Hope Church LV Sermons
Warnings :: Part 2 Honor Marriage
[Music] This message is your warning. What you are about to hear is a passage of scripture from the most powerful sermon in history. The words we are about to read are from the heart and mouth of Jesus Christ himself. These teachings are radical and are to be taken seriously. This will serve as your warning that the sole purpose of this series is to examine six heart sayings of Jesus. We will examine each saying together as a church and then have a time of personal response. You are about to be challenged. Please open up your heart and mind to what is about to take place. Part two honor marriage. Last weekend we began a series studying six very difficult sayings that are contained in the greatest sermon ever preached the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew five six and seven Jesus is describing for us the radical way of life that he's called us to as his followers. It's a way of life that's very different from the culture in the world and the times that we're living in. It's a way of life that was radical when Jesus spoke it and it is just as radical today. We looked at it last weekend and we began to understand that what Jesus is doing in this passage of Scripture is he's beginning to deal with the Old Testament law and it's very important up front that you understand Jesus in this passage is not contradicting and challenging the Old Testament law. What Jesus is dealing with are the interpretations of the law that had been passed down from the scribes and the Pharisees and Jesus is challenging the interpretations. That's why as we read the text of Scripture you'll hear Jesus say you've heard it said but I say to you. You see what had happened over time is the scribes and the Pharisees had taken the Old Testament law and they had reduced it down to simply dealing with the external. That righteousness was simply a few things you do on the outside and as long as you do these things and don't do these things then God's happy. They'd taken God's divine standard and reduced it and made it nothing more than a system of human achievement. Jesus shows up and begins to challenge that very understanding of the law and in doing that he says some very difficult things. That's why we said last weekend we kind of give you a warning statement up front. We want you to know the things that Jesus is about to say are not necessarily what we want to hear but they're what we need to hear. Last weekend Jesus began by dealing with the subject of relationships. I want to give you the life application that we looked at last week and I want to put it back up on the screen. I want you to read it out loud with me. Here's what we said last weekend. You ready? As a follower I'm sorry I messed up. Let's start over. I wrote it all to know what it says right. Here we go. As a Jesus follower it is impossible for me to be right with God and not be pursuing rightness in my relationships with others. That's not what we want to hear. We want to hear that well we can just let that go and move on. That's in the past. Let's just forget about it. But the law said you shall not murder. Jesus went on to tell him I say to you you shouldn't even be angry because if your brother has something against you, Jesus said you're living in violation of that commandment. The heart of that commandment was something much greater. Last weekend we looked at that subject and at the end of the service a lot of you raised your hand and said hey God's put somebody on my heart that I need this week to go and start reconciling those relationships. I'm going to ask you a question this morning. How many of you this week began to take the steps? Maybe it's not done yet but you've begun to take the steps to make right that relationship that God put on your heart last weekend. Let me see your hand. Just hold it up for a second. Praise the Lord. God bless you. You can put them down. A lot of hands this morning. I got to be honest. I came into the weekend thinking Lord what do I do if I say that? Nobody raises their hand you know. But thank God you've begun to take those steps. Hey it's not easy. It's not comfortable but listen to me. It's right. It's the right thing to do and some of you may have enjoyed the greatest sense of freedom and peace from God. You've had in a long time because you began to take those steps. Well as we continue our study through this series Jesus takes us a step further. Last weekend he talked about relationships in general. This weekend he begins to deal with the most important of all human relationships. This weekend Jesus begins to deal with the relationship of husband and wife. And I find it interesting that in this passage of scripture Jesus that we're studying over six weekends Jesus only dealt with six of the commandments. Now there were hundreds of scribal interpretations of the law. There were hundreds of applications that the Pharisees were carrying out. Of all the hundreds Jesus could choose he chose six of them and of the six two of them deal with the same relationship. One third of the examples that he uses deals with the subject of marriage both this weekend and next weekend we're going to be dealing with that. Why would Jesus highlight marriage like that? Let me tell you why. Because marriage is a big deal. Marriage is a big deal. Let me show you verse of scripture. Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 4. Listen what it says. Marriage is to be held in honor among all and the marriage bed is to be undefiled for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. The Bible says marriage is a big deal and we should honor marriage and the commandment that Jesus deals with this weekend and then we're going to look at it again next weekend. Both of those commandments deal with this issue of honoring marriage. We live in a culture we live in a society where marriage is under attack and when I say that I know what that triggers and a lot of us as conservative Christians. We think immediately what Pastor Vance is talking about is the the same sex agenda that's out there trying to redefine marriage and don't misunderstand me. That is an attack and an affront on the sanctity of marriage but so is the devaluing of marriage that has taken place in the Christian community that has led us to a point in history where marriages are falling apart inside the church at the same rate they're falling apart outside the church and what the world wants to understand is what comes out of our mouth about valuing and honoring marriage real or is it just something that we say? Jesus here is speaking to us about honoring the sanctity of marriage this relationship. Our culture needs to look at the church of Jesus Christ and understand that we honor marriage. Now as an introduction I want to give you a couple of reasons why marriage is such a big deal. Now this introduction is a little bit long all right so hang on but it's going to carry us for two weeks all right. This introduction helps set up this weekend and next weekend they both fall under this umbrella so let me give you a couple of reasons why marriage is such a big deal. Number one marriage is the building block of society. Marriage is the building block of society. This isn't so much a scriptural component as it is a social component. Marriage is the building block of our society. We're a world made up of nations. Nations are made up of states, states made up of cities, cities made up of communities, communities made up of families, families made up of marriages. Founded upon marriage, so goes marriage, so goes society, so goes the world. Kathy Peel is a very respected spokesperson on behalf of the family in America. She's known by many people as America's family manager. She and her husband do much writing and speaking on the subject of marriage and she's been the guest on hundreds of television programs including repeat appearances on Oprah, the early show, the today's show CNN and HGTV. She's written articles that have appeared in many magazines including Family Circle, Home Life, Readers Digest, Ladies Home Journal, Parent Magazine and Red Book. This woman has her finger on the pulse of marriage in our society and I want you to look at this quote on the screen. Here's what she says. Adultery is one of the most socially destructive forces in any culture because it destroys families. No people can expect to remain free who willingly dissolve the family unit that God designed as the launching pad for life. Adultery is a violation of the most sacred human relationship, the commitment of one man and one woman to each other. Without this foundation, the family will stumble and society cannot flourish. This isn't just conservative Christian rhetoric. History has recorded for us the details of societies that have collapsed. One of the greatest English historians to ever live was a man named Edward Gibbon. Edward Gibbon wrote the classic work on the Roman Empire called the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. In that book, Edward Gibbon, not a pastor, not a preacher, not a seminary professor, a historian, said that immorality was the number one force that brought the mighty Roman Empire crashing down. Marriage is the building block of society and the deviate from God's design is to bring destruction on our culture. I was researching on the internet this week and I came across a quote by a man named David Cameron. You may recognize the name. He is the prime minister of Britain. So again, before I read this quote, I want you to understand this is a prime minister of Britain. This is not a preacher. This is not a pastor. It's a politician. Listen what he says. Look at it on the screen. Families to me are not just the basic unit of society. They're the best. They are the ultimate source of our society's strength or weakness. Families matter because almost every social problem that we face comes down to family stability. If marriage rates went up, if divorce rates came down, if more couples stayed together for longer, would our society be better off? My answer is yes. And so I will set a simple test for each and every one of our policies. Does it help families? Marriage is the building block of society. But a second reason why marriage is a big deal is because marriage is precious to God. Marriage is precious to God. Let me read you a verse out of Genesis chapter 2. Look at it on the screen. It says then God said it is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. You know what that tells me? Marriage wasn't your idea. Marriage wasn't my idea. Humanity didn't create it. God made marriage. And because God created marriage? Listen, marriage is precious to God. This Father's Day we just celebrated my little six-year-old girl Faith who is in our service with us this morning. Faith went to one of those little pottery places where you can make something your own. And Faith went to that little pottery place and she was going to make something for me for Father's Day. And so Faith presented me with a kitty bank but then she told me that it's not a kitty bank, it's a fat cat. Ph fat cat bank. Now she made it and it was a few days after Father's Day that she was able to go pick it up and she picked it up there at the whatever that pottery place is. And she brought it to me at my office. And the day that she walked into my office with it, she was just beaming. Man, she came running into my office and she was carrying the fat cat bank. And she said, "Dad, here is your present. I want to give it to you." She was so excited. And I said, "Well Faith, where do we want to put it in the office?" Or at first she said, "Daddy, where are we going to put it?" I said, "I want you to decide. You pick the spot where we're going to put it." And she looked around the office and she found this place up on a shelf where everybody who comes in the office is going to get to see the fat cat bank. And she said, "Dad, you got some money that you're going to put in there?" And I was like, "Faith, I don't have any change. Anything I can put in there." But as soon as I get some, I'm going to put it in there. So for the next several days, every day when I'd come home from the office, first question I'd get, "She'd run to their dad. Did you put any money in the fat cat bank?" "Oh Faith, I got bees. I didn't have any with me. I'm going to do it tomorrow." And the next day, she said, "Daddy, daddy, did you put some money in the fat cat bank today?" "No, I didn't do that today." And finally, a few days into it, I remembered had some change in my pocket and I put some money and I couldn't wait to get home that day. You know, I get home. She comes, I said, "Faith, you're not going to believe it today. I put some money in the back." And she was so excited. You see, Faith had given me this as a gift because she loved me. She even on the bottom wrote the words, "Love, Faith, 2010." And because faith made this, it was important to her. You see, she had created this, so it meant something big to her. It's a big deal. With her little hand, she colored it and she made it look the way it looks. It's a little girl, right? Pink and purple. She made this herself and in her eyes, it is perfect. And if you come to my office, you will see it up on the shelf, man. It's important to her because she made it. When she came in the service this morning, she'd been in hope for kids in the earlier service. She came in, she said, "Dad, where's the bank?" I said, "It's up there under the pulpit." She said, "Oh, I see it." This is very important to her. God made marriage with his hands. He shaped it and he made it exactly as he wanted it, as a gift to you and to me because he loved it. He said, "It's not good for him to be alone." And because he made it, listen, it's precious to him. It's a big deal. Marriage is a big deal because it's precious to God because he created it, but also because he designed it to be a living picture of himself and our relationship to him. It's a living picture of who he is. Let me show you in the Scripture. First of all, marriage reveals the image of God. Listen to John 1, 27, "God created man in his own image in the image of God. He created him, male and female. He created them." I want to let you in this morning on a big theological secret. All right, you ready? Now, when you hear me say this this morning, you're going to say, "Man, Pastor Bands, wow, where do you come up with this stuff? You must spend hours studying so that you can discover this wonderful truth that is so hard to understand and grasp." Hey, here's the truth. You ready? God made men and women different. I told you you're going to be blown away, right? Wow, man, the insight that you bring, Pastor Bands, unbelievable. Hey, God made men and women different by design for a reason. You see, if we were the same, one of us is necessary, right? God made us different for a reason. You see, men demonstrate the image of God in ways that women do not, and women demonstrate the image of God in ways that men do not. And when you see a man and a wife, a husband and wife in a loving marriage relationship, you see a more complete picture of the image of God in society. We've been made in his image, but also marriage is a portrait of the gospel. Look at this verse in Ephesians 5, 25, "Husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her." You see, intimacy between a man and a woman is the closest illustration in humanity to the intimacy that exists between Jesus and His bride, the church. The marriage relationship was given by God to teach us about who He is and the relationship He desires with each one of us. And here's why it's so important. When we dishonor marriage, listen, we are not just dishonoring a human institution, but when we dishonor marriage, we are marring the very character of God in society, and we are sending mixed messages about the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. Marriage is a big deal. So with that as the foundation, take your Bible, turn to Matthew chapter 5, verse 27 is where we pick up this morning. If you don't have a Bible with you this morning, we're going to put these verses up on the screen, Matthew 5, 27. Here's what it says. You've heard that it was said, "You shall not commit adultery," but I say. You hear what He's doing? He's challenging the common interpretation. He's bringing to their mind what the Pharisees and scribes have said. You've heard it said, "You shall not commit adultery," but I say to you, as the one that wrote the law, as the author of the Scriptures, let me share with you the heart. I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. I told you these verses needed like a warning statement, right? Then look what He says in verse 29, "If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you." For it's better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. We're to honor marriage. Let's do the same outline we did last weekend. Three questions. Here's the first one. What's the commandment? What is the commandment that Jesus is addressing here? Well, it's obvious it's the seventh commandment listed in the Old Testament set of 10 commandments and Exodus chapter 20, "You shall not commit adultery." Now the word adultery in both the Hebrew and the Greek language is a word. It's a verb referring to the act of a married person breaking the vows of his or her marriage covenant by becoming involved intimately with another person. But here's what the scribes and Pharisees had done. They'd taken this wonderful commandment that God gave to protect and guard the sanctity of marriage. They'd taken this wonderful commandment that was a demonstration of the passion God has for marriage and the priority that he places on it and the preciousness of marriage and the sight of God and the value of marriage and society and the scribes and the Pharisees had reduced it to simply an external act. As long as you don't sleep with somebody that's not your spouse, you're good. And before we get too down on the scribes and Pharisees, our culture's done the same thing. You go home, get out Webster's dictionary, open it up, look up the word adultery, and let me tell you what you'll read. Voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person with someone other than his or her lawful spouse. You know what we've done? We've taken the law of God that's perfect and pure and given to raise and honor marriage in society and we reduced it to simply an external action. Is that adultery? To sleep with someone other than your spouse? Absolutely. But I think everybody in the building understood that when you walked in the doors this morning, right? I mean, we all got that part. But what Jesus does is He shows up on the scene and He says, although that honors the letter of the law, that is not the spirit of the law. Well, then how did Jesus explain it? There's the second question. How did Jesus explain this commandment? Well, look back at verse 28. He just said, "You shall not commit adultery." That's what you've heard, but I say that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. I imagine on that afternoon, much like in this service this morning, you could have heard a pin drop when Jesus said that. For generations, the scribes and the Pharisees had said, "It's all about an external act." As long as you don't do the external act, you're okay. Jesus says, "Hey, that's what you've heard. Let me tell you what I meant." If you even look with lust, man, he showed up and he obliterated their definition of adultery and defined it as something that begins in the heart. The word "heart" that Jesus uses here in verse number 28 is a word that doesn't refer to the blood-pumping organ in our body, but it's a Greek word that refers, listen carefully, to the seat of our desires, feelings, affections, passions, and impulses. With that, I want to put the point up on the screen, all right? I want you to look at this. I wrote it down and put it on the screen so you could see it and write it down. It is possible to sow dishonor marriage with my desires, feelings, affections, passions, and impulses that by God's definition I have committed adultery. It is possible to sow dishonor marriage with my desires, feelings, affections, passions, and impulses that by God's definition I have committed adultery. Let me give you a couple of examples of what this heart adultery can look like. First of all, there is emotional adultery. It's developing emotional intimacy with someone other than your spouse. Remember what God said in the Old Testament, "A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become," what did it say? One what? Flesh, right? They shall become one flesh. They'll be joined together. This becoming one process is more than just physical intimacy. This concept of becoming one also refers to emotional intimacy. Now, unfortunately, we live in a culture that is hostile to oneness. If you're not very careful, what happens over time you get married and over time life happens and you begin to live totally separate lives, each doing their own thing, and if you're not careful, the best description of your marriage is roommates. Living under the same roof, receiving mail at the same address, but other than that we're living totally separate lives. When Jerry and Cheryl Davidson were on our staff team, God used Jerry and Cheryl to teach a lot on this subject of marriage, and one of the things Jerry and Cheryl taught were some ways that we can pursue oneness in our marriage. For example, they said you can pursue this oneness emotionally by spending time together, being intentional to plan time to focus on developing our relationship with each other, not just being under the same roof at the same time in separate rooms watching, separate TV shows, but literally planning time where you're developing emotional intimacy with one another. They also said you can pursue oneness by shared passions where you begin to discover the desires that motivate your spouse, the passions of their heart, and as you get to know those, you find areas where your passions overlap, and it's those overlapping passions that give you an emotional intimacy, a oneness with each other. Thirdly, there's the concept of life-shaping experiences, life events that have a lasting impact on who you are and how you live. As you begin to, with your spouse, spend time together and share passions together and walk through life-shaping events, any one of those things by themselves build deep relational bonds, but when you take all three of them together, they cultivate a powerful emotional intimacy that could best be described as relationship history. You begin to have history in your relationship together, this emotional oneness, this intimacy, and it becomes like a superglue in marriage. Emotional adultery happens when you begin to build relationship history with somebody other than your spouse. And we justify it. Well, it's just a friendship. It's just somebody that I enjoy spending some time with or it's just a relationship at the office. It's just a relationship at work. You know, it's a it's a working thing. I don't have a choice. I want to give you some questions this morning to help you consider if you are maybe in the middle of or on the brink of emotional adultery. Here's the first one. Are you keeping meetings and conversations secret? Number two, are you concealing how much time you spend with someone other than your spouse? Maybe even on the internet. Is there someone you are more excited about spending time with than your spouse? Is there someone else you think understands you better than your spouse? Are you worried about getting caught? If the answer in your heart to any of those questions is positive, you're either on the brink of or already caught in the middle of emotional adultery, beginning to build emotional intimacy with someone other than your spouse. A second example of this principle Jesus is talking about is the example of mental adultery. It's what Jesus specifically is addressing in verse 28 when he says if you look at a woman with less for her, you've already committed adultery in your heart. The word less tears a word that means to to fix your affections on or towards someone else. And John MacArthur, he brings some clarity about this lustful look by saying this. It's not that of an incidental or involuntary glance, but of an intentional and repeated gazing. Jesus is not here drawing this hard line that even an involuntary, I mean, we live in Vegas for crying out loud. You drive around 215, you're going to see some stuff, right? I mean, in our town here, we could live in constant guilt where we live. Jesus is not talking about the things that you don't have any control over, the involuntary situations that happen in your life, those things that are just coincidence, but what Jesus here is addressing is the specific, intentional, repeated gazing. Now, inevitably, when you begin to talk about this, it's followed by a discussion that begins with this question. Well, Pastor Vance, since you put it like that, let me ask you a question. Is it wrong for me too? And you just fill in the blank, right? You know what we're asking, don't you? You know why that's the wrong question? Because here's what we're asking with that question. Pastor Vance, just how close can I get to the line and still be good? Pastor, could you specify with a little more specificity just where here that line is? Because I'd like to know if being right here is wrong. It's a wrong question. See, it's not about right or wrong. Here's why I say that, because depending on your past, your background, your flesh and mind, what may be wrong for me may not be wrong for you. You need to know your weaknesses. You need to know your flesh. "Hey, my inner man's being renewed, but my outer man's decaying day by day." You know what that means, right? Although God's conforming me to His image on the inside, this whole flesh isn't getting any better, if anything is getting worse. And if I'm simply asking the question, "Well, is it wrong? How close can I get?" Let me give you another defining question that you need to write down. I'll put it up on the screen. Here's the question. Does this action, thought, attitude, or emotion cultivate or hinder intimacy with God and my spouse? It's irrelevant about the right or wrong. You asked this question, you know I'm about to ask that other one. Does it cultivate or hinder intimacy with God and my spouse? Whatever the thought process, the behavior pattern, the action, the attitude, you know what the point is, right? The battle for faithfulness in marriage is won and lost in the mind. It's a battle on the inside. Listen, every act of adultery, whichever category it falls into physical, emotional, mental, every act of adultery began in the thoughts and intentions of the heart. If I win the battle in the heart, I win the battle in every other area. Remember last weekend? We looked at that verse out of Romans 12 that says that as far as it depends on us, we're to pursue peace with all men. Remember what I said? If you live out that principle, you never have to worry about that. You shall not murder part, right? I mean, if you're pursuing peace with everybody, the murder piece is taken care of. Here's what I'm saying to you this morning. If you and I will win the battle in the heart, you never have to worry about the you shall not commit adultery piece. It's a heart issue. Well, third question, what is the application then for me today? Well, let's read it again, verse 29 and 30. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. What in the world does that mean? Pastor, is this service about to become a mess? What in the world is about to happen in here? Well, obviously Jesus is using figurative language here to communicate a spiritual truth. You say, how do you know that? Let me tell you how I know it because he just said the problem is not on the outside, the problem is on the inside. You can take out both eyes and cut off both hands and guess what? The problem is still there. It's a heart problem. If Jesus literally meant here to pluck out your eyes and to cut off your hands, it goes in total contradiction to what he just said in verse 28 and verse 28. He just said, it's not an external righteousness issue. It's an internal righteousness issue. God needs to do something in my heart. The surgery that is required to experience victory is not a surgery on the outside. It's a surgery of heart. John MacArthur gives us some even more clarity. I want you to look at this quote on the screen. He says in Jewish culture, the right eye and the right hand represented a person's best and most precious faculties. The right eye represented one's best vision and the right hand one's best skills. Jesus' point is that we should be willing to give up whatever is necessary. Even the most cherished things we possess. If doing so will help protect us from evil. Let me give it to you in a life application statement. "Honoring my marriage is worth whatever it takes." I want you to say that out loud with me this morning. "Honoring my marriage is worth whatever it takes." In this Jewish culture, man that Jesus was speaking in, when he said that right hand right eye stuff, they knew exactly what he was talking about. He was saying whatever it takes to honor your marriage. So I want to close this morning by quickly, no panning, giving you five steps to honor your marriage. Here's the first one. Recognize your marriage is under attack. If you are living with the attitude that says, it can't happen to me. You are deceiving yourself and you are exactly where the enemy wants you to bring destruction to your marriage. I love my wife. We've been married for 18 years. Our marriage today is as strong as it has ever, ever been. I'm not just saying that. She's sitting right over here. She can stand up and say that's not the truth. I'm giving her just a minute to see. Hey, it's as strong as it's ever been. Let me tell you what I know. We're as capable as anybody in this room of any sin under heaven. If we don't recognize our marriage is under attack, we've already taken a step in the wrong direction. Listen, what 1 Peter 5, 8 says, be of sober spirit. Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Listen to me. He has a bullseye on your marriage. Hey, not because we're worth it or you're worth it. No, because the character of God and the representation of marriage that is the gospel of Jesus Christ in culture, he would love to mar the character of God. Recognize your marriage as under attack. Number two, ask the Holy Spirit to identify anything in your life that needs to be removed. It may be an activity. It may be a relationship. Maybe a pattern of behavior. It may be an object. Anything in your life needs to be removed. My wife owns the responsibility in our home. You know, you get magazines in the mail, stuff in the mail that winds up and stacks all over your house. My wife has a passion about going through those things periodically. She's got a husband and two teenage boys that live in at home. And she owns the passion to go through there and to purify and to cleanse our home and to remove those things that could be stumbling blocks. That's the word that Jesus uses here when he says, if it's a stumbling block, the word stumbling block in the Greek language referred to the bait stick in a trap. If it's something that entices you down a direction that will entrap you in the clutches of sin, Jesus says, get it out. Ask the Holy Spirit to identify anything. Number three, be intentional to pursue personal purity. Listen, it's not enough to just get the garbage out. We got to put the right stuff in. Listen to 2 Timothy 2, 22. He says, now, flee youthful lusts and pursue. You hear what he tells us? Here's what you need to get out. Here's what you need to run from. Then he says, here's what you need to run to. Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace. Then he said, here's who you need to run with, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Man, there's some stuff we need to get out of our lives. There's some stuff we need to pursue in our lives and there's some people around us that we need in our lives that help us pursue purity. Hey, the greatest thing you bring into your marriage is your own personal love relationship with Jesus Christ to the degree that you are pursuing Him. Listen, I will never love my wife as Christ loved the church unless I'm pursuing Christ in a line Christ to love her through me. Pursue personal purity. Number four, build safeguards in your life. Build safeguards in your life. Let me show you a verse in Proverbs chapter 4 and verse 23. Listen what he says, watch over your heart with all diligence. The word watch there means to protect from danger through watchful attention. I'm to guard my heart. Listen, why? For from it flow the springs of life. Everything else comes out of what's on the inside. Then look what he goes on to say, put away from you at deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. He says, listen, you need to guard what you listen to. If you're going to guard your heart, it starts by guarding what you allow in your ears. Guard what you listen to. Then he says, let your eyes look directly ahead of you and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. He says, man, you got to guard what you look at. Guard what you allow your eyes to see. Then he says, watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. He said, man, you need to guard where you go. Listen, it's not enough to simply when we get in those situations and circumstances say, okay, God, now you got to help me. That's not sufficient. We need to get along with God and some people in our lives who can help us build some parameters and safeguards that keep us from ever being in some of those situations and circumstances. That's where the grace of God begins. And let me say something to every person in the building that's morning that's a single adult or a single young person, college student, teenager, listen, guarding and honoring your marriage doesn't start when you get married. It starts today. It starts right now as you begin to pursue personal purity and as you begin to build safeguards into your life, it will guard and protect your marriage and take you in places in the future and intimacy with your spouse that you never dreamed possible because God designed it that way. You start today. Hey, what are the safeguards? Every one of us need them. And we've got to set up at our house so that every website visited on our computer gets recorded and sent in an email to my wife. Why is that? Safeguards. Our pastors meet every Tuesday for an administrative meeting. We begin the meeting by going around the room and asking each other some questions. Let me tell you what we ask. We start with, where in God's Word are you spending time with Him daily? What books are you reading right now that God's using to speak into your life? We always ask, were you in any compromising situation this week with a person of the opposite sex? We ask, is there any area of personal struggle that you're dealing with right now that you need some help in? You know why we do that as pastors? Because before we're pastors, we're human beings. And we understand if we don't build safeguards and parameters into our lives, we are as capable as anyone of anything under heaven. Fifth and finally, keep pursuing your spouse. Keep pursuing your spouse. Remember when you first met them, you'd rearrange everything in your life to get 10 minutes of their time. Man, if you thought you were going to get an extra conversation, you would cancel appointments, you'd rearrange meetings, you'd drive clear across town, you'd do whatever it took. And now look, life's happened. They keep dating your spouse. Ask them out on a date. Listen, and ask them as if you didn't know they would go. How to change the way you ask, won't it? Where are we going to eat? You didn't ask her that way a few years ago. Stay connected throughout the day. Hey, God's given us all this technology. Let me tell you what the enemy's done. The enemy's taken technology and turned it into a weapon that's used to destroy emotional intimacy in the home because there are people spending time on the internet and on cell phones and texting and tweeting and Facebook and everything else with people that they shouldn't be. And they need to be using those as tools to cultivate emotional intimacy with their spouse. Use those tools to stay connected with your spouse throughout the day. When's the last time you just sent a tweet or a text or posted a Facebook message about how much you love your wife or your husband? How special they are. My wife gets mad at me sometimes. I'll be on my way home. I've called her two or three times a day. I'm on my way home. She says, you're going to be home in 10 minutes. I know I just want to call you again. Hey, you need to stay connected. And you don't do that because the emotion's always there. You do it because it's the right thing to do. Keep pursuing your spouse. Honoring my marriage is worth whatever it takes. Let's pray. God, speak to us. As you sit quietly this morning with your heads bowed, I want you to, if you can, just try to get to a place right now as if it was just you and me in the room. And I want to deal with one last question that I believe some of you are asking this morning. And here it is, Pastor. What do I do if I'm already in trouble? Let me tell you where you start. You repent. Repentance is not a bad word. It's a good word. Repentance is me saying, God, I'm wrong, and you're right. It's a change of mind about sin that produces a change of action towards sin. Just right where you're sitting, you just begin to tell God. God, you're right. I'm wrong. God, I've sinned. Second thing I want to encourage you to do this morning is I want you to embrace God's forgiveness. The Word of God says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Listen, there's some of you, maybe this morning, you're still carrying old baggage from the past that's already been dealt with, but you can't let it go. Listen, God's forgiveness is real. It's rich and it's deep. And thirdly, this morning, you need to share this with a Christian friend that you trust and respect. Maybe a small group leader. Maybe it's just a friend or a mentor because there may be some other steps that you need to take to really experience the freedom that God desires for you. In just a moment, we're going to stand and we're going to sing a song of worship that simply says, Lord, I give you my heart. In that little song, it says, every breath that I take, every moment, I'm awake, I give my life to you. That's what we're talking about. That's how you win the battle in the heart and the mind. And we're going to stand and we're going to sing this together as a fresh surrender, every one of us, but maybe you're here today and you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, or maybe you're struggling and you just need to pray with someone. We're going to have some people here at the front, pastors and prayer volunteers and some at the back. If God's spoken to you this morning when we stand to sing and you want to give your life to Christ or you need somebody to pray with you, you come to one of these pastors or prayer volunteers and say to them, I need Christ today and they'll talk with you and show you from God's word how you can be saved. For the rest of us, let's sing this as a fresh surrender. Lord, have your way in us. That's in Jesus' name, we pray. I hope that's the desire of your heart this morning. But before we close, I want to give you two more ways that you can respond today. I know if we're going to be honest, there's some of you that are struggling with the very issues that we've talked about today. Let me tell you what today is. It's God setting up a roadblock saying, "I love you. I have a better way for you. Come." We've established an email address that simply is honormarriage@gmail.com. Honormarriage@gmail.com. If you are struggling, if you're in trouble and you won't help, if you will simply send us an email, we'll connect with you this week and help you find steps to freedom and forgiveness and redemption and reconciliation in Christ. Secondly, we have some couples up here on both sides. After the service this morning, these couples are going to be up here. And when we're leaving, if you're somebody and you say, "Hey, I can't wait for an email address. I need to talk to somebody today." These couples are right here. They want to meet with you. They want to talk with you. You just come. When the service ends, they'll come back. They're going to sit down in just a minute, but they're going to come back. You come. Let me pray. Father, we thank You today for Your grace, or we thank You for Your forgiveness. We thank You for Your truth. God, I pray if there's anyone in this building today that is caught in this sin, or that they'd reach out to You and to others to find help, or we bless You. We love You. It's in the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.