The Ten Commandments - A Christian's Call to Covenant Faithfulness

Welcome to the roots where it's all about Jesus.

We love God, we love people, we reach the lost,

we make disciples, and we want to help you grow

in your knowledge and love of Jesus.

That's what we do here.

That's why part of one of the best blessings of

going through God's Word is we learn all of those things.

And we've actually been in a series you saw on

the screen there.

We've been in a series called The Ten Commandments Law

Defining Love. And if this is your first time here today,

I'll give you one guess what we're talking about.

We're walking through the Ten Commandments. That's what we're doing.

We're walking through all ten Commandments or ten words from

God to his people. And I think the most important

verses and all of the Ten Commandments are actually the

two verses that come before the Ten Commandments. So I

want you to grab your Bible and open up to

Exodus chapter twenty. We're going to read those verses. If

you don't have a Bible, we have some at the

back available for you. If you don't own a Bible,

we want you to keep that Bible. But a Gabe's God.

I'm right next to him and you wave at him,

and he will bring you a Bible right now if

you need one. But we're gonna be in Exitus, chapter twenty,

reading the first two verses.

Exitus is the second book of.

The whole Bible, and verse one starts and says, and

God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord

your God, who brought you out.

Of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

So before God gives his people his ten commandments, he

wants to remind the people of an extremely fundamental and

foundational truth. Wants to remind them that he is the

Lord there God, that he's the one who brought them

out of Egypt. He's the one who saved them from slavery, oppression,

and death. And because he saved them, that's the motivation

behind all of their obedience. These ten words, these ten commands.

He says, I saved you, and this is the motivation

behind all the obedience. God saved them, And now he's

telling them how they ought to live. He's giving his people,

whom he chose to save, his law. So now they

will know how they should be as his people. And

it's in God's law that we're told what it looks

like to love. We're told what it looks like to

love God and what it looks like to love people.

Look at what Jesus says about the law and the

prophets in Matthew chapter twenty two. He said, and one

of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

So this is a test they're trying to test Jesus, teacher.

Which is the great commandment of the law. And he

Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your

God with all your heart, and with all your soul,

and with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

And the second is like it, you shall love your

neighbor as who as yourself. On these two commandments depend

all the law and the prophets. That's a really important

verse right there, that part of that verse, all the

law and the prophets, that's all of the Bible they

had back then. All of that depended on these two

commandments where they hang on or they're summed up by

these two commandments to love God and to love people.

So what that means is that every time God demands

something of us or gives us a rule to follow,

including these ten commandments. It's got something to do with

loving him and loving people. And that's why we've subtitled

this series Law Defining Love, because God's Law is what

defines what love looks like. Not our feelings, not the world,

not what you were taught growing up. God's Law defines

for us what it looks like to love Him and

to love people. So let's kind of recap where we've

been so far in the series. God said, I saved you, right,

He saved the children of Visrael. He saved his people.

In Commandment number one, he says, you shall have no

other gods other than him. He's the only one. Commandment

number two was don't make or bow down to or

serve any idols or any created things. So we're to

worship God how he wants to be worshiped.

He set a standard for that.

Commandment number three was to not be careless with the

Lord's name. It is holy and should be treated as such.

Commandment number four was remember the Sabbath. We need to

remember to rest and to worship those two things together

and number five. Commandment number five was to honor your

father and mother children. You hear that one. We're in

here today that's a good one. Honor your father and

your mother, or also to the authorities that are placed

in your life, we honor those. Commandment number six was

don't murder. Every single human being is an image bearer

of God, so don't intentionally end the life of an

image bearer. Now, there is a difference we talked about

between killing and murder. But that brings us to today

today's commandment. Today we're talking about the seventh Commandment. So

I want you to look right there at Exus chapter twenty.

You might have to turn the page or in verse fourteen,

and it says you shall not commit adultery. You shall

not commit adultery. Let's pray. God, we thank you for

your word. We thank you for your word to your people,

which is us. God, give us ears to hear from

you today in a heart to receive it. The things

that are challenging, let us rise to the occasion. The

things that are heavy, give us the weight to bear it.

If we need to feel certain things, God, let us

feel it to the full force that you want us

to feel it. But God, let it not fall on

our deaf ears. Let us open our ears to hear

your word and be transformed by it, to be molded

and shaped into your image by it. God, we thank

you for your word, and we give all of this

whole service and all the glory to you in Jesus name.

Everybody said amen, now before we get started, because I

just read the verse. This is a heavy topic. We've

had a couple of those recently in this series, so

it's a bit of a heavy topic. And I do

recognize this is a family service. There are little ears

in the room with us today. There are children here,

So I want you to know I'm not going to

be careless with my words.

I am choosing my words very carefully.

But there will be some words that may raise some

questions on the drive home.

So parents, let's just be ready for that.

Let's be ready for some of those age appropriate conversations

with our kids. So if your kids aren't quite quite

ready for the birds and the bees talk, I had one.

I heard one pastor say it this way, Let's help

them understand God's plan for husbands and wives, to understand

that they keep the promises they made before God to

each other in marriage. That's one thing we should consider

when we're talking to the younger little ones. But if

your kids are a little bit older, you might want

to explain a little bit more. And the sad and

sobering reality is today our kids are exposed to way

more than we could ever want, and oftentimes way earlier

than we could ever imagine. So there's potential that your

kids have already been exposed to a lot and actually

need their parents to shepherd them through some of these

godly topics. Amen, So my fast time to start having

those conversations, maybe even on the drive home or before

bed tonight. Anyway, let's finally get into this commandment today. Ever,

have you guys ever been using duct tape and had

the duct tape accidentally fold in on itself? So I

went sticky side to sticky side. That's one of the

most frustrating things on this planet. As I sat there

and I took the time, I knew exactly how big

of a piece of tape I needed, I measured it out,

I tore it with precision, and then the slightest breeze

just blows the thing over and it folds and sticks

together on itself. Why is that so frustrating? It's because

now useless, the tape cannot be separated without being destroyed.

It's worthless. It's used only to be thrown away. It's

never ever coming apart again unless it's being destroyed. Now,

what does talking about duct tape have anything to do

with a sermon on adulterree? Well, it's because, like duct tape,

once stuck to itself, has been torn apart, being destroyed

in the process. This is a picture of what adultery

does to the one flesh union of marriage has to

be destroyed and ripped apart. I want you to turn

to Matthew chapter nineteen, going to the New Testament chapter nineteen.

We're gonna read verses four through six, and we're gonna

listen to what Jesus says.

He answered, this is verse four.

He answered, have you not read that he who created

them from the beginning made them?

What put that verse in your back pocket? That's an

important verse for us.

He made them male and female, and said, therefore a

man shall leave his father and his mother and hold

fast to his wife. This is a quote from Genesis

two twenty four. And the two shall become one flesh.

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What

therefore God has joined together, Let not man separate. So

this consummation of marriage takes two people and makes them one.

And in more ways than just the way puzzle pieces

fit together, it's even more so than the illustration of

duct tape. It's on a deeper level. A husband and

a wife are no longer two but one person. And

what adultery does is it tears that new one person

in half. So, yes, we are talking about the topic

of adultery today, but what I want us to understand

today is there's something even deeper happening in this Today

we're talking about our covenant keeping. God making a demand

on his people that we be covenant keeping as well,

and adultery is a picture of just how devastating and destructive.

It is to break our covenants.

So today what we're talking about is a Christian's call

to covenant faithfulness, a Christian's call to covenant faithfulness, and

that all begins with the most fundamental covenant that we

all know.

It's the covenant of marriage.

Marriage is like the main example that God uses in

scripture to explain his relationship or his covenant with his people.

You go throughout all of scripture, that's the one example,

an illustration God's using most It's also the illustration used

to describe jesus relationship to the Church. The church is

what's the bride of Christ. Covenant of marriage is held

in high regard by God. And because it's held in

high regard by God, we should hold it in high

regard as well. So if there's one thing that you

remember from today, if there's one thing you remember, I

want you to remember this. Christians faithfully keep covenance, especially

the Covenant of marriage. Christians faithfully keep covenance, especially the

Covenant of marriage.

That's what I want us to know today.

I often all ask myself what I want to know

from this text or the scriptures?

What do I want to know? What do I need

to feel, and what do I need to do?

So this is what I want you to know, and

what I want you to feel is the weight of

what it is to break that covenant. That's what I

want to feel today. And in response to that feeling,

I want us to do whatever it takes to keep

our covenant. So, if God is clearly stating here that

as people keep their covenant of marriage, what is it

to break that?

What actually is adultery?

And the Dictionary states that it's this, it's voluntary sexual

intercourse between a married person and someone other than that

person's current spouse. So, in short, sleeping with someone who

is in your spouse. Well, that seems pretty straightforward, very

clinical definition if I were to use a word, so

for married, you only sleep with your spouse. But if

you have a side note here, well what if you're single, dating,

or even engaged? And I'm saying don't check out because

God has something. Every time we read God's word, there

is something for us to understand and learn in this.

So don't check out if you're single, or you're dating,

or you're engaged, because is the person you're sleeping with

your spouse yet? No, it's not your spouse yet, so

don't sleep with them either. Physical intimacy is what makes

you into one flesh. This is the consummation, the last

step of the marriage covenant. God's intention is for you

to become one flesh with only one other person. And

some might say by sleeping with someone before you're married,

you're committing adultery against your future spouse. So there's a

lot that can happen in engagements. There's a lot that

can happen in dating. I mean, how many have seen

engagement called off? People break up, right, so we don't

know what the future holds. But side note, aside, and

back on track. Adultery. If you're in the marriage covenant

with someone, then sleeping with someone you aren't in covenant

with is committing adultery. That part's very clear, but it

starts raising some questions. You say, well, what about emotional affairs?

Is that committing adultery? Does that qualify?

And I do want to.

Say if you're asking that question in order to justify

certain behaviors, I think it's very telling.

You know it's wrong. You know that it's wrong.

That's like ask the question how close can I get

without crossing the line. It may not be adultery by definition,

but what is at the heart of adultery. It's going

to another source for something you've already have provided for you.

That's what's at the heart of adultery, going to another

source for something you already have provided for you. You

already have a spouse, someone for companionship, or a best friend,

someone to have deep conversations with, someone to encourage you

to share your experiences in life with you. Guys, sensing

a theme in what some of these things are. This

is what starts a lot of emotional affairs, or just

fill in the blank with any other need that a

marriage should be meeting. So to argue over whether it's

adultery or not, I think you're gonna missing the point.

We would be missing the point to be arguing that

you're rejecting God's provision and you're seeking your own source.

That's what's happening.

And at a minimum, you're putting yourself in the most

unwise position, the most unsafe position, because most adulteries, adultery

and affairs, they begin between friends.

I read this study that earlier.

This week, that came out in twenty twenty one, and

it said that sixty six to sixty eight percent of

all romantic relationships, all of them, even the ones who

end up in marriage, sixty six to sixty eight percent

of all of them, began as friendships. And that kind

of makes sense, right, They all began as friendships. So

to say we're just friends, nothing's going to happen, I

think it's naive. I think that's naive. I think it's

unrealistic because most adultery starts in friendship. It's unguarded and

unwise connections with people other than your spouse. So should

we be best friends with someone of the opposite sex

if married? I would argue no. I think best friends

can't help but fall in love. It's the way God

wired humanity. But is it okay to just be friends?

Yeah? Sure, but not without extremely healthy boundaries.

I think we should set very very good healthy boundaries

if we truly care about what God's saying here for

his how he views the Covenant of marriage.

We could be friends with someone of.

The opposite sex, but we've got to have extreme healthy boundaries.

There's no need to be spending one on one time

with some of the opposite sex that isn't your spouse.

I mean, what do you usually call one on one time?

Say loud? Whoever said that a date? That's a date?

What about private texting? I put that in the unwise

category for sure. What purpose is there for a married

person to be having a private text conversation with some

of the opposite sex.

There really isn't one.

I was racking my brain is like, well, maybe it's

like you're trying to do something special for someone, and

so you're like, I don't want them to know and

put someone else in the text. Just make it a

group text and include spouses. Why not group texts with spouses?

And I also think this supplies to social media. This

is kind of I mean, social media has been around

for a while now, but it's still affecting humanity in

new ways all the time.

Because what is it to share a meme? Something as

harmless as that.

To share a meme is to share a connection with

somebody over usually a joke, and it may all start innocent.

But make those group messages too, why not? Sometimes the

question is not whether it's right or it's wrong, but

is it wise? Is this the smart thing to do?

If the goal is to not jump in the fire

and get burned, why stand so close? Why would I

stand so close to it? Make wise decisions, set healthy boundaries,

because emotional fairs are walking in the direction of full

on adultery. That's the direction they're headed. They're going to

another source for something you already have provided for you.

And remember my argument today, as Christians faithfully keep covenants,

especially the covenant of marriage, So adultery is to go

outside your marriage covenant. And it's this marriage covenant that's

meant to be a life long covenant.

But that's not what we see most of the time.

Today's today, is it?

No, we see people thrown in the towel on their

marriages left and right, or more often than not, just

never getting married now and just sleeping around. But people

throwing in the towel on their marriages, going back on

their vows that they made when they when they got married,

filing for a divorce. And it's not just the world,

it's even Christians. But God tells us that there's only

a few ways. He tells us in scripture, there's only

a few ways that the covenant of marriage is dissolved.

And I want you to look at Matthew chapter nineteen,

verse nine. I think this one guy added yeah, and

I this is Jesus speaking. I say to you, whoever

divorce is his wife except for sexual immorality, and marries

another commits adultery. So it is an allowance of divorce

in the case of sexual immorality. And I think the

clearest case of sexual immorality being that they committed adultery

against you.

That's the clearest way.

But if you also look at First Corinthians chapter seven,

this won't be on the screen. But there is a

person who has an unbelieving spouse who abandons the marriage,

says to let them go, that they're no longer enslaved

to them.

And lastly, the other.

Thing that dissolves a marriage will be also in first

Corinthians seven, in the case of death, her spouse dies.

So these are the only ways that the lifelong covenant

of marriage are dissolved. That's bisexual immorality, abandonment by a

non believer, and death. But outside of those three things,

the covenant remains. You're still in covenant with that person,

which means to join yourself to another person, to marry

someone else, to be physically intimate with someone else, to

sleep with them is to commit adultery.

And look at what Paul says.

Now we're gonna read in one Corinthians, chapter seven, verse

ten and eleven. He says to them married, I give

this charge, not I but who but the Lord. The

wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does,

she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband.

And the husband should not divorce his wife. So for

the one who has divorced their spouse, I'm saying unlawfully

according to God's standard divorce for any reason other than

the three that we already talked about, that person should

stay unmarried or be remarried to the person that they're

still in covenant with. And I'd say that just because

the state gives you a certificate of divorce does not

mean that God recognizes that covenant is being dissolved. So

to marry someone else would be to commit adultree. And

this is heavier stuff. So you find yourself in that

situation today, having unlawfully entered into a new covenant, then

I would say, do the right thing going forward.

And we don't have time to really dive into this

a lot more.

Might be just a conversation after service if needed, But

go and sin no more. Do the right thing now,

obey the Lord and the covenant they are in right now. Okay,

But maybe you're sitting here right now thinking I've never

been physically intimate with anyone other than my spouse, or

I've never had an emotional affair. Well, this is where

Jesus intensifies the command. Jesus brings more clarity and depth

to what this command says. He gets to the heart

of the law. So turn to Matthew chapter five. We're

gonna read a few verses here, Matthew five, verses twenty

seven and twenty eight. You have heard it said, or

you've heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. Exitus,

chapter twenty, verse fourteen, Verse twenty eight says, But I

say to you that everyone who has looked at a

woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her

in his heart. Oh man, that sets the bar pretty high.

You mean even our thoughts matter. Was we've been marching

through the ten Commandments. Yes, absolutely, our thoughts do matter.

That's what Jesus is saying right here, that not only

are we not supposed to physically commit adultery, but even

lustful intent, which is a strong longing or a desire for,

specifically referring to sexual desire, That even lustful intent is

breaking the Seventh Commandment. It's because adultery begins in the heart.

It always does.

Now. I need to make something clear here because this

does raise some questions, some pragmatic questions. That noticing an

attractive person is not what's sinful. That's not the sinful part,

but what happens immediately after very well could be. What

do you do immediately after you notice? Do you take

a second look? Is there a lingering glance? Do you

just unashamedly stare? Do you indulge of the visual senses?

Does that look turn into something of an imagination? Will

you imagine things in your mind or wonder what certain

things might be like? Are you feasting with your eyes?

Feasting on what isn't yours to feast on? What movies

do you watch? What websites do you go to? What

things do you click on? What books are you reading?

How do you use social media? I want to say

it doesn't have to be explicit adult content to fall

into the less category. And I'm choosing my words wisely,

but I think you understand what I'm saying. Jesus is

telling us that adultery begins in the heart. It begins inside.

It's out of the heart. The mouth speaks out of

the overflow of the heart. So if you're looking with

lustful intent, you've already committed adultery in your heart. And

there is something that may seem a little odd for

me to bring up, but I do want to mention

that AI is getting pretty crazy nowadays.

It's getting crazy.

So even looking lustfully at something like that, whether it

be visual or textual, a lot would say, well, not real.

So it's not hurting.

Anybody that isn't your spouse either. That's not the source

that God provided to meet those specific needs. The point

that I'm trying to make here what's going to be

on the screen, is that all sexual fulfillment and satisfaction

is provided by God through your spouse. All sexual fulfillment

and satisfaction is provided to buy God through your spouse.

God has provided away, He did provide away, and it's

in the covenant of marriage with your spouse, So there's

no need to go anywhere else.

Think about it this way.

Looking elsewhere for fulfillment and satisfaction is like asking for

money when your pockets are full of cash. Just put

your hand in your own pocket, drink from your own cistern.

It's like having the entire garden of Eden available to

you and reaching for the one fruit you're not supposed

to reach for, like Adam and Eve, the thing that

broke everything.

You already have everything you need.

God has provided away for sexual fulfillment and satisfaction, and

to go outside of that is to commit adultery. It

is to break the covenant of marriage that God is

established between a husband and a wife. It's to tear

apart the one flesh union. And God is serious about it.

Look at Hebrews eleven. This is in verse four says

let marriage be held in what this is on screen,

say loud honor. Let marriage be held an honor among all,

and let the marriage bed be undefiled. For God will

judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. He's serious about the

covenant of marriage. He's serious about adultery. Christians faithfully keep

their covenants, especially the covenant of marriage.

I mean we follow a covenant keeping God.

We follow a covenant keeping God, the God that we worship,

the God that we follow, the one we serve and imitate,

is faithful to his covenants. And he calls us to

be a covenant keeping people. But here's a problem.

We don't.

He calls us to keep covenance, and we don't. What

do we do we break them? How often do we

put other things before Him, which was the first commandment?

How often do we look to the things of this

world to bring us joy and fulfillment instead of Him?

Or how often we let the praise.

Of our joy and our fulfillment land on whatever the

thing is, and not on Him, on the created versus

the Creator. How often we find ourselves serving and trying

to appease people or things, keeping them happy instead of Him?

How often are our hearts pulled and our affections drawn

to other places.

Other than Him? Love the Lord with all your heart, soul,

mind and strength.

That's the bar. How much, all of it, all of it,

that's the bar that perfect all the time. I'll answer

for you, No, you're not me neither. None of us

is doing that perfect all the time. So what does

that make us? What does that make us? That makes

us just like the children of Israel when they turn

from God and going after false gods and false idols.

Look what God says about Israel when they turn from him.

This is Jeremiah chapter three. The Lord said to me Jeremiah,

in the days of King Josiah, have you seen what

she did? Who says she's talking about that faithless one

who Israel, who's Israel, God's chosen people that He's saved

from slavery in Egypt? Have you seen what she did

that faithless one Israel? How she went up on every

high hill and under every green tree, and there played

the whore. It's in the Bible, got to say it.

And I thought, after this is God saying. And I thought,

after she has done all this, she will return to me.

But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah,

the rest of God's people saw it. She saw, she

saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one Israel.

He repeats it. I had sent her away with a

decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear.

But she too went and played the horror because she

took her hortem lightly. She polluted the land, committing adultery

with stone and tree. Yet for all this, her treacherous

sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart.

But in pretense, declares the Lord, and pretense is playing

the part to deceive was looking the part. And if

you skip just a few verses, look at verse twenty

in the same chapter. Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves

her husband, so have you been treacherous to me?

O house of Israel declares The Lord doesn't end there.

Look at Ezekiel chapter sixteen.

How, how sick as your heart, declares the Lord God,

because you did all these things, the deeds of a

brazen prostitute, building your vaulted chamber at the head of

every street so everybody sees it first when they show

up on the street, and making your lofty place in

every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute because

you scorned payment. You did it for free. These are

the words God is saying to his own people. Adulterous

wife who receives strangers instead of her what instead of

her husband? What do all these verses have in common.

They're all using the same illustration, God as the husband

and the people as his unfaithful wife. They've been unfaithful,

They've committed adultery against him. They've become prostitutes who welcome

strangers into their home instead of their husband. This is

how God describes unfaithfulness to him. So what does that

make us whenever we're unfaithful to him? Whenever we turn

to anyone or anything other than him, that we should

be turning to him?

For when we reject Him as Lord and king.

And turn to sin, that makes us adulters, adulters against God.

The faithful husband, And I can't think of a more

perfect illustration for God to use to get as a

point across.

God wants us, wants.

His people to understand how big of a deal it

is to be unfaithful to him, how severe it is.

Can you think of anything more destructive to a marriage

than adultery?

I can't.

Can you think of anything more destructive to a family

than adultery?

I can't.

People say death like no to live through? This is

a lot more destructive than the death. Can you think

of anything more destructive to society and culture than adultry?

You gotta pull on a thread a little bit to

understand that one. I can't think of anything more destructive.

Adultery takes the one flesh that was created and tears

it apart. Do you guys know what drawing and quartering is?

Some of the older fellows in the room are like,

I know exactly what that is. It's an old torture technique.

Often they would do for people committed treason. They would

tie your arms and your legs to four different horses

and send those horses running off in different directions to

literally tear one person into pieces. This is what adultery

does to the one flesh union of marriage. Adultrey is devastating.

It breaks trust, It brings division, It ruins intimacy. It

raises all kinds of sinful emotions that we talk about

all the time, jealousy, of rage, envy, anger and hate,

murderous thoughts. I think it's very timely that the Lord

said you shall not murder before he says you shall

not commit adultery, because what's the first thing you want

to do when adultery comes into play. You want to

murder somebody. Adultery separates families. It takes children away from parents,

destroying the nuclear family, which is God's design for the family.

It's not something we came up with. This is God's

plan for families. And what does all this have to

do with society and culture. Well, people make up society

and culture, and adultery breaks people. So now we're full

of a society and culture shaped by people who've been

broken by adultery. Adultery is terrible, destroys everything it touches.

So it makes sense this is the illustration that God

would use to describe our unfaithfulness to him. He needs

us to understand the severity of what covenant unfaithfulness is

so at this point, all I've done is give you

guys bad news. So welcome to church. Now they're all

feeling nice and terrible. Every single one of us, in

some way is an adulter against God. And if the

Lord resides in you right now, or maybe he's even

drawing you to himself right now, then you're most likely

feeling some level of conviction. And I need us to

feel that weight. Not just me, the Lord wants us

to feel that weight. The sacrifices of Lord is a

broken and contrite heart. He looks on a broken, broken

and contritenings lowly, humbled, defeated, so you turn to him.

He looks on those hearts favorably. So you might be

feeling some level of conviction. And I want us to

feel that weight.

I want us to.

Feel what the weight it is, what weight it is

to break our ovenance, our covenants with people, but more importantly,

our covenant with God, Because any covenant we've ever broken

with a person is first a covenant we've broken with God.

Even think about David and Bathsheba when he's when he

wrote his psalm, he said, against you, you only have

I sinned David understood. So as covenant breakers, what do

we do? What's the solution? Because congratulations, we're all adulters

in here. What's the solution? I think what we need

to do is three things. Is to reveal and repent.

Confess and repent of your sin. Is to repair and remove,

to repair the damage and remove the temptation. And number

three is to remember that Jesus died for your sins.

So I want to talk about these three things briefly.

The first one is to reveal and to repent, which

is just to confess and repent. The first thing is

let it be known. Got to reveal or confess your sin.

Reveal to God, Reveal to your spouse and a brother.

Sure in Christ one John one nine says, if we

confess our sins, he is faithful and just.

To what forgive us? Say it loud, forgive it? Whooh, yes,

praise Jesus.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just

to forgive us our sins and decleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And James five sixteen says, therefore, confess your sins to

one another.

And pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as

it is working. So confession is the first step in

true repentance. It's confession to reveal it. We confess to God,

and he's faithful and just to forgive us, and we

confess to each other so we can pray for each

other and be healed. Forgiveness and healing are found in confession,

in revealing our sin, and as hard as it is,

reveal it to your spouse. That's how this whole process

of reconciliation starts. We reveal our sin, or we confess it,

and then we truly repent of it. To repent is

to turn away from Acts. Three nineteen says repent therefore

and turn back. Say turn back, turn back, that your

sins may be blotted out. We turn away from our

sinful ways, and we receive forgiveness.

That's amazing.

Our sins are blotted out, which means they're obliterated, they're erased,

they're wiped out, they're redacted, they're removed from the record

as far as the east is from the west, which,

by the way, those two things never get any closer.

They're always getting farther away.

But it's not just a repentant go back to our sin,

because that's not true repentance. Matthew three eight says, bear

fruit and keeping with repentance to bear fruit. And we

ought to bear fruit in our repentance, to repent and

actually change, to actually turn away from to do what

Jesus told the woman caught an adultery. After everyone left

and Jesus alone was there, what did he tell her?

Go and sin no more, stop it, stop sinning, Go

and sin no more. To turn away from your sin

and stop doing it. So reveal and repent. We need

to reveal our sin or confess it, and then we

need to repent of it. And the second one is

to repair and remove, so we know part of true

repentance is turning from our sin. And turning from our

sin is doing the hard work of repairing the damage

that your sin has brought. To roll up our sleeves

on this one. Go do the hard work of repairing

the damn and your sin has brought. And we need

to remove the temptation to fall back into those sins.

Rebuilding trust takes a long time. It just does repairing

the damage of a relationship. It isn't easy, but it

must be done. God cares deeply about the unity of

his people, and we see that evident in all of

how he tells us how to be throughout all of Scripture,

cares deeply about the unity of his people, so much

so that even tells us if we've brought our gift

to offer to him at the altar, he says, leave

it there and go fix the problem. First, look at

Matthew chapter five. I think you're still in Matthew chapter five.

So Matthew chapter five, and go to verse twenty three.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar

and there, remember that your brother has something against you.

Leave your gift there before the altar, and what go

get out of here. First be reconciled to your brother,

and then come and offer your gift. We've sinned against

each other. We need to do everything we can to

fix it, especially something as big as the covenant of marriage.

To do whatever it takes short of sinning, to repair

the damage. Do whatever it takes. And part of repairing

that damage is putting things in place to make sure

that we don't fall into that kind of sin ever again.

It's removing the temptation from your life. And Jesus makes

this very visceral when he talks about lust. And then

this is right after what we read earlier about adultery

beginning in the heart. And this is the same chapter Matthew,

chapter five. Now look at verse twenty seven. We'll read

this again. You've heard it said you shall not commit adultery.

But I say to you, everyone who looks at a

woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her

in his heart verse twenty nine. Here it is if

your right eye causes you to sin, what are we

supposed to do?

Tear it out and what throw it away?

For it's better that you lose one of your members

then that your whole body be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, do what?

Cut it off and do.

What and throw it away, for it's better that you

lose one of your members than that your whole body

go into hell.

I mean, are you willing to do whatever it takes?

Are you willing to do whatever it takes to sin

from your life or to remove temptation to sin from

your life? I mean, some people in this room need

to delete your social media accounts like that's just a reality.

Some people in this room shouldn't.

Have unrestricted or private access to the Internet at all.

Some of us probably need to go through the contacts

on our phone and delete or even block some numbers.

Jesus isn't saying to actually tear your eye out, You

guys understand that right.

He's not promoting mutilating yourself.

He's saying, do whatever it takes to remove the sin

from your life. Give your spouse all your passwords, give

him access to all your accounts, be honest with your struggle.

And I think that every Christian, like all Christians, should

have at least one person they're fully honest with. Whether

you're married, single, dating, gauged, whatever, you need to have

at least one person that you're fully honest with, someone

who can hold you accountable. A pastor said it this

way one time. He says, to be ninety nine percent

known is to be unknown. You're not known. You got

that one percent you're holding back. You have to be

one hundred percent honest with somebody. You got to the

one percent you don't want to tell anybody. Find someone

and tell her a trusted brothers sister in Christ. Do

whatever it takes to remove the sin from your life.

How serious are you about this? How serious are you?

Listen to the author of Hebrews and Hebrews twelve. He says,

consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself,

so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted.

In what in your struggle against sin? You have not

yet resisted to the point of shedding blood? In your

fight against sin, Consider what Jesus went through, and ask yourself,

have I resisted to the point of shedding blood? No?

Then keep resisting, don't quit, don't grow faint hearted, don't quit,

continue to resist. I also love that promise. I need

the worship team to come up to. I also love

that promise that God says, resist the devil and he

will flee from you. So even if you're gonna blame

your te temptation on the devil, which most of time

temptation we know comes from our own wickedness, of our

own heart. Even if you're going to blame the devil,

we're still given it out. Resist him and he will

flee from you. So we repair and we remove, We

repair the damage that our sin has brought, and we

remove the temptation to sin. And lastly, we need to remember.

We need to remember that Jesus died for our sins.

Every single one of us has committed an adultery against God.

We've been unfaithful to him.

But the most important thing we need to remember is

everywhere that we've been unfaithful in our covenants, Jesus has

been faithful. Everywhere we've been unfaithful in our covenant against

people and against God, Jesus has been faithful. He is

the faithful spouse. We are his bride. And I want

you to look at Ephesians chapter five. Turn there, because

this shows us what Jesus. How Jesus is as a

husband to his bride, the church. Sophesians chapter five, towards

the end of the chapters, Verse twenty five will start there, husbands,

love your wives as who loved the Church, as Christ

loved the Church and gave himself up for her that

he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing

of water with the word, so that he might present

the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle,

or any such thing, that she might be holy and

without blemish. Christ laid himself down to present us his

Church like that verse twenty eight, in the same way,

husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes

and cherishes it.

It cherishes it.

Just as Christ does the Church, because we are members

of his body. We are the body of Christ, the

body and the bride of Christ. Therefore a man shall

leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,

and the two shall become one flesh. And here Paul's

making his point, this mystery is profound. I'm saying that

it refers to Christ and the Church. He says, Paul

is church in Ephesus, going over all their divisiveness in

the Church in Ephesis at the time sounds like I'm

talking about marriage. But what I'm really talking about is

Jesus in the Church. And this is also true for marriage.

Is what he says.

Jesus laid his life down for the Church to cleanse her,

to make her whole and without blemish. He's the faithful spouse.

He's faithful to us. He's faithful to the point of death,

even death on a cross. He's faithful to God, the

Father and It's his faithfulness is what makes him the perfect,

spotless lamb, the only one who can die in our

place is the ultimate substitutionary sacrifice. It's his faithfulness that

makes him a righteous to be in right standing with God.

And it's that righteousness that we receive in place of

our unrighteousness, the great exchange. If you repent and believe

in Jesus, then Jesus perfect righteousness is given to you.

Righteousness is given to you, and he receives all of

your sin, in all of your unfaithfulness. The wrath of

God that we deserve for our adultery against God falls

on Jesus. Second Corinthians five twenty one. We gotta know

this for our sake. Who's sake? Our sake, the saints,

the Christians, those who are are God's chosen people.

For our sake.

He made him to be sin, who knew no sin,

the perfect one, so that in him we might become

the righteousness of God. Man. That's that's a trade we're

never making. I'm giving someone all my good deeds and

receiving all their bad deeds. No, but Jesus, the perfect

and faithful, one, perfectly faithful, the one who never committed

adultery against God.

He died a sinner's death.

He died an adulter's death, the adulter's death that we deserve,

also that we didn't have to.

All those who put faith in Jesus.

Are the result of Ephesians five have been washed clean,

spot free, blemish free, holy. If you put faith in Jesus,

you've been washed clean. The sin of adultery against God

has been forgiven, the sin of covenant unfaithfulness has been forgiven.

That's really really good news. So repent of your sin

and believe in Jesus. That's the call to those who

have not put faith in Jesus. But to summarize all this,

what do we do? What do we adulters do? We

reveal our sin and repent of our sin. You reveal it, repent,

We repair the damage of our sin, and we fight

to remove all temptation to sin.

And we remember that Jesus died for our sin.

That everywhere we were unfaithful adulterers, he has been the

faithful spouse, so we have to cling to him. We

don't make it because we made it. We make it

because we're clinging to the one who did make it. God,

is a covenant keeping God. He showed it by saving

Israel from Egypt, and he's been saving his people ever since.

He always follows through on his word, and he calls

his people to be covenant keeping people. Christians faithfully keep covenants,

especially the Covenant of marriage. You shall not commit adultree,

not against people your spouse, and not against God.

Let's stand to our feet