Adultery and the Purpose of Marriage

Well good morning!

It is good to be with all of you

And before we get started, It is important for us to be mindful of the calendar and the time of year

We are approaching Easter next month and a mindful and attentive approach to the calendar would say that we should begin preparing our hearts to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ together

And one of the ways we can do is by reading good books that are meant to prepare our hearts for Resurrection Sunday

So we have some free copies of Charles Spurgeon’s 40 day devotional called the “The Risen King”

We have enough to give one per household

So be sure to grab a copy before you leave today

Each each devotional is quite short so the daily ask on your time is quite low, but the benefit of intentionally preparing our hearts to celebrate the resurrection is quite high

And so it should be a sweet time if we as a church family are all preparing our hearts in the same way for the same day

Okay?

Well, let’s take out our Bibles and turn to Matthew 5.

Remember that Jesus said he did not come to abolish the Old Testament law, but to fulfill it

To do all that it required

But not just to the letter of the law, he would fulfill it to the spirit of the law

He would follow God’s commands perfectly according to what they mean, not just what they say

And last week we saw that the command do not murder is not just about not killing someone, but is a matter of the heart

When I have contempt toward a person

When I see them as less valuable than me and I treat them accordingly

When I am angry and insulting, I have murdered them in my heart.

And while the world says, “Be angry, have contempt”

The kingdom of God is different - And we value one another, rather than having contempt toward one another.

And Jesus is going to show us another way that our hearts make us guilty of breaking God’s commands, this time with how we view marriage and sex.

The truth is that we live in a sexualized world

Movies, music, TV and internet ads, social media are all oriented to sexualizing almost anything.

And because it is so common, because it is the norm in our society to prioritize and emphasize sex, we are are in danger of thinking that it is a minor issue.

Things that are common in our lives tend to be viewed as less important or urgent.

And so, because the sexualization of our culture is so common, we re in danger of minimizing its importance.

But while it is true that our culture has normalized the sexualization of everything, it is also true that God has a design for marriage and sex and he cares deeply about it

And so we as his people must care deeply about it too

And Jesus is going to show us in our passage this morning what it looks like to care deeply about God’s design for sex and marriage

So let’s give these words our full attention

Matthew 5:27–32 ESV

“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 lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

These are God’s word for us

Big Idea: Kingdom people must treasure God’s design for men and women. [7:00]

In Genesis chapter 2, God makes plain through the creation of the man and the woman that his design for men and women is:

They partner together through marriage

Gen. 2:18 - Not good that the man should be alone

Gen. 2:24 - The man shall be joined to his wife

They are joined to one another through sex

They shall become one flesh - Gen. 2:24

As the physical expression of their relational union

They multiply through procreation

Gen. 1:28 - Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it

With their children being the physical fruit of their relational union

Marriage is between a man and a woman

Sex is enjoyed fully within the marriage relationship

Children are a natural and wonderful outworking of the marriage relationship

That is God’s design - And it is good and it should be treasured

But because of sin, because we rebel against God, what has the world sought to do?

Rather than treasuring God’s design, it has distorted it and separated marriage, sex, and having kids from one another

The world says you can have sex without marriage

In fact, we are in a time today when less people are getting married than ever before, preferring singleness.

The world says you can have sex without children

In fact, for the first time recorded history, the death rate is outpacing the birth rate, because less and less people are having kids

So sex without marriage and sex without babies - that is what the world promotes

And in this a very prominent lie comes to the surface

That you can enjoy sex fully and find sexual fulfillment outside of marriage and apart from any connection to the family unit

In fact, the lie of the world says you will enjoy sex more if it is unhitched from marriage.

That to see sex through the lens of marriage is actually a deficient view of it and you need to be liberated to see sex as your right to be pursued however you want.

But that is not God’s design and that isn’t how kingdom people should think

As kingdom people, we must treasure God’s design for men and women.

And so, in a world that wants to diminish and distort God’s design, how can we as his people treasure his design?

Single or married

Kids or no kids

Regardless of our own individual relational or family status, how can we as a church family treasure God’s design?

We are going to see three things we must pursue together

To treasure God’s design, I must seek:

Purity, not Permission (27-28) [12:00]

Too often, we make the Christian life a matter of “What am I not allowed to do?” Rather than “What is good for me to do?”

And when we focus on “What am I not allowed to do”, we focus on the wrong thing

When it comes to issues of marriage, sex, and similar topics, we often fixate on things that are bad

That’s wrong - That’s sinful - That is bad

But if we aren’t careful, what we will do is call things bad… because they are bad.

Listen: What makes something wrong, what makes it sinful, what makes it bad is that it is a distortion of what is good.

There was no bad in the beginning.

Everything was good

In the biblical worldview, something is bad or wrong because it isn’t the way God intended it to be

It doesn’t fit his design

So the best thing for us to do as Christ-followers in the Kingdom of God is to be most fixated on what is good

What is a good view of marriage

What is a good view of sex

What is a good view of the relationship between men and women

To treasure God’s design and to seek the purest reflection of that design.

But because we often fixate on what we shouldn’t do, rather than what we should do, we seek permission to do things

“Okay, so if I can’t do that… what am I allowed to do that doesn’t qualify?”

A line to cross - “How far can I go before it is wrong?”

and Jesus knows this, so he comes right at the issue…

Matthew 5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’”

Adultery - Not having a physical, sexual relationship with someone other than my spouse.

The letter of the law = So long as I don’t do that, I am good

The one who is seeking permission says, “I am good so long as I don’t have sex with someone who is not my wife.”

And then that person presses into other things for sexual, relational, and emotional satisfaction that are equally unfaithful to God’s design for men and women.

Checking people out the store or the gym

Flirting with people you interact with

Looking at provocative content on social media

Even engaging in things like pornography

All the while justifying it by saying something like, “I haven’t actually slept with anyone, so it isn’t as bad.”

That is seeking permission.

That is seeing how far I can go before I break the rule

And Jesus exposes that approach

Matthew 5:28 “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

I want you to notice what Jesus just did

Rather than starting with “You have heard it said ‘Do not commit adultery’ so here are all the ways that you can avoid committing adultery.”

He doesn’t do that

He doesn’t say, “Since adultery is bad, here are all of the safeguards to put in place, here is a list of things to check off your list, and if you do, then you’re safe.”

Don’t go to that part of town

Don’t watch those movies

Don’t go to those websites

He doesn’t do that

Because remember what he said back in Matthew 5:8 ““Blessed are the pure in heart…”

If I don’t want purity, no amount of safeguards in the world will be able to stop me from giving in to sin

Why? Because who I really am seeks permission to go as far as possible

But when I want purity, the safeguards are secondary

They are necessary and helpful, but the primary way of honoring God’s design is my desire for purity

And a pursuit of purity starts in my heart

Look at v. 28

“Looks” - active participle - Keeps on looking.

This is a fixation on something with your eyes or your thoughts

And lustful intent - It isn’t a physically-oriented word, per se, but is a word that means to desire something deeply

It is the same word used in the Greek Old Testament for the 10th command “You shall not covet”

So to look at a woman with lustful intent is be fixated on her with your eyes or your thoughts because there is something about her that you want

And it isn’t a one way street - Women can lust after men too…

At the heart of it, lust is to be fixated on a person who is not your spouse because of some trait that you desire about them.

And it is tempting to just try to explain it way, seeking permission to have to have those thoughts and to look at that person that way

“Well, its’ not like I slept with her”

“I mean, I know what I said, but I didn’t do anything about it…”

But here is the problem:

When I look intently at another person because they are a certain way and I long to have them so that I can enjoy that thing about them

I am reducing that person down to being nothing more than that thing

If I am physically attracted to another person and I lust after the physical appearance, I am reducing that person down to being nothing more than physically attractive

I am reducing that person down to being capable of nothing more than satisfying my desires

And when that is what we are doing, we are not treasuring God’s design for men and women, we are distorting God’s design for our own selfish desires.

So how do we keep from committing adultery in our hearts?

Not by just avoiding the wrong things, but by pursuing the right things

When I seek purity, I won’t see how close I can get without it being sin

I will prioritize those things that get me closer to God’s intended design

Rather than saying, “What do I like about that person’s appearance”

I can say, “How can I value that person and not reduce him or her down to appearances”

Rather than seeing how far I can go

I will say, how can I prioritize purity in my life and in my relationships so that I am never in danger of going too far?

Rather than justifying my lusts, I will seek to fill my life and heart with desires that honor God, so that I don’t desire what is contrary to his design

Seeking purity means:

I guard my heart - I pay attention to what I am putting into my thought life

I starve my sins - I don’t gratify the desires of the flesh

I seek out help - I live in community as we motivate one another toward Christ-likeness

So we seek purity as a church as we treasure God’s design for men and women.

Second, to treasure God’s kingdom I must seek:

Mortification, not Management (29-30) [20:00]

I'm gonna address the elephant in the room.

That's a big word.

That’s a weird word…

That's not a word we use very often.

So you're probably thinking, “Stefan must have really wanted an M word, and so that's what he landed on.”

No, there's actually a reason for picking that word.

There was a 17th Century Puritan named John Owen who wrote a book called “The mortification of sin”, and in that book, he said this very popular quote, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.”

See, sin is serious.

Sin is a disease.

Sin is something that works its way into every nook and cranny of our lives.

And the more that we give it space in our life, the more that it takes.

There is no such thing as managing your sin.

There is no such thing as as saying, “I'll just kind of keep it in this corner.”

No, it will work its way into your whole life if you don't mortify it, if you don't kill it, if you don't cut it out of your life, it will be the end of you.

It's like someone who's been recently diagnosed with skin cancer.

And it's localized.

And doctors say, “If we just cut that out, you'll be fine. We need to remove that spot from your skin, otherwise it's going to spread. And if it spreads, you’ll die”

Now imagine that you said, “oof, I don't want to have a scar there, so instead of you cutting it out, I would rather we just find a way to manage it.

Let’s just do some treatment. Let's just keep it from growing. But I want to keep it there, because I don't want the scar that would come from removing it.”

You would say that's insane.

The scar is such a small price to pay for your life. 

But too often, with sins in our lives, especially sexual sin, we think “I can manage this. I can keep it secret. I can keep it hidden.”

“I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but if I can keep it in this part of my life, it will be fine.”

“I know we went further than we meant to go but, but you know, so long as we don't go that far in the future, what we'll be fine.”

No, no, you won’t.

You can't manage sin. It will spread.

And Jesus knows this.

Now, I want you to notice

Heart first

Then, when you seek purity, you will be willing to take the hard steps that are required to continue to seek purity

If I don’t want purity, then I won’t be willing to take any additional steps

If I do want purity, I’ll do whatever I have to to maintain purity.

Matthew 5:29–30 “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

Jesus uses two nearly identical statements, with the difference betwen the eye in v. 29 and the hand in v. 30

Now I just want to point out, he says right eye and right hand

In the ancient world, the right side was the side of power and the vast majority of people are right handed.

[I feel the need to say that because my wife is left-handed and so I have learned to pay attention to win left-handed people get left out…]

He is using terminology that people would associate with value

If I am right handed my right hand is more valuable than my left

If I’m right dominant, my right eye is more valuable than my left

But it is what they eye and hand represent that really matters, not which eye or hand.

The eye represents what you take in, influencing your thoughts.

The hand represents what you do, shaping your actions.

Jesus’ point: If what you see or what you do leads you to sin, remove the source.

No matter how valuable you think it is

No matter how inconvenient it might be

It is worth it.

Too often we just try to manage our sin because to confess it would be awkward or to make changes to our life would be difficult.

But Jesus is saying there is no cost so high that it is no longer worth getting rid of the source of temptation in your life.

Because to not get rid of it is to reveal something terribly costly…

Notice Jesus says, “if it causes you to sin…”

The word used for sin there is not the typical word for sin

It is a very unique word that refers to embracing a sinful way of life

And it is also used to describe falling away from God

Jesus is not just talking here about individual, momentary sins.

He is confronting the person who has a way of life of trying to manage sin

And he is giving a dire warning.

“If you don’t want to cut the source of your sin out of your life you are saying one of two things”:

The cost is too high and I’m unwilling to pay it

My sin is too precious and I’m unwilling to part with it

Regardless of which one it is, it is revealing an untransformed heart.

And the trajectory of that attitude is hell.

Jesus makes it clear: If you refuse to cut sin out of your life, you are in danger of hell.

Not because one sin sends you to hell, but because an unwillingness to fight sin reveals a heart that has not been transformed.

If you belong to Christ, you will fight sin and cling to Jesus.

If you love sin, you will Fight Jesus and just manage it

And the destination for those who love their sin is hell.

If that’s you, if you have embraced sin and it is revealing that your heart is cold toward Jesus, Jesus himself calls you to turn from your sin, repent and pursue his purposes for life

For the Christ-follower, if you find yourself trapped in sin, cry out for forgiveness and cut the source out of your life.

“Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.”

So let me ask you, Christ-follower: What in your life is pulling you away from Jesus?

And what needs to be cut out of your life to return to him?

It is going to be different for each person in here

But, I can promise you, the cost of cutting it out will be far less than the cost of holding on to it.

So we must seek mortification, not management

Lastly, To treasure God’s design, I must seek

Covenant, not Convenience (31-32)

Paul says something in Eph. 5 that should impact how we view marriage

Ephesians 5:31–32 ““Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

What is Paul saying?

He is saying that marriage is representation, an illustration, of Christ’s love for his people

It is not that the church as the bride of Christ is the analogy

It is that marriage is an analogy of the church as the bride of Christ.

A husband and wife committed to one another is meant to be a reflection of the greater reality of the faithful commitment of God to his people

God is a faithful God and he has made an everlasting covenant with his people to fulfill his promises to them

And so a marriage is a reflection of God’s everlasting covenant wherein the husband and wife are faithfully committed to one another for their entire lives.

This is the view we should have of marriage

A high view

A view that sees Christ and his faithful commitment to the church as the standard for us to reflect.

So to treasure God’s design, we must have a covenantal view of marriage

But we live in a convenience-driven culture.

When something is no longer beneficial, we discard it.

Unfortunately, marriage is not immune to this

And it was true in jesus’ day as well

Divorce was a reality in Israel and is even allowed in the Old Testament

Deuteronomy 24:1 ““When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, [he may write] her a certificate of divorce”

Well, what counts as indecency?

The Hebrew word in Deut. 24 is for sexual indecency.

Perhaps she didn’t commit adultery, which would have been punishable by death

Instead, it was something where she brought severe shame on the household because of how she was conducting herself.

That is the idea.

But by Jesus day, Many religious men would divorce their wives for any reason if there was something the husband didn’t like. Some rabbis taught that a man could divorce his wife if she burned dinner or if he found someone more attractive.

Here is the point: They had a diminished view of marriage, seeing it as a matter of convenience, rather than a life-long covenant between a man and a woman.

Instead of protecting marriage and treasuring it, they devalued it

Instead of seeking to honor God, they looked for loopholes

Jesus here is confronting the people of his day and their low view of marriage

All of this background is important because if we’re not careful we will read Jesus words here as talking to people who are already divorced and pronouncing some kind of judgment on them

But that is not what he is doing - He is speaking to people who have such a low view of marriage that they would divorce for any reason

It isn’t a correction to those who have divorced

It is a correction to those who would divorce because of their low, convenience-view of marriage

But… for those who are divorced, it gives them a way to think back, evaluate, repent if needed, and move forward in the kingdom of God.

So let’s look at what Jesus says

Matthew 5:32 “But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

First notice: Who is he addressing?

He is addressing the one who initiates the divorce

And he is confronting their reasoning - “Except on the ground of”

So he is highlighting a lack of commitment to the spouse

If you want to divorce her for matters of convenience, you are wrong.

Second: Notice the exception

“Sexual immorality” - Why would that be an allowable reason?

Because marriage is a covenant and when you are unfaithful to the covenant, you are unfaithful to the person

And it breaks the covenant…

So Jesus is showing that if a spouse commits adultery, he or she has broken the marriage covenant already

But if that hasn’t happened and you want a divorce for a lesser reason…

Notice third: The result of the divorce of convenience

[REST of v. 32]

What is he saying?

He is saying that a divorce is not legitimate just because you want it…

And when you get divorced for illegitimate reasons because your view of marriage was too low, it has disastrous effects because your covenantal bond remains…

But then, when out of necessity, your spouse remarries, and then sleeps with the new spouse, you essentially forced her into adultery.

Jesus here is not calling all divorced people adulterers…

He is saying that low views of marriage are reckless and cause incalculable damage.

Divorce was not part of God’s design, but because of our own brokenness it is a reality in this world

Treasuring God’s design means not having a low view of marriage that sees divorce as a convenient option

But having a covenantal view of marriage

So what is Jesus point here?

Just like with murder and adultery, Jesus is showing us true righteousness

The condition of the heart

When your view of marriage mirrors the culture, it is too low

The heart that is right before God has a high view of marriage

[So what do we do about the reality of divorce?]

Can’t have a God honoring conversation about divorce until we all have a God-honoring, high view of marriage

To the divorced - Look back and move forward

To the married - Fight for your marriage, even when it would be more convenient to leave

To the single - practice how you play

Our culture treats marriage as a matter of convenience and personal satisfaction

Whether you are married, single, or divorced, Jesus words should motivate us to treasure God’s design by having a high view of marriage.

[CONCLUSION - GOSPEL HOPE]

I know that with a sermon like this, it can bring up a lot of pain for multiple reasons

Your past is filled with sexual sin, a low view of marriage, sex, and relationships

Perhaps you are in the thick of the war against sexual sin right now

And when you are confronted with the God’s good standard and design, you feel guilt and shame because you know that you have failed and continually fail in obeying God’s commands

And if that is you… I want you to hear what the apostle Paul says in the book of Romans

Romans 7:18-24.