Guardrails: "Flee, Baby, Flee!"

It is official. Our after church swimming party has been changed to June 5, 2011. Please mark your calendars and plan to join us at the Emerald Forest Swimming Pool after church on Sunday, June 5. Everyone is asked to bring a lunch and dessert to the clubhouse. We will eat lunch and the pool will open at 12:45 p.m.--2:45 p.m. The pool folks have instructed us to keep food away from the pool area, so we will need to do our eating and drinking inside the clubhouse. Bring the kids for a great time of fellowship.

This week's lesson was about sexual temptation. Andy Stanley referred to 1 Corinthians 6:18 in which Paul warns us: "Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body." Andy Stanley explained that this one sin is responsible for many of the problems in our culture and society. It is the reason for broken families and young children who live in single parent homes rather than in homes with a mom and dad, it is one of the reasons for our high rate of poverty, it contributes to our problems in education, it is one of the drivers of our prison population increase, and it is a contributor in almost every malady that we experience as a culture and society.

Andy suggests several guardrails to help keep us from stepping into the abyss of sexual sin. He suggests that married people never travel with members of the opposite sex, that married people never eat a meal with members of the opposite sex, and that employers not hire members of the opposite sex because they are cute and need a job. He also encourages married people to never counsel members of the opposite sex. As we discussed the guardrails that Andy proposed, some of our class felt that some of these guardrails were a bit too conservative. Because some of us work in fields where there are large percentages of members of the opposite sex, some of these guardrails could present real limitations in our work.

Andy argues that the consequences of sexual sin are so great that it is an area of life that must be carefully guarded and protected. Flee, baby, flee! He argued that if we bump up against one of the guardrails he proposed, there would be little or no consequence. However, if we go past the guardrail and should slip into the abyss of sexual sin, the consequences are profound not only for us personally, but for our families and loved ones as well.

Whether you agree with the guardrails that Andy proposed or whether you prefer to set your own guardrails in this area of life, we probably can all agree that we do need guardrails and we do need to be sure that we are protecting our sexual integrity. Guardrails are designed to stop us before we get into an area where we will be injured or suffer negative consequences. If you don't buy Andy's guardrails this week, I hope you will consider your own guardrails in this area of life. Divorces, broken homes, single parent families, unsupervised children, and children who suffer the loss of one parent and the regular presence of one side of the family are all part of the price that adults impose on their family when they make bad decisions in this arena of life.

Come join us next week as Andy Stanley's wife, Sandra joins him on stage to further discuss and describe guardrails. In the meantime, have a great week and try to stay off the guardrails.