The 7th Commandment: You shall not commit Adultery (Be pure in Christ)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

You're able? Exodus chapter 20. And if you'll uh stand with me for the honoring of God's word if you're able, Exodus chapter 20, verse 14. The word of our holy God has said this in his commandments. Verse 14, in Exodus 20 says, You shall not commit adultery. You'll stay standing, we'll close in prayer before we dive into what God has pulled us in this word. God, as we see in your good law, the command to protect the family union to per the family union to protect marriage in this sacred union. God, we thank you for the good gift of marriage. God, I pray that in our hearts and in our actions, we would honor the marriage bed and keep it holy and pure unto you. God, that we would walk in purity in our lives. We would walk with the heart washed and made new by Christ. That we wouldn't be ashamed of anything your word says. God, all of your word is good for us and for our soul and examines the thoughts and intents and our motives. God, I pray that your word would help us to see the horrors of sin, but the joy of Christ and obedience to him. In Christ's holy and precious name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Now many of you know, the past week I my ear seems to have taken a turn with more fluid in it. And yeah, I can't hear as well as my right ear. So if you need to tell me something, pop on this side, I suppose. Um but uh it's just fluid in there, it makes it difficult to hear. Um, so if I say well multiple times, just I'm not only trying to synthesize with some of you and your hearing issues. I I can't always hear as far right now. But then I thought about the question I put on here and the notes. Do you ever struggle with hearing no? If you hear the no. Do you struggle with hearing no? I know my children sometimes do when they say, I want another piece of candy, they say no. Now they may immediately be thinking, Oh, you hate me. Why won't you give me something good? I want this piece of candy. It's not good for you. You're gonna get cavities, it's it's not good for your health, you're gonna be up all night going crazy. Now you may think of another cases where if someone says no, maybe a boss or another position of authority, and you're like, What why are they saying no? Well, with many of the cases, they may be good reasons. Perhaps in some cases it's not good reasons, but with God, his no is all really good and perfect reason, right? It's always good, and it's for our benefits. Now, let me see if God's law, he actually, we just read, says, do not commit adultery. And sometimes people can think, oh, God's just uh a buddy duddy and doesn't want us to have fun. No, this is for your good. But God says, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, and so on to the Ten Commandments. Now I have it in notes here, but really, do you want to see about how God's word itself speaks about uh God's law? Look, read the whole chapter of Psalms 119. We did a teaching on that at the beginning of the year, but it talks over and over about God's good law, how how much it is given for our flourishing and for our joy and for our protection. Just like if I say, don't touch this hot stovetop, that's not because I don't want you to have joy. I want I want you to have joy for my kids. It's it's in like fashion, it's for our protection, protection of, particularly in this commandment, of the most sacred union, the marriage union, and for our purity. And you could argue it's for our joy. I love how I was just reading um earlier this morning, Psalms 84.11. A great verse to get some memory. This says, The Lord God is a son in shill, the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold it from those who walk uprightly. You think about that truth. Is God withholding something good from us when he commands us not to do something? Or does it give us something that we want? God's not withholding anything good, and it says, from those who walk uprightly. And yes, sometimes we fall under the discipline of the Lord, he disciplines those whom he loves, as St. Ruth 12 says. But his commands are not him withholding. Oh, this would this would have been so nice. He's actually, he gives us such good and perfect commands, he doesn't withhold anything good from his people. He gives us himself, Christ dwelling and his people. He gives us every good gift comes from where? Our Heavenly Father. Kings 1, 17 says, even the trials, even the trials that God gives us, he's not withholding. Like I think it's kind of hard to hear, it's a little embarrassing. But am I, should I say, oh, God's withholding something good? No, even this is a trial that helps me depend upon him, Lord. So that's a greater gift that I would become more dependent on the Lord and more Christ-like. He's not withholding any good gift. And we have to frame it up before we talk about God's design for marriage and the purity and the joy of marriage, because our culture has narrated a false story about God's design. They narrated so much that they lied about God and attacked his holding character. He's saying that follow your heart is more satisfying. That has minimized God's good and perfect and pleasing will. So let us talk some about God's design now. We see that this command clearly is referring back to God's design laid out in Genesis 2, the two shall become one flesh, uh, husband and wife. So God's design, I love how Christopher Ying Wan puts it in his book, Holy Sexuality. And he says, God has given us two paths. It's chastity in singleness and faithfulness in biblical marriage. There's no third alternative. Chastity in singleness or faithfulness in biblical marriage. Now, we think about both of these two categories. Singleness and marriage are good gifts from the Lord. Scripture makes that clear. 1 Corinthians 7. And if some people say, well, singleness is a curse. Well, you may feel that way, and if you're feeling that way, you may be inclined to pursue a marriage and encourage you to pursue a marriage in the Lord. Uh, it's scripture doesn't say it's a curse, it says that could be a gift of uh focused time and serving the Lord and his church as well. So should be seen as good gifts from the Lord. Uh, but marriage itself, we need to be very careful on how to define them. Because our culture defines marriage as any consent to an adults, and those who say love is love. Particularly, we think of this month, is where our culture uh celebrates a different definition of marriage. But marriage was designed by God who has the right to redefine it. Marriage, according to God's word and is consistent with how the world has been designed in order, is one man, one woman, becoming one flesh for one month time. That's what it's laid out in Genesis 2.24. Jesus reiterates that in Matthew 19. So some frequently you see unbelievers saying, Well, Jesus never talked about other types of marriage. Yes, he did. He is the ultimate author through Genesis, he is God, and he's affirming the creation ordinance, the creation design of one man and one woman becoming um one flesh for one life of time in Matthew 19. So he's affirming that moral ethic of marriage and sexual ethic. He's condemning all forms of sexuality outside of biblical marriage. And we see that affirmed in um Leviticus 18, Romans 1, 136, many passages. Jesus is affirming the staying standard of marriage. Now you think of this concept as well of marriage, becoming one flesh. Well, it doesn't mean that I like I'm gonna have the same exact personality as Kendra. Um some people may praise God for that. Um I don't know. Uh but it is clearly speaking of a union. Of the one flesh, union mirrors, the living and growing together in unity, emotionally, financially, spiritually, and sexually. Because this, by definition, marriage, they're living together, they're united. I would encourage you uh to have a united bank account, to be living together and pursuing union and that one flesh union designed by God and intimacy. Now it's frequent in our culture to think about this question about people living together before they're married. Um it's commonly called. Now, prohabiting, living together when you're married is actually living in a category of people how you're as if you're married when they're not married. So you're you're saying something false with your actions. You're not married, so you shouldn't be living as if you are married. 1 Peter 3 7 says, live with your life in an understanding life. So crowdhabity, living as if you're married when you're not, is certainly sin, and they should um seek to walk with integrity, and if they're drawn to before the Lord, walk with integrity and purity, I think they should be separate and they'll get married and then live together. Um so we think of all these categories of one flesh, but what is the purpose of that one flesh union, particularly as it relates to the physical union? What is the purpose of sex? Now, immediately somebody's like, Can a pastor talk about that? It's it everything in God's word is is good, it is given for our edification of growth. There's nothing in God's word I'm going to apologize to God. God's word doesn't blush at these things as maybe our culture will. But God created sex. Sat was the purpose, sick is the one that distorts it. Sex is for, you see, laid out in many scriptures, it's for creation, um, be fruitful, multiple, comfort, strengthening the marriage from the physical union. And you could read for a whole bit dedicated to the celebration of God's good gift for marriage. You can read um Proverbs 5 and Psalms of Psalms, um, and you can see how how much of a joyful union and gift of this is um to the marriage. And the this means you see, sex itself is God's gift to the marriage. This is a word, it's not the wife's gift to the husband or the husband's gift to the um wife, it's God's gift to the marriage. This is so important. I love how uh the author of Mama Bear Apologetics she says sex is married people repeating their vows in bodily form. And that's so important because we understand and define that. It means throughout intimacy after there's been that physical uh that been that the verb of commitment, marriage. It is that commitment being for God and others that I'm going to be losing with sickness and in health. It is that commitment that comes first before the physical intimacy. And that's why we'll look at later when you reverse that. That's where we have chaos and losing God's good design for marriage. So then we think about the purpose of the definition of marriage and the purpose of physical intimacy. What is the ultimate purpose, the ultimate purpose of marriage? It's to glorify God. It's not just for our own self-satisfaction, our own happiness, it's to glorify God, reflect Christ's love for the church. So marriage is intended to be a reflection of the gospel, right? As Christ loved um His um the bride of Christ and gave himself up for the bride of Christ, the church. It's a reflection there. And it's intended to sanctify you. Uh Luther the Reformer says marriage is the really the school grounds for growing in Christ-likeness. If you spend time with united with someone, you really grow to see your areas of weakness, right? I don't want to hear any uh nudging right now from different wives or husbands. But you certainly see that to be the case, right? You see each other's flaws, but it's so it is the school ground for growing in Christ-like. But it would say, not only that, but to produce godly offspring. Malign 2 makes that very clear that the goal, one of the fruits of marriage, is godly children. Not just well-educated children, but godliness uh in our children and to stabilize society. Society is at risk currently, there is a discussion of overturning of Burger Fellow 2015 because kids are facing the harms of normalizing same-sex marriage, and now there's been a push to overturn it. Um I know what that does. Well, we redefine marriage itself. It harms kids, it deprives them of a mother or father at the risk of people's own individual happiness, causes the expense of the kids and the harm that comes by it. So it misdefines, misunderstands, and misdefines the whole ultimate purpose of marriage. Becoming the normal by God reflect Christ's love for the church and produce godly children. But need to think of these categories. How do we define love? Our culture says love is love, right? Is that true? He just define love, love you want. Well, certainly, uh God speaks a lot about love in his word. But biblically, love is one way that you can define it, I think, is consistent with scripture as being committed to your neighbor's ultimate good as defined by God's word, God's standards. So I don't get we don't get to define love by just our feelings. We we are tied to how scripture defines love. If I'm committed to someone's ultimate good, that that means the loving thing to do is to share the gospel. Well, it means the loving thing is turn from your sad and self and look to Christ. Don't define these relationships as loving if it goes against God's word. If it goes against it, then it's not loving to affirm sin. It's loving to actually say, this is the disease, here's the cure in Christ. And that's where you are committed to someone's ultimate good and flourishing. God's design for marriage is actually, as we mentioned, I mentioned earlier, was for the flourishing of society. 1 Corinthians 13, 6 says, Love does not rejoice in evil. That's a clear thing where it rejoices in the truth. And so, right now we treat everyone with honor, dignity, and worth, as we looked at last week. The sixth commandment is grounded that everyone is an image bearer of God. So we can't hate them in our hearts. Absolutely. We pray for them, pray for those who are even opposed to our message 100%. We pray for them. But we don't buy into their redefinition to say that you don't affirm my identity that's rejecting God's design, then you don't love me. No, we don't accept that definition. We love them and we love them by telling them the truth. That hope is only found in Christ. Don't identify by your disordered desires. A part of Christ, you by all of us are hopeless. So we don't love them by buying into the word of definition. But as we see here, these paths of polisexuality are chastity and singleness. It's not a word that's used as often, chastity. I have I've heard of a few people named that. It's a beautiful name, and it really speaks of a quality uh of being morally pure, uh with integrity or modesty. So if someone's single, they don't just get to say, oh, I have an excuse to live in sexual morality. No, it's still purity before the Lord as well. And this is important as we think about the seven commandments. So I love how the West Music Shorter Catechism puts it. What's required in the seventh command? It requires the preservation of our own in our neighbors' chastity and hard speech and behavior. So we want to walk of pure before the Lord with integrity. We want to encourage others in their heart and speech and behavior to walk purely before the Lord. And what is it, what does it forbid? What does the seventh commandment forbid? Well, it seems quite obvious on the act of adultery or an affair, but I think it's that, and eliminating where the Westminster Shorman catechism puts it this way, it permits all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions. So we're going to look at how Jesus unpacks that some more. Look at Matthew chapter 5 again. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, he unpacks exactly the truest application, the heart of the seventh commandments. And he says here, in Matthew 5.20, he says, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. As we looked at last week, what is he talking about? We sum up not just the external actions, you need to from your heart have a pure heart before the Lord. And not only that, you need to have a perfect righteousness, which is a way of saying, not only are we an action on the outside, but on the inside, and you need to be born again if we're going to have a true righteousness, not just the forms of it but deny its power. It's a way of saying you need to be united with Christ, be made new from the inside out. But look at Matthew 5, 27. Jesus says, 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 blustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So he gets here, just as we read earlier, what is it forbidden? Unchaste thoughts, words, and actions, not just the action. Some people think, well, at least I have to commit an adultery in my actions. But what does it say here? Committed adultery at your heart. He had lustful intent. We're going to define a lesson here in a second. But it is that impure distortion. And now notice how it goes on the speak on if your right hand is causing you to sin, tear it out, throw it away. For it is better for you to lose one of your members than your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body go into hell. But this is so serious. He's talking about this heart, this true action that has a heart that wants to honor and take serious our sin. This is what the Tona was forbidden. But remember, God created marriage, God created sex, Satan is a perverter. He's the one who just distorts it. God's good service. Now, if if I had a fire in the room right now, would that be the bunker place for it? Well, absolutely not. All the deacons would be like, no, don't fire the place right here. If I have a fire in a fireplace, that's a proper thing. It has its boundaries. It's much like the physical intimacy has its boundaries for where it's supposed to be. The outside of the marriage permanent is hard as destruction, right? And that's what we see. Satan distorts and hates God's plan for marriage. He doesn't want Christ's honor in your marriage. He wants you, guys, to not become one in all the ways. He wants you to not honor Christ in all the ways that his word is showing us today. He wants this distortion. And that's what this distortion is. It's what adultery literally means to render something poorer in quality by adding another substance. He makes it poorer in quality by adding another substance. And this is why I think when you're adding a third party to the marriage, to the union, whether that's an extramarital affair or looking at explicit images, it's adding another substance and it's hurting that bond, that union. It is spoken of even in Genesis before the giving of the Ten Commandments as a great sin and wickedness against God. You know, Joseph, when Paul's wife is reading Genesis 39, she tries to tempt him. He says, No, I don't want to do this wickedness against God. And he runs, he flees from this temptures here. And that's the kind of approach that we should have, is just to leave this. This is such a great sin. It's destructive to society. You know, even in the Old Testament, in the Old Covenant, there was the death penalty for adultery. Now, I you can just drive down Alameda, and I've seen these sites recently. I think they were in Walmart. They said it's cheap and easy divorce. No, there's not, it's not, it's not easy. There's it's not pain-free. Some of you have gone through this painful experience, and I've had people who have also experienced uh adultery, uh, and it's a painful experience. It hurts with deadly unit. There's a cost, almost. Now, is there forgiveness and healing in Christ? Yes. But adultery is, say in Matthew 5, is the case where Jesus says divorce is permissible in the case of adultery. It is it is not a sin that comes without cost. No sin comes without a cost. There's always a consequence. Now, unless you start thinking, oh, well, I've I've lusted in my heart, I might as well prevent the act of adultery. No. That's not what Jesus is implying here. But morally, it's in a similar category. All sin is equal in its effect, separates us from God, but it's not equal in its consequence. You could perhaps committed that a lust in the heart today. Repent of that and walk in purity today. It's cool because it's that's where the sin of adultery starts, adultery in the heart. It starts with lust, as we just read over there in Matthew 5.27. Now, how do we define lust? Now, this is not a good godly desire for intimacy with your spouse. Lust is the desire for anything that is simple and God forbids and is outside of God's design. So that can include even coveting when we're talking about sexual life. It's however that word put, is uncovering that which is not lawful for us before God. And I like that concept because you see when people were sexually abusing the Old Testament, they would say he was uncovered. And it's a way kind of a euphemism referring to something that should not have happened, that was not God's lawful design for it. Because the the uncovering, like Adam and Eve, they were naked and ashamed, they were naked and unashamed. And so that's where there should be that union, that love union without shame. And then when you uncover something that is not lawfully yours, that is, and that desire for it, there's a form of gathering lust, uh not a god honoring of desire. So this includes all these types of sexual morality and lust of fox, pornography, fortification, having sex outside of marriage, bisexuality, lesbianism, homosexuality, transgenderism, immodesty and dirty joking. This is just the summary of what God's word says on this. And all of these would be outside of God's design for our desires in our actions. So we think of what's the effects of sexual immorality, which again, everything outside of chastity and singleness or faithfulness in a biblical marriage between one man and one woman, that's like the word used in the Greek is porna. It's just like a large word, everything outside of God's toothpaste of homosexuality. The effects of selfishly amusing people, objectifying them, puts pleasure before commitment. Um sexual morality leads frequently to divorce, harms children, puts someone on the throne of our own sexuality and identity. Sexual sin in 1 Corinthians 6.18 says, it is a unique sin against your own body. Now you may be thinking here today, yes, I am aware, and you're and you want to push that away. We're remembered. We're all made new to those who look with Christ. But don't be like mere legalists. You only focus on the outward informing and not inward purity before the Lord. You must have a pure heart. Modesty, where does it really start? Modesty really starts in the heart before it just starts outwards. Because it's a modest heart that has purely before the Lord. Contrast it with the secular definition of love. How does the world mind us say love is love or consent is all that matters? It's where it says feelings and self are the ultimate God and uh proper boundaries of love. Judging and accountability is seen as the ultimate sin, and commitment is seen as optional. Does that sound like fire just going out of control? Does that describe our culture right now where it's just chaos of fire and destruction? That's what happens outside of God's good design. So that's where we led to what? His law isn't just given just to make us miserable, it's given for our joy, for our flourishing. It leads to us focusing on a joy from holiness in Jesus. So some of you, quite practically, if you think about the seven commandments, you it's time for some of you to step up and cultivate your marriage. That has to be the positive implication against the command to not commit adultery. It's not just coast. Some of us, maybe our marriages have been just coasting. When the Lord wants your marriage to thrive while you're together, prioritize your marriage. Like this week, if that's not a reality, prioritize your marriage. No, I'm not saying you neglect your kids. Deuteronomy 6, we're talking about earlier. We are intentional with our kids, but that doesn't mean that we prioritize our kids of our marriage. We have a one, we have a union, the two become one. That's why we should be prioritizing that. We don't want our kids to become an idol, and then we neglect our marriage. And when our kids see us prioritizing our marriage, it's a reflection of the gospel. Christ takes care of his bride, the church. We prioritize that. And now, I mean, well, practically speaking, if you haven't had a date night, like prioritize that, like that's a clear application here. But it needs to be more than that, certainly. Prioritizing teaching our time together and pursuing Christ together. Which I think that means husbands, you take the lead. We're also taking the lead in our families. Take the lead initiates. But keep we notice how even Hebrews 13 4 speaks to reiterating the seventh commandment, and now we're all to think about it. Let the marriage bed be held in, let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be under fire, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. So keep the marriage bed pure, regular, and mutual. We'll see in 1 Corinthians 7 repeating that same truth. Over and over, this is a a good gift to marriage. You look at in Flip's book went to Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 5. It and 5 and 6 both speak on keeping your that union pure and fleeing adultery. This is a great verse. It's being tempted in our heart to have sinful desires, that for which God has not lawfully given to us. Proverbs 5.15, drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own love. We are it's like the Lord commanding something that's a good gift. It's interesting. Go and be with your spouse and enjoy each other. And Proverbs 5.15 and on uh talks about being intoxicated already when alone verse 19. This is a thing we won't achieve. We're not ashamed of anything in God's word of it. So you you read about these other uh sections in Proverbs where it speaks of Proverbs 6.27. Can a man throw fire into his chest and his clothes not be burdened? Some of you today, perhaps, have been in your heart struggling with sexual lust, and you're kind of hiding that close and thinking that you can't be burned because you just didn't do the action of adultery. But in your heart you're trying to hold this fire and thinking you can come through this with no consequence. But see, here's the reality is you just like anyone, we need to bring this out into the open. You say, but I can't change. This is who I am. Well, we have a 2,000-year-old testimony that says different. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9 says, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually involved, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, who are men who practice homosexuality, who are thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor sprindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. So he's saying all of these thieves unrepentant, idolaters, sexually involved, all of these are these hellgones. Unless they're born again and they continue in this direction, they're not going to inherit the kingdom of God. But notice what it says right here in verse 11. It says, and such were some of you. That's the past tense. Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. See, Christ saves what kind of people who were just had a few mistakes. No, he saves the impure. That's the only kind of people he saves. So everyone in here that is a that is a believer today, they're not saved because they were good enough, so they learned it. They were the unrighteous, they became righteous because Christ came to bring unholy people, impure people, into a sin of making them pure. That's where that's where our hope lies. That we can have a new purity in Christ. Christ died for us while we are still ungodly, while we were enemies. And that's that's the beauty here. When we were enslaved with simple desires, now he gives those in Christ new desires and then real lies. So there's a challenge where if you're in Christ, you must continue to fuck for walking in purity. See, real biblical community and accountability is what every single one of us needs. And I'm not just talking about you see someone once a week. Like Proverbs 18.1 says, see who isolates himself breaks out against all sound judgment. Like everyone in here needs real biblical community. You need someone where you can you can share your sins and your struggles to confess that to one another. I talked to a lot of brothers in the Lord who struggle with sexual immorality. And I'm saying, brother, what does your community look like? Do you have other people who can speak into your life and challenge you? And they're like, look, more often than not, they're isolated. See, sin always survives in isolation. And if you don't have that community, you're seeking for a false sense of connection or explicit images or sexual morality of different thoughts and sinful desires. You need to find community that actually pursue joy in the Lord and one that you can confess to one another so that your sins may be showed. Some of you, maybe that's your status finding that community. You want to fight sin? Get a real relationship for us. So not only that, name the sin. But name it, this is rebellion to God. This does not need to be completely anymore. I need to speak the truth about this. Athenians 4.22 says these are deceitful, deceitful desires. These desires lie to us about what's satisfies. We need to name it and say, this is rebellion to God, this is adultery in the heart, this is evil on the vocabulary. I would call it for what it is. But if you have a part for what it is, it continues to pride and secrecy, right? And that's why you look in Proverbs 28-13. It talks about the one who thinks he can hide his thing, he's really just lying to himself. You're not going to prosecute. Psalms 36 also echoes that same truth, where he says, the one will turn your wicked things. The Lord sees all of your secret sin. You've been justified, washing things online or on your fold. If no one knows, my spouse doesn't know. Yes, it does. Sin always causes separation between you and God and personal relationships with others. The Lord, may the Lord today help that come out into the open, there be true healing. As we said earlier, take those drastic measures. Like Joseph running away from God of his wife? Like that's the kind of passion we should have. Or 2 Timothy 2, flee youthful passions. Now, it's common for people to say, well, you can flee boys. I guess I could just say this dirty joke. Is there any precedent in scripture that that's how we could treat sin? No. We don't say, well, I'm just young. Like what no, Paul says, flee those youthful passions, which is not only true for uh immature young men, but it can be true for young women as well. Men and women both are guilty of sexual immorality in many times. So flee these. So look at Matthew 5 again. Well, he says, if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. Now I don't think he's talking about self-muteration because Jesus frequently used hyperproofable uh where he's talking about extreme exaggeration. What does he say? Well we have a good application. If your computer causes you to sin, throw it away. That's one application you could do. I've heard of a guy taking his laptop and throwing it off the bank of the mountains because he couldn't stop looking at sexual and hard things. It's better to get rid of your computer, maybe a thousand dollars, than have your well these sample desires wage against your soul. Now, I'm not saying you absolutely have to do that. Maybe get some safeguards, maybe only be on the computer publicly somewhere. So do whatever it takes. This is not good for your relationships and your soul. You better take those extreme measures, find that accountability. And I think that's the heart of what Jesus is saying here. But he notice if we can't do that, at the end of the day, we're idolizing it so much than thus breaking the first commandment. We're idolizing the sexual sin so much, it continues to cause us grief and pain. But if you let that out of the idol and pursue that purity on the Lord in your marriage, there's going to be so much rejoicing. God's word is given for us for our joy to follow him as we look to him in Christ. That's why we're called to guard our heart. Guard our heart, what? Because out of it flow the well strings of life. So if you're started there, sometimes people think, okay, so what I think is I just go blah blah blah blah and just close my ears to sing. Well, in Greek mythology, you've probably heard of the sirens. Well, that's kind of like sin, right? Well, it looks so attractive, it looks so great, and then we go and do the sin with, oh, that's just being invisible. But they'd say the lines, well, what if you make what if what if you'll miss out if you follow God's way? This looks really satisfying. It's like the song of the sirens. And I put one version where they were saved. They would have to either plug their ears, which didn't really work, or they tie themselves to the mass so they wouldn't have sinned, or in one case, someone would play a better song. That's what the gospel is. Is it gives us a new heart? It gives us a newly better song. And the word gospel kind of sounded like it was came from this contraction meaning good spell. Not talking about witchcraft, it was like this idea that it was like such a good message that it like captivated hearts. So the gospel changes hearts of what God has done to save sinners in Christ. That it is a new and better song. It is more satisfying where we say, Oh, Jesus is better. Jesus is better. And so I'm not just gonna say, stop it. I'm going to pursue Christ and pursue joy in him. Because you will never good and forgiving, abounding and set us up, all will call upon you. Some of you come here with a sexual sin in your heart or actions in your past, you need to remember that. Psalms 85, 6. The Lord is forgiving and abounding. Do all will call upon him. See, that that's the beauty of the gospel, that we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, of our sexual trespasses, according to the riches in his grace. That's why David Right earlier. What is God's will of us? Your sanctification, and we avoid sexual immorality. He says God has not called us to impurity but in holiness. He has called us to pursue joy in Christ. Think about the seventh commandment. Don't just think about oh, it would be miserable. No, no, no. This is for your good and for your joy when you find it in Christ. We're gonna have a time, as always, in the past weeks, to get time in front of reflection what the Lord has taught us today. Some of us, it's time brought marriage to change its tune. It's time to pursue unity and all the good daughter-baby ways. Some of us time to leave that sexual sin behind. Stop trying to pursue it and go to Christ. It's time to rejoice in that as well. I'm going to close with a prayer now. And if uh during our reflection time, you're always welcome to visit me in the front or not here. But I do invite you to seek the Lord. We'll have some couple of reflection questions up there for you to continue seeking. And after a few minutes, uh Kendra and the ladies will come up to close our service out here. Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Lord, we thank you for your good word. God, you do not withhold anything good from us. God, that your law shows us what's good, but also shows us that we have all fallen short of your law in our hearts, our attitudes and our actions. As we look at this hard text on what we're called to be in marriage, God, some of us, we need to we need to turn from what we have made marriage to be. God, maybe there's bitterness on our heart against our spouse. God, maybe we are we are not pursuing that union you call us to be in. God, I pray that we would lead and change, that we would seek you together and be united and honor you in our marriage. God, I pray for those who are trying to hide and conceal their sexual sin. That they would find healing today. Name it for what it is, and confess that to one another and find healing and perfect forgiveness in Christ. We pray.