February 22, 2025 • 26 mins
Welcome to Moody Presents with Mark Jobe … president of Moody Bible Institute. With all that is going on in our culture, some people may raise an eyebrow when they hear that this series is called Defiance ... but we're not saying that we should take to streets … and start protesting or rioting. We are talking about taking a spiritual stand and today, a tough not often talked about topic. It is the call to purity.
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S1 (00:00):
Today on Moody Presents, Mark Jobe challenges you to be
set apart for purity.
S2 (00:06):
That's God's will for your life, that you not be
like everybody else, but that you realize my life, my body,
my mind, my destiny belong to God. I am a
child of God, called for the purposes of God. By
the standards of God, I've been set aside for God's purposes.
S1 (00:25):
Welcome to Moody Presents with Mark Jobe, senior pastor of
New Life Community Church in Chicago and president of Moody
Bible Institute. I'm John Gager, and pastor Mark has stopped
by the studio here. And pastor Mark, let me ask you,
with all that is going on in our culture, some
people might just raise an eyebrow when they hear that
this current series is called defiance. But you're not saying
(00:47):
that we should take to the streets and start protesting,
holding up signs and rioting. You're talking about being defiant spiritually, right?
S2 (00:55):
Well, I'm not talking about revolt. I'm not talking about uprising.
I'm talking about defiance from a spiritual perspective. And I
think when believers start to live in the radical purity
and holiness that God has called us to. When a
23 year old young girl decides my body belongs to God,
(01:17):
and my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,
and when I date, I will date in purity, and
I will hold my sexuality until the marriage when I
say I do. That's radical, that's defiant, that makes people say, what?
That's the kind of defiance I'm talking about, right? Absolutely.
And I believe the Bible is counterculture. If you're a
(01:39):
believer and really living out the standards of holiness that
God has called us to, you will actually raise eyebrows
in our culture. Boy, that is.
S1 (01:50):
That is so good. Thank you, pastor Mark. Always helpful
to have you step in and share your heart. But
there's a lot to cover in our message today. It's
titled The Call to Purity. So here he is, pastor
Mark Jobe on Moody Presents.
S2 (02:04):
How many of you know, sometimes if you preach the word,
not everybody's going to like you all the time. If
you stand up for the things that count for God,
sometimes you're going to be run out of town. Paul
was run out of town because he was preaching the word,
and some people didn't like what he was preaching. So
he only had three weeks to establish a church. Think
about it. There were no Bibles because the New Testament
(02:28):
had not been written. They had an Old Testament. Most
people didn't have the scrolls. Think about. They heard about
Jesus in three weeks. He can't email them to see
how they're doing. Can't give him a cell phone call. Hey,
how are you doing? Keeping in the word. He can't
Facebook him. A passage of Scripture and his favorite topic.
(02:49):
No no no no no. He. There's no way of
connecting with them. He preaches the word to them, and
then he has to leave. And so he's worried about them.
He's wondering how they're doing. He's talked to them about
a lot of topics. One of the topics he talked
to them about was the second coming of Christ. Do
you realize that the Bible says that Jesus Christ is
(03:11):
coming again? Some of you, it scares others of you. Like, yeah, come,
Lord Jesus, I'm ready. Well, he had talked to them
about the second coming of Christ, that Jesus Christ will
come again. And some of them had taken it so literally.
They thought Jesus was coming like next week. So some
of them had quit their jobs. They said, why am
(03:32):
I going to farm? Why am I going to plant?
I'm just going to quit my job, preach the gospel,
and get ready for the coming of Jesus. And Paul
was saying, hold on, slow down a bit. We can't
have the whole church unemployed waiting around for the coming
of Jesus, because people are going to come in from
the outside and think you're loony, and plus you're going
(03:55):
to have to live off of Aunt Matilda's retirement fund,
and that's not good. And people are going to come
in and say, hey, why aren't these people working? And
so you'll find in first Thessalonians that Paul says, hey,
get a job, work hard, throw yourself into it so
you can be a good testimony to the outsiders. But
(04:15):
one of the topics he had to deal with as
well was the topic of sexual purity. Because, like in
the days of Paul, similar to our days, the standard
of purity was all over the place. In fact, the
Apostle Paul was writing from the city of Corinth. He
was writing this letter from a city that was a
(04:36):
little bit further away from Thessalonica, called Corinth. As he
wrote this letter, he could look out the window of
his house and see on the. I've been to Corinth.
It's in it's in Greece. There's the ruins of the
old city of Corinth, and up upon the hill Paul
could look out his window and see. Up on the
hill there was the temple of Diana, the goddess of fertility.
(04:59):
The sailors would come into Corinth, and the first place
they would want to go is to the temple. You
know why? There were 1000 temple prostitutes, and part of
going to church for them was they would go visit
a temple prostitute, and part of their all their religious
services were having sex in the temple with the temple prostitutes.
(05:23):
So this was a crazy out of control city where
all kinds of things were going on. And the Apostle
Paul is writing to the Thessalonians and he's saying, hey,
if you're going to live for Jesus, one of the
areas that you're defiant living is going to show up
more than anywhere else is in the way you manage
your sexuality. Now, some people don't think we should be
(05:47):
talking about sex in church. They say, are you going
to talk about the three letter sex word in church?
I mean, pastor, is that appropriate? Hold on a second.
if we don't talk about it in the house of God.
If we don't talk about the principles, the values, how
God wants us to manage this area, then when we're
(06:09):
going to learn out, learn about it from MTV. Is
that what is that? Who's going to teach us? Hey,
the Bible has a lot to say about sex. Did
you know that? And by the way, sex is not
a dirty word. It's not a bad word if you
understand it. Let me just put this in parentheses and
tell you that God is the designer of sex. He
(06:32):
invented it. He engineered it. It's a good, God given gift.
Sometimes you hear, no, no, no, don't don't don't. Bad
bad bad. But really it's God that engineered it. Created it.
It's good. It's a gift. It's great. And it's a
gift that God has given to every individual to be
fully enjoyed in the context of a committed relationship called marriage.
(07:04):
So Paul is talking to them. I want to read
to you what it tells us in first Thessalonians chapter four.
I'm going to begin reading in verse one. It says, finally, then.
Now he's only halfway through the letter and he says, finally,
it's kind of like me when I'm preaching for my
final point. And then I go on for 20 minutes.
Paul had the same problem. Finally. Then, brethren, we request
(07:31):
and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you
receive from us instruction as to how you are to
walk and please God, just as you actually do that,
you excel still more. For you know what commandments we
gave you by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is,
(07:52):
that you abstain from sexual immorality. So if you're taking
notes today, I want you to jot this down. I
want to talk to you about the will of God
concerning managing your body and your sexuality. By the way,
the Romans had some of the same value systems that
(08:12):
we have today. One of the writers of the ancient
world during that time, his name was Demosthenes. He talked
about the view of men toward sex in the air
the day that they were, that this letter was written,
and the Roman Empire view of sexuality. He says, we
keep prostitutes for pleasure. We keep mistresses for the day
(08:36):
to day needs of the body, and we keep wives
for the faithful guardianship of our homes. Voila! That was
a little bit of the culture that existed in that day,
and a little bit of the sort of mentality that
people had even in the days as Paul was writing.
So as Paul addresses these believers, he's saying, if you're
going to live all the way for Jesus, one of
(08:58):
the places that you're going to be tested. Big time
is in the area of managing your body and your sexuality.
You're going to flow counter to the values of this
world in this area. Notice what he says. I exhort you, brethren,
we request and exhort you. That means, I beg you.
(09:19):
It's a strong emotion. We beg you, we admonish you.
It's an exclamation point, Paul, saying, I feel really strongly
about this in the Lord Jesus. He's saying, this is
not my opinion. This is God's Word, Jesus Christ, that
as you receive this instruction about how you ought to
walk and please God, that you excel still more. He
(09:42):
was telling him, hey, you're doing pretty good right now,
but how many of you know the Christian walk is never.
I've arrived and I'm there. Let me kick back, fold
my arms behind my head, kick my feet on the
couch and say I've arrived. If that's your mentality, it's
because you're comparing yourself to your neighbors, but not comparing
(10:02):
yourself to Jesus Christ. Because if you're comparing yourself to
Jesus Christ, you know that it's from glory to glory
to glory that you and I have a long way
to go that we have not arrived. If Jesus is
our standard, then we have a long way to go.
How about it? Yeah, long way to go. So if
(10:24):
you think you've made it, then I'm going to ask you.
So are you like Jesus just because you're not cussing,
drinking and sleeping on the weekends? Listen, you sleeping around
on the weekends? I'm not sure you've arrived yet. We
got a ways to go. So he goes on to say,
for you know that what commandments we gave you by
(10:45):
the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of
God is full of the authority of the word. This
is not Paul's opinions or suggestions. This is the word,
by the way. That's why when you come here on Sunday,
you won't hear me preach out of suggestions from pastor
Mark book. No, no, no, that's not the book I
preach out of. I preach out of the Bible because
(11:07):
it's not suggestions for good living or opinions about how
to make your life better. This is the inspired, infallible
Word of God breathed by the Holy Spirit. So what
you hear me preach are not suggestions. They are commands.
They are given by God Most High via the Holy Spirit,
(11:28):
so that when we live him, we are living them
in line with God. Amen. Amen. So you know the we,
the commands by the authority of Jesus Christ. And then
he gets into the meat of this. He says, verse three,
for this is the will of God. Have you ever asked,
what's God's will? How many of you have ever asked that?
(11:49):
I wonder what God's will is. What is God's will?
God's will is his plan, his purposes. So he says,
This is God's will. You want to know what God's
will is? Look it. It's right there. For this is
God's will. This is God's plan and purpose for your life.
He says, your sanctification. Some of you are looking at
(12:12):
me like what? Sanctification. Sanctification. It's a word that we hear,
but we're not always sure exactly what it means. The
word sanctification is where we get the word saint from.
It's always. It's also where we get the word holy
from the same root word for holy and sanctify simply
(12:35):
mean this to be set apart unto God.
S1 (12:42):
You're listening to Moody Presents with Mark Jobe. Back to
our message in a moment. First, though, we want you
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(13:04):
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when you head to Moody presents.org. Moody presents.org. Pastor Mark
(14:12):
has much more to share with us about the important
issue of purity. So let's jump right back into our
message here on Moody Presents.
S2 (14:25):
Set apart unto the purposes of God. By the way,
if you read the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, oftentimes
when he's speaking to the believers, he calls them saints.
He says, I write this to the saints in Ephesus
or the saints in Thessalonica, and you may wonder what
saints live there. I'm not sure. Was there a special
(14:45):
saints that lived there? No, no, no, no saint means
to be set apart. We, according to Scripture, you and
I are saints because we are set apart unto God
to live for him. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ,
you're a saint. Now, some of you don't see yourselves
that way. Say saint. And now use your name. Go ahead.
(15:08):
How's it feel? Kind of weird. Some of you said.
I like the sound of it. That doesn't mean that
you've reached a level of spirituality, that there's some sort
of little halo that's going to start to appear over
your head and like a little rainbow when you polish
it once in a while. No, no, no. That's not
the idea. The idea is that if you're a follower
(15:30):
of Jesus Christ, you are set aside unto God. You've
been set aside for the purposes of God. You've been
sanctified unto God. So he says, listen, this is God's will,
your sanctification. That means that you would begin to live
as a person that's set apart for the purposes of God.
(15:52):
That's God's will for your life, that you not be
like everybody else, but that you realize my life, my body,
my mind, my destiny belonged to God. I am a
child of God, called for the purposes of God. By
the standards of God, I've been set aside for God's purposes.
Your sanctification. Now let me say this. We are all sanctified,
(16:15):
but we have to let our lifestyle catch up with
who we are. And as you are holy already, but
we don't all live and act like we're holy. That's
the process of sanctification in our life so that we,
from day to day glory to glory, we are transformed.
We're maturing. We're becoming more like Jesus, more destined to
the purposes that he's called us to live in. So
(16:38):
he says, for this is God's will, your sanctification, that is,
that you abstain from sexual immorality. Now the word there
for sexual immorality is the word in the Greek porneia.
That's where we get our English word pornography from. porneia
(17:02):
means it's a broad word referring to any sexual relationships
outside of the marriage covenant. So God has given you
the energy, the the energy, the gift of sexual energy.
It's a good thing God created you with it from
the moment that you were born. You were created as
(17:22):
male or female. And when you reach the years of puberty,
there's a change that happens. Suddenly. There's an attraction towards
the opposite sex that begins to kick in. How about it?
I've had three children. I have a 12 year old
son right now, and I know I know the drill.
I know that when there's ten, you know nine and
(17:43):
you know the girls have cooties and, you know, let's
stay away from them. They're the bad ones. Yuck. You
hang around with her. I know that's the whole thing.
Then suddenly, the the tween years kick in, puberty kicks in,
and suddenly they're in the mirror trying to fix their
hair for a half hour, watching what they're going to address.
Now it's kind of when a girl walks in the room,
they kind of strut different, try to act a little cool. Why?
(18:06):
There's an awareness there. Suddenly those hormones have kicked in
and there's an attraction that begins to kick in and
they start flirting around with boyfriend girlfriend. She likes him.
He likes her. Why? Because there's there's that God given
attraction built in by God to begin to be attracted
to the person of the opposite sex. It's not a
(18:28):
bad thing. It's a good thing as long as it's managed.
Every single drive that God has given us is good,
but when it's mismanaged, it can actually hurt us. God
has given you the appetite for food, right? So when
you sanctify the appetite for food, set it apart unto
(18:49):
God and manage it well, then it nourishes and strengthens
your body. If you let it go out of control,
then it can turn into overeating. gluttony or some sort
of eating disorder, bulimia, anorexia. And when you let the
appetite for food get out of control, it can dominate
(19:12):
your life. Is it a bad appetite? No, it's a
good appetite. It just can't get out of control. God
has given you the the appetite or desire for sleep.
Sleeping regenerates your body. It causes your muscles to grow
when they're tired. And. And if you go too long
(19:32):
without it, your body craves it. Does that ever happen
to you? You're driving and man, you just like trying to,
like your body is saying the hum of the road,
the darkness there just nice. And your body says, you know,
this would be a good time for a nap. You
gotta roll down your window, slap yourself in the face,
(19:53):
crank the, um, hard rock music just to keep you awake.
Never happened to you in church. Oh, come on, pastor.
Now you're picking on us a little bit, you know.
It's nice and warm. A soothing voice of the pastor.
(20:15):
I've had people come and tell me, pastor, you know,
I just want to tell you I've had a hard
time sleeping, and it's really hard to go to sleep.
And so, you know, I put in your CDs and
I just listened to your teaching just to help. It
helps me go to sleep. Well, I'm happy. I'm happy.
I'm helping you with your insomnia. Just don't get used
to it, though. You come to church and then you
(20:36):
fall asleep. Okay? So sleeping is a good thing. But
if we oversleep, it turns into laziness. It turns into
the proverbs. Talks about the lazy person that doesn't want
to get out of bed. And so it's a good thing.
But if we if we allow it to manage us
and don't bridle it and don't channel it, then it
(20:59):
can become destructive in our life. And so it is
with sexuality. It's a energy that God has given to
both man and women to attract them to. One another.
And it serves wonderfully in the context, the context of
marriage to. Draw couples to each other over and over
to enhance intimacy and to bring about babies. It's a
(21:20):
great tool that God has given us. However, it has
to be managed in a way, or it can turn
into a huge destructive force in our life. And so
the Apostle Paul is telling them about this, and he says,
and he says, I want you to know that it's
God's will, your sanctification, that you abstain from immorality. Now
(21:44):
here's what I've learned about abstaining from immorality. Listen to me. Well, Chicago,
for example, is infamous for its potholes after the winter time, right?
I mean, it's like driving through mine City. There's all
these big holes. Some of them will swallow up your
car if you're not careful. And so after the winter time,
all of us drive around Chicago. We know we're swerving
(22:04):
and looking out because there's a pothole coming up. None
of us shoot for the potholes. At least none of
us in our right mind. Shoot for the potholes. We
try to avoid them, right? And when we hit him
last winter, I was. I wasn't paying attention. I hit
a pothole and it gave me a flat tire. Like, wow,
(22:25):
how could I? How could I have done that before
I knew it, I hit it. Once I hit it,
it was too late. I didn't want to swerve and
I hit it. I wasn't intentionally going for the pothole,
but I wasn't being careful, I wasn't looking, I wasn't attentive.
And here's the thing in moralities that way, if you
don't determine in advance that you are going to guard
(22:48):
your life and guard your sexuality and make a determination
in advance that you're going to sanctify your sexuality to God,
then you're not shooting for those potholes. but I can
guarantee you will hit one of those potholes, because unless
you determine in advance that you're going to watch out,
drive careful. Make it your intention not to fall, then
(23:10):
you're setting yourself up for a fall. Number two, that
you learn how to manage your body. Set apart and
with high value. So remember whatever you feed your mind.
Garbage in, garbage out. Verse four. It says that each
(23:31):
of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification.
That each of you talking to Christians know how to
that word possess is manage that each of you know
how to manage or steward his own vessel. What's our vessel,
our body, so that each of us knows how to
(23:53):
manage our body? In what? In sanctification. Manage our body
in a way that we set our body and our
sexual energy aside to God. We set it apart unto God.
We say, I'm going to manage it the way you
want me to manage it. God. And in honor that
word honor means high value.
S1 (24:17):
You have been listening to part one of a message
titled The Call to Purity here on Moody Presents with
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(25:23):
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606 ten. That's Moody Presents 820 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago,
Illinois 606 ten. I'm John Gallagher, and be sure to
join us next week when pastor Mark continues this discussion
(25:45):
on the call to Purity. That's next week on Moody
Presents with Mark Jobe. Moody presents is a production of
Moody Radio and a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
Today on Moody Presents, Mark Jobe challenges you to be
set apart for purity.
S2 (00:06):
That's God's will for your life, that you not be
like everybody else, but that you realize my life, my body,
my mind, my destiny belong to God. I am a
child of God, called for the purposes of God. By
the standards of God, I've been set aside for God's purposes.
S1 (00:25):
Welcome to Moody Presents with Mark Jobe, senior pastor of
New Life Community Church in Chicago and president of Moody
Bible Institute. I'm John Gager, and pastor Mark has stopped
by the studio here. And pastor Mark, let me ask you,
with all that is going on in our culture, some
people might just raise an eyebrow when they hear that
this current series is called defiance. But you're not saying
(00:47):
that we should take to the streets and start protesting,
holding up signs and rioting. You're talking about being defiant spiritually, right?
S2 (00:55):
Well, I'm not talking about revolt. I'm not talking about uprising.
I'm talking about defiance from a spiritual perspective. And I
think when believers start to live in the radical purity
and holiness that God has called us to. When a
23 year old young girl decides my body belongs to God,
(01:17):
and my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,
and when I date, I will date in purity, and
I will hold my sexuality until the marriage when I
say I do. That's radical, that's defiant, that makes people say, what?
That's the kind of defiance I'm talking about, right? Absolutely.
And I believe the Bible is counterculture. If you're a
(01:39):
believer and really living out the standards of holiness that
God has called us to, you will actually raise eyebrows
in our culture. Boy, that is.
S1 (01:50):
That is so good. Thank you, pastor Mark. Always helpful
to have you step in and share your heart. But
there's a lot to cover in our message today. It's
titled The Call to Purity. So here he is, pastor
Mark Jobe on Moody Presents.
S2 (02:04):
How many of you know, sometimes if you preach the word,
not everybody's going to like you all the time. If
you stand up for the things that count for God,
sometimes you're going to be run out of town. Paul
was run out of town because he was preaching the word,
and some people didn't like what he was preaching. So
he only had three weeks to establish a church. Think
about it. There were no Bibles because the New Testament
(02:28):
had not been written. They had an Old Testament. Most
people didn't have the scrolls. Think about. They heard about
Jesus in three weeks. He can't email them to see
how they're doing. Can't give him a cell phone call. Hey,
how are you doing? Keeping in the word. He can't
Facebook him. A passage of Scripture and his favorite topic.
(02:49):
No no no no no. He. There's no way of
connecting with them. He preaches the word to them, and
then he has to leave. And so he's worried about them.
He's wondering how they're doing. He's talked to them about
a lot of topics. One of the topics he talked
to them about was the second coming of Christ. Do
you realize that the Bible says that Jesus Christ is
(03:11):
coming again? Some of you, it scares others of you. Like, yeah, come,
Lord Jesus, I'm ready. Well, he had talked to them
about the second coming of Christ, that Jesus Christ will
come again. And some of them had taken it so literally.
They thought Jesus was coming like next week. So some
of them had quit their jobs. They said, why am
(03:32):
I going to farm? Why am I going to plant?
I'm just going to quit my job, preach the gospel,
and get ready for the coming of Jesus. And Paul
was saying, hold on, slow down a bit. We can't
have the whole church unemployed waiting around for the coming
of Jesus, because people are going to come in from
the outside and think you're loony, and plus you're going
(03:55):
to have to live off of Aunt Matilda's retirement fund,
and that's not good. And people are going to come
in and say, hey, why aren't these people working? And
so you'll find in first Thessalonians that Paul says, hey,
get a job, work hard, throw yourself into it so
you can be a good testimony to the outsiders. But
(04:15):
one of the topics he had to deal with as
well was the topic of sexual purity. Because, like in
the days of Paul, similar to our days, the standard
of purity was all over the place. In fact, the
Apostle Paul was writing from the city of Corinth. He
was writing this letter from a city that was a
(04:36):
little bit further away from Thessalonica, called Corinth. As he
wrote this letter, he could look out the window of
his house and see on the. I've been to Corinth.
It's in it's in Greece. There's the ruins of the
old city of Corinth, and up upon the hill Paul
could look out his window and see. Up on the
hill there was the temple of Diana, the goddess of fertility.
(04:59):
The sailors would come into Corinth, and the first place
they would want to go is to the temple. You
know why? There were 1000 temple prostitutes, and part of
going to church for them was they would go visit
a temple prostitute, and part of their all their religious
services were having sex in the temple with the temple prostitutes.
(05:23):
So this was a crazy out of control city where
all kinds of things were going on. And the Apostle
Paul is writing to the Thessalonians and he's saying, hey,
if you're going to live for Jesus, one of the
areas that you're defiant living is going to show up
more than anywhere else is in the way you manage
your sexuality. Now, some people don't think we should be
(05:47):
talking about sex in church. They say, are you going
to talk about the three letter sex word in church?
I mean, pastor, is that appropriate? Hold on a second.
if we don't talk about it in the house of God.
If we don't talk about the principles, the values, how
God wants us to manage this area, then when we're
(06:09):
going to learn out, learn about it from MTV. Is
that what is that? Who's going to teach us? Hey,
the Bible has a lot to say about sex. Did
you know that? And by the way, sex is not
a dirty word. It's not a bad word if you
understand it. Let me just put this in parentheses and
tell you that God is the designer of sex. He
(06:32):
invented it. He engineered it. It's a good, God given gift.
Sometimes you hear, no, no, no, don't don't don't. Bad
bad bad. But really it's God that engineered it. Created it.
It's good. It's a gift. It's great. And it's a
gift that God has given to every individual to be
fully enjoyed in the context of a committed relationship called marriage.
(07:04):
So Paul is talking to them. I want to read
to you what it tells us in first Thessalonians chapter four.
I'm going to begin reading in verse one. It says, finally, then.
Now he's only halfway through the letter and he says, finally,
it's kind of like me when I'm preaching for my
final point. And then I go on for 20 minutes.
Paul had the same problem. Finally. Then, brethren, we request
(07:31):
and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you
receive from us instruction as to how you are to
walk and please God, just as you actually do that,
you excel still more. For you know what commandments we
gave you by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is,
(07:52):
that you abstain from sexual immorality. So if you're taking
notes today, I want you to jot this down. I
want to talk to you about the will of God
concerning managing your body and your sexuality. By the way,
the Romans had some of the same value systems that
(08:12):
we have today. One of the writers of the ancient
world during that time, his name was Demosthenes. He talked
about the view of men toward sex in the air
the day that they were, that this letter was written,
and the Roman Empire view of sexuality. He says, we
keep prostitutes for pleasure. We keep mistresses for the day
(08:36):
to day needs of the body, and we keep wives
for the faithful guardianship of our homes. Voila! That was
a little bit of the culture that existed in that day,
and a little bit of the sort of mentality that
people had even in the days as Paul was writing.
So as Paul addresses these believers, he's saying, if you're
going to live all the way for Jesus, one of
(08:58):
the places that you're going to be tested. Big time
is in the area of managing your body and your sexuality.
You're going to flow counter to the values of this
world in this area. Notice what he says. I exhort you, brethren,
we request and exhort you. That means, I beg you.
(09:19):
It's a strong emotion. We beg you, we admonish you.
It's an exclamation point, Paul, saying, I feel really strongly
about this in the Lord Jesus. He's saying, this is
not my opinion. This is God's Word, Jesus Christ, that
as you receive this instruction about how you ought to
walk and please God, that you excel still more. He
(09:42):
was telling him, hey, you're doing pretty good right now,
but how many of you know the Christian walk is never.
I've arrived and I'm there. Let me kick back, fold
my arms behind my head, kick my feet on the
couch and say I've arrived. If that's your mentality, it's
because you're comparing yourself to your neighbors, but not comparing
(10:02):
yourself to Jesus Christ. Because if you're comparing yourself to
Jesus Christ, you know that it's from glory to glory
to glory that you and I have a long way
to go that we have not arrived. If Jesus is
our standard, then we have a long way to go.
How about it? Yeah, long way to go. So if
(10:24):
you think you've made it, then I'm going to ask you.
So are you like Jesus just because you're not cussing,
drinking and sleeping on the weekends? Listen, you sleeping around
on the weekends? I'm not sure you've arrived yet. We
got a ways to go. So he goes on to say,
for you know that what commandments we gave you by
(10:45):
the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of
God is full of the authority of the word. This
is not Paul's opinions or suggestions. This is the word,
by the way. That's why when you come here on Sunday,
you won't hear me preach out of suggestions from pastor
Mark book. No, no, no, that's not the book I
preach out of. I preach out of the Bible because
(11:07):
it's not suggestions for good living or opinions about how
to make your life better. This is the inspired, infallible
Word of God breathed by the Holy Spirit. So what
you hear me preach are not suggestions. They are commands.
They are given by God Most High via the Holy Spirit,
(11:28):
so that when we live him, we are living them
in line with God. Amen. Amen. So you know the we,
the commands by the authority of Jesus Christ. And then
he gets into the meat of this. He says, verse three,
for this is the will of God. Have you ever asked,
what's God's will? How many of you have ever asked that?
(11:49):
I wonder what God's will is. What is God's will?
God's will is his plan, his purposes. So he says,
This is God's will. You want to know what God's
will is? Look it. It's right there. For this is
God's will. This is God's plan and purpose for your life.
He says, your sanctification. Some of you are looking at
(12:12):
me like what? Sanctification. Sanctification. It's a word that we hear,
but we're not always sure exactly what it means. The
word sanctification is where we get the word saint from.
It's always. It's also where we get the word holy
from the same root word for holy and sanctify simply
(12:35):
mean this to be set apart unto God.
S1 (12:42):
You're listening to Moody Presents with Mark Jobe. Back to
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(14:12):
has much more to share with us about the important
issue of purity. So let's jump right back into our
message here on Moody Presents.
S2 (14:25):
Set apart unto the purposes of God. By the way,
if you read the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, oftentimes
when he's speaking to the believers, he calls them saints.
He says, I write this to the saints in Ephesus
or the saints in Thessalonica, and you may wonder what
saints live there. I'm not sure. Was there a special
(14:45):
saints that lived there? No, no, no, no saint means
to be set apart. We, according to Scripture, you and
I are saints because we are set apart unto God
to live for him. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ,
you're a saint. Now, some of you don't see yourselves
that way. Say saint. And now use your name. Go ahead.
(15:08):
How's it feel? Kind of weird. Some of you said.
I like the sound of it. That doesn't mean that
you've reached a level of spirituality, that there's some sort
of little halo that's going to start to appear over
your head and like a little rainbow when you polish
it once in a while. No, no, no. That's not
the idea. The idea is that if you're a follower
(15:30):
of Jesus Christ, you are set aside unto God. You've
been set aside for the purposes of God. You've been
sanctified unto God. So he says, listen, this is God's will,
your sanctification. That means that you would begin to live
as a person that's set apart for the purposes of God.
(15:52):
That's God's will for your life, that you not be
like everybody else, but that you realize my life, my body,
my mind, my destiny belonged to God. I am a
child of God, called for the purposes of God. By
the standards of God, I've been set aside for God's purposes.
Your sanctification. Now let me say this. We are all sanctified,
(16:15):
but we have to let our lifestyle catch up with
who we are. And as you are holy already, but
we don't all live and act like we're holy. That's
the process of sanctification in our life so that we,
from day to day glory to glory, we are transformed.
We're maturing. We're becoming more like Jesus, more destined to
the purposes that he's called us to live in. So
(16:38):
he says, for this is God's will, your sanctification, that is,
that you abstain from sexual immorality. Now the word there
for sexual immorality is the word in the Greek porneia.
That's where we get our English word pornography from. porneia
(17:02):
means it's a broad word referring to any sexual relationships
outside of the marriage covenant. So God has given you
the energy, the the energy, the gift of sexual energy.
It's a good thing God created you with it from
the moment that you were born. You were created as
(17:22):
male or female. And when you reach the years of puberty,
there's a change that happens. Suddenly. There's an attraction towards
the opposite sex that begins to kick in. How about it?
I've had three children. I have a 12 year old
son right now, and I know I know the drill.
I know that when there's ten, you know nine and
(17:43):
you know the girls have cooties and, you know, let's
stay away from them. They're the bad ones. Yuck. You
hang around with her. I know that's the whole thing.
Then suddenly, the the tween years kick in, puberty kicks in,
and suddenly they're in the mirror trying to fix their
hair for a half hour, watching what they're going to address.
Now it's kind of when a girl walks in the room,
they kind of strut different, try to act a little cool. Why?
(18:06):
There's an awareness there. Suddenly those hormones have kicked in
and there's an attraction that begins to kick in and
they start flirting around with boyfriend girlfriend. She likes him.
He likes her. Why? Because there's there's that God given
attraction built in by God to begin to be attracted
to the person of the opposite sex. It's not a
(18:28):
bad thing. It's a good thing as long as it's managed.
Every single drive that God has given us is good,
but when it's mismanaged, it can actually hurt us. God
has given you the appetite for food, right? So when
you sanctify the appetite for food, set it apart unto
(18:49):
God and manage it well, then it nourishes and strengthens
your body. If you let it go out of control,
then it can turn into overeating. gluttony or some sort
of eating disorder, bulimia, anorexia. And when you let the
appetite for food get out of control, it can dominate
(19:12):
your life. Is it a bad appetite? No, it's a
good appetite. It just can't get out of control. God
has given you the the appetite or desire for sleep.
Sleeping regenerates your body. It causes your muscles to grow
when they're tired. And. And if you go too long
(19:32):
without it, your body craves it. Does that ever happen
to you? You're driving and man, you just like trying to,
like your body is saying the hum of the road,
the darkness there just nice. And your body says, you know,
this would be a good time for a nap. You
gotta roll down your window, slap yourself in the face,
(19:53):
crank the, um, hard rock music just to keep you awake.
Never happened to you in church. Oh, come on, pastor.
Now you're picking on us a little bit, you know.
It's nice and warm. A soothing voice of the pastor.
(20:15):
I've had people come and tell me, pastor, you know,
I just want to tell you I've had a hard
time sleeping, and it's really hard to go to sleep.
And so, you know, I put in your CDs and
I just listened to your teaching just to help. It
helps me go to sleep. Well, I'm happy. I'm happy.
I'm helping you with your insomnia. Just don't get used
to it, though. You come to church and then you
(20:36):
fall asleep. Okay? So sleeping is a good thing. But
if we oversleep, it turns into laziness. It turns into
the proverbs. Talks about the lazy person that doesn't want
to get out of bed. And so it's a good thing.
But if we if we allow it to manage us
and don't bridle it and don't channel it, then it
(20:59):
can become destructive in our life. And so it is
with sexuality. It's a energy that God has given to
both man and women to attract them to. One another.
And it serves wonderfully in the context, the context of
marriage to. Draw couples to each other over and over
to enhance intimacy and to bring about babies. It's a
(21:20):
great tool that God has given us. However, it has
to be managed in a way, or it can turn
into a huge destructive force in our life. And so
the Apostle Paul is telling them about this, and he says,
and he says, I want you to know that it's
God's will, your sanctification, that you abstain from immorality. Now
(21:44):
here's what I've learned about abstaining from immorality. Listen to me. Well, Chicago,
for example, is infamous for its potholes after the winter time, right?
I mean, it's like driving through mine City. There's all
these big holes. Some of them will swallow up your
car if you're not careful. And so after the winter time,
all of us drive around Chicago. We know we're swerving
(22:04):
and looking out because there's a pothole coming up. None
of us shoot for the potholes. At least none of
us in our right mind. Shoot for the potholes. We
try to avoid them, right? And when we hit him
last winter, I was. I wasn't paying attention. I hit
a pothole and it gave me a flat tire. Like, wow,
(22:25):
how could I? How could I have done that before
I knew it, I hit it. Once I hit it,
it was too late. I didn't want to swerve and
I hit it. I wasn't intentionally going for the pothole,
but I wasn't being careful, I wasn't looking, I wasn't attentive.
And here's the thing in moralities that way, if you
don't determine in advance that you are going to guard
(22:48):
your life and guard your sexuality and make a determination
in advance that you're going to sanctify your sexuality to God,
then you're not shooting for those potholes. but I can
guarantee you will hit one of those potholes, because unless
you determine in advance that you're going to watch out,
drive careful. Make it your intention not to fall, then
(23:10):
you're setting yourself up for a fall. Number two, that
you learn how to manage your body. Set apart and
with high value. So remember whatever you feed your mind.
Garbage in, garbage out. Verse four. It says that each
(23:31):
of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification.
That each of you talking to Christians know how to
that word possess is manage that each of you know
how to manage or steward his own vessel. What's our vessel,
our body, so that each of us knows how to
(23:53):
manage our body? In what? In sanctification. Manage our body
in a way that we set our body and our
sexual energy aside to God. We set it apart unto God.
We say, I'm going to manage it the way you
want me to manage it. God. And in honor that
word honor means high value.
S1 (24:17):
You have been listening to part one of a message
titled The Call to Purity here on Moody Presents with
pastor Mark Jobe. To hear this message again, or if
you'd like to hear any of Mark's previous messages, we
invite you to head to Moody presents.org. Again, Moody presents.org
and do consider becoming a member of our advanced team,
(24:39):
would you? Our current resource, it's yours as a member
of that team is a book from Winfred Neely, How
to Overcome Worry. Now, if you're tired of worry getting
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ask for how to overcome worry today when you give
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(25:01):
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(25:23):
us at Moody Presents, 820 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois
606 ten. That's Moody Presents 820 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago,
Illinois 606 ten. I'm John Gallagher, and be sure to
join us next week when pastor Mark continues this discussion
(25:45):
on the call to Purity. That's next week on Moody
Presents with Mark Jobe. Moody presents is a production of
Moody Radio and a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
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