The Seventh Commandment

I don't have some reason that well, I know why overwhelmed this morning with his gratitude that I get to be your pastor. This is thankful for this body. It's unity. It's love for one another. And most of all, it's love for God's Word. I do not typically plan my preaching around holidays outside the Christian calendar, so we'll do a special service for the resurrection. We'll do a special service on Easter and Christmas and the Reformation day. We've been observing, but I don't plan my preaching calendar around days like Mother's Day and Father's Day and Valentine's Day. I do recall just by accident, we did study Genesis 16 on Mother's Day once. Sarah and Hagar, the dueling mothers. I don't think that's your typical Mother's Day passage. When it just so happens that the day, the Sunday following Valentine's Day, we're teaching on the commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery. And we'll be looking at marriage. We'll be looking at what God's design for love is. Really, this morning, we're not going to look at the negative, what you're not supposed to do. We're going to study God's Word, and we're going to see the theology of marriage and love and how He's designed us. Really, the why. Why is adultery wrong? And we can summarize this morning's message. God ordained marriage and sex to be good, and we will only truly enjoy them in His design. God ordained marriage and sex to be good, and we will only truly enjoy them in His design. I'll give somewhat of a disclaimer. Every Sunday, I want to give you, well, I try to give you everything God's Word says about a topic. I want to give you whatever I can find in God's Word that I think is helpful and good, and I want to dig deep, and I don't want to rob you from any of God's glorious truth. So that is in competition this morning with another conviction that I want to make sure we're protecting the innocence of young children. That is the most valuable asset, the most valuable possession you have children. And so I'm going to try to talk about adultery and marriage and sex in a way that will challenge us all. But I also want to make sure that while I'm very sensitive to those little ears and what they hear. Let me go ahead and take this opportunity to give you an application, children. Your innocence is the most precious possession you have. Innocence lost is lost forever. Protect your purity. There's always forgiveness, but there is no going back once you cross the line from innocence. We're going to be looking at the Ten Commandments again, the Seventh Commandment. We have new pew Bibles. They're no longer at the end of your pew. They're actually in front of you. They look kind of like the hymnal. I'm going to be giving page numbers for those of you who want to use that pew Bible. So if you want to go ahead and get that, if you don't have a copy of scripture with you, if you want to take that home with you, you're welcome to. So, that's where we'll be studying. I'll be giving page numbers in accordance with the Pew Bible. We'll be looking at the Seventh Commandment. And just to give you some background, we've been going through Exodus. We've been slowing down because these Ten Commandments define the nation of Israel. They're very important for us as God's people, now the church. God redeemed his people. He rescued them from slavery. He gave them a new identity. And now he's telling them this is what it looks like to be my nation. And so we're on the seventh commandment. Exodus 2014. And you can find the Ten Commandments on page 61. You'll see that these four, the four parts of this sermon are very similar to the four parts of last week's sermon. It'll be very similar to the four parts of next week's sermon. The first thing we'll ask is, what does the command say? What is the most basic, essential parts of the command? You shall not commit adultery. The second part, what is the basis for the command? And as we did last week, we'll go back to Genesis, where the basis, the explanation, the rationale for the commands are given, as we'll look at what is the true purpose of marriage. Then we'll look to see how Christ fulfilled the command, and then fourth, How did Christ heighten the command? What does the command say? What is the basis for the command? How did Christ fulfill the command? And how did Christ heighten it? So first, what does the command say? It's not that difficult. You are not to have sex with someone else's spouse. You are to have sex with your spouse. Very little interpretation is needed here. It's a it's a clear cut, no, it's a it's a parameter building commandment. This is where God's gift is to be used and you are not to use it outside of that. Well, if they're not married, is it technically adultery? Technically, it's fornication, but we have to realize that that person or you are most likely going to be married if you're not married now. And so, you should not have sex with another man's wife. You should not have sex with another woman's husband. If you're not married, you should be abstinent. That is the key point. There's only one clear place, there's only one arena in which you should seek God's gift of sex, and it is within marriage. Now, this command doesn't say anything negative about sex. There's nothing negative about sex here. It's just telling you when not to do it. It's telling you who you are not to do it with. Second main part of our sermon, what is the basis of the command? Here, we're going to go to Genesis 2, verses 21 through 27. That just so happens to be page two in your Bible. That's pretty easy. We want to start in Genesis. Genesis 2, beginning in verse 21. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Adam just watched every living being walk past him. And he named them, showing his authority. He's exercising dominion. He has the authority to name every other being. And no other helper, no helper was found fit for him. And so we want to focus on the word helper. There's a wrong way to think of helper. Men do not think they're here to help you. Right? There's a way to be selfish and say, well, you're just here to help me. No, the way you need to think about this is that we needed help. That's actually what's emphasized. God doesn't say man and woman are good. The sixth day isn't good until woman is made. Men, we need help is a proper way to think about this rather than you're just here to help me. God puts Adam to sleep, he takes out his rib, he forms the woman from a part of his own body. Now, man, he may not have done it and he breathed life into him, but here he takes a woman from the rib. It shows the intimate connection that it's flesh of his flesh. They are bound to another. It is his own body. That is why they are to become one flesh. You love her as yourself because you're really loving yourself. That shows the key intimacy and the unity that takes place. Her happiness is his happiness. She is his responsibility. Her protection, provision, and happiness is Adam's responsibility. Adam woke up. He became a poet all of a sudden, in verse 23. This, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man." Moses really focuses on the key issue here. Man will leave his mother and father and he will cleave to his wife. That union is the most important union. It actually is more important than your parental relationship when you become married. It's interesting how they're one flesh. They share everything. Everything is in common. They share in one another's money. They share one another's joy. They share one another's hardship, responsibilities of children. Everything is together. They share it together. It's a team in unison. Every team, you have to have a system. You have to have a clear working order. I heard it said, I don't know anything about baseball, but if a pop fly is in the air, somebody has the authority to say, it's mine. You have to be able to communicate in that kind of a situation. And that's just key to a marriage. You need to be able to speak to one another. You need to be able to communicate with one another. A team is ruined when someone doesn't play by the rules, when someone doesn't communicate well. In basketball, we call this person the chucker. As soon as the ball gets in their hands, it's going up. They don't pass the ball. They don't play defense. They just shoot. They ruin the team dynamic. They're not playing with the other players. Husbands and wives, we are meant to work with one another, to care for one another. What you see here is marriage is ordained to be the perfect union. The husband is to seek out his wife to provide for her need, to love her as he loves himself. Her well-being is his well-being, and the wife is to seek the same. The couple is to have perfect harmony. Now, if you're like me, I say, well, I don't necessarily recognize that. Why is that? That's how we were created, but that's not how our marriages work. Well, why? Well, it's because we're all sinners and we're, by nature, selfish. So now we're just going to flip the page. Genesis 3. We leave Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. They're not ashamed. They haven't yet rebelled against God. They're pure. They're sinless. They're innocent. And when that innocence is lost, it's lost forever. When Satan came to tempt Eve, Adam was not there to protect her. He's not there to throw out the serpent and care for his wife. The most important part of the curse is in the relationship in verse 16, where the woman is said, you will have a desire for your husband and the husband will rule over his wife. Let's look at what this curse for the woman is. Her heart will desire her husband. There's a few interpretations. One, desire means she will try to find a fulfillment in her husband that she was designed to only find in God. That's one way folks have interpreted that. Now, I think that's a true temptation for any of the either spouse to try to find a fulfillment in the spouse rather than than the true ultimate fulfillment in God. I think that is a true temptation, but there's nothing in the context that would lead you to think that's actually what Moses is thinking when he Or what God is thinking, what God is declaring when he declares this curse. So second, desire means she will seek him out for procreation. Her desire is to have children. Now, this is interpreting it primarily with the passage that precedes in verse 15, you will have pain and childbearing and then desire just flows from that. There's some there's some possibility there with the context, but I think there's a better interpretation. Desire means she will be inclined not to respect him. And will seek and will not seek his good. This fits the passage in that this really isn't a curse. What it's saying is this is now state that you are now in. You will desire him. He will rule over you. The desire is that you're not going to respect him. The issue is how they're going to relate to one another because these two parts, the desiring and the ruling, they're parallel. We know what desire means, I think most from Genesis four, when God says Cain, sin is crouching at your door. It's desire is for you. And that desire is obviously to conquer him, to destroy him. We see the immediate definition of desire in the very next chapter in chapter four, and that it's not to respect. It's actually to overthrow and undermine. Then, finally, I think from the New Testament we see that this is the correction that the New Testament authors needed to give to women. The command to respect your husbands is given in 1 Peter 3 and Ephesians 5. So what does this look like? A woman goes from the blessing that man needed for his well-being, to desiring him and his good, to desiring to undermine him, to no longer respect him. The example is a woman who's bossing. and nagging, a woman who's never happy, always complaining. She doesn't encourage her husband. Rather, she talks highly about other men. This is a woman whose desire is not for her husband's well-being. Scripture speaks of this in many ways that Proverbs 25, 24 is one example. Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. Now, I'm not saying this is how every woman lives. This is a natural tendency, and we have a lot of redeemed, saved women in this church, and I'm thankful that you resist this temptation. But some will say, my husband is so beyond respect. I can't respect him. Have you ever thought, is he so beaten up that he can't bring himself to do what he needs to do? Does he need you to lift him up, to encourage him and to be his helper? Because he is so beaten up by the world and beaten up at home. Men, our simple response is to not have a heavy hand. Our response is to have a heavy hand, an iron fist, to rule without grace and love. We must resist the temptation to rule. We're called to lead. This means lead with tenderness, means lead on her pace and for her well-being. Resist the temptation to give up because it's hard work. The command is important because the fabric of society is the family and the most important relationship in the family is the husband and wife. This is essential to who we were created to be. Fidelity in marriage is the most important part of any society, because if you can't be trusted with that most basic commitment, that most basic and essential covenant, how can you be trusted? Marriage was ordained by God. It is good. It brings pleasure and joy when functioning properly. We must learn to enjoy one another. The sin comes when we try to find delight in something else. Now, before we move on to how Christ fulfills us, I do want to give a brief summary of the book of Hosea, because it's just a beautiful picture of God being the ideal husband. He commands Hosea to do what seems to just be a crazy, crazy thing. Says go and marry a prostitute. Go marry a woman who is unfaithful, and that is to symbolize God in Israel, as Hosea was to his wife, the husband to a whore who would not be faithful, who would always and continue to be a prostitute. So God was saying, I will be faithful to you, even though you, my people, continue to go after other gods. You continue to worship idols. God is jealous for his people's love. Us not loving him doesn't keep him from loving us, but he's jealous for his people's love. He is faithful to get our love and he woos us in the most amazing way. Let's look at the third, our third main point, how does Christ fulfill this commandment? First and foremost, Christ is the perfect husband. As Chip prayed, he is the bridegroom, he takes the church to be his bride. This is seen clearly in the end, Revelation 19, 7. Hallelujah for the Lord, our God, the almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory for the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. In Revelation 21, verses 1-2, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Verse 9, Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of seven last legs and spoke to me saying, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. This is the end of this is the end of all the purposes of God, that we the church would be the bride that makes Christ the bridegroom. Now, I want to point out something here that that's fascinating. It's the marriage supper of the lamb. Why the lamb? One of the lion, when the picture of course, risen in power and majesty and might. Was because the love of God is seen in the lamb. Christ as the lamb laid down his life for the church. That's where we see God's love demonstrated most clearly, most fully, most convincingly. It's the lamb that identifies us as the beloved people because we were completely unlovely and it had to be the blood of the lamb that washes us. Why does snow? It's only the blood of the lamb that purifies us and makes us acceptable as a bride because otherwise we are offensive and not prepared to be the bride because we are covered in the filth of our sin. Let's look at another passage. Turn there, in page 978, Ephesians 5. 978, we'll be reading Ephesians 5, beginning in verse 25. And here, Paul is giving commands to family members. He's doing the household order and code, and he grounds it all in Christ and His love as a husband. Ephesians 5, beginning in verse 25. Husbands, love your wives. As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. 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'm saying that it refers to Christ in the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Notice here, we just read the passage Paul's quoting from Genesis. Leave your mother and father and cleave to your spouse. And Paul, he says, this mystery is profound. This refers to Christ in his church. Marriage was designed to point us to Christ in his church. Marriage was built upon the real marriage. Christ, the bridegroom and the church is bride. He is the real and we're to reflect that. It's amazing as Christ unites himself, that intimate, clear way to take upon his people who are sinful to be united to him as if his own flesh. Whenever we're fighting against him. Impure, unholy. Again, it's his blood that makes us prepared to be as broad. Christ pursues his people who are whoring after other gods. We're no different than Israel. We play the prostitute. We seek to put our affections in every other place other than Christ. We continue to find satisfaction in things beyond God. To be true believers in Christ, we must first recognize We are unworthy of his love. We have broken his covenant. We are rebellious. First and foremost, we have offended Almighty God and we are all together unlovely. Think about how offensive it would be. After 50 years, you find out your spouse was cheating on you the whole time. You feel betrayed, you feel lied to, there's agony, there's misery. It's amazing about the gospel. God doesn't discover how sinful we are. God knows how sinful we are more than we know. And before the foundation of the world, knowing everything we would ever do, knowing every thought that we would ever think, knowing every word that would ever come off our lips, God said, I love you. You who are unholy, God puts his affections on us. It's the power of the gospel that says it doesn't matter how sinful you are. It's what matters is how powerful and how committed God is in his love. He loves us knowing we are idolaters. We don't surprise God. What's amazing is that he stays faithful in his pursuit of his people. He wounds us by sending his son to die for us and by sending his spirit to give us a new heart that stirs us as we sung earlier. He provides for us our last song, the first line, the church is one foundation of Jesus Christ, her Lord. She is his new creation by water in the word from heaven. He came and sought her to be his holy bride with his own blood. He bought her and for her life, he died. That word bought the purchase that we read from first Corinthians six, that's Exodus language. That thing was we get borrowed from God, removing Israel from Egypt and their slavery and bringing them to himself. He's a perfect husband, not just because he provides salvation, but he protects her. He protects us from sin, the power of sin, which is ultimately us going against ourselves. He frees us from the power of sin. He frees us from the power of guilt. He takes God's wrath. He puts himself under God's righteous frown. so that we are no longer under. Finally, freezes from the power of death. We are free to live and we will live forever. Now, Paul commands men in the beginning of that Ephesians passage to love your wives as Christ loved the church. Now, this is a high calling. Christ is the bar. He is the example and model we are to follow. And yes, we all fall short and you never give up trying to be as Christ was to the church. I mean, let me let me speak to you in application here. Leading your wife is a responsibility. Leading your wife is your responsibility. The authority given to you is to be used for her. well-being, just as Christ used his authority too late on his life to purify the church. It does not mean that you have the right to be wrong. Being the head of the household doesn't mean you have the right to be wrong. What it means is you lead the home and asking for forgiveness and showing grace so that the gospel is the aroma of the home. Secondly, men, if you want to know how to glorify God, it starts with the way you love your wife. That's your worship, that that's worship 101. Loving your wife, if you're not married, it's by keeping yourself pure and not loving any other woman until God gives you a wife and you love her. That's worship. Finally. Men, if you want to evangelize your children, the gospel is best demonstrated in your love for your wife. Yes, tell them the words of the gospel, but if you want them to see the gospel, love your wife. They should be able to see the gospel in the way you sacrifice and care for your wife. Let's go to our last part of the sermon. Christ heightens the command. Christ heightens the command. First, he shows us the definition of love. He dies for her. He gives everything of his own being to her. He lays down his life for her, for her well-being. That is how he heightens it, as he shows us what true marriage looks like. The second way is in Matthew 5, which is found on page 810 in your pew Bible. Matthew 5, beginning in verse 27. He heightens it like he did murder last week. He takes it from the external action to the internal desire. You have heard that it was said you should 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. There's a clear change from that external action to the internal desire that leads to that action. What is lust? What is lustful intent? Lustful intent is desiring to use somebody for your own purpose. Love is giving yourself over for their well-being. It's delighting in them for them. Lust is saying, I want you for me. This is what happens when our hearts are out of line. Just as nothing makes us anger, remember from last week, nothing makes you angry. Nothing outside forces you to be angry. It's your heart's desire. It's your heart's response to the events of this world that make you angry. Nothing makes you lust, except for your own heart. It comes from within. What we have to do is recognize the perverse and twisted heart. In our hearts, there is a treason. It poisons all our love. We're all guilty of adultery because we all have twisted hearts. We've all lusted and thought wrongly about someone of the opposite sex. What's interesting about sexual sin is it brings a different kind of consequence. It brings a different kind of shame. In the garden, what's the first thing Adam and Eve did after they rebelled against God and that was clear to them? They covered themselves. They were ashamed before one another. And also, what's amazing about this is that God kills an innocent animal to cover that shame, already pointing us to the gospel. You can look to page 955 of your bulletin for 1 Corinthians 6. There we see that the sexual sin, it's unique in that it's against your own body. I want to walk through a couple ways that I think this statement challenges us. What does that mean? Sexual sin is against our own bodies. There's four reasons, I think, and it's a trajectory I'm going to begin with what's obvious. First, as the context tells, the Holy Spirit indwells you. He has made a home with us. We are now the temple of the living God. We have been declared righteous. We are righteous in God's eyes. We now are the holy ones. We're not to continue to participate in sin. Secondly. Your spouse is one flesh with you by sitting against your spouse, you're sitting against your own body. By not pursuing her with your love and pursuing some other woman, whether that be real or fantasy, you are doing harm to your own body, that is, your wife, who is one flesh with you. When we do this, it's like choosing a cup of ground-up worms over what God has created us for, and that is the delight of our wife. Only because someone's put icing on it. We get attracted to some stupid appeal, but really it's disgusting when we really see what we're engaging in. Third, what does it mean to sit against your own bodies with sacks? It is committing our bodies to what God has saved us from. Remember how gross it was to think of how offensive it was to think of Israel wanting to go back to Egypt? Remember when they said to God, at least we had meat and water and leeks and onions. They're saying, you've redeemed us from slavery, but really, we liked it better there. Friends, we've been redeemed from sexual sin. Our body is now God's, as the passage in 1 Corinthians says, or even more so, 1 Corinthians, or Romans 6. Our bodies are not our own. We are to now commit our members to righteousness and not impurity. Finally, it's setting ourselves against God. What we commit in the body affects our desires. There is a unity between the body and the desires. And the number one command, the most important command is to love your God with all your heart. When we commit our body to doing those things that are impure and unrighteousness. When we defile them, we're defiling our affections. We're training our affections to not love God. We're training our affections to lust. What's sick about the sexual sin is that it's a lie that promises satisfaction. And really, all it does is create a greater craving for something that cannot be satisfied. Only sex, in God's design, can truly bring the satisfaction we're created for. Sex is a gift for two. It is truly enjoyed and delightful when two come together to delight in one another. We see this in the Song of Solomon. The author there, he's delighting in his wife for her well-being. Man, how do we do this? We need to know our wives. We need to study her. We need to know her. You don't just fall out of love. I don't think really ever fall in love. Whatever that is, is not love. Love is a choice. Once you stop pursuing your wife, yes, you will stop loving your wife. Love doesn't happen accidentally. Love is something you must be committed to. Secondly, women. Protect your husband from lust by making yourself available. Pursue him. Know him and pursue him. And let me give you another application here. Women, guard how you dress. Guard how you dress. And this isn't just guarding other men from thinking lustful thoughts. It's guarding you. There was a study a few months out. I forget what university did it, but they had a college student come in and they flashed images before them. And whenever a girl in a bikini was flashed, no matter if it was six seconds or two seconds or half a second, the part of the brain that registers tool, that's what shot off. The part of the brain that was enlightened and heightened whenever they saw a girl in a bikini was the same whenever they saw a tool or a wrench or a screwdriver. I don't mean to throw this out to you, but that's disturbing. That's scary. That's the kind of attention you're seeking or you're getting when you dress provocatively and without modesty. Be careful how you dress, not just for men, but for yourself. Finally, I want to talk about the topic of pornography. This is prevalent in our culture. We just met as pastors this past week, the pastors of Charlottesville, to talk about this topic because it is so prominent and prevalent throughout our society and in our churches. There's a number of stats we could give, but let me give you one clear stat. It's almost impossible that somebody in this sanctuary right now has not looked at pornography in the last 24 hours. At least one person. It's impossible for that not to have happened based upon statistics. That's how prevalent and prominent it is. If you're a Christian, you have free choice. You've been given new desires by the Holy Spirit has given you a new heart and recreated you. You have to choose what you will desire, and when you choose what you desire, you're choosing your master. What will have master over you? Is it God and his word, or is it sin that desires to destroy you? Sexual sin brings a different kind of shame. It has a certain consequence to it. It's painful and it's embarrassing to confess. It doesn't keep God from loving you, but it does have serious consequences. First, it steals your joy in Christ, and secondly, it ruins your relationship. If you're single, let me let me just break down a lie. Marriage is not going to heal your lust. Marriage will not heal your pornography problem. Your pornography problem will be a disease to your marriage. Don't wait to get married. Because that will destroy your marriage. Marriage doesn't heal your pornography problem. Your pornography problem only makes marriage more problematic. So, let's look at how to win the battle. And this is for pornography particularly, but for any lustful problem. First, see it for what it is. This is the first step in repenting of anything truly. You must see the darkness in the light. Let God's word reveal what it truly is. See it from God's perspective. See that it is offensive. See that it's corrupting you in such a way that you can't truly enjoy what God has designed you for. See it as destroying any possibility of truly enjoying a real relationship. You must see it for what it is, and that is offensive to God and destructive to your own pleasure. Second, see Christ and his power to forgive. That's the amazing thing about the gospel. All sin is forgivable in Christ, apart from blasphemy of the spirit, this sin is forgivable in Christ, you may feel defeated, you may feel complete guilt. You may feel like God could never, ever look at you and say, no, I love you. This sin is not outside of the power of God. Your sin is not more powerful than God. He removes our guilt. He removes our shame. He makes us without blemish. Your sin does not keep God from loving you. Your sin keeps you from enjoying that love, but does not keep God from loving you. Third, see Christ and His power to free. Here is where Romans 6 is so important. You are free. You must consider yourself free, and then you must live freely. You must know that Christ's power has set you free. Yes, sin has always said jump and it's always said the chain to make you jump. But when Christ came, he broke the chain. Sin still yells at you and tries to order you around, but he is not your master. Jesus Christ is your Lord. You have a new master. What you have to do is learn to obey him rather than your sin. Fourth, get rid of it. Whatever it is, wherever you get it, get rid of it. It's a lot easier than taking out your eye, cutting off your hand. This means you get accountability, you get blockers, you choose when and where you use a computer, but get rid of it. You can't say, God, free me from this while you're actively making it available to yourself. You must get rid of it. Fifth. And finally, for the sermon, know that Christ loves sinners. That's the beauty. Yes, you're a sinner. Christ loves sinners. Christ loves sinners who continue to pursue idols. Christ loves sinners who refuse him and his love. What we have to do is trust that he loves us because he died for us. What we have to do is trust that he can redeem us and free us and give us new life. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we thank you that your word speaks to the real life problems we all face. While they are uncomfortable to talk about, we thank you that your word forces the conversation and we thank you that your word takes us to the cross where all sin is forgiven and where we can be free. We praise you. We praise you, Almighty God, for being the faithful husband who pursues his bride. We thank you for your great love. We thank you that it is so clearly demonstrated to us on the cross. Help us to long for the day where we will be part of the wedding feast of the Lamb. Clean, spotless, without blemish, no longer with the treason that takes our hearts in every direction. Help us, Almighty God. Too long for the day when we will love you purely and perfectly, as you have loved us already purely and perfectly. Help us, Lord, now to fight the battle. To be pure. To be innocent. To find help among the body. Lord, thank you for the gospel that frees us. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.