Godly Relationships

If you have a Bible, go ahead and open up to Exodus 20:14. We’re making good progress with the ten commandments and after tonight, we only have 3 left. Quick reminder too that we don’t have YC next week. Tonight we are looking at the seventh commandment which says, “You shall not commit adultery.” Now as we mentioned the last 2 weeks, this commandment reaches beyond a husband or wife cheating on his or her spouse. God does not intend the ten commandments to only cover the worst quote on quote bad sin but intends for the commandments to cover every area of that sin. That means, as we are going to see in Matthew 5 later, that all that leads to adultery is sin just like how last week we talked about all the steps leading up to murder is sin. As we are going to see from the words of Jesus, adultery is far more than just a husband sleeping with another woman that is not his wife. Adultery and sexual sin is serious because it is an insult to God, His order of creation, and an insult to the greater picture of marriage. God has called each and every one of us to holiness. We are to be pure as He is pure and that goes into every aspect of our relationships. I know that some of you are dating, maybe even potentially thinking about marriage, and there are many of you who are single tonight so you might be tempted to check out and say, “This has nothing to do with me because I’m not in a relationship.” Yes it does relate to you because we are going to see a picture tonight of Christ’s love for His people. We are going to see how we should seek to be loved in our relationships and we are going to see why God takes the relationships of a man and a woman as husband and wife so seriously. There is a lot for you here tonight and there is a lot here for me tonight so let’s open up in prayer and then we will dive into Exodus 20:14.

What does the Seventh Commandment Stress?

The seventh commandment states, “You shall not commit adultery” and that may be a word that you are not very familiar with due to the fact that you aren’t married or in a relationship or did not grow up in the church. Some people when they see the word adultery associate it with cheating on a significant other and that is definitely part of it and a pretty decent way at understanding the seventh commandment. When you look at the Hebrew word that is used for adultery, it is often associated with idolatry and that is why as we will see later on, why God looks at adultery as such a heinous sin and why he equates Israel’s unfaithfulness with adultery. God is the creator of marriage and he puts a huge emphasis on the need for faithful marriage. When we see adultery, we see everything that godly marriage is against. We see betrayal, we see hatred, we see coveting and desiring what isn’t ours, we see sexual impurity. Adultery goes against what God has put forth and it is a rejection of His perfect will and it is a rejection of all that marriage represents. To commit adultery does not just mean cheating on one’s spouse or having sex with someone that you are not married to, it is a total rejection and denial of what God has created marriage to be. Before we get into deeper detail as to why God despises adultery so much, I want us to look at what Christ says in regards to it in the Sermon on the Mount.

Christ’s Teaching on Lust

Last week we talked about Christ’s teaching on murder and how He does not redefine what the commandment means but He brings forth a deeper meaning of the commandment and He does the exact same thing in regards to the seventh commandment. Christ says in Matthew 5:27-30

Matthew 5:27–30 NASB95

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. “If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.

There is a lot happening here but we will try to go through it fairly quickly. I want to bring your attention to 3 important elements in what Christ says: 1. The extent of the commandment. 2. The location of sin. 3. The seriousness of addressing lust.

The extent of the commandment

Notice that Jesus does not just say, “If you have sex with a person that is not your spouse that you have committed adultery.” Instead, Jesus says that any form of sexual impurity, any lustful thought or any lustful action is a breaking of this commandment. You see, the Jewish priests had a very narrow view of the seventh commandment. It was far too shallow because they assumed that as long as you did not have an adulterous relationship that you have fulfilled this commandment. In some ways they were trying to make it too easy and just an action and not a mindset. Lust is dangerous because it often forces the sinful thoughts of your mind into sinful action. Jesus wants us to know that the things we think and do in secret will be brought to light. Nothing that you have ever done or have ever thought has happened without an audience. You are always front and center when it comes to God. There is not a thing you have said, done, or thought that has manages to squeak by Him. There is a far reach to this seventh commandment that goes beyond the physical and infiltrates the head and the heart. John Stott said, “As the prohibition of murder included the angry thought and the insulting word, so the prohibition of adultery included the lustful look and the imagination.” This brings us to the second element which is the location of this sin.

The location of sin

Notice that Jesus says at the end of verse 28 that anyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her IN HIS HEART. What an important reminder this is for us not just in the sin of adultery but all sin. Sin is not something that is just floating outside the world existing. You don’t just put sin on a table and expect it to act. Sin is something that comes straight from the heart of sinful mankind. David Platt has said that sin is not something that is outside of you; it is a part of you. It is the core of who you are in this world. R.C. Sproul said we are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. Sin is sin not just through action, sin is still sin in our minds and in our hearts. The evil thoughts that we have and the lusts that we desire are all sin. Sin is more than just a physical action. Just because you aren’t cheating on your spouse sexually does not mean that you are being faithful to your spouse if you are undressing someone else in your mind.

The Seriousness of Addressing Lust

The third thing that we need to be mindful of is just how serious this sin is and how seriously we must address this sin. We cannot afford to have sin running around freely. Sin does not get to be the king of our heart. Jesus says that if our eye causes us to sin, it would be better for us to rip it out and throw it away than to continue letting us lust after things. Same thing with the hand. Now Jesus is obviously not advocating for self harm or mutilation but He wants us to make the connection that sin is serious and hell is real. The very sin that we cling to will be the very sin that drags sinners to hell. All sin you need to avoid and you need to run from. I think of Joseph in the book of Genesis who was faced with sexual temptation and he chose to not just reject sin’s advances but actively fled from it. You shouldn’t just avoid sin, you need to flee from it. If you struggle with sexual sin, it does not do you any good to stay in the room or the space where you so easily partake in that sin. You need to do all you can to run from that sin. Stay as far away as possible. It doesn’t do you much good if you just move two feet over from the lion you are in the pen with that’s trying to eat you. You need to run out of that pen because on your own, you are not strong enough to fight that lion. All sin is serious, all lust is serious, and you and I need to flee from sin’s influence. There are things in your life that need to be replaced with things that are pure, that are holy, that are righteous. We shouldn’t just flee from lust and flee from sin, we must be mindful to walk in love. True, Christ-honoring, God-fearing love. Paul says in Ephesians 5:2-3

Ephesians 5:2–3 NASB95

and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;

As Christians, sexual immorality and impurity shouldn’t even be connected to us. It shouldn’t even be a thought in our midst. Understand that God takes adultery seriously and I want to quickly draw your attention to a passage in the Old Testament book of Malachi.

Malachi and Divorce

The book of Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament. It was the last message that the Lord would give to the people of Israel for about 400 years to the time of John the Baptist. We read in Malachi 2:13-16

Malachi 2:13–16 NASB95

“This is another thing you do: you cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. “Yet you say, ‘For what reason?’ Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. “But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth. “For I hate divorce,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with wrong,” says the Lord of hosts. “So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.”

Why does the Lord hate adultery? Why does the Lord hate divorce? Because it is an attack on Himself. Marriage is a picture of Christ’s love for His church! It is a visual image of how much Christ loves His people. What a gross image it is to think that Christ would cheat on His spouse. The Church is known as the Bride of Christ and what a disgusting thought it would be for Christ to be unfaithful to His bride. Just imagine that for a moment. Imagine that Jesus were to live a perfect life for you, imagine that He were to die on the cross for you, imagine that He rose again from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father, imagine that you were to love Him and serve Him faithfully for your entire life, that you truly were in a relationship with Christ, that you were truly born again, and the moment that you died and stood before the throne of God that Christ looked at you and said, “I never loved you. I never cared for you. You served me to the best of your ability and were faithful but that means nothing to me. I actually love another and it isn’t you. You are not worthy of me and I could care less about you. The very thought of you being with me brings me no joy and I have no affection towards you at all. Now get away with me so I can love another.” How would you feel? You would feel used. You would feel dirty. Your heart would be broken because the greatest love that you could possibly have was actually nothing. Could you imagine the great lover of your soul doing that to you? I don’t think we could because Christ’s love we know is so perfect and so divine. Yet when we have adulterous relationships, when we lust for another, this is what we are implying Christ to do with His relationships to His people! God forbid Christ do that to us! What the Lord is saying to the people of Israel in Malachi 2 is that if you are not willing to be faithful to your wife; how can you expect to be faithful to me. Your wife has loved you, your wife gave all for you, and you have rejected her and spat in her face. If you are willing to do that to your spouse here, how much greater is the crime that you commit in your unfaithfulness to me. This is why adultery is so often connected to idolatry! It is the same insult and the same crime. You have taken the love that one has for you and distorted it, twisted it, rejected it for love that pales in comparison! When God brings 2 people together in marriage, He does not bring them together to make room for another. What God brings together, let no man separate. You need to guard your heart and as you grow into husbands and wives in the future, you need to guard your marriage. If you aren’t willing to guard your heart now from lust, you are going to struggle to do it later. If you are addicted to something now; it does not just go away the second you get married. Matthew Henry asks the question, “If our own hearts deal treacherously with us, whom will they not deal treacherously with?” Your future wife or your future husband deserves a pure heart. They deserve a spouse that belongs to them and no other and if you are not willing to be faithful to them, chances are you are not willing to be faithful to your Creator. With the few minutes that we have left, I want to leave you with some encouragement for your future relationships and your purity now. I know that for many of you that marriage is probably the last thing on your mind but I want to give you something that you will always be able to work on as you get older.

A Command for Future Husbands and Future Wives (Ephesians 5)

When I do weddings, I tend to point out what Paul says in Ephesians 5 on the roles of husbands and wives during the ceremony as some final parting words to the couple. There is a lot here that you all can use now as you grow, think about marriage and one day prepare for marriage. Paul says in Ephesians 5:22-28

Ephesians 5:22–28 NASB95

Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;

As I teach these verses, I point to the role of the spouse but I emphasize to whom the duties are performed. Wives are to submit to their own husbands as to the Lord. The husband is to be the Godly leader in the home and as the husband leads as God intends husbands to lead, it just becomes natural for the wife to submit to that authority because the husband is seeking to honor Christ and honor his spouse. I always tell the husbands that they have the hardest role in the marriage because they are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church? A better question might be, in what ways has He not loved the church? Christ has loved His bride as purely, as perfectly, as sacrificially, and as completely as could possibly be done. He literally loved His bride to death! And it is in that very love that husbands are to love their wives. They are to be kind to their wives, loving to their wives, tender to their wives, and lead their wives. The husband is to love his wife and the wife is to honor and respect her husband. You can start working on this now. You can start looking at women differently. You can start looking at men differently. You can start treating and speaking to them differently. Every action and every thought ought to reflect the God that you claim to serve. Are the relationships in your life Godly relationships? We don’t need macho men that are leading by bravado. We need Christian men that are leading through humility and Gospel truth. We don’t need anymore little boys in the church. We need men. Ladies you have heard me say this before, stop settling for little boys. Find yourself a God-fearing man. Find yourself a man that seeks to honor the Lord. Don’t go into a relationship with the mindset, “I can change him” or “I need him to feel complete.” You don’t need that in your life. You need a man that knows Christ as Savior and who has a desire to you grow into a greater degree of glory with the Savior. Now let’s say that you know that you have not being living a pure life. Maybe you’ve made some mistakes that you know you should not have made, maybe you have some addictions that you know are an issue, maybe you know some websites that you know you shouldn’t visit, and maybe you felt like you found the right person and gave them what you could not get back. What should you do with that? Remember that there is more forgiveness and mercy in Christ than there is sin in you. God is in the business of making old things new and He can certainly do that in your life. James Montgomery Boice said, “The glory of the way in which God deals with sinful men and women, which we all are, is that God is able to pick us up where we are and as we are and set us in His way, which is always a way of blessing. God can do that with you no matter how far you have fallen.” No matter how far you have gone, no matter how far you have fallen, there is a Savior with grace upon grace that is offered to you. If you are struggling with temptation, if you are struggling with lust, if you are struggling with impurity, come to the cross and don’t come alone. Come alongside other Christians that are able to walk with you and give you the accountability that you need. There is not a leader in this room or in this church that does not want to see you grow in grace and truth. We have resources that can help and we have people who can love and walk with you. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.