It's never too late to do the right thing!

"It's never too late to do the right thing!"
INTRODUCTION:

Welcome everyone one, introduce myself and Liz, if you have any questions, at the end, if we have time, we will try our best to answer them and PRAY.

The title of our talk is, “It’s never too late to do the right thing.” Let me premise this by saying, “It’s always better to do the right thing first!” It’s always better to learn from other people’s mistakes and failures, not to make your own…Maturity is learning what not to do, from those who have done, what not to do!

We were asked in a nice way as you can see from the title of our talk to share with you the good, the bad and the ugly from our past dating relationships, which means we are the couple with the best relationship horror stories to tell. (And yes, I did go to the prom with the girl I asked from jail, don’t ask me why she said yes, but she did.)

And it is true; we do have a couple stories to tell, because before I met Christ and then finally my wife, I was a dating catastrophe. As you will hear in a few moments, I messed up big time in a lot of ways, but God through his grace, His undeserved favor, gave me a second chance to do the right thing, so our war stories might be gory, well maybe not gory, but at least funny, but have a supernatural ending.

Since hindsight is always 20/20 (meaning when you look back on the past it is perfectly clear) you will see the power of God that was at work in and through our stories in such a way that when it came time for Liz and I to become life long partners in Kingdom service, our past pain and failures are being used to advance the Kingdom of God.

EARLY YEARS
I am a native to the state known as the arm pit of America. Does anybody know what state that is? New Jersey. I grew up in a multi-ethical city called Bloomfield, which bordered Newark, New Jersey. I grew up in your typical divorced family. My brother and I lived with my father at my grandparents house, but my grandparents were primarily the ones who took care of us…We attended the Catholic church pretty regularly…so when your grandparents take care of you…that means there are no rules, regulations, boundaries, curfews, schedules, and little money, but there was a lot of love from them…

ELEMENTARY YEARS
So my brother and I were off to the races at an early age…we began dating in elementary school, which is when we began to get sexually involved with girls…I was never told not to do what we were doing…But I knew one thing, sexual purity was uncool when I was growing up….I thought the goal of life was to be as sexually impure as possible…no one ever told me what was wrong or what was right….All I knew was that I had to have sex as soon as possible….or I was uncool…

HIGH SCHOOL YEARS
I didn’t have sex until was a junior in high school, but I was trying pretty hard…it just so happen that I lost my virginity to the girlfriend of someone real close to me…I would be lying if I told you it was not my brother, but it was, I stole his girl friend, not once but twice...You can see how warped I was, I didn’t even have a sense of commitment to my own brother let alone the girls I was with, but remember I was trying to lose my virginity, that was my goal, so with that as a goal in life, you will do just about anything, some of my friends even compromised in the looks department to do it…so this girl I stole from my brother ended up liking me, but I was interested in other things….



BMX STORY
The only reason I was not as interested as my other friends in being in a long term relationship was because I was into BMX Freestyle riding…my dream in life at the time was to become a professional, so I was willing to do whatever it took….so if it meant turning down all the girls who were chasing after me, I had to make the sacrifice…I was sponsored by the local bike shop, in semi-professional contests where I beat some professionals at the time, went to the best camp in the world, Woodward, road next to Dave Mira, shook Mat Hoffman’s hand, and the kids I road with are now some of the best in the world…But even with all of that going on in my life…I was not satisfied with life...

DRUG YEARS
This whole time I was riding I took it very serious, I was anti-drug, I was drug and alcohol free just like any other athlete who is serious, but remember I was not sex free, but drug free so with those feelings of un-satisfaction I opened the door for my first drink and first drug…I soon began doing more and more drugs and riding my bike less and less…until I stopped riding all together…the disasters of a life of drug addiction was disguised by fun…sin is always fun for a season…my season went too fast and before I knew it I was addicted to drugs…

ARRESTS
The beginning of my drug addiction began in my senior year of High school…that year I was an honor student: Yes your honor, no your honor, I will never do it again your honor!!...This is the time when I got arrested for being a street pharmacist (aka drug dealer)…and I asked my prom date from jail…I knew if I did not do it at that time she would have been taken, so I started to go to the best clubs in New York City…I quite my job and started selling drugs fulltime…I was making more money than some of my friends parents in High School…where there are drugs there are girls…my life became all about mastering the art of the hook up…I thought relationships were all about sex…if she did not put out, then it was time to move on…apparently I was not that good at it because I did not have close to the amount of girls under my belt then my friends…but that did not mean I stopped trying…the more money I made selling drugs the more problems I had…I became my best customer which means I got addicted to the drugs I was selling…the girl who I had lost my virginity to when I was 16 won some money in a law suit and my brother started going out with her again…and guess what I did? I stole her again from him…I did it for the money…so we ended up together, she started doing drugs and for the next 2 and half years, I was in and out of jail 15 times, I got over 30 traffic tickets, two of my best friends died, many of my friends went to jail, some for 10 years, 10 years, 5 years and on, I over dosed once, I think, and finally found myself in jail with a 15,000 cash bail, with no were to turn, the day before I had court my lawyer came to visit me and said, the best we can do is 3 years, all of a sudden my life flashed before my eyes and I said, whatever, went back to my cell and the next day when I went to court to sign the plea bargain, securing my spot in a NJ state prison for the next 3 years..

TEEN CHALLNEGE
My dad came to court on my behalf with an application for Teen Challenge. TC is a Christian drug and alcohol program and before I even got into the court room, my dad made a deal with the prosecutor...and I was off to TC…the TC I went to in Syracuse, NY happened to be the only TC in the country this judge would let people go to…so instead of going to prison for 3 years I went to TC for 1 year…When I went there, after being in jail for 4 months, on my first day I asked what do you do here anyways…The man said, we serve Jesus for breakfast, Jesus for lunch and Jesus for dinner…I told the guy, I am not hungry… for 6 months I resisted and fought against…when I think back….my biggest problem those 6 months with surrendering my life to God was not the drug and alcohol problem, or the stealing problem I had or the anger issues I struggled with, but the sexual ties I made before TC, that was my biggest struggle…I did not want to give up sex for God…I battled with that for months…and when I think back on my life it was my bad choices in that arena that almost caused me to leave the program and go back to jail…but after 6 months of torturing myself, fighting against God’s calling on my life, I surrendered to His plan, I gave up the internal battles I was having, and let him direct me, because the Lord knows, I could not do it myself…
VFCC
Soon after I began to follow Christ, I felt Him calling to follow him in fulltime ministry…He told me I was going to become a pastor who starts lots of churches…so ever since that day in the TC chapel I have been on a mission to do just that…He delivered me from drugs and alcohol, I have never even thought about doing them since that day, which was over 6 years ago, so I figured out I had to go to college and get some kind of training if I was going to become a pastor and church planter, so I applied to one school and got accepted to one school, and that school was VFCC…And do you remember how I said I was a honor student in High School: Yes your honor, no your honor, I will never do it again your honor, well in college I graduated on top of my class with a 4.0…

LIZ’S STORY (From VFCC to Today)

(JESS)—SEXUAL PUITY PROBLEMS IN THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH

There is a church in the Bible that struggled with the same thing we are talking about today...If you think its too late to do the right thing in your life, I want you to hold that thought for a few moments, because if you think its too late for you to get on the right track, then it would have been impossible the Corinthian Church to turn it around and do the right thing. Did you know that the city of Corinth was famous for their sex?...Corinth was a lot like Las Vegas today, but what a bummer to be know for your sex, I guess its better than, being known for CHEESE, like Wisconsin, or maybe not!!!...This city was so sexually immoral that the term “To Corinthenize” means to be sexually immoral…These people were messed up….The apostle Paul came into town and saw a huge ministry opportunity so he started a church….So guess what the churches number one problem was? Can anybody guess? SEX…So Paul got a group, probably with a good majority who struggled with sexual immorality to come to this new church. The reason they struggled some much with sexual purity in this new church was because the other religions in Corinth allowed their congregants to be sexual immortal behavior...They actually thought they were worshipping their many gods by having sex in the temple…Sounds crazy to us today, but back then it was normal, farmers in those days, would pay a temple priests and this priest would bring you to a prostitute and the farmer would have sex with her. What these farmers were doing, was making symbolic statements to their false gods… They were saying, I am your man, I identify with you and so in doing this these farmers believed the god of the sky would send down rain or the god of the ground would make their crops grow… It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to diagnose this problem…They believed sexually immoral behaviors pleased the gods…They thought worshiping god involved sex with a pagan temple prostitutes…Let’s just say, if anyone has reason to think its too late to do the right thing, it would be them…




1 CORINTHIANS 6:12-20
(JOKE) Paul writes them and says, Hi, dudes and dudet’s wake up and smell the coffee! You probably didn’t know Paul talked like that--it’s in the GREEK, just joking!!!! But Paul did say in 1 Cor. 6:12--“Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything.”

1. (LIZ) The Difference Between the “Permissible Question” & the “Beneficial Question”:

I think part of the problem in the Corinthian Church was they were asking the wrong questions. If you ask the wrong questions you will always get the wrong answer. But if you ask the right question, your chances of getting the right answer are now in your favor.
They were asking the PERMISSIBLE QUESTION…The permissible question goes like this…How far is too far? How far can I mess around with my girlfriend/boyfriend and not sin? How close is to close? How close can I go and still be okay? It’s not a bad question, I asked it myself, but I want to suggest the permissible question is the wrong the question to ask.
The better question is what is beneficial for me? The beneficial question is the right question to ask. It goes like this: What is going to most honor God? Sounds easy…Not really…This is the problem we face, because instead of doing what honors God, we find ourselves on the edge of the fence tittering because we went too far. We hung out on the fence too long and fell on the wrong side.
Sometimes we even try to justify our sexual sin and try to rationalize it…I have heard people misquote Jesus to justify their sinful behavior…Most of you probably remember Jesus’ famous stance against mental adultery.
Jesus said, in Matthew 5:27, "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
This is how they rationalize it…They say, if I am thinking it then Jesus says I have already sinned so I might as well go head and do it…That does not make much sense to me…Does that mean if you are angry with your brother or sister and you sin in your heart, should you go and kill them? NO, well at least don’t kill me!!
If you lust in your heart, that is your problem, but if you go and commit phycial adultery now two people are directly involved and most times lots more.
The bottom line is the extent to which you show integrity before marriage is the extent to which you can be trusted after you are married….It’s never too late to do the right thing!



2. (JESS) The Purpose for the “Beneficial Question”:

(THE MESSAGE)—1 Cor. 6:14-15—“God honored Jesus’ body by raising it from the grave. He'll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as Jesus’ body. You wouldn't take Jesus’ body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.”

You might be thinking, why should I ask the beneficial question? Well I’m glad you asked!! The main reason Paul encouraged the Corinthians to ask the beneficial question instead of the permissible question was because of the sin they were committing directly affected their bodies. You might be thinking, what do our bodies have to do with it? Well, again, I am glad you asked!!!! Our bodies have everything to do with sexual purity. I never had a clue before I started to follow Christ that my body was important…I didn’t think what I did in my body mattered to anyone let alone GOD…The thing is, if you don’t see the value God created you with, then it doesn’t matter what I say next because 7 nice little neat action steps that all begin with the same letter, will not make a difference in the world to you…Sexual purity is part of who God created us to be…Lets take a look at God’s plan for your B-O-D-Y.

INTRODUCTION TO THE B-O-D-Y:

(LIZ) (1) BEAR the Image of God!

Genesis 1:26-27 “God said, "Let us make man in our image and in our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

We were created in the “image and likeness” of God…Image and likeness are synonyms that tell us the physical form of our human body bears the divine image of God…We know this is true because in the Ancient Near Eastern culture, archeologists have found an inscription on a statue of an Assyrian king from 1000 B.C with the same words, “image and likeness”…So when something is in the image and likeness of something else, it resembles that something else...A famous example of this is King Tut. His name literally meant “the living image of the god.” Kings reflected the god they represented, so if you wanted to know what a particular god was like, you looked at the king…The same is true for us, His image bearers, when people want to see what God is like they are to look at you and see God…We were created to represent God on earth…Our physical bodies are a reflection of God…Our bodies have a divine purpose on this earth…You reflect GOD-Likeness to the world around you, you carry his message in your body….Sexual purity is more of an issue of our bodies than it is sex….so its never too late to do the right thing!

(JESS) (2) OFFER your body to God!

Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”


The end result of the beneficial question is worship…ALL OF LIFE IS WORSHIP…and since life is experienced through our body…what we do in our body has the potential to worship God or the potential to disgrace God …Our relationships, friendships, and those people we date dating are all part of the “ALL.”
The way we treat our bodies and allow others to treat our bodies has an effect on our ability to worship God because what we do in our bodies will either please or displease God…God designed our bodies so that we can be a living, not dead sacrifice so that we can offer Him our bodies as our spiritual act of worship.
A key phrase in this verse is “in view of God’s mercy”….God’s mercy is what HE has done for us even though we did not deserve it…God’s greatest act of mercy is displayed for us on the cross through the death and resurrection of Jesus…God gave His all that day and so should we do the same in response to God’s mercy.
(STORY) “God wants our bodies, not our money or time…He wants our first, not our last…He wants our best, not our leftovers…I want to share a story I cam across about a Scottish woman who met Queen Mary. (READ) The Queen made it her practice to visit Scotland every year. She was so loved by the people there that she often mingled with them freely without a protective escort. One afternoon while walking with some children, she went out farther than she’d planned. Dark clouds came up unexpectedly, so she stopped at a nearby house to borrow an umbrella. “If you will lend me one,” she said to the lady who answered the door, “I will send it back to you tomorrow.” The woman didn’t recognize the Queen and was reluctant to give this stranger her best umbrella. So she handed her one that she intended to throw away. The fabric was torn in several places and one of the ribs was broken. The next day another knock was heard at the door. When the lady opened it, she was greeted by a royal guard, who was holding in her hand her old, tattered umbrella. “The Queen sent me,” he said. “She asked me to thank you for loaning her this.” For a moment the woman was stunned, then, she burst into tears. “Oh, what an opportunity I missed,” she cried. “I didn’t give the Queen my very best! I want you to ask yourself, are you presenting God "useless umbrellas" or your best? Is Your All on the Altar? Because if its not, it’s never too late to do the right thing!
(LIZ) (3) DEVOTE Your Life to Sexual Purity!
Ephesians 5:3 “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.”
God’s standards are higher than the watered downed standards of the world….He says, “There must not be even a hint of sexual immorality…” One thing I know, God will never set a standard that we could not meet with His help…It is possible to live a life without a hint of sexual immorality…The reason we emphasis, sexual purity here is because your dating relationships will never make it, if both you and your significant other are not pursing sexual purity above all else…Do whatever it takes to be sexually pure!...Don’t ever quit trying…Sometimes you have to be radical when it comes to maintaining sexual purity in an impure society like we live in today...
(JESS) THE CALL TO CUT OFF:
Jesus said some radical things when it came to sin…Listen to this: “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell” (Matthew 5:29-30).
Don’t worry, you don’t have to literally gouge your eyes out or cut off your hands, unless you think it will help!!! Only joking!!! Jesus is speaking metaphorically here, not literally. He has called us to cut off whatever it is that causes us to struggle and/or fall into sin.
If it is Myspace or Facebook, CUT IT OFF, if you are a cyber flirt, CUT IT OFF, if it is the girls at the mall or the guys at school, CUT IT OFF, if it is the clothes you wear, cut it off (not cut them off, but you know what I mean), if it is movies and/or TV shows you watch, CUT IT OFF, if it is pornographic materials you own, CUT IT OFF, if it is the internet, CUT IT OFF.
If you don’t know exactly how to CUT IT OFF, we are going to set you up with a plan of attack….These action points, if applied, can help you CUT IT OFF, before you are cut off by sin.
(JESS) (1) Guard Your Eyes: The battle for sexual purity is won or lost in your mind…Job did something remarkable in the midst of his great suffering….He made a covenant with his eyes… Job 31:1 says, “I made a covenant with my eyes, not to look lustfully at a girl.” If you struggle in this area…don’t worry because most guys do, then I want to encourage you to do the same thing ….Make a covenant between you and God not to look lustfully at anyone…A great trick I learned is to bounce your eyes…Looking is not the problem, but staring is…Bounce your eyes to the ceiling or to the floor, make a habit to bounce your eyes when ever a girl or guy is headed for you…it is not rude to look away…it is better you look away from that person then undress then in your mind…
(LIZ) (2) Get Help: Just as it’s never too late to do the right thing, it’s never too late to get help…Asking for help is a sign of strength not weakness. .Since out enemy, Satan, wants us to be in secret with our sin, He will make us feel like it is a sign of weakness to get help, but the truth is most likely you will not be free until you get help and confess your sin to someone.
(JESS) (3) Share the 10%--It is easy to share with your parents, how your day went at school, or how much money you want so that you can buy a new video game or how many Christmas presents you can’t live without, those surface things make up the 90% of information we give our parents, it is easy to share the 90%, but when it comes to the big issues, the 10%, its hard, like dating, alcohol, drugs, or whatever it is you are struggling with…(ILLUSTRATION)—In High School, my best friend BRUCE, had a drug problem. He had this problem all through high school, and never shared it with his mom, he never shared the 10% and he died from an overdose….Share whatever your 10% is with someone you trust like your parents, your pastor, a teacher. Remembers, it’s never too late to do the right thing!
(LIZ) (4) Re-establish Sexual Boundaries: Some of you might feel like you are too far gone and there is no hope for you, it’s too late to make things right in your relationship… You might think to yourself, how in the world am I ever going to put this one in reverse? You might think just because you have been having sex for a while now with you girlfriend or boyfriend, it is hopeless….Just because it is hard and you failed 10,000 times doesn’t mean you don’t have to establish new boundaries or reestablish your old boundaries…If you have to go cold turkey, you have to do what you have to do, sometimes there is no other way to establish or reestablish boundaries. …We would encourage you to fast so that you can accumulate enough spiritual strength to stand up against this problem….fast whatever you are struggling with because what you feed grows and what you starve dies and if you starve whatever it is that causes that sexual desire, it will eventually die…then have measures in place to handle it after the fast…don’t let the enemy discourage you. . if you fail, confess, repent and keep moving in the right direction…sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is keep trying . . God loves you perfectly before you accepted Him as He does now that you have accepted Him in your life. . God is honored when His children move towards the standards he set because it’s never to late to do the right thing!
(JESS) (4) YOUR Body is a Temple!
1 Corinthians 6:19--“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”
Paul used present tense language. He did not say, do you not know that your bodies “were” temples of the Holy Spirit. He never questioned their salvation despite all the sexual sin they were presently participating in. He said YOU ARE and still are temples of the Holy Spirit and continue to be temples of the Holy Spirit…What I found interesting here is that PAUL compared these sexually impure people to holy temples. This is very significant because a temple was a holy place, a place where gods lived, a place where heaven and earth intersected….The Greek word Paul used for temple here is extremely important. There are two words used for temple in the NT. One describes the outside of the temple, where common people dwell and the other, this word for temple, naos, describes the inside of the temple, where God dwells. They called this place the Holy of Holies. What this means is that our bodies are the HOLY of HOLIES, a place reserved only for God, a place of purity and holiness and each one of us is exactly that. We are the HOLY of HOLIES.
I bet the Corinthian Church had a hard time accepting this teaching for the first time. Remember they did not just sin once in awhile, but they practically turned their church into the PLAYBOY mansion and now they know, their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, the HOLY of HOLIES. I bet they must have felt a tremendous amount of guilt and shame, since they have been mistreating these gifts, their bodies that God had given them….They might have even felt they do not deserve a second chance too do the right thing.
(PICK UP THE BOX & BEGIN RIPPING)
You might be sitting here today, feeling the same way some of the people in the Corinthian church felt, ashamed, guilt, broken, hurt, immoral, you name it I felt it...I too had a hard time accepting this teaching…You might think you can never do it right, or that you can never be pure again because of your past relationships, (RIP), your past sexual experiences (RIP) or even the present relationships you are in (RIP). You might think you don’t even deserve to even do the right thing because you been doing the wrong thing for so long (RIP). You also might be thinking, I understand God gave me my body and yes, I do realize it is a gift from Him, but now, because of all the impure, immoral things you have done, your think your gift is damaged goods (RIP). You also might think, since the gift that GOD gave you, was not protected and because you crossed the line of sexual impurity (RIP) there is no way to put it in reverse and take, the gift, GOD gave you, your body, and live a pure life…I am here to tell you its never too late to do the right thing because….
(OPEN THE BOX)
There is good news for all of us, “With God, failure doesn’t have to be final.” You are a treasured possession in God’s sight. You are pure in His eyes; all of your sin does not change how HE sees you and how He loves you. He never took HIS eyes off you and never will. His hand has been upon you and that is why you are here today. You are PURE in His sight and are valuable in HIS hand. HE has a new gift for each of you. You are valuable and significant. He has cleaned your slate and given each of you a fresh start and anew opportunity awaits each of you to take YOUR gift of purity and from this day forward and use it to worship god and serve others…PURITY is a gift, and each one here is welcomed to a second chance. “With God, failure doesn’t have to be final.” It is never too late to do the right thing…God’s grace is sufficient for you and your situation…Remember our body is a gift from GOD, but what we do with that gift is our gift to God.