Latest / Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies / Analog Faith in Digital Babylon | Jason Helton | Week 08 Intimacy and Technology

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Analog Faith in Digital Babylon | Jason Helton | Week 08 Intimacy and Technology · Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies

• 0:00
  Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us online@madisonchurch.org be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast, Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
• 0:37
  All right, good evening. We're going to go ahead and get started in our study tonight. The last couple of weeks in this class, we've taken a couple of little rabbits worth chasing to kind of talk about some of the recent events in our country and in our culture with AI and then kind of connecting some of those together, particularly talk a little bit of philosophy and counseling.
• 1:00
  So tonight we're going to continue taking a few little rabbits, but you know, real fun ones. The big topics that we don't ever talk about in church, we don't talk about technology and we don't talk about sex. But if you were around in the 90s, then you will understand the reference. For salt and pepper, they had a song where I want to talk about sex. Baby want to talk about you and me.
• 1:22
  There you go. That means somebody else is uncomfortable. Good, that's out of the way.
• 1:27
  We can giggle, we can laugh, we can blush, we can be a little bit nervous. That's okay. But this is a topic that over the last two years I've become more passionate about in this setting because I find that most churches don't generally talk out in the open about things regarding sexuality and intimacy in particular. And I think there are some huge consequences to that. And we'll get to some of that in just a minute. In the late 1900s, two TV shows were two of the most culturally impactful sitcoms that you could find out there. First of which was Friends.
• 2:01
  There's one particular episode of Friends where there are two roommates, Joey and Chandler. Excuse me. And Joey and Chandler do everything they can to keep an adult content channel in their apartment. Now this is back in the days of cable access. So with cable, you had a certain number of channels that you paid for and then you had all these other scrambly channels, right? That Sometimes were pay per view events. So they would be sporting events or things that you had to pay extra for, or oftentimes as pornography channels. So this is the one with the porn channel episode is the title of this one.
• 2:37
  The whole episode centers around these two roommates doing everything they can to keep access to this. So they keep certain people out of their apartment. They don't leave their apartment, they don't sleep, they don't make. They do all these things, and all they're focused on is keeping access to this channel.
• 2:53
  And if you actually fast forward a few years to 1992, there's an episode of Seinfeld, and I see some people already grinning because you know where we're going with this one? The challenge or the contest. Excuse me? Episode called the Contest. To this day, the contest is the number one rated episode of Seinfeld on IMDb.
• 3:13
  In the contest, these four friends make a bet to see who can go the longest without pleasuring themselves sexually.
• 3:20
  Now, this is back in the 1900s. This is in the 90s.
• 3:26
  These TV shows still get quoted today. These episodes of these TV shows still get quoted today. They're GIFs, their memes.
• 3:33
  They've had a massive impact on people, on the conversations at work, conversations at school.
• 3:42
  So they talk about things that people struggle with or things that people outside the church perhaps don't necessarily struggle with, but embrace and think are funny. But those inside the church then get to see it displayed on a sitcom and discussed on a sitcom, and it never makes its way into a spiritual context.
• 4:01
  That's a choice that we have made, and we will live with consequences of that specific choice. I think a lot of times there's this list of taboo topics that are out there. The things you don't talk about at church. Right? We don't talk about Bruno. Doesn't mean Bruno doesn't exist. Now I got a more wholesome song stuck in your head. You're welcome. But when we don't talk about these kinds of things, we allow culture to talk about them. We then allow culture to define what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's not. Culture is not really looking for holy and unholy. It stops short that in scripture, I see two different types of sexuality. And since I gave you a spoiler alert there, that's what they are, holy and unholy. I think what we see in scripture is what God has defined, what God has designed, what God desires and what God desires for us.
• 4:47
  And then there's everything else that's outside of that, I think oftentimes, because perhaps we grew up in an environment where things weren't discussed, we didn't then feel prepared, if you're a parent, to pass it on to the next generation.
• 5:01
  I think there's a generational element here as well. Things that we don't talk about. Well, we don't talk about with our kids either. And depending on the environment you grew up in, that depends and impacts how much you're willing to talk about. Remember a few weeks ago when we were talking about Generations, we highlighted Oprah Winfrey and the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah made it okay to talk about just about everything and whatever she wasn't willing to talk about. Jerry Springer was right. So with cable tv, we got everything out there, but not everything was then discussed in the spiritual context. And that's where we, I think, have. We've made a mistake.
• 5:34
  When we did talk about it, we did it in ways like.
• 5:37
  I had a youth minister growing up that I think at one point just kind of hated all of us. So he got the. Just kidding. He loved us. But I think he did think this was funny. He got our preacher to do a series on sex. And our preacher. You know, preachers love.
• 5:51
  They love to make things sort of creative, but they always fall short of, like, really good. And so he called it the Sex Files. And then when he would say that, he would say it like that, and he would say, playing off the X Files. Those of you that are too young to know what that was, you can go back and Google that, make sure. Just don't do that. Never mind. Don't mess up those Google searches. But when he presented that to us, it was a very uncomfortable thing.
• 6:17
  And it did not communicate in a way that any teenager in the room would ever say. I. Oh, that's helpful.
• 6:22
  With all due respect, he tried, and I think a lot of times we try, but we don't always address the questions that get asked, particularly around this topic. There are a lot of different experiences that people have when it comes to intimacy, when it comes to sexual emotions.
• 6:43
  And there's not always a lot of clarity provided by the people in their life. And I think if we refuse to talk about these topics, and they are sometimes uncomfortable, but they're uncomfortable because they involve a lot of vulnerability and transparency.
• 6:56
  And they're really uncomfortable simply because we let them be uncomfortable. We choose what's awkward and what's not. Right. If we deem something awkward, then we stay away from it. Well, that just creates More of the faux pas that creates more of the boogeyman effect where it becomes something then that it's really not. But it's all perception based.
• 7:13
  Another thing that we do sometimes is we focus on the action.
• 7:17
  And what I think is taught a lot of times is don't have sex outside of marriage. That's kind of where it begins. But then particularly the way it was kind of packaged in the 90s was don't have sex became sex is bad. So at 8am on your wedding day, sex is bad. But 8pm on your wedding night, after a ceremony and some cake, sex is good. Be fruitful, multiply.
• 7:38
  Well, that's not exactly how that works, right? And this kind of proves my point. In Matthew, chapter five, Jesus says, you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her. In his heart.
• 7:52
  You've heard it was said that this action is wrong, the act of adultery is wrong. But what Jesus is saying is, I'm telling you, the sin starts in your heart, right? He says, lustful intent has already been committed and that starts in your heart. Heart is the beginning and the ending of sin. The action is the physical manifestation of what's in our hearts.
• 8:14
  So it's really the symptom that finally comes to the bubbles to the surface. Let me put it this way. If your mom makes cookies and cookies right out of the oven are always going to be the best cookies, right? And she says, don't eat the cookies that I just took out of the oven. What's the one thing you want to do?
• 8:31
  Eat the cookies. Thank you, Zach. Thank you for being honest. We all agree, we all want the cookies.
• 8:37
  So she says, don't have the cookies. And then you say, why? She says, because I said so. Does that satisfy?
• 8:43
  Not so much, because they're right there. They smell great, they look great and they've got. They're just like, they're forming as they cool so they get the little texture. Anyway, I'm very hungry. I've not had dinner, as you can tell.
• 8:52
  If I just get the because I said so answer, it usually doesn't satisfy me, especially when I'm a kid, because I'm still curious. And I'm also a little bit selfish. I know that I like cookies and I want the cookies. But what happens if this is the way the conversation goes, hey, don't eat those cookies I just took out of the oven. Why?
• 9:08
  Well, because, you know, Johnny lives Across the street.
• 9:11
  Well, Johnny's mom just passed away, and that's Johnny's mom's recipe. And as soon as they're done cooling, we're going to take those cookies across the street and we're going to go pray with Johnny and his family and we're going to sit with them and we're going to be with them, because right now they're very sad.
• 9:26
  Well, now, if you take the cookies, you're just the worst human ever, right?
• 9:30
  Why? Well, because you know that it has a purpose. And that purpose is outside of your desire, outside of you being a consumer of pleasure.
• 9:41
  It has a specific design, a specific purpose. And if you continue, if you choose to violate that, then that is not a good thing. Right? Because the purpose is spiritual in nature. It's greater than you. And I think that's what's happened with intimacy is God created something that is pleasurable. But pleasure is not the pursuit, it's a consequence.
• 10:02
  And I think scripture bears that out. In First Corinthians, chapter six, bless you, we read flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body. But the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Do you not know that? Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You're not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. This tells me that sexual sin is spiritual in nature.
• 10:24
  Sex, sexuality is spiritual in nature. But if we just focus on don't do the act, don't do the act, don't do the act. We're talking about the physical part of it, and we miss the spiritual part.
• 10:37
  There's a lot that they didn't teach me in high school, anatomy and physiology. But there's a lot that was also missed in high school youth group class as well. When it comes to the spiritual side, there's a Jesus element to all this. There's a holiness to intimacy that I think we have to lead with. And instead, for some reason, we tend to keep it out altogether. And I'm blaming myself as well. I don't think I taught it as well as it needed to be taught. When I was a Youth Minister For 10 years, we used to take a retreat, a specific retreat every three years. So you get it. You'd be on that retreat as a junior, excuse me, in a middle school junior high, eight, seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. And then you'd also be able to go as a 10th, 11th, and 12th grader. You have a Different set of vocabulary words in those two stages of life generally.
• 11:19
  Right. You may not always know the definitions, but you know the words and you have different questions.
• 11:24
  And one of the things that's happened over time is that we said, did you have the talk? Right, Like a singular talk. Well, that.
• 11:30
  What in life have you ever had? Just one question about it at the age of six, it was the same question at 16. It's not just one talk. It's an ongoing series of conversations. Right. As we grow and as we develop.
• 11:43
  Colossians 3, 5, Scripture has a lot to say about this. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
• 11:53
  Likely. Paul is referencing some of these passionate actions that took place in the context of idol worship. Right. In 1st century, idol worship had a heavy sexual presence with it. And so Christians, particularly in Corinth, coming out of that would need to be told, hey, that's not by the design. That's not the design God has. That's not right and holy. It's not right in the design.
• 12:17
  And so we had to kind of reconstruct their understanding. Two years ago, we took a survey in this class, and we took it a couple weeks ago. For those of you that participated. Thank you. The first year we did this, there were I think, 111 folks that participated. And so you can see the breakdown. There was roughly 57% of folks never had a conversation with their parents about sex or sexuality growing up. And then roughly 43% did. This is the breakdown male and female, roughly 50ish%. Millennials, Gen Z, Gen X, all kind of about the same. But you look up there at the boomers and the boomers, we're talking like 85, 90% of those in the boomer generation in this class two years ago never had a conversation with their parents about this topic. The boomers then would go on to raise millennial and older Gen Z kids who grew up in the heart of the digital revolution.
• 13:09
  So you've got a group that grew up in the heart of the sexual revolution that didn't have any guidance from their parents having to figure out how the next generation that they're raising is going to navigate this digital revolution where we didn't really know what was going on, what we really had access to, until we're looking back in hindsight. So updated some of these based off of the 118 people that took the survey this go round, 0% of silent generation had a conversation with Their parents growing up. I just want to say to the one member of the silent generation who took this online survey, thank you.
• 13:44
  Got to build up the drama, right?
• 13:47
  We had more than one for all of these other categories, but again, let's look at some trends here. Boomers, 23%. Gen X, 38%. Millennials drops back down to 24%. Gen Z, 56%.
• 13:59
  What's interesting is, as done this class, I've condensed it into four to six or so sessions and gone around to different churches over the last year and a half. And I've given this survey to each of those churches and I've built up a decent data set. Now we've got a little over 1200 people that have taken the survey. So this is Madison.
• 14:19
  There are some trends that are very similar across the board. The drop in millennials is a little bit unique because overall, out of the 1279 people that have taken it, the silents at 29%, the boomers are at 30. Gen X at 34. Millennials, 40%. Gen Z in 53%. The first thing I see here that's encouraging is that it's increasing. There's more frequency going on. We are talking about this more with younger generations. The depressing part is, best case scenario, we're looking at 53%.
• 14:50
  Barely half you go to, generally speaking, you go into any church of Christ, you're going to see about a 60, 40 split. Roughly 60% of the people in that auditorium had a conversation with their parents about sex or sexuality.
• 15:09
  Excuse me, 40% did. 60% did not.
• 15:14
  That's a choice.
• 15:16
  That is a choice. One of the things, if you've been in any of my classes over the last couple of years, you've heard me say over and over again is we can do hard things.
• 15:23
  That includes having difficult, uncomfortable, sometimes even awkward conversations.
• 15:29
  We may not talk about these things in Bible class, but you know where I've talked about them. I've talked about them in coffee shops.
• 15:36
  I've talked about them in my office, on retreats.
• 15:40
  I've talked about these topics in dorm rooms with people that are really struggling with it. So just because we don't talk about Bruno doesn't mean Bruno doesn't exist. Just because we don't talk about sexual sin doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And that doesn't mean that that makes it okay. If we just talk about it, it'll just go away? It won't be an issue? No, it means it's shrouded in mystery and confusion.
• 16:03
  And pain and struggle and frustration with no way out oftentimes.
• 16:12
  So when we don't discuss these things, when you, as an older man in this room, have lunch with one of the younger men in this room that are newlyweds or have been married for a shorter time, maybe even aren't even married yet, but those that are, when you say, hey, how's your marriage? And they say, oh, it's good. And they give you kind of, yeah, things are fine. You know, we took a trip. That's great. We did this, we did that. But then you come back and say, well, tell me, how's intimacy? How are things with you guys there?
• 16:36
  That first question may be uncomfortable.
• 16:40
  And if you are okay with one uncomfortable situation saying, okay, I'm not going to do that again.
• 16:46
  I'm going to tell you that something more uncomfortable than that conversation, watching a marriage fall apart from a distance, knowing that you could have perhaps been a help or being a person who has struggled with intimacy and gone through those difficult things and hopefully come out on the other side a stronger couple, but it may have taken years in some instances to get to that point, and knowing that you have something to offer and insight, wisdom to share, and you choose not to because it's uncomfortable.
• 17:19
  Eternity could be really uncomfortable.
• 17:22
  This is one of those issues.
• 17:24
  This is one of those conversations that absolutely changes families. It changes the trajectory of the future for a lot of people. And when we choose not to talk about these things, then we say, satan, here you go. Let me hold the door open for you.
• 17:37
  Because it's talked about in music, it's talked about in movies, it's talked about in sitcoms, it's talked about in forums, it's talked about in locker rooms, it's talked about in hallways, in classrooms, in dorms, in apartments, in therapy sessions.
• 17:51
  It's talked about everywhere except for where God's people gather. That makes no sense to me.
• 17:56
  That's a culture issue. That's a choice.
• 18:01
  The most common age for exposure and the most common age for the first conversation is 12 years old. That's interesting to me. I broke that down. According to generations, every single generation, that was the most common answer.
• 18:14
  Depending on what you're reading these days, generally the first age of exposure, most people estimate somewhere between seven and nine years old.
• 18:22
  That's between second and fourth grade.
• 18:25
  I've got a third grader and a fifth grader.
• 18:28
  That's uncomfortable.
• 18:31
  So if we wait till 12 by most other worldly metrics today, then we're about a half a decade late. In some instances, middle school.
• 18:43
  This school's hard. It's difficult.
• 18:45
  It's difficult because a lot of things are happening physically in the body of every single student in a middle school. They smell weird. They start sounding weird, right? Like things happen on their face that they can't explain. There's embarrassment, but there's also this search for identity. Remember those three questions we talked about early on? Identity, community and purpose.
• 19:03
  I was reading a book and I brought it up here. I would recommend it.
• 19:07
  It's a thick read. It's not real big, not real long, but it's challenging. It's called Strange New World by Carl How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution.
• 19:19
  Sigmund Freud, in all of his works, basically left the world thinking that all of our identity is completely tied to sexual desires.
• 19:31
  Karl Marx came around with his time on this earth and said that government needs to be the end, all be all authority of all power and all things. And so then there's this other guy, Wilhelm Reich, that came around and he said that when government gets to define basically and control sexual identity, that is going to be the end all, be all authority. I want to read a quick excerpt from here.
• 19:59
  It says not only is the inner. With Freud, we find the psychologized self we noted in Rousseau and the Romantics being given a decidedly sexual shape. Not only is the inner space of feeling now fundamental to identity, it is also defined primarily by its sexual desires. Sex is no longer a matter of behavior, of what we do. It's a matter of who we are.
• 20:18
  It is not the act but the desire or the orientation of that desire that defines the person.
• 20:26
  In the west, the struggle for freedom has become very much focused on the struggle for social recognition of a variety of sexual and other identities.
• 20:35
  This guy Reich, he puts this philosophical cocktail together that government and sexual identity are all intertwined. And that's a cocktail I want nothing to do with. To be quite frank, but he was writing about this in the 1930s.
• 20:52
  Nearly 100 years later, here we are.
• 20:57
  What's wonderful to know is that Scripture addresses all of these things. And Scripture is more than a hundred years old. The Bible is as relevant today as it was the day it was written.
• 21:08
  But for some reason, that's not always our lens to see the world.
• 21:13
  And so when we go outside of God's guidance for anything in life, but particularly when it comes to something as personal and as difficult as sexuality, the wires get crossed and mixed up very quickly. And now we live in this digital age where access to Lust is constant and effortless.
• 21:33
  We have got to be very, very effective at articulating that. Sex is more than an act. It is a vital part of an intimate relationship, Holy relationship. And that is, by design, the purpose of sexual intimacy. And I think that's a much better word than just sex because sex is just a physical act. That's intercourse, right? There's more to it than that. By design.
• 21:56
  There's two hormones, and this is the part that I didn't learn in biology class or anatomy class. Two particular hormones that are prevalent in intimate situations, oxytocin and vasopressin. They're not exclusively in the sexual intimacy realm because if you kiss somebody for six seconds or more, or you hug somebody for 20 seconds or more, oxytocin is going to be released in your brain. It's more prevalent in a female brain than the male brain. There are three times in a woman's life when oxytocin is at an all time high. And that is at sexual climax, that is giving birth, that is nursing a child.
• 22:28
  Those are three moments of deep connection, of relationship building, of bonding.
• 22:35
  That's what it's about is bonding. It builds resilience.
• 22:39
  My wife and I have four kids. I've been present for all four births. That is a highly traumatic and painful event.
• 22:45
  Ellen was also uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure.
• 22:50
  What makes a woman go through something as painful as that? And then the immediate response is to hold cradle into love.
• 23:02
  It makes no sense to me. Just kidding. I know looking at the eyes. They're beautiful. Hello.
• 23:07
  It's that connection. It's oxytocin. That's what flips the switch.
• 23:11
  To go through something that is physically painful. You don't typically then turn around and want to hug the source of that pain, right?
• 23:18
  But in a woman's brain, that's what's happening. Because oxytocin is released. There's a connection there. There's studies now that say eye contact from infants and young, young, young, young humans, even when they can't actually identify the shapes and figures they're seeing. But the connection is important. The week we talked about attention, we referenced Chris Hayes, his book the Sirens Call. In that book he talks about public attention. Everyone needs public attention. Humanity does not survive without someone else's attention right after birth.
• 23:50
  Some animals can, humans cannot. We need immediate attention and we need consistent attention right until we can get to an age when we're self sustaining in the brain. We've talked about this before as well.
• 24:04
  When you have these experiences, the idea of neuroplasticity.
• 24:10
  You've got, like a hiking trail, basically, in your brain that you're forming with new experiences. When you have a new experience and dopamine's release and all these other chemicals and hormones go, then you create a new trail in your brain. So, like, the first time you walk through the woods, there's no evidence you were there. But then if you walk that same path over and over again, like your dog in the backyard, that then you look up and you've got a warning track along the fence, because they run the fence every single day, same path. Well, that's what happens in your brain.
• 24:35
  Those. Those neural pathways become more and more defined.
• 24:39
  And so when you watch violent or certain language on movies and you listen to it in music, but you say you don't say those things, the more you consume that, the more your brain is forming that path. So that then at some point, your default response becomes those things, right? Like, I don't really do that. But you've taught yourself to think that way. It's a real thing. We teach ourselves how to think by the things that we learn and the experiences that we have as well. Not just book learning, but the experiences. So when you engage in intimacy and oxytocin is released in your brain, you now bond to that person. Growing up, always heard, of course, in scripture, we read that man shall leave father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh.
• 25:19
  I always thought of that in terms of, like, the puzzle pieces fitting together physically. Right? That's oxytocin just as much as it is the physical.
• 25:29
  There was an illustration that was used a lot in the 90s, and I remember that even at some of our, like, youth rallies and stuff, and there would. There would be a speaker that would get up holding a rose, and they would then pass this rose down around the. Through the audience and then get back to the speaker. And the speaker would hold up and say, now, young ladies, this rose is your sexual purity.
• 25:48
  And it's been passed around from guy to guy. Look at this. It's all tattered and worn. All the petals have fallen off. Who would want this?
• 25:59
  Particularly now, as a father of a daughter.
• 26:02
  What a horrific analogy.
• 26:05
  And if you heard that as a young lady in particular, I want to personally apologize because it's one of the absolute worst pictures that we could give of something that is so deeply holy. First of all, there's no mention of guys in that, Other than just these random people that are a part of this process. There's no accountability to the guy, it is 1000% a two way street.
• 26:29
  Secondly, you can't put petals back on a rose. But you know what you can do?
• 26:36
  You can be bought by your Creator and the price was the life of His Son. You can be redeemed. You can have that purity back through his eyes. You can be made pure again.
• 26:48
  That analogy leaves no room for that. And therefore the analogy is wrong.
• 26:54
  Just stop right there. It's wrong if it doesn't leave room for God's redemption, for his plan of redemption.
• 27:01
  Every single person in this room was bought for the exact same price. Every single person in this room that has contacted his blood has the blood of Christ washing over them. Therefore we are pure in his sight. There are physical things, particularly with like the first time, that can't be undone. But spiritually speaking, 1,000%, the whole point of Jesus coming on the cross and dying for us was so that we could be seen as pure and clean and as pure and clean as he is.
• 27:28
  That's how we're seen.
• 27:30
  So I want to be very clear. If you have lived your entire life with this pain, this discomfort because of something you did, or worse, because of something someone did to you, you're living a lie. If you think you're supposed to keep that shame. You are not. You were never intended to keep that.
• 27:50
  So that's a terrible, terrible illustration and it should forever be stricken from the record because it's just not right.
• 27:57
  The illustration that I like, and I will also admit it has limitations because any analogy comes up short of what it's trying to describe. I've got those two words written on pieces of tape. I've got a few pieces of tape on the outside of my Bible over the years. If I put a piece of tape on this and I press firmly, what happens?
• 28:17
  There's a strong bond there, right? And if I continue to put pressure on that piece of tape day in and day out, that bond will grow stronger.
• 28:24
  If I remove that piece of tape, what happens?
• 28:28
  It's probably going to tear something, right?
• 28:30
  It's not designed to be reused over and over again. It's designed for one purpose, for one bond, not for many bonds in that same way.
• 28:39
  And so what happens in our brains when we bond with someone? The oxytocin is released.
• 28:48
  That bond grows stronger when we have that same relationship and we engage in intimacy with that same person because the same thing's happening in their brain. So we're bonding to that person.
• 28:58
  Sex with friends with benefits. Thinking you can just have casual sex without any consequence is just biologically wrong. These terms are not made up by God. These are made up by science people. Right? They're called the bonding hormones in the medical community.
• 29:13
  Scripture just was like, yeah, we didn't tell you the hormone. But yeah, that's what we've been saying the whole time.
• 29:17
  So when we engage in intimacy, we're actually bonding with that person. There's no casual element to it whatsoever. We've made a mockery of her. Satan has done a really good job of just completely exploiting it.
• 29:31
  So now you bring something like pornography into the picture.
• 29:34
  It's the same reward circuitry that goes on in your brain. You're just bonding to pixels instead of people.
• 29:40
  And what was designed to create a strong, lasting bond that creates a resilient marriage, a resilient relationship, so that when finances are difficult, well, you've been very intimate with this person, so you still trust them.
• 29:54
  They say that public speaking is the, like, the number one most unwanted thing to do. Right? Makes people the most nervous. I would venture to say that public speaking while naked would trump that for most people. Right?
• 30:06
  And that's by design. That's. That's for a reason. Because when you engage in an intimate act with someone, there is a vulnerability that takes place.
• 30:14
  You are being completely transparent. When your clothes are off in the presence of another person, you're on full display, literally. And their reaction to that is important. Just the same way as when we're in that auditorium and someone confesses sin, our reaction, our response to that confession makes a big impact.
• 30:34
  And so if you're in this committed relationship and the two of you have grown so close and so comfortable with each other, that doesn't just stay in the bedroom. That then applies to all areas of your life. Trust is formed.
• 30:46
  Desire is cultivated.
• 30:49
  What was designed to be one man and one woman together has been exploited and misused and weaponized.
• 30:57
  And Scripture talks about that as well. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 5, 7, speaking of Jerry Springer. In 1st Corinthians 5, those of you that remember the Jerry Springer show, we're going to get to see a little bit. What I think is actually the. This was the.
• 31:13
  I think this was the motivation for the pilot episode of Jerry Springer. In First Corinthians chapter 5, in verse 1, we read, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not even, that is not tolerated even among the pagans. For a man has his father's wife and the church said, ew, alright, ought you not rather to mourn. Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
• 31:37
  So what we've got here is a situation in Corinth, in the church, where a man has a sexual relationship with, best case scenario, his stepmother.
• 31:46
  And the church knows about it.
• 31:48
  And the Church, they don't talk about Bruno either. And Paul says, look, man, you even make. You're making the pagans blush about this stuff, and you're kind of proud about it, like you know that it's going on. You'll talk about it. You should be mourning and put this person out from among your midst.
• 32:05
  Why? Well, Paul, being the bachelor that he is, actually has a lot of really good insight on this. Look in chapter seven, verse one. Now, concerning the matters about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, but because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control. This is a guy that was not married, did not have a wife. But he gets it. He understands that our sexual urges and our sexual emotions are some of our deepest and strongest that we possess as humans.
• 32:59
  And he says, you don't separate unless you're in agreement. And you do it for a specific amount of time with the purpose of coming back together.
• 33:06
  And the reason you separate is to devote yourselves to prayer.
• 33:11
  What he's saying here is, work on your sex life. Husbands and wives, when things aren't where they're supposed to be, address it, talk about it.
• 33:21
  Devote yourselves to prayer with the intention of coming back together.
• 33:27
  But there's also something else he says here that I think gets overlooked in verse three. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
• 33:45
  That's significant because when I read that, I don't read anything about the word pleasure here.
• 33:53
  I don't read anything about being a consumer of pleasure. What I read is sexual intimacy is all about giving of self. Husbands, your bodies are not your own. They are for the pleasure of your wife. Wives, your bodies are not your own. They are for the pleasure of your husband. You want a great sex life. Give of self. Husbands, do everything you can to please your wife. Wives, do everything you can to please your husbands.
• 34:17
  That's the key.
• 34:19
  That's the Jesus part of this. There's nothing more Christlike than giving of self.
• 34:26
  So why would it not also be an integral part of our marriages? It's a part of every other part of Christianity is to give of self. Right? That's what's countercultural. That's how the apostles turned the world upside down, because they did the opposite of what the world wants to do.
• 34:40
  It's the same thing. Why would God use the analogy of husband and wife as the analogy for Christ's relationship to his church, the bride of Christ?
• 34:52
  There's probably a lot of reasons. I think of two in particular. One, there is no greater analogy to communicate the idea of vulnerability, of trust, of sacrifice, of transparency.
• 35:07
  But then there's another side of that coin as well, that there's no greater, no greater example of the pain and devastation of infidelity than the breaking of a sexual relationship between a husband and a wife because it requires intimacy.
• 35:26
  So for him to use that analogy, I think it's important for us to really think about sexual intimacy from a holy standpoint and not wholly limited just to the actions. But what is the gospel? What is the Jesus component of this? It's the giving of self. It's not being a consumer of pleasure. Nowhere in this book will you find that the point of life is to be a consumer of anything.
• 35:47
  And yet we find ourselves because we can go to Amazon quickly. We can consume whatever we want there. We can go to our television to our devices. We can be consumers of entertainment. We can be consumers of all the things in this life, of tons and tons of food. We can also be consumers of sexual pleasure. And because we can, we think we're supposed to. You see how that keeps recurring in these classes as well.
• 36:09
  That's also by design, but that's not God's design.
• 36:13
  And so when we never shine a light in dark places, when we never bring these things into the light, when we never take this Bible study outside these walls, that's just where it stays. And we suffer in silence. There's also nothing in scripture that gives you the idea that you are designed to suffer in silence. The church is the opposite of that. That's why we do confess sin so that the next generation can rightly identify what sin is, but also so that we can shine that light into a dark place, so that we can begin to confess those things and to speak them, so we can begin to heal from them. It's not about moving on. It's about moving forward. Moving on is dismissive and it just. Whatever, put your head down and just get going. Moving forward seeks reconciliation so that you can have peace from that, you can learn from that. There's still pain, but you're no longer allowing your life to be dictated by that pain, particularly if you've been the victim of a sexual assault, because that does all kinds of things, from the cognitive to the emotions to the physical.
• 37:13
  And so when those things hold us and we can't get to a place of forgiveness, then we kind of lock ourselves in with that. The analogy I used one time was like a handful of broken glass.
• 37:24
  When we withhold forgiveness, particularly of other people and ourselves, we think that we're punishing them, but all we're doing is we're just squeezing what we broken glass tighter and tighter. It only hurts us.
• 37:35
  And this is an area where that really gets distorted easily.
• 37:40
  So if we don't talk about it, then we can never seek to reconcile it. Technology amplifies what's in our hearts, and our brains are connected to our hearts. So in the time we have left, which is not nearly enough, I want to talk about how pornography is different today than it was in the past.
• 37:55
  This is taken from a book by Gary Wilson called you'd Brain on Porn. It's a quick, easy read, but has a ton of really good information.
• 38:02
  It says porn poses unique risk beyond supernormal stimulation. First, it's easy to access, available 24. 7 free and private. In the past, in order to get access to adult content, you would have to know someone or go to a store and face another person eye to eye and say, I want that magazine. I want that movie. And then you have to pay for it. That transaction alone, that interaction with another human, was a really powerful stopgate.
• 38:27
  It prevented a lot of people from getting access. Even if those desires were there, they weren't cultivated the way they are today because it's available 24. 7 free and private.
• 38:36
  Secondly, most users start watching by puberty. Their brains are at their peak of dopamine sensitivity, plasticity and vulnerability to addiction, and inadvertent rewiring of sexual taste.
• 38:47
  Finally, there are limits on food consumption. In contrast, there's no physical limit on Internet porn consumption other than the need to take a bathroom and food break. Binging on porn feels like a promise of pleasure. But recall the message of dopamine is not satisfaction. Dopamine promises satisfaction. It's just around the corner. We'll talk about delta phosph here in a second. The highly malleable adolescent brain wires to sexual cues in the environment. Adolescents wire together experiences and arousal much faster and more easily than young adults will just a few years later. There's a thing called Hebb's rule that says cells that fire together wire together. So the experience that you have and the emotions that you feel will always be connected there in your brain and because of the way you experience that. So what you experience in these moments of arousal at a very young age, without any clarity, without any understanding, that's then what you believe is supposed to happen. And adolescents in particular begin making decisions based off of their feelings, based off of their urges, a lot more so than based off of their cognitive understanding.
• 39:43
  So a young person, a nine year old, will experience this arousal much faster and much more deeply than a 19 year old will just 10 years later.
• 39:54
  In response to Internet novelty, their brains produce higher spikes of dopamine, but become bored more easily. Their brains are also more sensitive to dopamine and produce more delta phosphi. This is the remember and repeat. This is the part of your brain that says yes, satisfaction. We want to pursue that again. The adolescent's brain's oversensitivity to reward also means its owner is more vulnerable to addiction. They don't know what's going on in their bodies and they don't have anyone teaching them and telling them what's going on in their bodies. So they just follow the urges. A 2014 Cambridge study shows that neurochemical reality primes young brains, urging them to define sex according to what offers the biggest buzz. Essentially, a teen brain can deeply condition itself to Internet porn with surprising ease, such that real sex eventually feels like an alien experience to some. One study that was done, I believe in Italy, showed where a group of 14 year old boys, 9th graders by the way, had consumed so much pornography that actual physical interactions of sex, they didn't care about those. They also suffered from things like erectile dysfunction as a ninth grader because of the over consumption and overworking of these reward circuitries in their brain. Pornography teaches its students to focus on the physiology of the sensations, not on the relationships for which those were intended. That's from Wired for Intimacy. It's another good book. The brain's reward center doesn't know what porn is, it only registers levels of stimulation through dopamine and opioid spikes. This, as Paul would say, is our most carnal moments. Right. We're just going off of what we feel, those base desires. It impacts brain development, personality development, current and future relationships. Body image destroys a child's innocence.
• 41:31
  If you don't know what OnlyFans is, particularly if you're a parent, you need to become aware very quickly.
• 41:37
  In 2024, OnlyFans.com saw approximately 1 billion monthly website visits from users worldwide.
• 41:45
  1 billion a month.
• 41:47
  OnlyFans is a lot like YouTube. You have these content creators and most of them already had profiles on like TikTok or on Instagram. And so when they got on OnlyFans, they would put out, continue to put their content on those other platforms and say for exclusive content, follow me on OnlyFans. OnlyFans is a little different that you pay a monthly fee, usually small, less than five bucks sometimes to follow this, to subscribe to this person. Then you can also get specific content tailored to your needs.
• 42:15
  So there's a pseudo relationship that's being developed. It's one sided for the other side. For the content creator, it's purely a financial transaction. Last year in our country, OnlyFans brought in, they were number two in entertainment revenue, second behind only the NFL, $6.6 billion with a B.
• 42:38
  So if you don't know about it, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It exists and it exists at scale.
• 42:45
  You've got teachers and doctors and lawyers and all these professional folks that play into fetishes that have created their profiles and they make a lot of money.
• 42:56
  There's been a few that have been in the news over the last couple of months that have done things like slept with 100 men in 24 hours because their fame gets louder and louder and they get more and more money.
• 43:08
  It's horrific. It's a complete manipulation of what it was designed for. Billie Eilish is one of the most popular entertainers on the planet. In an interview of all places with Howard Stern, she said, I think porn is a disgrace. I used to watch a lot of it, to be honest. I started watching when I was like 11. That's a sixth grader. I thought that was how you learn how to have sex. I was watching abusive porn, to be honest, when I was 14. That's a ninth grader. I thought I was one of the guys and would talk about it and think I was really cool for not having a problem with it and not seeing why it was bad. I think it really destroyed my brain. I think I had, like, sleep paralysis. These almost night terrors, nightmares because of it. I would watch abusive bdsm. That's Bondage related material, content. I couldn't watch anything else unless it was violent. It's because I thought that's what I was supposed to be attracted to.
• 43:55
  When we don't teach about these topics, the Internet does, but the Internet does not teach the same way that we teach.
• 44:05
  We said before, not all tools are created equal.
• 44:08
  Yes, technology is a tool, but oftentimes the tool uses us as the consumer and the user. We have to teach a stewardship element here. One more thing that I want to really want to emphasize here is that our passions don't inform our identity. Our identity informs our passions.
• 44:30
  So in a culture where what you feel is what you are, what you like to do is who you are, that is wrong, that is not right thinking. That leads to a whole lot of really poor decisions, which leads to a lot of broken relationships because it breaks people.
• 44:51
  We cannot accept that in the church. It is different now than when all of us were growing up 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 plus years ago. It is different. The way a video maps in your brain is different than an image. So the fact that you grew up in a time where people had magazines, and it's different today for teenagers who are watching videos, and their access to those videos spiral and scale up beyond anything you would ever imagine. But the actual video itself, remember, the medium is the message. The video itself maps differently in the brain. That's why reading a book is more difficult and less interesting sometimes than watching a TV show or a movie.
• 45:26
  And so when you put it in this category, in this context, the damage is greater. It's all scaled up.
• 45:35
  It's been a really heavy few weeks, and this week was just as heavy. We might have a little bit more of that next week, but I want to end what we talked about just a few minutes ago.
• 45:47
  There is redemption. There is a path forward with healing.
• 45:53
  Male and female struggle with these things. Male and female struggle with their past. This is not a guy thing, a girl thing. This is not a teenager thing. This is a humanity thing. This is a deeply, deeply spiritual, spiritual issue.
• 46:04
  If you have struggled, are struggling, or know people that are struggling and you want help, you want accountability, you want encouragement, that's what you will find here. Come find me. If you want to do it anonymously, then I can connect you with other people. We actually have counselors that have more training than I Do on these specific issues as well that we can get you in touch with. Please do not. Please do not continue to go through life feeling shame in this area of your life. That is not what it's designed to do.
• 46:33
  It is designed to bond. It is designed to be something that is. That is beautiful. It is designed to build resilience, not bitterness. It is not designed to be manipulated. It's designed to be enjoyed.
• 46:45
  But it is complicated because we are complicated.
• 46:49
  Let's pray and then we'll be dismissed.
• 46:51
  Father, we love you. We thank you so very much for. For your design in every aspect of our life. Help us to understand that design. Help us to embrace and pursue that design above all things.
• 47:03
  I pray that those that are struggling specifically with sexual sin in this room and outside this room will be blessed by the time that we've spent in your scriptures tonight. Help us to understand your design. Help us to pursue holiness and not simply be consumers of pleasure in this life in any category, but specifically in this area.
• 47:21
  For those who are not married and are called to celibacy and to call to that form of sexual holiness, I pray that you would strengthen them, empower them, embolden their conviction. For those who are married and are also called to sexual purity, I pray that you would strengthen those relationships, that you would help couples, the married couples in this place, to cultivate romance and to cultivate that friendship that comes from a deep intimacy and connection and a bond from one another, from. For those who have struggled with that. Bring them back together. Father, you are a God of reconciliation and you have given us a ministry of reconciliation. Help us to remove sin and temptation in our life so that we can make way for the reconciliation that you have designed for us. Father, we love you and we thank you so very much for Christ, for his forgiveness and for salvation. It's through his name we pray. Amen.
• 48:09
  Love you guys very much. Thanks for joining us online. We will see you next week.