But, I guess that means God has given me the green light to do everything up until that point.  Technically, I can’t have sex, but I can do a lot of other stuff.  There are a lot of options out there — fondling, oral sex, whatever.  I can do all that, because I am not having sexual intercourse.”

Let’s define sexual immorality.  Sexual immorality is any illicit sexual behavior up until the point of sexual intercourse.  That is what it means.  Basically, there are three gears that we need to talk about when we think about connecting with the opposite sex.

The first gear is the “embracing” gear.  That is hugging, kissing and holding hands.

The second gear is the “caressing” gear.  That’s when we caress the other one’s body with the clothes on.

The third gear is the “stimulation” gear.  That is gentle contact with the clothes off and other things that I will not describe.

Pastors, Bible teachers, theologians, marriage and family relational experts will all tell you to stop at the first gear.  That’s it.  Don’t go to second and don’t go to third.

Once you do, you are going to be sexually speeding.  When you go to second and third gear, you are going to be a victim of an avalanche.  You’ll feel the spiritual junk, psychological junk, the physical junk, and the emotional junk.  The guilt, the self-deception, desertion will fall on you and then you will become a car that hydroplanes on this freeway called “relationship.”  You won’t know which way to go.  Literally, your windows will become so foggy, that you can’t even see the signs.

Don’t miss this.  Listen to me very carefully.  Here is another reason that God says to keep sex reserved for marriage.  When we are involved sexually, and especially this is true for women, outside the marriage bed, it destroys your discernment.  It totally whacks out your reasoning.

There is submission, coming near to God and here is the third white flag.  In the last verse, verse 10, James says this, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”  Here is another great promise.  If we are going to have peace in our lives, if we are going to end all the battles and wars that we fight, James says that we have got to get low, humble ourselves, and once we do, God will lift us up.  It all starts with humbling ourselves before God.  We have go to raise the flag of humility before an Almighty God.  The problem with most of us is that we are into the weight-lifting thing ourselves.  We want to lift ourselves up.  So we struggle and strain with lifting ourselves up and, when we try to lift ourselves up, here is what God does.

God just kind of steps off to the side, crosses his arms and says, “You know what?  If you want to try weight-lifting, go ahead.  You want to try and lift up yourself, go ahead.”  God will separate from us, because he cannot and will not share the throne with us.

Does it work when we do the lifting?  No.  It only works when we become humble before God, when we get low before God.  Now, how do we get low?  One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is the story of Joshua.  You can look in Joshua, chapter 5.  I don’t have time to read the entire story to you.  I’ll summarize it.  But if you get the chance, go back and read it.  It’s a great story about a great leader, a great man of God, Joshua.

Ed Young

Jesus said in Matthew 5:37 these words, “Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’”

Why did Jesus say it?  He was talking to a bunch of Pharisees.  The Pharisees had devised this system of swearing.  I’m not talking about cussing.  But they devised this system of swearing by heaven and earth and the city of Jerusalem, and they were swearing by body parts, and… Basically they were trying to sidestep the truth.

And Jesus said, “Hey guys, let your yes be yes and your no be no.”  He was saying if you’re a true Christ-follower, your character should be so noble, your conversation so rich that when you say yes, you mean it, and when you say no, you mean it.  Let your yes be yes and your no be no.  If I say the right yes, it will lead to great success. On the other hand, if I say the wrong yes, it will lead to a big honkin’ mess.

We’ve all said the wrong yeses before, haven’t we?  Whenever you talk to someone who’s experiencing a problem, maybe they made a dumb financial move, or maybe they’re in the relational weeds, or whatever it is—if you ask them, “Where did the wheels come off?  Where did you have the problem?  What happened?” they don’t say, “Well I just said one wrong yes and then I stumbled down the staircase of life.”  They don’t say that.

Usually, it was a lot of little bitty yeses that led to this big mess.  It’s those little yeses.  Yes, yes, yes, yes, then aaaaah!  They fall into the abyss of rebellion and problems.

I knew this guy years ago, and I called him the yes man.  Every time I made him laugh, he would laugh like this.  “Yes, yes, yes yes!”  I played a game in my mind. I thought, how many times can I get this guy to say yes in one conversation?  One time he said yes over a hundred times!

Ed Young

There’s a lot of stuff, deep stuff going on in people’s lives. And we’re going to unpack this, because many of us have sexual regrets.  Some here have been abused.  Others have a healthy view of this. But I’m telling you, the sexual revolution begins here at Fellowship Church.

ILLUS: One time, I made a mistake and I brought my Doberman to church.  My wife and I have a Doberman.  His name is Dolce. He’s a dog, and I thought, “You know what?  Dolce would be fine in my office during one of the worship services.  After I’m done with the service, I’ll pick him up, put him in my car, and we’ll cruise home.”

Dolce’s smart, but again, he’s a dog.  So, the music starts and Dolce is fine.  He’s just hanging out in my office.  Well, when I began to speak Dolce went nuts! You could hear him up in my office.  The walls are sort of thin, and I could hear him in the middle of the message going nuts!  So, I make eye contact with Lisa, and she hears it.  She stands and sprints up to my office and holds Dolce back.  “Dolce, it’s just Daddy. He’s preaching; that’s what he does.”

I will never bring Dolce again to a worship service at Fellowship.  I never will.  That’d be a good book, though, The Day the Doberman Went to Church.

If you have your Bibles, turn to Genesis 1. I’ll go through chapter 1 and also I’m going to hit on Genesis 2.

I read a while back that the average man has a sexual thought every twenty seconds.  Can you believe that, ladies?  So, the situation is not that we don’t think about sex. The problem is, we don’t think deeply enough about it.

Ed Young

Love affair. Against the backdrop of that title I want to teach you, from this stage, how to have an affair. That’s right. We’re going to leave here in a couple of moments and we will all know how to have an affair. I’ve talked to hundreds and hundreds of couples during my life who’ve had affairs. I’m an expert on the subject. I’ve never had one. Lisa’s never had one. But I’ve learned how to have an affair. I’ve read the emails. I have file folders full of letters about affairs. And I’ve had telephone conversations with people right in the middle of it. So, if you’re taking notes, write down these words. This is how to have an affair.

No one wakes up one morning and rolls out of bed and says to themselves, “Hey, today I’m going to break the seventh commandment.  Today I’m going to commit adultery and have an affair.”

No, it doesn’t happen that way. The path to promiscuity is very predictable; it’s very methodical. And we’re going to learn how to have an affair. But, let me just put your minds at ease.  I’m going to read some stuff and share some things with you, but I’m not going to spill any secrets. I’m not going to betray any confidences. But I am going to share with you the Cliff’s notes of all the conversations I’ve had regarding how to have an affair.

How To Have An Affair

Convince Yourself That It Can’t Happen To You

Number 1: Here’s what you do. You convince yourself that it cannot happen to your marriage. That’s the first thing you’ve got to do if you want to have an affair. You say it yourself over and over and over again. “I cannot have an affair. There is no way I’m going to end up in the bed of a third party.  It’s not going to happen to me. I’m not going to do it. There’s no way we’re going to have an affair. We’re not going to have it!”

Ed Young

God loves me just the way I am.  There is nothing I can do to cause God to love me any more or any less.  God loves me unconditionally. But for me to tap in to his awesome love, there are some conditions that I’ve got to meet.  God loves me just the way I am, but he loves me too much to allow me to remain in the state that I am.  I hope you didn’t miss that.

John 14:15. Here’s what Jesus said: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

I’ve known Lisa for over 30 years, and I’ll never forget the first time I told her that I loved her.  Guys—some of you are married—do you remember the first time you told her that you loved her?

We were sitting in a porch swing on Lisa’s back porch, and I was working up enough nerve to make this high-risk pronouncement. You know what I’m saying?  I said, “Lisa, I like spending time with you.” And I just waited to see if she, you know, gave it back.

She said, “Well, I like spending time with you, too.”

Then I said, “I really love hanging out with you.”

She said, “Well, I love hanging out with you, too.”

And then I thought, “Okay, I’m going to say it.” So I said, “Lisa, I love you.”

And it seemed like hours.  Guys, the women love to make us sweat and wait, don’t they?  She was just looking at me and I’m thinking, “Okay, what will she do?  I gave this high-risk pronouncement.  Will she reject my love?  Will she spurn my love?  Will she say, ‘Ah, no, I don’t feel the same way’? What will she say?

I mean, I put the cards on the table.  “I love you, Lisa…”

Ed Young

Honor

Jesus desires us to have an abundant marital life.  So when it’s all about Jesus and as we receive him, we have the power to grab the reigns and reverse field.  So instead of criticism, I believe we can ride some other horses like affirmation.

Affirmation

What does it mean when I affirm something?  It’s a statement that I exert about the existence of something.  So when I affirm Lisa, I would say, “Lisa, you’re a great cook.”  She is; that’s a fact, that’s a reality, that’s an existence.  “Lisa, you’re an awesome chef.”  We need affirmation.

Admiration

We also need admiration.  Admiration is when I am, or you are, enthusiastically approving of something.  So I am enthusiastic about it.  I’m stoked about it.

Like several nights ago I said Lisa, “The tres leches was phenomenal.”  The cake melted in my mouth.  I love tres leches, do you?  Wow, what a great cake!  So, affirmation and admiration.

I hear women tell me this all the time, “You know, I am just looking for a guy to put me on a pedestal. I just need my husband to put me on a pedestal.” “When I am dating him, he needs to put me on a pedestal.” Or, “I used to be on a pedestal and now I’m not.”

That is true.  Men, we have got to put the women on pedestal. But also, women need to put the men on the pedestal.  We need it. We need it.

So often people come up to me and say, “Ed, I enjoyed that talk.  That really meant a lot to me, and God really used you.”  I love those words of affirmation and admiration.

Sometimes people say, “Well Ed, I know you must hear this all the time, but—”

No, I don’t hear that all the time.  I appreciate that.  Thank you for the e‑mails and the cards and the comments over the years. They really put wind in my sail.