Shane Idleman addresses the critical issue of unconfessed sin within the church, emphasizing that a lack of desire for worship indicates a spiritual heart problem. He draws parallels between the sin of Achan in the Old Testament and the contemporary church, asserting that unrepentant sin acts like cancer, affecting the entire body of Christ. Idleman stresses the importance of church discipline and confronting sin lovingly to restore individuals and the community, warning that ignoring sin only leads to greater destruction. He encourages self-examination and repentance, reminding the congregation that true worship and spiritual growth cannot occur while harboring sin. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a return to God and a commitment to holiness within the church.

You know, I don't know if this is the Lord or myself, so let me just preface it with that. But if you don't like extended worship and a lot of what we were just doing and waiting on the Lord, then your heart is not in a good spot spiritually. And I just feel compelled to share that with you. You don't have to raise your hands and things like that, but if you're in a hurry through worship and you're just, this is boring, and Jesus, yeah, blah, blah, blah, your heart's in a very bad spot. It's not in a good spot spiritually. I'm just shooting you straight, because the heart that's crying out for God should want to worship. It should want to just wait on God and not be in a hurry. And if we're not wanting that, then I just feel compelled to tell you, you know, take it to God, because He's wanting to work something out in your heart, and you're not allowing that to happen, because worship is the first step in the right direction. If you can't worship God, the Word of God will not penetrate your heart to the degree it can. He won't make change in your life to the degree He wants to. Judgmentalism, arrogance, pride, none of those things will be dealt with unless worship comes first. And I just feel that. I feel that here in this church, that there's a lot of people worshiping, but there are people who could care less, and they want the songs to hurry up and just get through this. And I'm just here to tell you, maybe that's the sermon, that there's something wrong with your heart. And take it to God and just ask for clarity on that. With that said, here is going to be an interesting sermon series called Sin in the Camp. I don't know how many people are going to come back next week now that we're talking about this. But we're going to talk about sin in the camp in September. And I thought it would be one sermon, but it's going to turn into three or four or five. And it's about church discipline or sin in the church. How do you handle that? Do you just look the other way? Or do you just beat people up with the truth? What exactly do you do? And we found that, not just at this church, but all churches, sin is like cancer. And what I'm talking about here is unconfessed sin. If it was just sin in general, we'd all be in trouble. We need His grace every single day. And if you come up and say, I don't have any sin in my life, well, pride, there you go. That's probably the number one. And John says, if he who says he doesn't have sin is lying. But I'm talking about unconfessed, unrepentant sin that the church is allowing to continue. And it's like cancer to the body. And what we're going to do is we're going to answer the why, the what, the when, the where, and the how. Why church discipline or why sin in the camp? Why this sermon series? What exactly is it? When does it take place? Where and how? And I want to kind of go through that over the next few weeks because it happens. It's happening now too in the media. Ashley Madison, have you heard of that website? Scandal kind of thing that some hackers got into it and they found out all these people who were cheating on their spouse and it was just brought to the light. Now churches are scrambling on, oh, no, what are we going to do? And it's everywhere. It's those kind of things. It's sin in the camp. It's sin in the church. And what I mean by sin in the camp is you can pull it from Joshua chapter 6, 7, 8, 9, right in there. And Israel was going into battle. And God said, listen, when you go into that city, do not take the accursed thing. Do not take the wicked things. Do not take the abominations. Don't take any of those things, the gold, the clothing, the different things. Well, a man by the name of Achan, guess what he took? A whole bunch of that stuff. And he hid it and nobody knew about it. And then he took it back to the camp. And then when Israel went back into battle, they lost. They lost very badly. It cost many, many lives. And Joshua and the men fell on their face before God. And they said, Lord, what is going on? You said you would grant us a victory in these areas. And we just lost a lot of men. And God said, there's sin in the camp. You have to remove the sin in the camp or I won't be with you. And that's kind of where that whole theme comes from. And obviously we don't live in the Old Testament, but the New Testament church, it still applies that if the church, if we know something is going on that's pretty significant and we just look the other way hoping it disappears, that's not the heart of God. Because it rarely disappears. I've never seen sin dealt with with good intentions only. Usually there has to be some hurt, right? Some exposure. Something has to take place in order for change to take place. So on one hand, this is going to be very encouraging for those who are open for this. And the church is a hospital for sinners, but it's not a nightclub. So we are a hospital for sinners. That's what we deal with. We understand that grace and mercy and love. But it doesn't mean that we just allow whatever to take place. Especially when we know of something. And A.W. Tozer reminds us, he said, and I love this quote, where does Christianity destroy itself in a given generation? He's asking, where does Christianity destroy itself in every generation? It destroys itself by not living in the light, by professing a truth it does not obey. And that's why I want to talk about sin in the camp. The first question, why? Why talk about it? Well, number one, it deeply affects the church. It deeply affects the church and it will deeply affect your family. There are ripple effects of sin and allowing it and turning the other way. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5-6, do you not know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? So a little yeast, a little sin, a little leaven. And let's not necessarily think corporately right now, the church, let's think in our own individual lives. A little sin left unchecked doesn't just go away. You know what it does? It starts to affect everything. That's why God says, confess it and repent and bring it to me. Confess it and repent. We say, I don't want to do that. This is my one little vice. Nobody really knows about. And it doesn't stay one little vice. It grows teeth. And arms and legs and it devours. So that's why it's very important. The church is referred to the body of Christ throughout the Bible. And sin is like cancer to the body. That's how it acts. Cancer, I don't know if you know, but it starts like as a single cell. And it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows until it consumes the life of the person. And that's how sin can work in the church if it's not dealt with. But I came across the article this week by David Wilkerson. He found a teen challenge. And he wrote something interesting on this topic about the church in Galatia that I just quoted about the little yeast that works through the whole batch of dough. Here's what Galatians 5.7 says in his commentary. You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. And here's what he says. Paul is asking what in your life keeps you from going on in the full blessing of Christ? You were doing so well at one time. I know you to be a praying people and you labor diligently to do good works, but something is wrong. I don't see you growing anymore. Instead, you've gone back to relying on your flesh. I don't sense the sweet aroma of Christ you once had. Something is hindering you. What could have persuaded you to settle in this condition? Whatever it is, I tell you, it's not of God. Something is clouding you. Something is holding you back. I know many Christians today who once were mightily used of God. These people were devoted, praying, believing saints, but then something happened to them that somehow caused them to be hindered from experiencing the fullness of the blessing of Christ. Often that hindering leaven was a single besetting sin. To all such people, Paul asks, what happened? What hinders the flow of Christ's blessing in your life? What leaven has crept in? And I think that's important to ask because a lot of times, you know, we don't address this issue. Think about this for a minute. Why is it so important to talk about this topic? Because chances are, you're not going to hear it anywhere else. Many of us, our close friends are too caught in their own sin to challenge us. Or we all want to be light, don't we? We don't want to challenge anybody. We want to be light. And if people post things on Facebook that we don't like, we just unfollow them. As soon as I'm convicted, unfollow. As soon as I'm convicted, bye-bye. No more friends. We remove the conviction. The media fuels sin. The leadership of our country encourages it, and the churches avoid it. So where else are we ever going to hear this? We've become very good at avoiding conviction. Do you realize that? We've become very good at avoiding conviction. If a person dares to challenge us, we dilute the conviction by saying you're legalistic, you're judgmental, and you're arrogant. Have you noticed that? We just dilute the conviction. So we don't hear these kind of things very often, so we live in this bubble of failing to turn from our sin and be convicted because we're rarely challenged on anything. So that's why this is vitally important. And let me tell you something that's helped me a lot. I haven't quite mastered it yet, and I haven't submitted to it yet, but it's true. If someone who cares for you challenges you, there's probably something to it. Did you catch that? I didn't fly under the radar. If somebody who cares for you challenges you about something, there's probably something to it. And we want to be open to that, but so many people are, no, you're just being judgmental. You're just being arrogant. Remove the plank from your own eye. Who are you to judge me? Who are you to judge me? I'm not, but the Word of God is. We can look to the Word of God and say, what does God's Word say about this? Because here's the truth. There is something, everything's the truth, right? But let's just, where the rubber meets the road, I've got to be careful saying that. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. I like what Duncan Campbell said. How is it that while we make such great claims for the power of the gospel, we see so little of the supernatural in operation? How is it that we make such great claims for the gospel, but we see so little of the supernatural in operation? We read about healing and deliverance and God's work and the Spirit of God moving and people getting saved, but we don't see any of it. It's almost like a cemetery. We read about it, but we never experience it. Because a lot of times when I talk about the passion of God, the worshiping God and praying for an hour or two or three, people are like, oh man, that guy's out of his mind. But really, is it? We're not seeing miracles. You're not seeing people delivered. You should be able to walk into stores and around the mall, different places in the Spirit of God beyond you, and you can be able to discern things and pray for people and make wise decisions and live in that Spirit-filled life. But something is missing. Something is missing from the lives of most people. How do I know? Because we have a dead religion, a dead Orthodox. We know the Bible, but we've never experienced it. And that's what I think he's getting at here, a little bit of leaven, a little bit of sin, and we allow it to grow and grow and grow, and it begins to consume our spiritual life. Sin diminishes the work of the Spirit. Praise and worship are stifled. Is your praise and worship ever stifled? Is your praise and worship stifled tonight? This could be why. Why, I haven't done anything bad. Did you know that judgmentalism and bitterness is just as bad as any other sin in the Bible? Bitterness and judgmental and complaining and bickering? That's why the children of Israel didn't get to go into the Promised Land initially. I think sometimes we forget about sins of the heart and how that prevents genuine worship. Spiritual growth is halted. When sin takes over and sin is consuming you and you're trying to hide it and it's a besetting sin, it will halt your spiritual growth. One way a person grows spiritually is by repenting and getting back on track and applying the Word of God. Applying the Word of God, growing and maturing, and they're growing and they're growing in this. But without doing that, it can halt spiritual growth. Joy and peace are nowhere to be found. Sin in the camp is a heavy weight of bondage that affects every area of life. So that's why there needs to be a series on this. That's why we need to talk about this. Because this is destroying the nation. This is destroying the church. This is destroying families. This is it. If you get to the heart of all problems, guess what's underneath it? Three-letter word. Sin. So the very thing we need to confront, the very thing we need to remove, the very thing we need to talk about and expose is the thing that people don't want to mention. So I think that's why the church is in a lot of the state it's in. Not that we should come out and yell at people and this, but we should lovingly confront the cancer that it's consuming and help to remove it. The Bible actually says that we're to expose the unfruitful works of darkness. Expose them. Paul goes on to say, don't join in with them, don't remain silent, but expose those unfruitful works of darkness. So let me read real quick Joshua in the sin in the camp theme here that I'm on. Joshua 7 I believe verse 10. So the Lord said to Joshua, Get up. Why do you lie thus on your face? Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I command them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things and have stolen and deceived, and they have also put it among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore unless you destroy the accursed thing from among you. That's a pretty serious warning. God's saying, I'm not going to be with you anymore children of Israel unless you destroy the accursed thing. So it definitely begs the question, why doesn't God just judge the person? Why does the whole camp need to be dealt with? Well he did judge the person. It was a very sad deal there with Achan and his family and they went out and stoned his whole family. And there's a ripple effect to our sin. Fathers, do you understand that? Mothers, there's a ripple effect. Our sin affects the whole family. We don't just live in a box. There's a ripple effect. And the same thing in the church. The church can be so broken because we're not dealing with this issue that it can affect the body in a very powerful way. And God often uses exposure to turn the person back to Him. So God exposed the sin of Achan to turn the children of Israel back to Him. And that's really the application we can get from this, the first step, is exposure, confession, repentance, and then seek God. Exposure, because most people are not going to change without being exposed. Right? Have you ever met a crack addict that stopped because he had good intentions? Have you met anybody addicted to anything that said, I really need to stop. I know I need to. Rarely, ever. It's not until the spouse says, I'm leaving. Or the judge says, 60 days. Or the, you know, there's exposure. There's pain. Because we don't change if there's no pain. So stop fighting the pain. And say, Lord, help me use this pain in a powerful way. I need this pain to point me back to you. So God often uses exposure. So that's the point of church discipline, or exposing this area, is you go to the person and you expose it. You bring it up, and you say, listen, this is hurting you. This is hurting your family. You expose it so that change can take place. And in the New Testament, we're not yet in Matthew 18. That's where I'm actually at, Matthew 18. And that's why I'm talking about sin in the camp, because Matthew 18 is about church discipline, how to confront a sinning brother. What's the process in all that? But I'm building up to that. But it's interesting, 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote in chapter 5, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And such sexual immorality as not even named among the Gentiles. In other words, there's more sexual immorality in the church than is among the Gentiles. And Paul's rebuking this church. And he says that a man has his father's wife, and you are puffed up. He's rebuking the church. You're puffed up, church. You see, that's interesting right there. By not saying anything, and by saying, well, let's just allow the guy, you know, we just want to minister to him, there's grace and forgiveness. Paul's saying, you're puffed up, you're arrogant. So I think of all those churches out there who don't want to say anything about sin. They don't want to confront, no, let's just let them come, we just need to love them, we need to show them support, and that's all true. But at some point, if you don't confront that destructive lifestyle, God says, that's arrogant. That's arrogant, and silence can be arrogant. So the churches that think they're so humble, because they don't say anything negative, they don't ever confront sin, God says, you're actually prideful, you're puffed up, because you won't confront this area. Paul says, you're puffed up, you should have mourned, and that he who has done this deed might be taken away from you, for I indeed, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have already judged, as though I were present. I've judged this man who's done this deed. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. And I'll be able to talk about that a little bit more next week, but what you're doing there, is you're exposing it. In other words, if somebody, I don't know, I can't even think of, I don't want to use an example that might apply here, so you've got to be careful. So you're talking about me. But if somebody, if we know somebody, and they're going through, they're separated, and the spouse brings their boyfriend or girlfriend to church, that's not going to continue very long, before the church should say something, right? They have the audacity to bring in their boyfriend or girlfriend to church, while their spouse is at home wanting restoration. And that does happen. That's what he's talking about. Listen, you're puffed, and the church says, hey man, that's not my problem, you know, let's just love them, let's just hope God's changed your heart. He says, you're proud, you're arrogant. Actually, church, you're a coward. That's the truth. We're a coward when we don't confront these things. Would I want to confront that situation? My flesh would say, no, no, no, don't do that. But the Spirit says, how dare you? How dare you bring her or him to church when this is happening? We cannot allow it. Because we have to understand something. Somebody caught in this is living a lie. They're living a lie. Their lifestyle is a lie. They've bought into a lie. They think they're God's gift to Christians, and they can do whatever they want. The rules don't apply to them. So the person's living a lie, and my silence only reinforces the lie. So if we say nothing, if I just, hey, how's it going? Good, good, and they're just praising the Lord, and there's his girlfriend sitting with him, and week in and week out, and I don't say anything, I'm reinforcing that behavior. But if I get the whistle out, right, referee? Hold on, what's going on here? Oh, this is Kim from work, and we're kind of, no, you're not. You're not doing that here. You're out of line. You're a coward. You need to man up and go back to your, and that's the church's response, is to confront that. That's the whole point of this, because the person's living a lie, and when you expose it, it's like a slap in the face. That woke some of you up? So do that again closer to the mic. That's what it does. It's like, whoa, wait a minute. Throwing ice into the face, you know, situation. It wakes them up. That's the point of this whole passage here. And here's just a few things I want to take from 1 Corinthians 5. Sexual sin is destructive. If a person is not disciplined here, they are not disciplined in other areas. So the enemy targets sexual perversion. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but I want to highlight this. This is an area that most church disciplinaries result in. This is where most sin results from, is sexual sin. That's where the enemy works. It's a sin against the body. Paul goes on to say in chapter 6 to flee it, and it's a sin against the body. All other sins are outside the body, but sexual sin is a sin against the body. What it does, it brings in compromise. You're not disciplined in other areas of life, and the enemy uses that as a foothold. So Paul's saying here, you've got to deal with this, especially sexual sin. The truth in love is like a sledgehammer to the heart and a blow to the head. Is that what the truth in love is? It's like a sledgehammer to the heart to speak the truth in love. So when God talks about confronting sin, it's not to come across as judgmental and arrogant. It's to let the person know, hey, you just took this up another notch. This is not right. And you lovingly confront them, and you challenge them. And that's the whole point behind it. Now here's the good news. The person confesses, repents, and turns to God. What's the bad news? I would love to tell you that's always the case. But often that's rarely the case. Because people come in with pride and arrogance. And how dare you? And who are you to judge? You don't know my story. You don't know about me. You don't know what's going on. No, I don't, but I know what the Scripture says. But see, if that doesn't happen, we at least conveyed the heart of God in the matter. See, it's not up for me for the person to change. That's not my job to make the person change. But if they don't change, then I at least conveyed the heart of God in the matter and said, this is not right. You're hurting your family. You're hurting your relationship with the Lord. You're hurting this church. You're hurting me. You're allowing this. And you bring it to light, and that's the heart of God on this matter. And my job is done. Now, what about if they continue to keep coming? They say, I don't care what you say. Or they continue in this sin. And that's what we want to talk about through the Matthew 18 process next week, is how exactly does this work? How do you confront somebody that's caught in sin? Because you know this happens, right? Quite often that a person will be confronted. Somebody will go to them, and nothing will happen. Then the Bible says to bring a witness or two witnesses or some people from the church, and then they still don't want to listen. There's a process there. And the reason there's a process there, I believe, is we see this in the heart of God. He's gracious. He's loving. He's warning. Not that anybody should perish. There's a subtlety there. Hey, go to the person. If they won't hear you, take witnesses. If they won't hear you, take the church. Take others. If they won't hear you, then they need to be treated as a heathen and a tax collector. They need to feel the pain that they're causing. That's the point. The whole point of church discipline is restoration, not punishment. The end result is not punishment. The whole point of this type of process is restoration. Because people don't change until they're hurt. If you tell an alcoholic, you're ruining your family. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. And the next week, nothing changes. Nothing changes. But if they start to lose their job, they start to lose friendships, they start to lose their spouse, the kids say, Mommy, Daddy, I can't even look at you anymore. You're a disgrace to me. I don't want to see you. Then that hurts. From those tears, from that pain, then change can take place. Without that exposure and change, we rarely change. What we'll say is, I'm sorry. I know. A week goes by. I'm sorry. I know. I've got to work on that. I'm sorry. I know. I'm sorry. After 10 years of saying that, somebody finally says, No more. Because we also don't want to be an enabler. You know what an enabler is? It's when you allow somebody to continue in a destructive lifestyle by either supporting them financially or with your home. We see this a lot. Spouses do this. It's no problem. They're forgiving. Spouses are forgiving, and thank God for that. But there comes a point when you need to say, You're moving out. There's a doghouse out back. You heard that phrase before. We need to separate. People say, I can't believe you're promoting divorce. I'm not promoting divorce. Did I say the word divorce? I said the word separate. Because when somebody says, You need to move out, you're hurting the family. That distance and that time away begins to sink in. They begin to feel the pain they've caused. They begin to see that, You know what? This is not what I want. And you have to feel that pain. If not, you would just kind of enable them. And I know that's a little controversial. I know people don't agree with that. But I will tell people from time to time that you need to separate. You need to tell him or her they need to find a place to live because they are destroying you and your family and your marriage and you're not going to allow this to happen. They need to feel that pain. I'm not talking about divorce. I'm not talking about finding somebody new. I'm talking about separation. And often that's when God works. Because when you're sitting in an empty house, then you'll listen. Then you'll listen. And there's nobody coming home to you. There's no dinners being cooked. There's no kids running around. You're feeling the pain of what you're causing. And that's often when change takes place. Because we have to feel that. So that's the point of this. It's restoration. It's not punishment. It's not to belittle. It's not to hurt. It's restoration. That's the ultimate hope. And I've seen this a lot of times. You'll confront somebody. We've confronted people. I've been confronted. Did you know that? Yeah, over the last 20 years, I've been confronted. And I was not happy the first time. Sometimes I was and I was ready for it, but often I wasn't. But then the days go by and you begin to think about it and the pride begins to be chiseled away and God begins to humble you. Then you go back to a person and say, you know what, you were right. But I needed that initial shock to get me going in that direction. So when I confront people lovingly, sometimes I'm very surprised if it goes good initially. I'm very surprised. Usually it results in a slam door and some curse words and okay, well, there you go. But you have to plant that seed. You have to plant the seed with the person. Because again, if somebody truly cares for you, they'll tell you what you need to hear. They'll tell you. They'll come to you and say, listen, usually we don't want to hear it. Why? Because of pride. That's why I said so many times, pride is the last sin to leave and the first to return. Pride prevents so many different things. And Paul said, if you are puffed up, why are you puffed up? Have you not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you and delivered to Satan? Well, there's so much here, but let me just say this. By delivering to Satan, what he's saying here is when you remove somebody from fellowship, they go from fellowship to isolation. It's pretty dramatic. And you're not to shun them and oh, act weird, but hey, you're no longer under the church covering. We no longer can come alongside of you and you've done a lot of damage. We need to deliver you, turn you over to Satan. What that basically means is turn the flesh over to the demonic activity that he's already invested in and let it run its course. Let Satan, because God will begin to strip away things from a person's life. Ask an addict. How often do they remain a CEO of a Fortune 500 company? Not very long. They begin to lose things and lose things and other people begin to lose things. And I often wonder how many of our problems are self-created? That's not going to win me a popularity contest. Have you ever thought about that? How many of our problems are self-created from this issue, from what we're talking about? We've got so many excuses. We want to blame everybody except what God might be. God might be stripping things away. He stripped things away from my life before. Money, this, that, time, possessions, this, that. And he'll strip things away because that often draws us back to him. So don't despise the Lord's belt. The sooner you embrace it, the less spankings will come. Because he knows, a loving Father knows, listen, you're not going to turn back unless you begin to experience some of this pain. It's amazing how quick I've seen people one day have a job, the next day not, and they become very good at praying. You spent two hours in prayer this morning, had they not lost their job, they would have never, they're too busy for God. I'll say a five-minute prayer while I'm driving. But you see how God takes that job from you, you become a very good prayer warrior. You'll have your own war room. So it's kind of sad that he has to take things from us sometimes or get us in a spot of humility and brokenness before we'll finally cry out. So that's why, why did I say all that? To say this, that's one of the points of church discipline or confronting sin in the camp is for that person to realize, to start the restoration process. Because I know, I've seen people, and you have too, if you don't say anything, they'll just keep doing it. They'll just continue and they'll just continue until unless you finally say something. But I know we're running short on time. I've got quite a bit to cover and I'll do that in the next few weeks. But instead of thinking of the church corporately right now, I want to think just for a minute individually. Let's look at individually and help us remove the plank from our own eyes. Paul gives us a checklist that is very important. 1 Corinthians 6, he says, don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? And let me say up front, Paul's saying the unrighteous. If a person is not in right relationship with God, they will not inherit the kingdom of God, the unrighteous. And then he's going to say, I don't want you to be deceived. Here's the fruit of that type of lifestyle. He says, not fornicators, nor idolaters, nor idolaters, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revelers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. But then here comes God's grace, but such were some of you. Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by His Spirit. And these are really the things when it comes to church discipline. These are the things we have to watch out for. Even this checklist is a very good thing. He says, neither fornicators. Do you know how abhorrent sex outside of marriage is when it comes to determining, when it comes to God and knowing His will? God says, I abhor sexual immorality. These are strong words, but that's what He says. And I would tell anybody that's caught in that that you are mocking God. If you are continuing to come to church and do this and come to church and do this, you are mocking God. You are cheap grace. You are playing with His mercy and His grace. And it will not set up your marriage for a successful marriage down the road. It will not. It cannot. Because the marriage is being built on deception from the beginning. It's being built on not hearing God's voice from the beginning. And so many couples caught in this, they wonder, what's God's will for my marriage? You won't know it. Sexual immorality clouds your vision. Now, if it's happened, guess what? There's mercy. There's grace. God says, just repent and come home. And I want to encourage you. I didn't talk about this in the first service, but it's not a secret that a lot of people in the church are dealing with or have dealt with sexual sin. I mean, that's a pretty biggie. And I want to just encourage you that God wants us to give it to Him and return to Him and say, Lord, my past is so ugly, I can't even talk about it. I don't even know half the times where I woke up. I don't know. But if He says, bring it to me, bring it to the cross, that's where there's forgiveness, no longer slaves, all the songs we sing about, redeemed up from the ashes. Just bring it to the cross. Don't let the devil condemn you and keep beating you up and beating you up. Yeah, it was, you've got a long sin list, so do I. But God says, take it to the cross. Let sexual sin be cleansed. Just come to me again and let me renew your mind, renew your hope. See, past sexual experiences can't be reversed, but your heart and your mind can be renewed. That's very powerful. You can get back into God's mercy and center of His grace. Don't live in disappointment and despair. Here's how the enemy works. He'll constantly condemn you and condemn you and condemn you so you continue in the thing that's destroying you. That's the whole point of condemnation. You get a person hooked on drugs, they've been doing good for a few months, and he starts condemning them, and they'll say, I can't beat this, I'm no good, I'm a loser, I've done too much damage, I've ruined my family. Yep, that's right, you sure have, you sure have. There's a dealer right there on Beach Avenue in Avenue I. I bet he's there right now. And he takes you right back into the addiction, right back. So that's how he uses condemnation against you. So when you can sing those songs, and that's why you see some people get a little excited when they're singing No Longer Slaves because they can relate. They can relate to those lyrics. I'm no longer a slave of fear, I'm no longer a slave of sexual immorality, I'm no longer, Lord you have freed me from these things. My mind is being set free. So just let me encourage you that many of us don't have a very good past. But God says, don't live in that condemnation and guilt, take it to the cross. So that's why you should be worshiping during worship. You should be excited. And if you are engaging in that, I would encourage you to repent and turn back to him because it will never bless your relationship. You can never continue in that and God bless your relationship. Actually it will bring on disappointment, it will bring on despair. You'll go into the marriage with mistrust. It doesn't build the marriage, it hurts it. Because if you couldn't remain pure with me, someone you love, what makes me think you're going to remain pure while we're married? You can't. So it's all the way around a fornication. We think of this word, oh that's a weird word. Well, God says if you do this outside of marriage, you are not going in a good direction. Idolatry, putting other things before God. Adultery, we all know what that is, cheating on a spouse or going in the direction of cheating on a spouse. Do you know you can cheat on your spouse up here? Oh, you didn't know that, did you? It starts here. It all starts here. You can be having, your whole mindset can be just fantasies and thinking somebody is not your spouse and cheating on them and committing adultery. What do you think pornography is? Oh, that's just a little vice. No, that's adultery. I'm pretty sure that's adultery. Shane, come on. Well, somebody said if you even look at a woman to lust with her, in your eye, you've committed adultery in your heart. And I read that, Jesus said that, by the way. I'm wondering how many people are in adultery in the church and they just don't even know it. We just think we're so good. I've never done that. You know what we should do? Everybody leave your phone on your way out. Let me check your web history. I deleted that next week. Oh, there's ways around it. You can call your server. I can get records for the last year. I mean, this is where the rubber meets the road. How many, we're continuing in besetting sin. We're continuing because we're not being confronted. We're not being challenged in this area. Adultery is homosexuality we've talked about before. Sodomites is prostitution, male prostitution, male homosexuality. And see, this is a loving father saying these things are wrong. We can say adultery is wrong, fornication is wrong, homosexuality. We can say all those things. It's not hate. It's nothing to do with hate. We love you. This is not a good lifestyle. God says it, not me. So you better enjoy this right now because they're probably gonna come out pretty soon with this current administration and remove Corinthians and Romans from the Bible. Or come out with the user friendly version of the Bible that doesn't talk about any of this stuff and I can tell you what, that would be the end of Christianity because nobody will change. There's no conviction. There's no confronting. What about thieves? North thieves. People lie and they manipulate all the time. Covetous, wanting things of others. Drunkards, has to do with drugs and alcohol on a lifestyle that embraces this. God is not pleased with that. Or revelers. A reveler, you know what a reveler is? It's a spirit of dissension. A spirit of dissension. You know that person who just can't, they're not quite with you. They give you a hug with that six inch blade on the other side. Dissension. I like West Side, but it's kind of cultish. That kind of person. They're always trying to bring a little dissension in there. They're just sneaky about it. They're dissenting. God says, I hate that. I hate one who shows discord among the brethren. That's what a reveler is. They revel in dissension. They want to create controversy. Then they'll find the right person to fuel it. It's real easy to stop. You just say, don't talk to me about that kind of stuff. Only positive things. Nor extortioners. That's just using your force or intimidation or manipulation. They will not inherit the kingdom of God. So I just want, before I get into this whole series tonight, is we have to look at our own heart. Let's not look at sin in the camp first. Let's look at sin in my heart first. Our hearts first before we move into the series. I did something interesting. I put together a list. I've been wanting to work on a book about addiction. There's so many people, from everything from alcohol to Oxycontin to marijuana to, you name it, heroin and all these different things. But I put down a list and I want others to put down a list. Think about this. Write down all the cons. You know what pros and cons are? Pros are the good things. Cons are the bad things. Make a list of everything this is costing you. Make a list of all the cons. It might go something like this. Foolish decisions. Sexual sin. Regrets. Abortion. Vehicles that have been totaled. Doing jail time. DUIs. Passing out when you should be guarding your children. Destroying your body. Poisoning it. Destructive words and actions. Harming your marriage and your children. You can actually see the pain in your kids' eyes. Adultery. Porn addiction. Loss of income. Loss of a job. Broken relationships. Broken family relationships. The filling of the spirit vanishes. Depression and fear dominate. Many, many, many extra problems and challenges because of this. Idolatry. We come to church mocking God. Tarnishes the gospel. Shames Christ in our character. And it destroys our devotional and prayer life. That's the cons. Do you know what the pro is? There's a pro to sin? Yeah, just one. The Bible says, sin feels good for a season. But when that season is over, there's hell to pay. So we give up so much for so little. Write out all the cons. Write out all the cons. Everything that's costing you. And then right next to it, put the little pro because it feels good. That's the only reason we do things. Gossip, it just feels good. I've got to say stuff about other people. Backbiting, slander, sexual sin, addiction. That's the only pro. So you put there, it feels good, but it's destroying everything else. Everything else is leading to destruction. Everything. Your walk with God. Your relationship with others. Your health. Everything. It's costing everything. And you look at that list and you say, is it worth it? Is it worth it? Absolutely not. Yet God is gracious. That's the whole point here. Return to me and I will return to you. And there's a song we're going to sing next. The lyrics say something like this. I'll walk through the fire with my head lifted high and my spirit revived in your story. And I'll look to the cross as my failure is lost in the light of your glorious grace. So my point is not to beat you up and have you leave here humiliated. My point is to lift you up and say, listen, this is costing too much. The cons are too much. We need to take it to the cross. We need to take it to worship and let God's glorious grace change us and fill us afresh. And that's where this can start. And then we can talk about sin in the camp. But first we have to talk about sin in our own heart and getting our hearts right before God. And did you know any time you'll experience personal revival, maybe sometimes I feel like people don't know what I'm talking about, but what I'm talking about when you read the Word of God and you just, joy you've never felt before and tremendous peace and the Word of God just comes alive and worship you don't want to stop and you're ministering to others and God's Spirit and His power and you're living the Spirit filled life and you want that and then sin comes in and kills it. And then many people live in that state and they never come out of it again. They live in that state of depression and despair and God I believe wants us to come out and turn to Him and look to Him.