Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022
Pastor Troy Brewer, OpenDoor Church, Burleson, TX
2 Corinthians 2:12-17 (AMP) – Now when I arrived at Troas to preach the good news of Christ, even though a door [of opportunity] opened for me in the Lord, 13 my spirit could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there; so saying goodbye to them, I left for Macedonia. 14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us spreads and makes evident everywhere the sweet fragrance of the knowledge of Him. 15 For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ [which ascends] to God, [discernible both] among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16 to the latter one an aroma from death to death [a fatal, offensive odor], but to the other an aroma from life to life [a vital fragrance, living and fresh].
The old King James says, “It’s life unto some and death unto others.”
Acts 9, Paul has an encounter with Jesus
- Paul saw the Bible one way before Jesus and an entirely different way after Jesus.
Matthew 6:23 – If your eye is evil then your whole is full of darkness.
John 14:6 (AMP) – Jesus said to him, “I am the [only] Way [to God] and the [real] Truth and the [real] Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
The container for SEX is marriage
Between a man and a woman.
1 man, 1 woman in marriage.
Hebrews 13:4 – “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”
The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. (1 Corinthians 7:3)
The biblical word for passionate sex is “heat” or “burning.”
Fire has to be contained.
It’s like a fire in your house. If the fire is in the fireplace, it’s comforting, beneficial, fascinating, life-giving and the favorite part of your day.
You take it out of the fireplace and put it on the walls, the couch, and the furniture and it destroys everything. It leaves you in a miserable place where you are unprotected, ashamed and traumatized.
The picture of the strength of water: powers cities if it’s contained in the right way. Destroys and kills everything if the dam breaks. Even if you do survive, the landscape changes and it’s never the same.
Genesis 2:25 – And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.…Be Fruitful and multiply…
Sex is God’s idea
SANCTIFICATION IS THE ROAD TO HOLINESS
To separate something for God’s Use
“The process of sanctification takes deliberate action on our part.”