James Meehan - Overcoming Temptation as a Teenager in 2024

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How do you know if advice is good or bad? Is it based off of the way that it sounds, how it makes you feel when you hear it, the person who gives it, whether it rhymes or not? Is that how you know if advice is good or bad? I would suggest, nope, not those things. The best way to know if advice is good or bad is whether or not it works. And for me, growing up, I was given all sorts of terrible advice about everything, dating, romance, and relationships-related. Like, I remember when I was a sophomore in high school, I had just started dating this girl and things were going pretty well. Like, we'd gone on a handful of dates, things seemed to be going smoothly, until I got mono and pneumonia at the same time, to the point where I was literally in the hospital for a week, out of school for a month.

It was so bad that when I finally got out of the hospital, I had just enough energy to text her to say, "I'm not feeling well, that's why you haven't heard from me. But once I start to feel better, then I will let you know". And I started to feel a little bit better. But before I texted her, I started playing Xbox with my friends. And one night, as we are just stomping on a whole bunch of noobs in Call of Duty, I asked them for some advice. I said, "Hey, guys, now that I'm feeling well enough to talk, do you think I should tell my girlfriend that I'm okay"? And my friends, who did not want to be distracted from gaming, said some version of, "No, man, you're good. Like, if she really cares about you, she will wait for you".

And so night after night, while I was gaming with my friends, my girlfriend was wondering if I was still alive. And then eventually she found out through the grapevine that I had been gaming with my friends and not talking to her. She got mad. I got dumped. Because the advice my friends gave me was terrible. It did not work. How do you know if advice is good or bad? You see if it actually works. Now the bad advice that I wanna talk to you about today is a lot less silly and a lot more damaging than the advice that I was given in high school. And it is advice that over the last 60 years has wreaked havoc on our culture. And it has become so prevalent in our modern society that most of us don't even question it.

The bad advice is this, that your desires should be expressed, not suppressed. Your desires should be expressed, not suppressed. What does that that means? That means if you want it, take it. If you like it, chase it. If it looks good, sounds good, feels good, then go after it because it must be good. More common ways that we hear this is all of the, be true to yourself, follow your heart, do whatever makes you happy, because anything that gets in the way of your desires must be getting in the way of your happiness. Your desires should be expressed, not suppressed. But is this really good advice? I would suggest the answer is not even close. And this isn't just my opinion. Like, the havoc wreaked by this advice over the last 60 years is devastating and it is measurable.

Like, you can measure the impact of it. Because since this advice took over, we have seen skyrocketing rates of sexually transmitted infections, of unwanted pregnancies, of abortions, fatherlessness, kids growing up in broken homes. We've seen skyrocketing rates of sexual violence and pornography addiction. The impact has been devastating. And now there's entire generations of people, people like you, growing up frustrated and confused because you've been following the advice that you've been giving. But instead of actually finding what you were promised, you are left with less commitment, less intimacy, less joy, more shame, more depression, more anxiety. That's all you've been given.

So what do we do? I think what we need is not simply good advice. What we actually need is good news. And the good news is that 2,000 years ago, Jesus left heaven, he entered history, and he came announcing not just good advice but good news. He came to bring the good news that the kingdom of God has come near, that the way of doing things, the way of living that God wants for us, is available if we will simply join our life to his. And it was at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, he gave this speech that became known as the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon ever preached. And he begins by declaring that God's kingdom is built on a bedrock of blessing, where the least are most, where the last are first, and where the lost are found. He moves on to say that anybody who puts their faith in him actually get to become who he is and do what he does.

And then he moves on to these series of teachings where he says, "Hey, you've heard this thing that was said, but I'm telling you something that is even better". It's in this section that we are walking through in this series where Jesus raises the bar and he gets to the heart. He raises the bar, raises the standard of how we are meant to live, and he gets to the heart of who we are as human beings, of who we're meant to be as the people of God. He gets to the heart of the big problems that are robbing us of our joy and our purpose in life. Jesus raises the bar and he gets to the heart. And what we're gonna look at today is a passage of scripture where Jesus does that when it comes to the world of our relationships, of sexual temptation.

And what we're gonna see Jesus do is show us how to live with sexual integrity and how to treat other people with dignity. But before we jump into all of that, I wanna talk to those of you who are already feeling really uncomfortable. Maybe it's because of the things that you've done or the things that have actually been done to you. Like, maybe you are somebody who was exposed to sexually explicit content at a really young age or maybe you are somebody who's actually been the victim of sexual violence, to the point where your innocence was taken from you. Maybe you are somebody who, it's the choices that you've made that you know were not good and were not pure.

And so as you're hearing all of this so far, you're already wondering, alright, what's this guy gonna say next? Is he just gonna beat me down because of all the things that I've done wrong? And I just hope and I pray that you will hear the compassion in the words of Jesus. Like, I know very well that I will not fully be able to do justice to the grace that is found in every word that comes from Jesus' mouth, because he is love in human form, that every word he speaks is always true and it is also full of grace. So no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, no matter what has been done for you, to you, Jesus offers you grace. If you come to him, he will meet you with compassion. And so as we walk through this passage of scripture, I want you to hear and to believe that if you bring your shame, if you bring your wounds to Jesus, he will bring you healing.

So we're gonna start in verse 27 of Matthew chapter five, where Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'" Now, Jesus here is quoting a command from the Old Testament. Don't commit adultery. That means do not have sex with anybody you are not married to because adultery is bad, dishonoring marriage, this lifelong covenant between one man and one woman before God. Dishonoring that is bad because marriage is this beautiful thing that was designed by God on purpose and for a purpose. And when we go outside of that, we are committing sin that is actually far more harmful than most of us will ever realize. That was the standard. But then in the next verse, Jesus raises the bar. He says, "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart".

Jesus said, adultery, not good. You should not have sex with people you're not married to. But then he goes on to say in the very next verse, but if you even look at a person with lust in your heart, that's the same thing basically as committing adultery. Like, what is going on here? Why does Jesus take this so seriously? Because Jesus recognizes something that so few of us do, that lust is not the same thing as attraction. It is not the same thing as appreciating the beauty of another human being. Lust goes beyond that. Lust is taking something that does not belong to you. Lust is choosing to view someone else as an object to be used instead of a person to be loved.

Lust is when you're scrolling through Instagram and you see that picture of that attractive person, and instead of just like liking it and moving on, you linger and you start to drool over them. Lust is when you're watching that show or you're reading that book, and things are starting to get a little bit steamy, and you feel the temptation stirring up in you, but instead of putting it down or turning it off, you just keep going. Lust is when you see that person in your school that you've got a crush on, and instead of just appreciating their beauty, you begin to fantasize things in your mind that are not good and are not honoring to them. Lust is the opposite of love, because lust is choosing to place your desire above another person's dignity. And what Jesus wants to make us into, who he wants to show us how to be are people of love. Love is choosing to sacrifice yourself for the good of another person, another human being.

So what love chooses, as you're scrolling through Instagram and you see that attractive person, is to not simply lust after them but to pray for God to bless them. And then before you're able to linger, you move on. Love chooses, when you're in the middle of that show or that book and you feel the temptation rising up, to shut it down, to stop the show even when you don't want to. Love chooses to see that person in your school and to not begin to fantasize inappropriate things but to thank God for creating beautiful people, thank God for creating people who are amazing, who are made in his image, and asking God to help you see and treat those people the same way that He does. Jesus takes this stuff so seriously because He recognizes better than anyone the damage that is caused by allowing our desires to point us in the direction of objectifying human beings.

So what do we do? How do we become the kind of people who live with sexual integrity and treat others with dignity? The first thing that we have to do is to confess your sin. Confess your sin. It's like really simple. You just honestly tell God where you have fallen short. Whether it is a lustful thought, whether it's having sex with somebody you're not married to, or anything and everything in between, whatever it is, you confess it to God. And you confess it to another human being. Like, you tell your friend, your mentor, or your small group leader about how you have failed in this area. You ask them to pray for you and to hold you accountable.

This is the first step we take to become people of love who are not dominated by lust. And then step two is what we're gonna see in the next passage of scripture. As Jesus continues, he goes on to tell us that, "If your right eye causes you to stumble, 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. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, 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". What is Jesus getting at here? He's telling us that if we want to become people of love, we have to first confess our sin, and then number two, we have to cut out temptation. We have to cut out temptation.

Now, when I first became a Christian about 10 years ago, I had a lot of temptation that I needed to cut out, because for all of my middle school and high school years, I did not live with sexual integrity. And so it became pretty obvious pretty quick that I had some real work to do. The first thing that I did is I deleted Snapchat because I was not using it for good things. Pretty quickly after that, I started blocking explicit websites on my phone and my computer so that I could not access those websites that I used to frequent. Then I stopped watching shows that glorify sex outside of marriage because, like, even though they were funny, they weren't funny enough to be worth the temptation.

Another thing that I did that some of you might think is weird and extreme is I stopped going to the gym and I started working out in my garage, because it's a lot harder to be tempted by a garage wall than a bunch of scantily clad people in the gym. And that was helpful for me. More recently, I took another extreme step that some of you is going to think is weird and makes no sense. I deleted social media entirely off of my phone. And these kinds of things have been immensely helpful to me. And the reason why I take all of these steps is because why on earth would I resist a temptation in the future that I have the ability to cut out today? Why would you try to resist things in the future that you have the power to cut out today?

Jesus takes this stuff seriously. And if you're his follower, you probably should too. Now, I wanna be very clear though that you taking these steps to cut out temptation will not remove it entirely. Like, you will still be tempted. But I am telling you, if you take some of these steps, the temptation will go from a hundred times a day to 10 times a day. And let me tell you something. It is so much easier to say no 10 times than it is a hundred times. And there are some of you who want to be pure, but you have just opened yourself up to every single temptation.

And you wonder why you keep falling short. It's because you have not actually cut off the temptations. You are allowing them access to your soul and it is wreaking havoc on your life. The other thing that I wanna make sure we all get right is that Jesus isn't saying this stuff to limit your happiness. Jesus is saying all of this stuff to limit the pain and the shame that comes from sexual sin. Jesus is saying all of this because he cares about you and the people that you interact with. What you have to understand is that when it comes to Jesus, every command he gives is an expression of his love, and it is always for our good, because he is totally good and he is perfect love.

How do we live with sexual integrity and treat others with dignity? First, you've gotta confess your sin. Second, you have to cut off temptation. But even if you do that, even though that is good and it is helpful, it is not enough, because it doesn't actually deal with the source. Jesus isn't just raising the bar, he's also getting to the heart. If we keep reading, I'm gonna show you some of the verses we've already talked about, but I wanna go back through them with a little bit of a different focus. So here's what Jesus says. He says, "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away".

So what is Jesus trying to show us? He's trying to show us that you can cut off your hand and gouge out your eye and still be dealing with sexual temptation, because sexual desire, sinful desire, does not come from your hand or from your eye, it comes from your heart. And if you try to cut out your heart, you will stop breathing. This is why we need more than good advice. We need good news, the good news that only the gospel of Jesus offers.

So what do we do? First, you confess your sin. Second, you cut out temptation. And third, you call on heaven. You call on heaven because Jesus is the great physician. Jesus doesn't just want to clean up the outside of your life. He wants to do surgery on the inside. He wants to renovate your heart, to purify your desires so that the stuff in here, the stuff that needs to be dealt with, can actually be cured. You see, Jesus has the power to do in you what you can never do on your own. He has the power to cleanse your heart and purify your desires.

And this is what he promises to do when we put our faith in him, to actually transform us from the inside out, so that we can become the kind of people who actually love him faithfully and who actually love others deeply, so that we can live with sexual integrity and treat other human beings with dignity. Call on heaven. Ask God to change your heart, to purify your soul. There's a guy in the Bible, King David, who did exactly this after he had sinned greatly against God and other people. If you don't know the story, David is the king of Israel. And one day, he sees a pretty lady and he takes her. He abuses his power and sleeps with her, getting her pregnant. And then to cover up his offense, he has her husband killed.

And so God sends a prophet to confront David for his wickedness. And after being confronted, David repents. He confesses his sin, he cuts off temptation, and he calls on heaven, asking God to change his heart. And so what I wanna do as we close out this message is invite you to make the prayer that David prayed your prayer. Here's what he said in Psalm 51. He prays, "God, have mercy on me, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions, my sins. Wash away all my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me".

How do we become people who live with sexual integrity and treat others with dignity? First, we confess our sin. Second, we cut out temptation. And then third, we call on heaven. We ask Jesus, the great physician, to do for us what we can never do for ourselves, because he wants to make us into people of love, people who love him faithfully and who love others deeply.

So, Lord Jesus, we come before you right now, so grateful for your sacrifice on the cross for us, for all of the ways that you have made your love known, for the grace and the mercy that goes so much further than our sins ever can. I pray that you would help us turn to you to confess where we have fallen short, to take the steps to remove the temptation that is eating away at our souls, and that we would call on you, asking you for your grace and your strength to be freed from our shame, to live faithfully to you, and to treat others with the dignity that they deserve. We pray all this in your holy name. Amen.