Remember The Damaging Consequences of Moral Failure

Sermon Notes from this morning's Celebration Service:

One day God was looking down at Earth and saw all of the
misbehavior that was going on. So he called one of His angels and sent the angel to Earth for a time. When the angel returned, he told God, "Yes, it is bad on Earth.
95% are misbehaving and only 5% are not." God thought for a moment and said, "Maybe I had better send down a second angel to get another opinion." So God called another angel and sent him to Earth for a time. When the angel returned he went to God and said, "Yes, it's true. The Earth is in decline: 95% are misbehaving, but 5% are being good." God was not pleased, He decided to e-mail the 5% that were good, because he wanted to encourage them and give them a little something to help them keep going. Do you know what the e-mail said?
Okay,
I was just wondering, because I didn't get one either.

we continue a new sermon series entitled…
INTEGRITY: CREATING HEALTHY BOUNDARIES
we already covered
NEVER CONSIDER OURSELVES ABOVE TEMPTATION
Keep a close watch on your spiritual temperature
maintain your home
develop healthy outlets for emotional energy
Last week we searched the word of God for help in GUARDING OUR MINDS
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight O LORD my strength and my redeemer…
I encourage you to check out my blog for detailed review…

This week
PLEASE REMEMBER THE DAMAGING CONSEQUENCES OF MORAL FAILURE
Our church knows all this first hand
We are still experiencing the damaging consequences of moral failure in our leadership years after the offenses…
I did a bible study a couple weeks ago with the youth
I think us old people need to be reminded of too

Let’s talk about everybody’s favorite subject: SIN
1. Sin Is Deceptive
Hebrews 3:12,13
Beware, bretheren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God: but exhort one another daily, while it is called Today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin…
Richard Land had a friend who was heading for shipwreck, plain as the nose on your face. He took him to lunch and said, “Brother, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I want to ask you a question. Have you lost your mind?”
What do you mean?
When Richard told him his concerns, He protested, There’s nothing going on between us…
Oh please, Richard said, There may not be anything yet, but you’re thinking about it and so is she…
I can’t believe you’re saying that…he retorted
OH please, Richard said, Come on now…
They parted over lunch without resolution, but later Richard’s friend came back to him and said…I want to thank you. I was so mad at you I could have hit you, but I want to thank you because you were right. My wife and I were going through a rocky patch and my secretary was sympathetic…
Richard has a rule: He’s not alone with any woman other than his mom, wife or daughters, period…He tells people when he goes somewhere that if a woman is coming to pick him up at the airport, please make sure a second person joins her. And Richard doesn’t have a meal with a woman outside his family unless there are other folks at the table…
Remember what E. Stanley Jones said…If you don’t make up your mind, your unmade mind will unmake you…
Proverbs 22:3
A prudent person forsees the danger ahead and takes precautions; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences…
We may be absolutely blinded by the deceitfulness of sin…Richard Land is an amazing friend who helps others get some discernment…do you have friends like that?

2. Sin Enslaves
John 8:34
Jesus answered, Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin…
Romans 6:16
Do you not know that to who you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness…
Joshua Harris wrote his first book, I kissed dating goodbye, at the age of 21. He speaks nationally and has called his own generation, bombarded with images of sin, back to the freedom and joy of holiness.
He tells of an instance with his friend Andrew that should challenge all of us to a new commitment toward integrity…
He and Andrew went to rent a video…
At the door Andrew stopped and said..I’ll wait out here…
Why, Josh asked…
He explained that God had convicted him about looking at the explicit covers of many videos. His way of fighting back was not even to enter. People must have thought these two were strange as Josh brought different videos to the window to have Andrew help make a selection…
But that didn’t matter to Andrew. He was being obedient to what God was showing him about his own areas of temptation…
Many guys can admit that lust is a prevalent sin in their life and say they want to change. But they’ve never thought through how the process of temptation unfolds for them. Instead of anticipating and being on their guard like Andrew, they’re surprised by the same attack over and over…
Do you know what your weak points are?
Do you have a plan for taking proactive measures to protect yourself from lust?
When you recognize sin’s power for slavery and death you will want to create strong boundaries just like Andrew…

3. Sin’s Pleasures Are Only Temporary
Hebrews 11:24-26
By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward…
sin is only fun for a season and then the deceitfulness, the slavery and the temporary pleasures birth death…

pornography is probably today’s #1 integrity issue, our children need to be warned at a very young age…our children are being assaulted from everything from tv commercials to pop up ads on the computer…
statistics…
Pornography industry is alive and well
grossing 57 billion world-wide
12 billion US
Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball, and basketball franchises…
US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, & NBC
Child pornography generates 3 billion annually
There are 4.2 million pornographic websites
68 million daily pornographic search engine requests
2.5 billion daily pornographic emails
There are 116 thousand websites offering illegal child pornography
there are 72 million worldwide visitors to pornographic websites annually
average age of first internet exposure to pornography is 11 years old
the largest consumer of internet porn is in the 12 to 17 age group
where are the parents
why are they not monitering
answers...
There are lot of ideas out there, books, theories…
BUT THIS IS A GREAT SOLUTION
It is a real recovery program that you take on your computer
turn your computer from your greatest enemy into your greatest asset
PURE ONLINE can transform your life
Check out PureOnline.com
Or check out triple x church .com
that’s xxxchurch.com
they have free accountability software
This is how it works…Let’s say you’re browsing the internet and you hit a porn site… the software makes a log of the site, and then every two to four weeks your two designated accountability partners will get an email listing all the sites you’ve been on...BUSTED
real accountability, no more secrets
I signed up for this and holly get’s a report of where I’ve been on the internet
there are many other resources at triple x church
even a prayer wall
then there’s internetsafety.com or safeeyes.com
they have internet filtering, blocking, monitoring
content controls
program controls
time controls
usage logging
usage alerts
we truly are without excuse
there are many safeguards available
to help us with our own addictions or protecting our children

Colossians 3:5-14
As we come to the Lord’s table this morning
Ask Jesus to put to death those sins that have deceived and enslaved you…
the only real answer to sin is found at this table
His sacrifice, His blood, His body paid the price for your sin
His resurrection gives you power over sin
1 Cor 11…Communion