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Imagine for a moment that you and a friend are trying to cross Veteran’s Parkway at College Avenue on foot. You have six lanes of traffic to navigate. Your friend is in total chit-chat mode and completely oblivious to the fact that your timing is off to get to the other side. Your only chance to get across before the light changes green and you get hit by a car is to run. So in a split second, you tell your friend to hurry up. They ask why or what’s the hurry? With no time to talk weather, philosophy, or offer an explanation, you scream, "RUN!" (Not easy does it.)

When it comes to the intersection of sexual immorality, "run" is the operative word if you want to keep from crashing morally. If you want to enjoy the rewards of having chosen the moral street of wisdom, you must be prepared to "run." Why? Andy Stanley explains, "Nothing has stolen more dreams, dashed more hopes, broken up more families, and messed up more people psychologically than our propensity to disregard God’s commands regarding sexual purity."

We’re applying the best question ever to the arena of our sexual morality. We all have regrets from decisions we’ve made, but no regret runs deeper than the regrets associated with unwise, immoral sexual decisions. We’ve jumped into relationships we shouldn’t have. We’ve doused our minds with pornography. We’ve gone too far—got too involved and crossed too many immoral intersections that we wish we’d never crossed.

It’s the "best question ever" that has the potential to fool-proof our decisions and provide a regret-free life. The question is not what is the right, legal, moral, good, acceptable, permissible, or cool thing for me to do, but in light of sexual purity, what is the wise thing for me to do.

From our perspective, we need this wise question because all of our sexual meltdowns begin as a series of unwise choices. Our greatest moral regrets are always preceded by a series of unwise choices. I’m not necessarily talking about wrong, illegal, unacceptable, or immoral choices, but unwise choices. Can you think back to one of your moral regrets? Were they not a series of small, unwise decisions you made that pushed you into a dangerous intersection of regret?

Maybe it was the drink after work, the phone call, the trip, the business lunch, the touch, the magazine subscription, the invitation, the hug, or confiding in another person. You see, you choose yourself into the intersection of disaster because none of these things I’ve listed are necessarily wrong or illegal or immoral or unacceptable—just unwise.

It’s the best question that will keep you away from a moral fender bender or crash. It will force you to face your own self-deception and expose the fallacy of the one-liner, "There’s nothing wrong with.…" You may be right on this one. When you play out all the "nothing wrong" choices, you’ll find yourself caught in the middle of a crowded immoral intersection with no where to go. Culture baits or tempts you to the curb of a moral disaster by saying, "there’s nothing wrong with…"

And we don’t need a Sunday school lesson to be reminded that today’s culture has drawn the line of modesty and purity way too close to the intersection of moral disaster. There is no margin for error if we make a few unwise choices. No one intends to get addicted or to have an affair. No one intends to destroy a family. No one intends to get run over by pornography. But it takes more than good intentions to stay safe; we need a guardrail. It’s the best-question ever that has the potential to rescue us from disaster and bring us to a place of safety.

In order to apply the best question ever in our lives, we need to see and understand God’s perspective. Imagine that for one day you get to sit in God’s luxury suite in heaven and watch the world collide in the moral intersections of life. One after another you see people being picked off morally as they try to safely navigate the busy intersection of sexual immorality.

You see all the regrets and pain from misusing the gift of sex that God created for us to enjoy. You see marriages totaled by affairs. You see kids torn apart by divorce. You see abuse and irreparable wounds and scars. You see the epidemic of pornography and the damage of promiscuous lifestyles. You see every way God’s gift of sex is misused and abused.

So as you sit in heaven’s luxury box, what might you hear God saying? What might you say? "People, RUN! You’re about to get side swiped. I know you’re busy and distracted and maybe oblivious to the unwise choices you’re making, but RUN or you’ll be plowed over by oncoming moral traffic that will damage or destroy your life. I have the big picture, and I can see where your choices are leading you. I don’t have time to explain all this to you, just trust me and run!"

Now step out of the luxury box and put yourself back on the curb where life’s moral wrecks occur. If you aren’t tight with God, you may question why God even has a right to meddle in your sexual conduct. "What right does Mr. Cosmic Killjoy have to take away my fun by telling me to run and avoid the temptations of the dangerous intersection?"

Let me say, you’ve been fed some misinformation about God. God is the creator of sex. Sex is an awesome gift, but it comes with instructions to enhance your experience, not to diminish it. But when it is used incorrectly, it can create huge relational accidents and consequences. God is not against sex. He’s for it. He’s not against you. He’s for you. But when you fool around with this unbelievable gift and misuse it, you’ll hurt yourself and others around you. So, RUN!

God paints His perspective through the words of the Apostle Paul who wrote a letter to the church in Corinth, Greece where people were being picked off left and right by dangerous moral intersections. So Paul speaks for God in no uncertain terms: 1 Corinthians 6:18 tells us. "Run away from sexual sin." Need any clarification? Any questions? Are we clear on this one?

When you find yourself in the middle of a moral intersection and you see her coming or him making a move on you or you see some dangerous stuff coming your way, are you going to hesitate, gaze, flirt, rationalize, quote your favorite line: "there’s nothing wrong with…", and play Superman and fight against all the immoral traffic coming your way? God says—because of what is at stake—RUN! Danger is looking you in the face. So in light of your past moral failures or behaviors, current temptations and future hopes and dreams, what’s the wise thing to do? RUN!

If seeing all the relational and personal carnage left from moral wrecks in the intersection of immorality aren’t enough, Paul goes on to give us another reason to run. 1 Corinthians 6:18 says, "No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body." Here’s something most of us don’t understand. Sexual sin is in a category all to itself. It’s the most dangerous type of sin. We can’t write this one off as a minor misdemeanor. Sexual sin is unique in that it’s a sin against you. So what makes this kind of sin so powerful and dangerous?

We’re able to work through and move on after most other sinful choices, but sexual sin is not as easy. Memories don’t go away, do they? The images of the pornography I was introduced to as a teenager are still faintly etched on my mind. The relational and emotional scars and the struggle for intimacy have the potential to follow you throughout life. Shame runs deep and regret runs wide. Sexual sin is not just a physical act; it attaches itself to your soul and won’t go way, making it extremely difficult for you to ever forgive yourself.

In light of the extreme consequences from a moral wreck, aren’t some extreme precautions needed as well? So what is the wise thing for me to do? I believe wisdom would dictate that you set high personal standards or boundaries for your life so far back from sexual immorality that if you were to violate your standard, the consequences would be minimal. Even if you violate one of your personal standards, a silent alarm goes off in your conscience—RUN, not because you’ve done something immoral/wrong but because you compromised your standard.

So what do these standards look like? It will be different for everyone. Some require higher standards than others, based on their past and present circumstances. For some it’s canceling the internet or putting a porn block on the computer or refraining from certain types of movies or TV shows or eliminating tempting situations with the opposite sex. Decide where you’ll go and not go, whom you’ll be with and not with. If you’re dating, how far are you going to go?

If you don’t decide your personal standards, someone else will. If you don’t set your personal standards, someone will force theirs on you. The only way to do the wise thing is to set personal standards or guardrails far from the intersection of moral disaster. Taking extreme measures is a step you will never regret as long as you live.

So to what degree will you go to protect what’s important to you? You can’t duke it out in the middle of a sexually charged intersection and win. You win way back where it’s awkward and unreasonable, where friends laugh and call you a prude—at an extreme distance from trouble. So what is the wise thing for you to do? Set personal standards, take God at his word, and run when you find yourself crossing into a dangerous intersection. And God will lead you to a place of safety. It’s in the safety of God’s hands that you experience the beauty of true love—a love that honors God and awakens your spouse to God’s gift of love and romance.