Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Exodus

Exodus 20:14 06/20/04

 

Title:  ‘What’s better than coffee in a box, pork on a stick and drive thru parking spaces?’                                     Text: Exodus 20:14

Intro: What’s better than coffee in a box, pork on a stick and drive thru parking spaces? You are probably wondering what this is all about? Well, I got the sermon title from Elizabeth and Janet Emma while we were serving at the Lion’s Fair in May. We were talking about the really good things in life.
 
•    Coffee in a box: From Dunkin Donuts. For someone who drinks coffee and is on the move, what could be better than this?
•    Pork on a stick: Just in front of where we have been serving for the past couple years at the Lion’s Fair was a booth that put boneless pork on a skewer
     and grilled it…add a little hot sauce and when you are hungry, even when you’re not, what could be better than this?
•    Drive thru parking places: This is when you pull into a parking place and the one right in front of you is open and you drive thru so that you don’t have to
     back out. What can be better than this?

Besides these, there are a lot of things in life that are good, helpful, and desirable. But as our sign said last week ‘The best things in life aren’t things.’

So the answer this morning to ‘What’s better than coffee in a box, pork on a stick and drive thru parking spaces?’at least  according to our text in Ex. 20 is relationships, specifically the marriage relationship.

Explanation: What’s so special about marriage, especially considering over 50% end in divorce and most of those are attributed to unfaithfulness?  What is so special about marriage that God added a commandment regulating it and specifically prohibiting adultery? In other words, what is God trying to protect in marriage that he prohibits unfaithfulness? That’s what we are going to look at this morning.

Transition: Turn in your Bibles to Ex. 20:14 where we will see  what this commandment protects and prohibits in the marriage relationship as well as ways to be proactive in sustaining and growing a healthy marriage relationship.

Read: Ex. 20:14

The Marriage Relationship

First of all let me make something very clear. When I speak of marriage, I am using the biblical idea of the term. Marriage is the physical and spiritual union of one man and one woman for life. Regardless of what the courts may say, Scripture leaves absolutely no room for homosexual unions of any kind.

1. Protect
Often we look at the prohibitions of the 10 commandments and fail to see the real purpose behind them, and the blessing of keeping them. All of the commandments are meant to protect specific areas of our lives.
•    Protection of God’s gift of life: murder
•    Protection of God material blessings: steal
•    Protection of ones reputation: false witness
•    Protection of ones energy level and spiritual life: Sabbath
       
What is it that God wants to protect in the marriage relationship?
•    Our enjoyment of sex: Sex as God intended it, is not dirty, shameful or evil.
God created us with a sex drive and he said we and by inference, it, were very good. Only in marriage, where trust and intimacy are  developed, can sex be truly enjoyed.

Read:  Prov. 5:15-20

    Adultery takes the joy out of sex and replaces it with fear, pain, guilt, hurt and shame.

What is it that God wants to protect in the marriage relationship?

•    Our Intimacy: Intercourse is the greatest act of intimacy, trust and vulnerability. It is the lowering of all walls and barriers of protection between two people.   
      Adultery is sharing yourself with someone in such a way that involves  the intimacy that was intended to be shared only between husband and wife. Look.
      Society doesn’t value sex. It sees it as a common act, a basic need of all humanity. So common, so  basic  that it sees no problem with relative strangers sharing
      life’s most intimate acts.
  
     Adultery violates the promises you  made to your spouse on your wedding day before your family, friends and God. And results in a total breakdown  of trust,
     confidence and intimacy the marriage relationship intended be experienced.

What is it that God wants to protect in the marriage relationship?

•    Our Purity: Sexual purity is directly related to our sanctification as believers.

 Read: 1 Thess 4:3-8

    Adultery is moral and spiritual impurity that hinders our relationshipwith God and our ability to be like Christ.

What is it that God wants to protect in the marriage relationship?

•    Our Self Esteem: When you said your vows you told your spouse that there was no on else for you but them, they are everything you ever wanted in a husband
      or wife. You choose them over everyone else.
       
     Adultery tells your spouse that they are no longer good enough for  you. Adultery destroys the self esteem  of the one betrayed.

What is it that God wants to protect in the marriage relationship?

•    Our Relationships: It’s rare that a married couple will not have families and friends with whom they both share relationships with.
   
    Adultery is the choice to be unfaithful in the marriage relationship, and all  other relationships are directly affected  by that sinful choice. Think about it,
   children, in laws, other relatives, friends, church. The breakdown in the marriage relationship contributes to the breakdown in other social relationships

What is it that God wants to protect in the marriage relationship?

•    Our health: When sex is restricted to the marriage bed we guard our health.
   
    Adultery subjects not only the adulterer but their spouse to the  dangers of STD’s (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) Which can lead to death.

Transition: God gave the 7th commandment, ‘you shall not commit adultery’, to protect the joy and blessings of married life. But what exactly does God mean by adultery.  We redefine everything to say whatever we want, but what is biblical adultery and what does this commandment prohibit?

2. Prohibit
•    Physical Adultery. Sex with someone other than your spouse. This includes all kinds of sexual acts, even a passionate kiss. Whether done once or repeated.          There are no excuses for it.    
            -‘My husband doesn’t understand me’
            -‘My wife doesn’t meet my sexual needs’
            -‘I don’t love her anymore’
            -‘God brought us together, even though we are married to other people, I just know this is God’s will for us.’
                                       
                                                                                                You shall not commit adultery

•    Emotional Adultery. A friend of the opposite sex who you have feelings for but because of your faith perhaps, you would never consider acting upon it…
     at least not yet. This is where you would rather spend a quiet afternoon with your self proclaimed ‘soul mate’ than with your spouse.

                                                                                            You shall not commit adultery

•    Mental Adultery. Thinking about having sex with someone other than your spouse. Perhaps most here are not guilty of physical or emotional adultery…
      but what about mental adultery.

Read: Matt. 5:27-28

I doubt that any Christian husband or wife can say that they were never guilty of Jesus’ interpretation of this commandment.

                                                                                                You shall not commit adultery
Conclusion: Proactive

‘Our aim is total peace of mind for you and your family.’ That is the motto of the Alibi Agency….a company based in England whose purpose is to lie for adulterers. The Alibi Agency establishes a plausible paper trail for those who cheat on their spouses.
•    It will furnish ticket stubs for the theater performance you lied about attending.
•    It will print up dummy invitations to the social or business events that you lied about going to and kept you away from home.
•    It will hire official sounding receptionists who will intercept phone calls to the place of your out-of-town conference or golf game and lie about you being registered there.
 
(Cullen Murphy, "A Hand for the Head," Atlantic Monthly (April, 2000), p.26)
 

People who cheat on their spouses are being rather proactive about how they cover their tracts, shouldn’t we who desire to maintain marital purity also be proactive about it? Shouldn’t we work to keep our marriages safe? What can we do?

With Our Spouses
•    Job 31:1-11  Guard your eyes. They are the path to the mind and the highway to sinful actions.
•    Gal 5:16  Walk with God, keep in step with the Holy Spirit as he moves in and around you. Worship God daily not just an hour a week on Sunday.
•    Avoid flirty relationships. Keep your distance from the man or woman whose interest in you may be more than just friends. Watch how you touch those of the
     opposite sex.
•    Avoid suggestive situations. Be careful at company parties and other places especially where there is alcohol and your spouse is not with you.
•    Consider the cost. Take a moment to think about the devastation adultery will have on you, your spouse, your children, your family, friends and church family.
•    Love your spouse. Love them. Decide to love them all over again each day you wake up.
•    Don’t deny each other sexually.  1 Cor. 7:3-4 says that husbands and wives are not to deny sex to one another unless it is for an agreed upon time and them
      make sure it has a definite ending. We are to meet each others sexual needs so much so neither will want to look elsewhere.
•    Be content with your spouse. The grass is often greener on the other side of the fence because they work harder at their marriage than you do. Be content to
      nurture your own relationship with your own spouse.

With Our God
God accused the church at Ephesus in Rev. 2:4 of having lost their first love.
•    Are you still in love with Jesus or have you allowed something or someone else to become the focus of your passion?
•    Is there anything in your life that you are more passionate about than your relationship with Jesus Christ?
•    Would you be pleased if your spouse only showed his/her love for you one hour a week?

God is a jealous God and will not have his bride cheat on him, there will be consequences when your heart is given to another god in your life.

Before I close there are two last points I want to make.
•    Adultery is not an unforgivable sin. You may have committed this sin and right now your heart is pounding and your gut wrenching because you know God is
     convicting you. You need to know that God’s grace is bigger than your sin.  If you are willing to bring your sin to the cross of Calvary God is willing to offer you
     complete forgiveness. His blood shed on Calvary promises it to all who confess their sin and turn to God for forgiveness.

•    Because God is willing to forgive, so should God’s church. A church that is able to help those hurting because of the sin of adultery can not be self righteous.
     We can’t say well they’re in sin I won’t have anything to do with them till they get their act together with God. As God is gracious so should God’s people be
      gracious.

                           So, What’s better than coffee in a box, pork on a stick and drive thru parking spaces?  Honoring God in our marriage relationships.