Sexual Sin - John Piper

If you can keep your hand
off that mouse, guys,

the world will open up to you.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Psalm 51:12

I don't have any problem

with us doing all kinds of things

to surround men and women

with protections against sexual sin,

I think that's a very good idea.

It's just not the main point.

If that's where you
fight the battle continually,

you will never get to the
root of the issue.

The root of the issue here

is this renewed heart,

this joy and gladness;

the bones that God has broken

healed with the joy
of our salvation.

The misuse of the beautiful
gift of sex

is a symptom of a disease,

not the disease.

And that's why this psalm
doesn't mention it.

And it's the main issue!

Or we thought it was
the main issue.

It's not the main issue.

This is the main issue.

Restore to me the joy
of Your salvation,

because when that joy fades,

I click on pornography.

When that joy fades,

I start cruising the neighborhood.

When that joy fades,

I get an itch for another woman.

When that joy fades,

on and on and on...

every sin on the outside
is symptomatic

of the absence of this joy.

What does your heart
say about Christ?

Late at night,

all alone,

in front of an Internet screen,

mouse ready to click,

what does your heart say

about Christ over pornography?

For God did not call us to uncleanness,
but in holiness.

Therefore he who rejects this, does
not reject man, but God... 1 Thess 4:7-8

And I pray that You
would come upon this gathering,

and do a work that will ripple

to the end of time,

and to the end of the world

in Jesus' name, Amen.

Thousands were walking away
from the dream they once dreamed

for global impact,

because of sexual sin
in their lives,

and sexual failure in their past.

Thousands who have
dreamed a dream

of being radically significant
in the world,

doing something,

laying down your life,

sacrificing anything to spread
the renown of Jesus Christ

to the cities and the nations

and the campuses;

and then,

you lost it.

And one of the huge reasons

he said that it was being lost

was that there was so much

guilt,

and a sense of unworthiness

because of sexual failure

that the guilt and the unworthiness

finally bled down into a gnawing

sense of spiritual powerlessness,

yielding the dead end street,

the dead end dream

of middle class, American,
comfortable, secure

security.

The great tragedy of
Christian young people's lives

is not masturbation,

it's not fornication,

it's not being a peeping tom

or a curious cathy on the Internet.

The tragedy is that Satan uses

the guilt of all those failures

to strip you of your once radical dream

and to put in its place

a life that is happy and safe

and secure, American, middle class,

filled with superficial pleasures,

so that you someday die

on your lakeside rocking chair,

wrinkled and useless

and leaving a big, fat inheritance

to your middle-aged children

to confirm them in their worldliness.

That's what he wants to sell you

because you failed so badly.

And the only alternative is that.

Instead of what you once dreamed

for Christ and His Kingdom.

And I have not come here

to waste your time or my time.

I have come with a passion

that you not waste your life.

Our people are laid waste

with sexual temptation.

Why?

Because our souls have shriveled up

to the size of a t.v. sitcom.

I mean, can you imagine

soaking in front of soaps or sitcoms

for hours on end,

and then going to a church

where they don't give
a rip about theology,

and then thinking
you're going to have

any fiber in the tree of your faith.

You're just going to get blown flat.

That's what's going to happen.

And so find the right church,

and read your Bibles,
and read the right books.

Theology

with passion for Jesus

can conquer biology.