that the girls
justify their behavior because of the innocent nature of the
pictures. which, I understand it from their perspective, like,
you know, I'm just showing them pictures of my feet.
But on a deeper level, they don't realize that they are
indeed selling themselves. They're contributing to the
objectification of women, they're participating and
pushing forward. A narrative that women are to be
consumed instead of image, bearers of God to be cherished.
Some of you, you're in a spot where you just turn a blind eye
at the behavior of your spouse, or you turn a blind eye, to the
behavior of your kids. At least he's having sex with
himself. At least, she's just fooling
around with herself and not getting pregnant by some high
school college. Fling, others tend to operate in
complete ignorance or remain passive because they would just
rather not know But a recent survey demonstrates in Christian
circles. So if we were to call you all
Christians, which one of my favorite things about the
crossing is, there's lots of you.
Listen to me, who aren't Christians and that makes my
heart so happy. But let's just assume everybody.
Here is a Christian in Christian circles. 64% of Christian men,
consume porn monthly, Six out of ten.
Women, 15% of Christian women consume porn monthly.
Now, everybody just stay looking at me because I want you looking
around and make anybody feel bad.
If you're a male between the age of 18 and 30, 79% of you are
consuming porn monthly. This is a huge problem and you
might be wondering, how does this happen?
How do we find ourselves in this spot?
Super easy. Let me tell you.
John 10:10. This is Jesus talking.
The thief comes only to steal. Kill and destroy.
He's talking about Satan. You and I we have an enemy.
And he is trying to steal from you, kill you and destroy you.
But I this is Jesus have come that they may have life and have
it to the full. God has a best way for you A
life to the full but Satan is trying to steal from you.
Kill from your kill you and destroy you, you have a
marriage. He wants to destroy it.
He wants to kill it. He wants to steal the intimacy
and the Joy from it. You have a parenting
relationship, you have kids that you want to nourish and grow in
the Lord. He wants to steal as much as he
can from that he wants to kill, whatever is good and growing and
godly he wants to destroy their future, you and I have an enemy.
and so, when it comes to sex, Satan uses sex and pornography
to break up families to impact your health to rewire your brain
spiritually. He uses pornography to create
barriers to you Understanding God's best for you and his love
and the ability for you to receive his grace and mercy
relationally. It burns shame which leads to
isolation because if anybody finds out the things that I type
in, how could they ever be closer to me?
Well then how do we find ourselves trapped with the
battle with pornography? Well, James chapter 1 tells us
when tempted, no one should say. God is tempting me.
So real quick. When you are tempted to engage
in, pornography this is not God made you do it.
This is not, you know he's just checking to see how serious I
am. No, no, no one should say, God
is tempting me. God, had nothing to do with
this. For God, cannot be tempted by
evil. Nor does he tempt, anyone?
Let's keep going in the text, but each person that's you, and
me is tempted, when they are dragged Away by their own evil
desire and enticed, then after desire has conceived, it gives
birth to sin and sin when it It is full-grown gives birth to
death. Let me unpack a little bit more
of this. This is what it says here, but
each person is tempted when they were dragged away and enticed.
If you go to the original languages, you know what these
words are? They're fishing terms?
Have you guys ever been fishing? This will be helpful.
This is what happens. Satan gets out his little his
little Tackle Box. All good.
Fishers have a little tackle box.
And then he's like I'm going to go fishing for somebody today.
And he decides to go fishing for you and then he reaches inside
of his little lures and he finds what will make you bite?
And then he I've not a good fisherman, okay?
So just bear with me. Those of you who are wearing
camo and he throws it. Out there.
And then you are just going about your Right.
And then you see this little worm, just whoa.
And then Satan just watches the little sin bobber.
Oh, we've got a bite. We've got a nibble. and then,
He's got you. Some of you.
You've been deep, sea fishing. I went deep sea fishing.
I didn't catch anything. Not a thing.
I paid 250 bucks to just see the coast for like two miles.
It was horrible. Not a thing, not a thing.
I say must be the biggest scam when I retire.
I'm just gonna be a deep-sea fishing guy.
It was just go out there. $250. Well, catch you something not.
I didn't even get a, hold of Pol II.
It was so, I got, I got robbed. Okay.
And but the other people told stories of what happened when
they when they paid and you'll catch one.
And then the line goes out. And sometimes we're looking at
porn and we take it. And we keep swimming.
Nothing bad's happened. But that eventually they and
they start to reel you in. Some of you you've been fishing
and they didn't just like take the bait.
They like swallowed it all. It's all the way down in their
stomach. And when we interact with
pornography, what happens is, this Satan is getting his hooks
in US. And Maybe not immediately, maybe
not right away, but eventually he pulls us into the boat
fillets us. Robs us of everything, it just
leaves us the shell of who we used to be.
And this sin when it is full-grown it leads away and it
gives birth to death. There was a guy at one of our
locations who helped me finish the changing rooms in the
baptistry. He was an incredible guy.
I loved hanging out with them. Things were going good.
He was pursuing God in his life and then one day the FBI raided
his house and took all of his devices and he was charged with
possession of child pornography. Oh, I didn't start there over
time. The videos that he was watching
weren't satisfying him as much as they should and so it grew a
little bit darker and a little bit darker and a little bit
darker and then eventually, he found himself in a place.
He never would have imagined faced with the reality of how he
had somehow been rewired to find enjoyment from the oppression
and abuse of the innocent. God has a better way for you and
I to live. This is what it is.
First Thessalonians, as for other matters, brothers and
sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God.
He has a plan that is good for us, but it also allows us to
please God. If you have a desire to please
God with your life. If that is, like one of the
things that's a priority for you, this is what it looks like.
As in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in
the Lord Jesus to do this more and more he's saying, hey God
has a plan for your life when you follow this plan, it pleases
God, and we just want to tell you, keep it up.
Do this more and more. Let's keep going for, you know
what instructions, we gave you by the authority of the Lord
Jesus. You remember what we told you to
do, and how to do it, but in case you forgot it is God's,
will that you should be. I defied that you should avoid
sexual immorality. Sanctification, is you moving
from a life of sin to being more like God, it's moving away from
your sin and becoming more like your savior, that is the process
of you being sanctification. You are being molded into a more
christ-like person that if Jesus had control over all the areas
of your life, you would become more and more like Like Jesus,
that would be sanctifying you. And then this thing right here,
avoid sexual immorality, sexual morality, the Greek word for
this is poor Nia. You didn't even know this.
You already knew Greek. Yeah, poor Nia.
Now let me be clear about what sexual immorality is sexual.
Immorality, is any sexual behavior that is outside of a
man and woman inside of marriage.
So what does that mean? It means having sex with
somebody who's not your spouse. Means having sex with her
boyfriend or a girlfriend or a side piece, it means logging on
and following people, you shouldn't follow on social media
because of what you get to stare at its websites that you log
onto its videos. You watch its pictures you share
with other people. It is calendars hanging on your
garage wall. It's movies and yes, it's
romance novels. but Clayton, my husband's not super romantic and
so I'm able to Our urges, let's keep going the text.
That each of you should learn to control your own body in a way
that is Holy and honorable. So my my body should exhibit
self-control. We get self-control through the
fruit of the holy spirit. So when you're a Christian, you
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit which allows you to fruit
that it produces in your life is self-control.
So the holy spirit will enable you to live a life where you are
controlled in a way that is Holy and Abel.
Not in Passionate lust like the pagans which is their word for
non-christians, people who don't know.
Jesus don't follow Jesus, haven't surrendered their life
to Jesus, who do not know God. Here's what he's saying, because
we have the power of the holy spirit in our lives, were
governed by different things. We're governed by God's will not
by our passions, not by our Cravings, not by our urges.
But look, man, pagans are going to be pagans people who don't
know. Jesus are going to be like
people who don't know. Jesus, which makes sense.
How can you expect someone to live for God?
If they don't believe in God? How can you expect someone to
have the fruit of the spirit in their life if they don't have
the spirit in their life? But he's going but here's what
definitely shouldn't happen. People who know better and have
the power by the Holy Spirit to live better shouldn't be
exhibiting the same. Behaviors, people who don't and
who can't, let's keep going. And that in this matter, no one
should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister.
I'm going to circle back to that just a second.
The Lord will punish All Those who commit such sins, as we told
you and warned you before. Let's keep going in the text for
God did not call us to be a but to live a holy life, he's giving
you an eye a different standard. Therefore anyone who rejects
this instruction does not reject a human being, you're not
rejecting me. These aren't my words.
You're rejecting God. The very God who gives you his
interestingly enough, the Holy Spirit.
Now when it says that we should not wrong or take advantage of
our brothers and sisters, here's what I need you to know.
When you are consuming pornography, you are taking
advantage of somebody. Would you watch porn?
If it was your sister? Would you watch porn if it was
your daughter? Would you go?
Well I mean you know she's an actor she gets paid for it or
would your heart be breaking and going what happened?
That put this person in this spot where they would allow
themselves to become a commodity, what kind of pain,
what kind of Brokenness, what kind of experience leads a
person to displace occupationally?
And when we consume, we become participators in their
oppression, And some of you right now, you're going okay,
real cool Clayton. So this is God's plan, this is
God's standard and I've already messed up.
So what do you do? If you've already messed up or
you are struggling a lot in this area, to be honest with you,
some of you right now, you're a little frustrated, not
frustrated at me, although some of you might be some of you
right now are going actually, I'm pretty ticked, but I'm
pretty ticked at God. He made me this way.
He put all these passions inside of me these urges on me.
What do I do with all of this? And I'll be honest with you.
Clayton I've tried to quit. I've even prayed to quit.
I've been showing up for church. That's not helping.
I've been reading my Bible and I'm still struggling.
I've been praying about it, still struggling and some of
your like, you know what I'll do.
Once I get married, I'll be fine.
Because all married people do is make money.
I cook and have sex and then you find yourself in your marriage,
do you find out that? Once sheets the wedding cake.
Lot of her sexual desires, leave.
And now you find yourself married and you're like, I
thought that she was going to be the one who fixed all this for
me. And she's crocheting. and so now
you're going well since she's not available to me, I'll just
Or some of you ladies because he's not, I'll just and some of
you, you're trying to compete with what you're seeing on the
screen, but there's not an airbrushed version of you.
And you're not willing to do the things that are on the videos,
because no one's paying you stupid amounts of money to do
those things. And so now you find yourself in
a marriage and your marriage hasn't fixed it.
And so you cry out to God again, and yet you still wrestle.
Here's what you need to know every person who wrestles with
pornography on some level is dealing with a wound that needs
healed. Someone somewhere along the line
was inappropriate with you hurt, you or expose you to something
that you should have never seen planted images in you, that you
should have never been seen. And now you have to live with
those So, what I want to do is, I want to give you a three-point
plan to navigate this challenge in your life and in your
marriage. The first two, you're going to
be like, okay, I can live with this.
This third one, you're going to be like, So just let's just do
the first two. Let's see how we're doing.
The first one is when it comes to pornography, when it comes to
Temptation the Bible tells you don't resist run, don't resist
run. Look what it says in Corinthians
flee from sexual immorality, all the other sins, a person commits
are outside the body but whoever sins sexually sins against their
own body. Do you not know that your bodies
are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have?
Received from God, you are not your own.
You do not belong to you. We belong to God.
We were bought at a price. What was the price that was
paid? God sent his one and only son to
die on the cross. We were purchased by the blood
of Jesus, we no longer belong to ourselves.
We belong to him and his kingdom.
Therefore, since God, owns US honor God with our bodies, but
the first part of this is fully Some of you you're trying to
resist it instead of run from it and when you try to go
toe-to-toe with Satan, you will lose.
He just wants you to keep looking at the bait in the water
fixate on the bait, in the water.
Somebody's what Jesus is saying? No, you see that bait in the
water. You run get away as fast as you
possibly can. Because that's one of the
challenges is porn is easy. Sex is hard.
And the more you stay around pornography, the more you try to
fight it the more you fixate on it, the more it has you Satan is
happy just distracting you. What he's calling you to do is
when you are navigating this turn and run, get yourself out
of that environment. Number to establish strong
safeguards, How many of you locked your house last night
before you went to bed? Okay, how many of you locked
your car? You beep beep that when you're
walking in the church today? It's a lot of you.
Leave your cars unlocked. Hope you're still there.
Yo, I haven't heard too many stories of cars being stolen in
our parking lot but you locked it anyway and I get it some of
your like I see some of the people come to church and I'm
locking it. I get it.
Okay, we love them but God bless
them but we're locking the car. You want to know why you do
that? Is you lock up?
What's important to you? You put safeguards in place
around things that matter to you.
So, when it comes to your Purity, lock it up.
Put some safeguards around it. I've never met somebody who's
like, I wish I had less safeguards in my life.
I wish they'd safeguards there's making me too safe.
The other day I was working on my home.
I saw, I was like, I got to take this Safeguard off.
And all week, you've been trying to count to 10 and can't get
there. I'll tell you what some of your
you're working on your song. Now I can't tell anybody that
they're a bad driver. I'm in a seriously, bad spot.
These safeguards right? I bet they were wishing.
I wish I had the safeguards back.
What are safeguards? Craig groeschel says that this
way. He's, I love the way he says it.
Why would I resist a Temptation in the future?
When I have the power to eliminate it today?
Here's what that would mean. Give over your passwords set,
accountability software on your devices.
If you click on the QR code that you have in front of you, at all
of our locations, go to the reclaim sermon series.
Go all the way down to the sermon on porn.
There are some different places that you can go to get
accountability software and it will help you.
It will help you put safeguards in place to keep you from.
Looking at things, you shouldn't look at.
It will help you not just run. It will also put safeguards in
place, everybody's good so far. number 3, confess it That's the
third thing. You got to do, you got to
confess it, and there's two groups of people.
You have to confess it to the first group of people, you have
to confess it to is God, like that's dumb because God already
knows everything that I do. Anyway.
Why do I have to tell him if he already knows?
Welcome here. Look at this.
So I'm 32 blessed, is the one whose transgressions are
forgiven, whose sins are covered.
So who ever experienced this forgiveness and this covering
their a blessed person. Let's keep going.
Blessed is the one whose sin. The Lord does not count against
them and in whose spirit is no deceit.
So there's a blessing. When God doesn't count your sins
against you? How do we get that?
Let's keep going when I kept silent.
My bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
Let's keep going for day and night.
Your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped, as In
The Heat Of Summer, then I look what changes, then I
acknowledged my sin to you. This is God and did not cover up
my iniquity. I said, I will confess my
transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
That's how good your It is when you confess it, he'll forgive
it. You don't believe me.
Let me give you another one. Proverbs 28, whoever conceals
their sins does not Prosper. If you're here today and you're
wanting to prosper in this area of your life, check this out,
but the one who confesses and renounces them finds Mercy.
You might be here today and you're going to man, not only,
do I need forgiveness. I could also use some mercy on
what, you know, when you confess it to God.
That is what you will get. But if you still don't believe
me, let me take you to First, John, 1:9 to show you.
How good our God is. If we confess our sins, he Jesus
is faithful. And just, and will everybody say
this word? Say it like we didn't have a
time change. Say it like I'm a better
preacher. He will forgive us, our sins and
purify us from all unrighteousness.
Look at how good your God is. He says, if you bring your sin
to me, you acknowledge your sin to me.
I will give you Mercy. I will prosper you.
I will cover up your transgressions, and I will
forgive you. And if you are stuck in a battle
with pornography, this is your plan.
You Get to Jesus. But you have to confess it to a
second group of people. You have to confess it to God's
people. And some of you are going, nope.
I was right there with you. Until that come here.
Look at this James 5:16, therefore confess your sins to
each other and pray for each other.
So that you may be Healed. The prayer of a righteous person
is powerful and effective. This is an old preacher saying
we get forgiveness of our sin from God but we get healing from
our sin by confessing it to his people.
God's plan is not for you to suffer in silence or for you to
just let God know he wants you to let somebody know.
That's why Community is so important.
You're going to be people that you can be honest with and that
can help you. Some of you this weekend you're
going to have to be honest with your husband's.
Some of you you're going to have to be honest with your wive's,
some of you are going to need to be Honest with somebody before,
you're honest with your wife. Because you're going, she is not
going to take this news. Well, And let me just speak to
if you're a person who they're going to talk to this weekend,
here's what I want you to hear me.
Say I know that it is painful and it is hard for you to hear
what it is that they are telling you.
I know that there is going to be a perfect picture of your
relationship that you feel just got shattered.
But I also want you to know this that they took a big bold faith
statement to let you in on their battle.
They had a choice. And they chose to tell you
because they want healing. And God has forgiven you.
And we need to work hard to take the grace that he has given to
us. And passed on to the people
around us for those of you who are getting ready to stop
looking at pornography, I want you know you are in for an
uphill battle. It's going to take about three
months for you to return to normal week one.
You're going to have dramatic mood swings and you're going to
go through a dopamine nosedive. This is chemical.
You're going to deal with increased anxiety and a lot of
headaches, you're going to be hypersensitive to lustful
thoughts weeks. One through three, your
motivation and energy levels are going to drop off.
You're going to make you might find yourself experiencing zero,
sexual urges weeks four through eight, you're going to be a
roller coaster of emotions. You're gonna have burst of
energy followed by depression and sluggishness and you're
going to experience a heightened burst of Temptation, This is
oftentimes where relapse occurs, but hear me beyond the three
months, your body is going to reorient itself.
Self. It's going to begin to heal
itself. You're going to feel more
emotionally. Stable, your focus will sharpen.
Your sex drive, will return your spiritual confidence and your
intimacy will soar and you will begin to feel at peace and whole
again, there's hope. One of my favorite stories comes
from one of my favorite songs. 2006. 2008, there was a song
written by Michael googly, a Meucci called healer.
Hillsong produced it, it was on when they went on their world
tour. Everywhere you went, you heard
this song? We sang it at this church, the
lyrics of the song, were incredibly powerful and moving,
but what took the song to the next level?
Is that Michael googly mooji, the guy who sang, it was also
the one who wrote it. And he wrote it as he was in the
midst of a battle with cancer. And so you would see b-roll
while he's singing the song and conferences of him being dropped
off at the hospital and carrying an oxygen tank behind him, and
going up into the halls of the hospital to get his treatment.
His head is shaved, he feels looks sunken down.
When they showed pictures of him.
In the green room, he would get up.
And he would put his guitar on and then he would take the hose
for the oxygen and he would put the hose in his nose.
And then he grabbed his oxygen tank and he'd walk out onstage
slowly in front of tens of thousands of people.
He would sing the song I Believe You're My Healer.
Some months pass. He gets himself in a car wreck
and he goes to the doctors and while he's there, they find out.
He has no cancer before you clap and get excited.
That's because he never had cancer.
He was lying about it the whole time.
He was deceiving his family, he deceived the Hillsong church.
He deceived all the people that were singing it.
What actually was discovered as he had a debilitating addiction
to porn and the song that he wrote, I believe You're My
Healer was actually about his battle with pornography, not
about his fake battle with cancer and the moment that
happened, people started to cancel that song all across
We're not singing that song Anymore.
But maybe it was a modern day, Psalm 51.
That is just an honest confession and deep down inside
while he was in this battle of, with pornography, he was
believing deep down inside that God was still his healer.
And the funny thing is is we will sometimes get super excited
about God. Healing people physically and
sometimes he does, and sometimes the answer is, I will heal it
someday in heaven. But there is never a someday
when it comes to the healing of sin.
It is always today that God always will answer the prayer of
a person who seeks him out and says I have this sin and I need
a savior. That answer is always.
God is on his way, right? Then right there in that moment,
you don't have to wait a couple weeks.
You don't have to wait to Circle back with a doctor.
God always takes people's sin and he always heals it.
And that is why we focus. And glory in the cross that when
we confess it, he is faithful to forgive it.
And I hope you hold on to that promise as we go to this time of
decision. To those of you in here today or
watching online, who don't have a relationship with Jesus, I
need you to hear me say this. Jesus is indeed our healer.
There is no problem that he can't solve.
There is no sin that he can't save.
And I want you to know that you can trust him with your life
because he has a good and beautiful plan for you.
And if you could fix you, you would have already fixed you.
But the enemy that you are fighting in the battles that you
are wrestling. In the struggles that you are
navigating, can only be dealt with through the power and the
blood of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of his holy spirit.
And you gain both of those things.
The Redemptive power of Jesus's blood and the empowerment of the
Holy Spirit, when you become obedient to Jesus in the area of
baptism, when you began, what we call here at the Crossing and
intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
And so today, if that's where you find yourself, I want to
tell you in just a few moments. When the people around you are
standing and singing, there's going to be people over there by
the baptistry, who would love a chance to talk with you and pray
with you about how to start that.
To the rest of you in the room. To those of you who have a
relationship with Jesus Christ, we have got to live a life that
reflects this that we have been set apart that we are different.
That our aim is to live a holy and honorable life and to not
take advantage of her brothers and sisters.
The weird thing, you might be thinking in your mind right now,
if you've been coming to The Crossing for a long time, it's
how is Clayton going to do a plane landing about porn because
we usually tell people come up to the steps.
And who's going to walk up to the steps on porn weekends?
Yeah, I mean we say nobody's looking but I mean, I think we
know Some of your like he's at the steps again.
Interesting. I know judges.
I know in a room, this size. There are some of you who all
you want to do is be at the steps.
You've battled for so long. You're tired of the shame.
You're tired of the sickness, you're tired of the guilt.
You're tired of the images. You're tired of the battle.
You're scared out of your mind about how you're going to talk
to your spouse. You're worried as all get-out
about confessing it to somebody else and getting the help and
the hope that you desperately need.
And all you want to do is be up here at the steps and get down
on your knees and beg for God to do a work and at the same time,
you know, you desperately want to be there.
Where you're going? There's no way I can take that
walk. So, how are you going to get up
here? I'm going to tell you.
We're going to give you a cover. What do you mean?
Crossing family. There are people that need to
come to the steps and need to get down on their knees and need
to desperately pray, but the only way they're gonna be able
to do it is if we provide them with cover.
So here's what I'm saying. If you're a leader in this
church, if you're in a life group, if you're a person who
gives if you're a mother father granddaughter grandma, would you
come to the steps if you've seen a car drove a car and wish you
had a better car? Would you come to the steps?
If you've appreciated a walk underneath the sunshine, if
you've appreciated the Beauty of the Moonlight, which it come to
the steps and provide cover. If you're wearing socks
underwear or wish you were, would you come to the steps and
provide them with cover? Because there are people that
desperately want to get right with God and they want to come
forward and they want to do battle but they can't because
they're embarrassed and they're scared and they're worried and
there's got to be a church, there's got to be a place that
says we got. Jim will give you the cover will
put so many people up here that you could walk up and nobody
would ever know we've. Shoot, you're not alone.
This battle is won by Jesus and we got your back.
Would you stand with me? God to work.
I'm praying the same prayer. I pray.
Every time I get ready to preach.
God, I'm nothing the sermons, nothing.
This church is nothing unless you're in it.
So got inhabit, this place, inhabit, this moment and do a
work that only you can do and start a fire in this place.
That Satan can't put out in your name.
I pray. Amen.
Men. Men.