That One About Adultery - Ben Wade

Hey there, this is Jen Wade, part of the core team here at Springs Church.

We just want to say thank you so much for joining us and listening to our podcast.

We are praying that it encourages you and it inspires you.

And if you'd like to find out more about Springs Church, please visit our website springschurch.co.uk.

Here's today's message.

Good afternoon everybody, everyone okay?

Excellent.

Good, good.

I'm just going to airplane mode this because I tend to get my eBay notifications while

I'm preaching.

So I'll just airplane mode that and helpfully set a timer.

It is wonderful to be with you this afternoon.

For those of you that don't know me, my name is Ben, part of the leadership team here at

Springs and have been for, is it eight years or nine years?

My wife will know, eight years.

It's the same length of time that we've been married, minus two months.

So a huge welcome to you all, whether this is your first time or your hundredth time,

you are equally as welcome.

And this afternoon I'm going to continue our message, our messages, talking about the 10

commandments and going through these seemingly really old school biblical things and wondering

how could that be relevant for us in 2023?

There are a bunch of messages available on our YouTube and on Spotify and wherever you

get your podcasts.

If you want to listen back to previous messages, you can do so there just in case you've missed

anything.

But this afternoon it appears that I have drawn the short straw.

This is the first ever message of Springs that has an age restriction that we've actually

shooed out 11, 12 and 13 year olds, just in case anything here is a bit too much for them.

So bear in mind today's message is going to deal with adultery.

We're going to talk about sex and pornography.

So any children under the age of 18 possibly, growing up city is your decision.

Hopefully my young daughter who's not two yet is not going to hear any of this.

If this is your first time in church, please know we are a Bible believing church and we

take the Bible seriously.

Hence when we're teaching into the Ten Commandments, we're going to talk about them in a bit of

detail.

So I apologize if this is awkward at any point.

I promise you it is more awkward for me than it is for you.

But just we might know apology for talking about the Bible and explaining things in a

little bit of detail.

So we're going to talk about Exodus 20 verse 14.

Exodus 20:14

And on the face of it, it seems like the most plain black and white sentence in the world.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not sleep with or have sex with anyone who is not your married partner.

Okay, job done.

That's it.

However, before I continue, I'm aware this afternoon, there's going to be a range of

experiences in the room, those untouched by adultery, those deeply hurt by it, those

that have been victims of adultery and possibly those who have committed it, those married,

those in the room that may be divorced, those who are dating, those who are single.

And the last thing that we want to do is re-trigger any past hurt or any past pain.

We believe that there is not a sense of guilt or condemnation that comes from hearing these

words.

In the Bible says, in Romans 8 verses 1 to 3, therefore there is now no condemnation

Romans 8:1–3

for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from

the law of sin and death.

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending

His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.

And so that paints a wonderful picture of what the Old Testament Ten Commandments were

supposed to do that they just could not achieve.

The Old Testament Ten Commandments being powerless because they were weakened by the flesh and

Jesus coming to make those Ten Commandments not only purposeful but perfect.

And we know that Jesus talks about these in quite a lot of detail.

And what we want to say to you this afternoon is there is a Savior God, a Jesus Christ who

died for you and He forgave you for everything you've done even before you did it.

The fulfillment of forgiveness is found in Jesus.

So I just want to open this message.

I want to take a moment to pray that our hearts would be protected against any sense of guilt

or condemnation.

The Bible says that does not come from Jesus and that as we listen to this message this

afternoon that the Holy Spirit would be here.

So let's just take a moment just to pray.

Lord I thank you that there is no sense of guilt or condemnation that comes from you.

And so if there's anybody in the room that's feeling that sense of guilt or condemnation

just as I even say the word adultery, Lord we ask in Jesus' name that it be shattered.

Condemnation and guilt does not come from you.

Forgiveness and love come from you.

Lord I pray that there would be an overwhelming blanket of your Holy Spirit over this room

this afternoon that people would feel loved and accepted and welcomed.

Lord this is not a holy club.

This is a room full of broken people that are trying to live their lives for Jesus.

So Lord we love you.

May your Spirit come and be with us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

As Pumba says to Simba in The Lion King, I know this is an odd start to a preach, he

says you've got to put your behind in the past.

Being a mix-up of you've got to put your past behind you.

And so one thing Jesus cannot do is change the decisions that we have made in the past.

Can't change our past or our old decisions.

And so if you are possibly here thinking gosh maybe I've done this before, I believe in

the total and utter forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

If you've been a victim of adultery or it's affected your friends or your family in any

way, although this isn't going to change, I believe that Jesus is totally capable of

healing your hurt and healing your heart.

He is love and he is the ultimate expression of love.

God doesn't end the pain that we're in but he does hold our hand and he does walk with

us through it.

So I hope this afternoon that there's something for everyone here.

If you're single please don't switch off.

I believe that you're here for a reason and God wants you to hear this, single people

can commit adultery with married men and married women obviously.

But I really do believe the way that you treat your singleness and then your dating will

influence your marriage either positively or negatively.

So hopefully there's something for everyone here this afternoon.

According to the Institute of Family Studies, this is UK research conducted last year, 20%

of men will cheat on their married partner and 13% of women will have sex with someone

who isn't their married partner during marriage.

That initially seems, that's quite small on the pie chart Ben, 20% is one in five, one

in five men.

Statistically, and this is just the people who have owned up to it, one in five men will

commit adultery during the course of their marriage on their partner.

The impact of adultery on a marriage is obviously catastrophic and I'm sure you don't need me

to spell all that out this afternoon.

Having an affair or cheating may seem exciting or sexy, the other party gets you in a way

that your husband or your wife doesn't.

There's no baggage, there's no shared pain but of course that's all fleeting, all momentary.

What's not momentary is the trust broken between two people who vowed to always do their best

for one another.

And this Old Testament law, the law given in Exodus 20, you shall not commit adultery,

was given to a group of people who were in the middle of a desert in the book of Exodus.

Israel as a nation finds itself in the wilderness.

They have been held captive in slaves for several years and so what these Ten Commandments

were about was not necessarily a strict set of rules you have to follow but it was about

bringing an identity to a lost people.

Hey, if we're going to be known as the nation of Israel, these are the ten things that we

stand for.

Can you imagine how easily it would have been to commit adultery in the middle of the desert

in a group of tents that you see people every single day?

Imagine how easy that would have been.

You could have living out in tents, travelling together as one tight-knit community, it would

have been incredibly easy to commit adultery in that setting.

However, it would have also been incredibly damaging, dangerous and destabilising to their

community but also the mission that God was sending them on to bring glory to Him.

The reason we're covering this topic is because it is important.

Jesus himself spoke about adultery and he actually took the Old Testament law a little

bit further.

Jesus, the Bible says, is the fulfilment of the law.

So any rules that we may have to follow were always checked against what Jesus said and

what Jesus did.

In the book of, actually before we get to that, there's this little quote here that

I used last time I preached by a pastor called Alan Redpath and he says this about the way

that Jesus talks about the Old Testament.

The great message of the Christian faith is that we are free from the law's condemnation

in order that we may be able to fulfil its obligation by the power of Jesus within.

My obedience therefore is not legal but inspired by love and empowered by God's Holy Spirit.

Does New Testament grace and forgiveness allow for a lower standard than the Old Testament's

harsh law?

No.

The standard under grace is even higher.

And Jesus says this, Matthew 5 verse 27 to 28, you have heard it said you shall not commit

Matthew 5:27–28

adultery but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed

adultery with her in his heart.

That is a higher standard for sure.

I mean by Jesus's standards the man preaching to you right now is an adulterer and every

single person here is an adulterer as well.

I mean this is a higher standard.

Thank Jesus that he died for me, that he died for you and that his sins, not his sins, our

sins were nailed to that cross with him.

Thank the Lord that he forgives me because I do not measure up to that standard.

Now let's just pause and make it clear here.

Jesus says whoever looks at a woman lustfully, Jesus is applying the same standard to men

and women.

I mean you don't get off scot-free here I'm afraid.

Jesus spoke from his own viewpoint and obviously so used male pronouns but it absolutely applies

to everyone equally.

Jesus did not apply different standards to men and women.

He applied them absolutely equally.

In fact the first people to discover Jesus's resurrected body, the first people to meet

Jesus were his female followers.

Jesus doesn't apply standards differently.

However with the words whoever looks at a woman, Jesus correctly locates the origin

of lust back to the eyes, whoever looks.

Since Jesus considers adultery in the heart a sin, not just with the body, we know what

we think about and allow our heart to rest on is actually based on choice.

Many people who have committed adultery believe they have no choice and therefore no responsibility

maybe for even what they think about.

I can't help thinking those things but this contradicts the teaching of Jesus here.

We may not be able to control our fleeting thoughts but we'd certainly decide where our

heart and mind will rest.

The Bible says take every thought captive and we quite often end the statement there.

The second part of that verse says take every thought captive and make it obedient to God.

A passing or a fleeting thought will lead you to a choice.

Imagination is a God-given gift but if it is fed dirt by the eye, all sin, not least

sexual sin is going to begin with the imagination.

Therefore what we feed the imagination is of maximum importance.

Then we are in the pursuit of kingdom righteousness.

Jesus was tempted in all of these ways, endured such temptations the same as us but he did

not yield to the same sin.

He was able to see women as other than objects for his own gratification.

He was tempted in all points as we are but desire was expelled by the mighty power of

a pure love to which every woman was a daughter, a sister or a betrothed, a sacred object of

tender respect.

What a wonderful example and what an impossible example at the same time.

Something that we just cannot live up to.

So how can we try and solve some of these issues?

Ben, you're talking about this in very difficult standards.

At the moment you haven't given me anything concrete.

You haven't given me anything that's going to help me in my day to day life.

Well let's look at 1 Corinthians 6 verses 18 to 20.

1 Corinthians 6:18–20

This is St Paul writing and he says, flee from sexual immorality.

All of the sins a person commits are outside the body but whoever sins sexually sins against

their own body.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you

have received from God?

You are not on your own.

You were bought with a price.

Therefore, honor God with your bodies.

And the danger is that Christians live their whole lives thinking that sex is a bad thing

because so often it's said from the front that we can't do this and we shouldn't do

this and we should be careful with this.

God invented it.

God created your body.

He created everybody's body.

And so if God's created it, God's designed it and God's ordained it.

And he's got a way to do it.

Not literally.

The Greek word here where it says, flee from sexual immorality.

The Bible was not written in English.

The Bible was written in Hebrew in the Old Testament and Greek in the New Testament.

This word sexual immorality was not two words in the Greek.

It was one word.

And the word here used is pornea which is where the modern term pornography comes from.

This word pornea was a simple word that included every Jewish custom around sex.

So it would have included sex before marriage as well.

Flee from sexual immorality.

The original translation would have included sex before marriage.

But we are so desensitized to sex outside of marriage that it's just commonly accepted

in our culture that that's what couples do.

Nearly every film or rom-com you're ever gonna see involves the couple sleeping together

as a development of their relationship.

They've met and they've flirted and they've seen there's a connection between the two

and they've probably gone bowling or he's brought her flowers.

Something like that.

And then at the end of that they sleep together and then the day after they realize there's

some horrible thing they haven't told each other and disaster happens and there's that

moment in the rain and then they reconnect.

Society will paint sex as a way to develop a relationship and to work out is he the one,

is she the one.

This is not sex as God intended it.

It's just a corruption from the enemy.

Now what I do want to say at this point again, I really want to push forward that sense of

there is no sense of guilt and condemnation in Christ Jesus.

And you'll understand this more when I get to the story at the very end I'm gonna deal

with.

This last story I'm gonna use is how did Jesus deal with this issue?

Before we get there, porn and sex outside of marriage, they are just huge topics.

We could quite easily fill hours discussing them and what the Bible says about them.

And today's message is specifically focused upon adultery but seeing as Jesus says, if

you have so looked at someone lustfully you've committed adultery.

I think we kind of need to talk about these things a little bit.

If you're single at the moment, I believe again this will have a profound effect upon

your married life, how you deal with your singleness right now.

Porn is not a modern day problem.

Pornography was found carved and etched into the walls of Pompeii, would you have it believe?

Jesus makes his stance on this pretty clear.

But I tell you anyone who looks at somebody lustfully has already committed adultery with

them in their heart.

And so why did Jesus want us to turn our backs on lust?

Why did he want us to turn our backs on pornography and lust with the eyes and taking thoughts

far too far?

It's because it is a deception.

It's a lie.

Porn is an untrue picture of sex.

It denies intimacy.

If you break that word down and say it slowly, into me see, intimacy.

You see into somebody's soul.

Porn and lustful thoughts are me focused.

It's about not only me focused and selfish, it's breaking your marital vows.

Jen and I at our wedding, I know she's disappeared at this point.

Jen and I at our wedding said, we both vowed to each other, we said, with my body I honor

you.

If I'm looking at these things and taking thoughts too far, I am not being honorable

to my wife and the things that I vowed to her in front of God.

God honoring and marriage honoring sex is about self-giving love.

Righteous sex is about self-sacrifice.

It joins two people together in love and it should always strengthen a relationship rather

than weaken it.

The book of Genesis in the second chapter of the Bible is the first time God talks about

sex.

He says, and they shall become one flesh.

The opposite of God's design for sex between a husband and wife can be seen in the use

of porn where satisfaction is always at the expense of somebody else because it's all

about you.

God created sex to be about love, sacrifice, mutual respect, dignity and care between a

husband and a wife.

Right sex happens when the focus is on serving each other and not getting your own needs

met.

My own experiences with pornography were met pretty head on with what was in hindsight

some absolutely incredible parenting.

I was about 12 years old and I finally discovered that I could probably leave Lord of the Rings

and Pokemon alone and girls were fit.

The only internet access that we had in the house at that time, it was the early 2000s,

was the family PC in the back room.

It was just after dial-up days.

We'd just got our first wireless modem.

We were about 2005-ish at this point.

I discovered that before mom and dad got home from work when I was back from school, I could

use this PC to search all sorts of things.

A mate of mine had told me that Ask Jeeves was the best search engine to use.

Remember Ask Jeeves, you could ask Jeeves a lot of things guys.

All the grown-ups use this new thing called Google so my mate said, look, just use Ask

Jeeves.

After a couple of weeks, I remember my dad coming upstairs into my room and shutting

the door behind him and I thought, uh-oh, this is bad news.

In the Wade household, we generally dealt with things pretty head on.

That was either not really in a loud or a shouty way, but if there was something that

needed to be called out, we were pretty good at saying it straight on.

Well, little 12-year-old me, little 12-year-old Benjamin did not know about the delete internet

history function, did he?

Dad sat me down and dad, to be fair to him, called some things out.

He just said that he'd found some websites and honestly, I remember the one in the ground

to open up and swallow me so bad.

What I remember was my dad wasn't cross, he wasn't angry, he was upset.

I imagine my mom was fuming, but my dad, my dad was just upset when he spoke to me.

He was nearly on the verge of tears.

He proceeded to speak to me about my images of women and the value that I should have

for them, not as objects or things for me to lust over, but as powerful beings, love

designed, created by Father God.

He told me how porn created a false image of sex, one that was not to God's design.

I don't remember his exact words, but I do remember leaving that conversation equally

enlightened and ashamed in equal measure.

Once in the room, I just hope that's a good example to us, an example where my dad didn't

come at me full of anger.

He came gently to explain things and talk them through.

Honestly, that was incredibly powerful because about 18 months after that, when I was about

13 and a half, 14, Jen and I started dating.

We actually made it official on the 20th of October, 2006, and that was when we put each

other's names in our MSN chat name.

That was the way he made it official when I was a teenager.

Tell you what, in hindsight, boy am I flipping glad I had some of those conversations with

my dad before I started dating anyone.

Decisions made in the moment are poor masters.

I had a conviction that I shared with Jen early on, and she was really strong on this

as well, that we would not sleep together while we were dating.

What we're not trying to do here is create a holy club of holier than thou people.

There are 110 things wrong in my life, and what I don't want this message to do is leave

feeling a sense of some people have got it all together and some people haven't.

This is just the reality of our story.

I'll tell you what, hand on heart, that was the best tool I have ever had for sharing

my faith with my friends.

Whilst all of them lost their virginity, went from messy teen relationship to messy teen

relationship, they all knew that I actually took my faith seriously.

Lots of them didn't believe me, but about 15 or 16 of my mates came to youth as a result

of me asking them and them knowing that I took my faith seriously.

What I did with my body lined up with what I did with my faith.

Many of those friends are still leading worship and serving in churches across Dudley today.

Now did Jen and I mess up?

Did we get close to having sex?

Did we do things we shouldn't have done?

Apps are flipping lootily.

We were hormonal teenagers who didn't wear puberty rings, we didn't have the Bible strapped

to our belt buckle.

We got seriously close to sex several times.

I'm not holding us up as a perfect example.

But what I am saying is it's the only example I've got.

Before we were in that situation, we made a decision.

Before we were in the situation, we made a decision about what we weren't going to do.

We started dating in 2006 and we got married in 2015.

So trust me, I know how difficult it is not to sleep together while you're dating.

We lived it for nine years.

It was probably the most difficult thing that I've ever had to do in my Christian life.

The most difficult thing I've ever had to do is not do something.

Isn't that a lesson in self-control?

I can honestly say that God has blessed and honoured that decision.

Now does this mean, oh no, I've already slept with the person that I'm going to marry.

Have I ruined it all?

Absolutely not.

There is no sense of guilt or condemnation in Christ Jesus.

He is the one who comes to set us free.

But boy did it give some weight to my faith when I was trying to share it with my friends.

They knew that I was different and that stood out from that.

We must acknowledge at this point, everyone in the room, that porn and sex addiction is

a genuine, real thing.

It's something that people can and should seek professional help with.

It's also something that Jesus wants to set you free from.

Proverbs 4 verses 23 and 25 say this, above all else guard your heart for everything you

Proverbs 4:23

do flows from it.

Verse 25 says, let your eyes look straight ahead.

Fix your gaze directly before you.

So let's maybe combine all of these thoughts and stories that we've had here and let's

put something together.

If Jesus says, you have heard that it was said you should not commit adultery, but I

tell you anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in

his heart.

If Jesus says that, what is he for?

What is Jesus pro?

What would he want us to take from this?

Jesus is for healthy, fulfilled marriages with a healthy view of sex.

He is for divorce rates lowering.

He is for happy spouses, deep in love, rooted in the love of Jesus.

That's why he said those things.

Not as a stick to beat ourselves with and to bring a sense of guilt and condemnation.

It's because he is pro marriage.

He wants your marriage to work.

So I'm going to try my best to offer some practical advice for the things that I do

in my own life.

I'm aware in the room right now, there are people who have been married five times as

long as Jen and I have, and I may not be the most qualified person to speak on this, but

this is some of the things that I've picked up in my life.

First of all, that one Corinthians verse says flee from sexual immorality, flee from pornea.

It doesn't say stay near to it.

It doesn't say just keep your distance and you'll be all right.

It says flee, run away from it.

After that discussion with my dad, I quickly realized why the family computer was in the

back room and not in my bedroom.

As I got a smartphone, the internet suddenly became accessible everywhere we went.

Mom and dad, fair play.

I didn't think this at the time.

I thought they were being horrible, but fair play.

They monitored my phone carefully and me and my sister did not take them upstairs.

I learned the best way to avoid sexual immorality was to avoid the opportunities altogether.

Now as a 30 year old man, I've been married eight and a half years.

We've got two wonderful children and a wonderful house and God's doing amazing things in our

lives, but even now I do not take my phone upstairs if my wife and children are not in

the house.

Well, Ben, you're a 30 year old grown up.

Grow up.

Of course you can take your phone upstairs.

It's a rule I've set in my life because I'm avoiding the situation.

I'm removing temptation before it becomes a temptation.

The Bible does not tell me to entertain sexual immorality.

It says flee from it.

There are some really good, excellent accountability software apps that you can get where you download

an app and it sends your whole internet history to someone else's email address.

It was something that my friends and I did when we were about 15 or 16.

There's a group of four lads.

They all ended up being my best men, funny enough.

When you share things with people like that, you know each other inside out.

It used to send to each one of us, it would send our internet history for the month and

it was terrifying, but very, very helpful.

You need to talk openly with someone if this is something that you're struggling with.

Not openly to share your bad news with every single person going.

Openly and carefully.

Someone that you can trust.

Someone who knows Jesus.

Make sure it's someone that you've got a really close, loving relationship with.

Make sure it's not someone of the opposite sex, I would suggest.

Jen and I, to this day, we've got a really low tolerance for sex scenes in films.

It's just something that we can't stomach.

Game of Thrones, for example, we watched the first episode and turned it off.

No condemnation for those that have seen it.

I've heard season two to seven are great.

It's something that we just couldn't stomach together.

That's true separately as well.

We just don't have a very high threshold for those sorts of things.

I work in a predominantly female environment.

I'm a primary school teacher, if you don't know.

All my career, 10 years now, worked predominantly in environments with people of the opposite

sex.

I learned very early on in my career, on a night out, which I should add, that you need

to set some really clear boundaries at work.

If I'm alone with a female colleague, I make sure I'm sitting opposite her and there's

plenty of distance between us.

I know this literally sounds silly, but scripture says flee from sexual immorality.

Not flirt with it and you'll be all right as long as you don't do anything.

I'm consciously careful on work nights out.

I still have a good time, but I don't have too much to drink.

I keep my distance back.

I stay in groups of people, making sure I'm not going off for one-to-one chats, watching

what I drink and what might be going in my drink.

I also make sure, and this is massive for me, I do not speak ill or negatively of Jen,

of my wife, to my female friends and colleagues.

Number one, if I have an issue with Jen, I need to go straight to her.

She's my wife.

I need to be honoring of that.

But number two, it creates a secret that only me and this other person share.

It creates something that my wife doesn't know.

In that, I'm not honoring her, and it's creating something that could very easily develop further.

That's something that I do in every relationship that I've got.

I choose to respect my wife and our relationship over every other human relationship.

Do we argue and bicker like every other couple?

Absolutely we do.

Do I get annoyed when she over-packs for holidays?

Yes, I do.

I can't fit all the stuff in the boot.

Do we agree on parenting stuff?

No, I just do what I'm told.

We're not holding us up as an example of a perfect marriage.

We've got stuff wrong just as much as everybody.

But what I do say is we make time commitments to each other.

Literally, in my phone, I looked at next Wednesday because next Wednesday I was talking to Wayne

and Sarah and said, oh, there might be Life Group.

It says Jen and Ben date night on my calendar for next Wednesday.

We put these in regularly.

Guys, it would be so easy with the lives that Jen and I lead to just drift away from each

other.

There's definitely times when that has happened and we've had to call it out and say that,

no, we need time.

We need time together.

I'll give you a little rundown of our calendar just to illustrate what I mean.

I work full-time, so I leave the house about quarter to eight, sometimes eight if I had

a line.

I'll get back about five-ish.

Jen works two days of a week for church.

She's got other commitments in the week where she does the Moms and Tots play group here

and all that sort of stuff.

Monday evenings, they're generally free for us except the odd trustees meeting that Jen

has for Springs.

Tuesday evenings, for the past 10 weeks, have been alpha for me, but we do core team meetings

as well as a leadership team.

We meet on a Tuesday and talk about church.

Wednesday evenings are either filled with prayer meetings or life groups.

There's not one this week, so you can have a date night with your spouse.

Thursday evenings, we have band practices, so if Jen's singing or I'm playing, we're

down here.

Then Fridays, Jen serves at youth.

Saturdays, we generally need to see our family because we've not seen them all week.

So Saturdays, we'll see our family and catching up with them.

Sundays, we come here from like two o'clock and serve our butt off at church in between

seeing family.

What I'm trying to say is we know what a busy schedule looks like, just as much as I'm sure

your diaries look really similar to ours.

Everybody is busy, but what we've got to do above all if we're going to have a God-honouring

marriage is put that as a priority.

My relationship with Jen is more important than my relationship with my children because

my relationship with my children comes from my marriage and the health of my marriage.

It would be so easy for us to let that fire dull down and then suddenly see a new spark

that looks exciting or fun or inviting.

The antidote to that is do not let the fire of your marriage die down.

Keep it alight and bright and full.

Those sparks, those thoughts, they suddenly look a lot less appealing in the light of

that fire.

One of the things that my mum and dad installed in us when we got married, we did a thing

called a pre-marriage course, which was just incredibly helpful.

We had to drive to Purton for 15 weeks before we got married every single night to meet

with a wonderful couple called Stephen and Rach Baker.

They talked us through every single little thing you could about marriage.

Pete and Rach run the same sort of thing for couples who are getting married in this church

now.

It talked us through what are your opinions on drugs.

I haven't really got a strong opinion either way.

It talked us through how are you going to deal with issues between your in-laws?

It talked us through how are you going to... Before you are in the situation, what's

your decision about it?

It was incredibly helpful.

One of the things that mum and dad installed in me, dad's a patron of a charity called

Care for the Family.

He installed in me that every marriage needs an MOT, like a car.

Every single year your marriage needs an MOT, a yearly checkup.

Make sure things are in order and where possible, do something that's just for you.

Now that Evie's a little bit older and we've got wonderful in-laws and parents and family

that are happy to have our children.

For us it was this little three-day break we did recently to Barcelona.

No kids over Easter.

Honestly, that trip did our marriage so much good.

I'm aware not everyone is in the position that we are with kids and family and babysitting.

But I have a thing.

What could your marriage MOT look like?

Could it be a few days away?

Could it be with your family?

Could it be a marriage course?

There's charities like Care for the Family that put these things on.

Care for the Family, they're an incredible Christian charity.

They do wonderful books.

I've got about five of them if you want some books.

They do courses, online courses about marriage as well.

Their founder, actually, Rob Parsons, sent us a video for our wedding day.

Dad surprised us and played it at our wedding.

Could it be maybe attending a prayer meeting together and knowing during that prayer meeting

I'm going to pray for my spouse and vice versa, we're going to pray for each other.

Could it be getting up in the morning and praying together every day?

Could that be your little marriage MOT?

Could you set aside time to try and read the Bible together?

Jen and I aren't perfect at these things.

Definitely not.

I'm not holding us up an example.

It's stuff that we try and do as well.

So why did God make this statement such a priority in the Ten Commandments?

Why did Jesus take it even further?

Because God is for healthy marriages.

Marriage was God's idea.

He is for marriages that are full of trust, commitment, strength, faith, intimacy, adventure,

excitement, kindness, romance.

All of these things are worth fighting for.

Unfortunately, our flesh, the world and the enemy is full of lies and deceit and it will

do anything possible to distort God's ideas.

How do we know God's ideas?

We go back to the Bible every single time.

So I don't know how you're feeling right now as I bring this into land.

Maybe you're feeling like you're on the right track.

Maybe you feel like you've got some work to do.

I don't know.

Maybe there are feelings of embarrassment in the room, shame, hurt, pain, guilt, maybe

a mixture of all of those.

So maybe we can look at Jesus.

How did Jesus react to adultery?

How did Jesus react to sexual immorality?

John 8 verses 2 to 11.

John 8:2–11

At dawn, Jesus appeared again in the temple courts where all the people gathered around

him and he sat them down to teach.

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees, the teachers of the Old Testament, brought

in a woman caught in adultery.

They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, teacher, this woman was caught in

the act of adultery, in the law that Moses commanded us to stone such a woman.

Now what do you say?

They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus, I love this, Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and he said to them, let anyone of you

who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.

Again he stooped down and he wrote on the ground, at this those who heard began to go

away one at a time, the older ones first until only Jesus was left with the woman standing

there.

Jesus straightened up again and asked her, woman where are they?

Has no one condemned you?

No one sir, she said.

Then neither do I condemn you, Jesus said.

Go now and leave your life of sin.

Can you imagine being literally ripped from the bed of the person you're committing adultery

with in the act, naked, ashamed, thrown before a group of religious leaders and told you're

about to be stoned, paraded through the streets for all your friends and family to see, for

your husband to hear about when he returns from work.

Interesting, there's no mention of the man during this story.

We can either presume that he escaped or that possibly he was in on this all along.

Now this woman, naked and ashamed, is thrown before Jesus, the most famous Rabbi in Israel.

She's heard of him, she's heard of the miracles he's performed, she's heard that he knows

the law better than anyone.

She's in front of a crowd, naked, terrified, ready to feel the crack of the first stone

on her back when Jesus does something unexpected.

He bends down and writes in the sand.

What was written, we don't know.

I think that's because what he wrote is not actually important for us.

Think if it was important for us, it would be in the Bible.

The fact that he bent down and started writing, I think the point of that was to shock the

crowd.

This crowd would have been shouting, baying for blood, top of their voices.

Eventually there would have been a silence, say for the crying woman, the pants maybe

of the Pharisees who dragged her kicking and screaming through the town.

There would have been little murmurs creeping in, what's he doing?

Can you see?

No, no, I can't see.

Is he writing?

What's he writing?

Eventually, probably the Pharisee who dragged the woman here speaks, well, what do you say?

Jesus stands and he responds with the most kind, life-changing words possible.

Let anyone without sin be the first to throw a stone.

Jesus bends down again and he continues writing, but the baying crowd means nothing to Jesus.

There's a stunned silence.

And slowly but surely, the crowd who were calling for blood two minutes earlier leave

one by one.

The Pharisees who dragged her here are probably the last ones to leave, throwing their stones

to the ground in anger, staring daggers at the man writing in the ground, who has torn

down their holier than thou attitudes with one sentence.

Jesus stands again looking at the woman crumpled to the floor.

Woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you?

No one, sir, she said.

Then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared.

Now go and leave your life of sin.

God pronounces judgment on the sin, but he provides a way to escape condemnation.

Jesus does not encourage the sin, but he loves the sinner.

The Lord silences the critics of this world while healing hearts that are burdened with

guilt and shame.

God never treats sin casually, but he calls sinners to turn away from their old corrupt

life.

Romans 3 says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified

freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

All have sinned.

By Jesus's standards, I am as much an adulterer as everybody else in the room is.

All have sinned and fallen short.

But Romans 8 verse 1 to 10, we use at the start.

Romans 8:1–10

For there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because the Christ

Jesus, the law of the spirit who gives life, has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Jesus responded with the utmost kindness.

He responded with grace first and then a gentle truth at the end.

He sets us free.

He sets us free from the trappings of this world and he wants to set you free this afternoon

as well.

I'm going to close now and I'm going to pray three prayers.

The first prayer that I would like to pray is for someone who maybe has never committed

their life to Jesus before.

Maybe you're sitting here and you're thinking, I'm not really a Christian, but my heart's

beating kind of fast and I think I might want to become a Christian.

I don't know what that means.

I've got hundreds of questions.

I have two and I'm the one standing at the front.

So that's going to be the first prayer.

If you want to welcome Jesus into your own heart, I really feel it's really important

that I pray for people who are struggling with pornography.

Maybe you wouldn't class that it was an addiction for yourself.

Maybe it's a fleeting passing, but I believe that Jesus wants to set you free from that

this afternoon.

I'm not going to embarrass you.

We're not going to ask you to come to the front.

We're not going to ask you to look at me.

This is between you and God right now.

And then finally, I want to pray that our church will be known for its strong marriages,

for an emotional healing with those who have been hurt before.

So let's spend some time in prayer, shall we?

Sam and the guys are going to come back up and we're going to sing, I speak Jesus one

more time.

While they do that, let's pray.

First of all, if you're someone who wants to welcome Jesus into your life, if you want

to pray a prayer that means Jesus will come and live with you, this prayer is for you.

Say it with me in your heart maybe.

Dear Lord, I'm sorry for the things that I've done that have offended you.

Whether I knew they were bad things to do or whether I didn't know that they were bad

things to do, I still did them.

And Lord, I'm sorry about that.

Please forgive me.

Lord, come into my life and help me.

Life's hard and I need a friend that's never going to leave me.

That's Jesus.

Lord thank you that because I ask, you come and live within me and you can come and help

me.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

If everyone just keeps their head bowed for another second or two.

If you were someone that just prayed that prayer in your heart, again, we're not going

to ask you to come to the front and embarrass you, but we do believe that we want to give

you a Bible and maybe we want to help you in this journey.

So if that was you, well everyone's got their eyes closed and their head bowed.

Would you just be really brave and make eye contact with me?

Just look up at me and we'll give you a Bible and pray for you.

Bless you.

Amazing.

Amazing.

Church, I want to pray for people now that specifically are struggling with pornography.

Lord, I thank you that you do not give us a sense of guilt and you do not give us a

sense of condemnation.

You pick us up off the ground.

You dust us down and Lord you say, go and sin no more.

Lord, I pray that this addiction, these things that we watch online or see, Lord, I pray

that they would be broken now in the name of Jesus.

Break those chains off right now.

Lord, help us to put in healthy safeguards.

Help us to put in things that are going to stop us doing this, but Lord more importantly,

would you break that need in our hearts to watch these things?

Lord, you can help us conquer our lust.

Lord, I believe right now there are people in this room being set free from the chains

of pornography, the hold that it has upon people.

Remove it now in Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Lord, we ask that this church would be known for its strong, healthy marriages.

Lord, we ask that anyone in this room right now who needs some emotional healing from

hurt, from something they've done in the past or something they've experienced in the past,

Lord, you are the God who can knit us all together.

You can heal us.

You can make us emotionally whole like no therapy ever could.

Lord, I pray that you would right now come here, help us and be with us.

Lord, thank you that your word literally lights the path of our lives.

Lord, may we read it more than ever before.

Lord, may we read it with our spouses like we never have before.

May we pray together like we never have before.

Lord, may this church be known by its standard of healthy marriages.

Your name, Lord.

Amen.

Thanks again for listening.

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God bless.

My God's got me.