Discerning God's Will: Embracing Holiness in Sexuality

1. "We have a great God, do we not? Fear, where is your power? Some of us need to just say that again. Would you say, fear, where is your power? Fear, where is your power? Because we have an election this week. Anybody remember that? A couple signs in yards, countless ads. Some of you are ready for it to be done. I want to encourage you that if you're an American citizen of voting age, to let your voice be heard if you haven't already voted." ([00:31:51] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


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2. "Can I just say this? I've been really thankful for how our Grace family, Olmstead Falls, welcome to you, guys at Lorraine Correctional here, that there has been a sense that Jesus is first. And he reigns. Yeah. And... Applause You can have really strong opinions, and that's fine. You can say, man, my values are dictating that I vote this way. But let me just say again, how you treat the people around you is more important than how you vote." ([00:32:27] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


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3. "One of the most common questions that I hear people say through my years of just walking with people through the journey of life and honoring God is this, how can I know the will of God? It's a great question, right? Because we're saying, I want to do what he wants me to do. So it might be a job opportunity. It might be which car do I buy? It's do I move to this community or that community? All sorts of decisions that we make and we want to honor the Lord, right? So we ask that question, like what is the Lord's will? But sometimes it can be a little bit confusing." ([00:37:23] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


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4. "And if we're honest, at times, if we really want to do something, we can manipulate circumstances to help God's will align with our desires. Not that I've ever done that. Like the guy who walked or driving by a donut shop, and he just felt, he's on a diet, but he just said, God, if it's your will, if it's your will, as I drive, it's a very popular donut shop. It's always packed. If there's an open parking spot, I will know that it's your will that I enjoy some of these gifts from heaven." ([00:38:21] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


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5. "I've been guilty. Sometimes the will of God isn't as clear as we'd like it to be. Next Monday night on November 11th, Mary's going to be teaching on how do you discern the will of God. And if you're not able to be there, it'll be a post on a line like all of her messages as well. Or if you're a guy, it's only for women that night. But sometimes the will of God is tough to discern, confusing. But other times, it's crystal clear. In fact, there are times in the Bible where it just says, it is God's will that, and it fills in the blank for us." ([00:39:05] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


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6. "Paul's saying here, there's consequences. Consequences. And it's interesting, he mentions the Trinity as a whole here. He says that each member of the Trinity, look, what he does here in these, in verses six to eight, if you see there, I'll just say in the bullet points, but he says, in the future, we face discipline from the Lord Jesus if we violate sexual guardrails, that we also violate the Father's plan for us from the past when he says he's called you to live a holy life." ([01:02:12] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


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7. "And then in the present, we're rejecting the work of the Holy Spirit who lives in us, that this is the place that we become the temple of God, and I want to be at home in me, not just as a guest, but as the owner, and so whatever I do in this body, I do with Jesus, right? It's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, he says, don't you realize, he's talking about sex, and he says, don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God? You don't belong to yourself, for God bought you at the high price, so you must, what?" ([01:03:00] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


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8. "Honor God with your body. That's powerful. You know what that means? Whatever I do with my body, I'm doing with the house of God. Whatever I do with my body, I'm doing with the house of God, because this body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Again, I think the enemy goes, oh, come on, that is, how can Paul say stuff like this? I mean, it feels so dated. This is like a first century kind of, and Paul would respond as he does in verse 2. He'd say, these instructions we're giving you are straight from the Lord Jesus." ([01:03:16] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


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9. "He repeats, again, in verse 8, he goes, therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction doesn't just reject a human being, but God. Like this is a word from, this isn't Jonathan. If someone left here and says, well, you know, Jonathan said that, no, no. Paul's saying this is a word from God because he loves you and this is for our own good. Let's address the elephant in the living room here. I said it before, we all have a measure of brokenness. Maybe a deep wound from someone else's behavior. Maybe you were abused as a child." ([01:03:47] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


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10. "Maybe it was my own behavior and we have this big hole in our heart. And so whenever we talk about this topic, the enemy just, I mean, he just loves to whisper accusations in our ear, right? I can almost hear him doing that right now. He's like, oh, you are a miserable failure. Look what you've done. Do you hear what he's saying? You have so messed up, there's no hope for you. Just don't tell anybody about this and just keep on living this way because it's not gonna change and you know it. Can we just be real clear? That's a lie, an absolute lie from the pit of hell." ([01:04:27] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


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