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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We're glad you're here, and we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I can remember as a kid sitting with my parents while they were watching live TV as president Clinton addressed the allegations of his extramural affair. Now this was in the early nineties, so I know that dates me a little bit, but the whole world was watching this. Now as I grew, it became something not just that presidents dealt with, but pop stars too. One that comes to mind is, Justin Bieber. We went from Bill to Bieber and the question was, did he actually cheat on Selena?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And then I think of, even more recently, someone that actually kinda struck me a little bit more was Beyonce. We got Bill, Bieber, and now Beyonce. And when the rumors came out that Jay z had cheated on Beyonce, people went crazy. I was a little surprised by that. Like, man, are you you cheated on the queen?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You cheated on Beyonce? And one of the reasons why I think this happens to us is because stories of betrayal have a way of capturing our culture's attention. When a couple splits, it hits us at the core of who we are. And one of the reasons why I think this happens is because we love to see expressions of faithfulness. We love to see people make it, which of course now brings us to the 7th command in this series, old rules for a new life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But this command, out of all the other ones, is a unique one. Why? Because it takes us, all of us, into the privacy of our own bedrooms and that is a tough place for some of us to go. It's a very private place. It's a problem for some of us because again, we're grown people.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's my life, it's my body, these are my desires. I'm gonna do what I want. For others, this this command is unsettling. Why? Because you have experienced the pain of watching your parents get divorced because of infidelity.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Maybe you yourself are walking with the wounds of betrayal because of what a spouse has done to you in the past. This command is unsettling. Add to that, the church has been no shining beacon of an example of what it looks like to obey this command. From from public church leaders to even just local church pastors, they have ruined their marriages, their churches because of an affair. Now in light of all of those scenarios where we might find ourselves, it's true, of us about this, that we all know what it's like to experience or to observe people who have dealt with betrayal.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But I think though that by God's grace, all of us still today are called to wrestle with this command and to think about what a new life looks like because I think God actually offers us a way forward. And so in light of that, would you, if you are willing and able, stand with me for the reading of God's word? We do this because we wanna be reminded that even as we enter into a heavy topic, we are hearing from God today. And so I'm gonna read to you Exodus 20 verse 14, then I'll pray for us. Moses writes this, you must not commit adultery.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Let's pray together. Spirit of God, as we have gathered here today, we acknowledge that you too have gathered with us. And so we ask that as we hear your word preached, that you might speak, that as Jesus says, you might give us ears to hear, eyes to see and that you might help us open up our whole self to receive your word today and make us what we are not yet in Christ. We pray these things in His name. Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Amen. Thank you. You can be seated. Now one thing you may not know about me is that I am a huge sucker for romantic comedy movies. I'm a sucker for them.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I love them. Even the b rated cheesy ones, that come on, especially during the holiday season on Netflix and Hulu or whatnot. As you're kind of scrolling your screen and you pass that up, just know that I'm consuming that. I'm eating that up. I love cheesy movies, but I also love the good ones.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I love Hitch. Hitch is a classic for me. Sleepless in Seattle, I've never been to Seattle, but I like the movie Sleepless in Seattle. Beautiful flick. Even one that probably kind of dates me as an older millennial is, A Bronx Tale.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Anyone seen The Bronx Tale? Alright. Man, y'all have not seen good movies. It's a little intense, but there is a great love story and their 51st Dates is another one. But I don't know why this is about me, but I I'm just a sucker for romantic comedies.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I think there's a part of me that just loves to see people make it. I just wanna know that love is going to make it. And I think that actually kind of gets at the principle that's at the heart of this command, which is that we were created for faithfulness. We're designed for faithfulness. This is something that we were created for to thrive in, to live in, to experience faithfulness.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But for being honest, we also know the pain of betrayal. That's also very real. What do you think about the setting for this command? God has set his people free and given them this list. Now remember, this list of commands was not something that God said, obey this list and if you get them all right, I'll set you free.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:No. He sets them free first and then gives them this list as rules and rhythms of life to be a demonstration that they are already in fact free and that they're already loved. Right? And so this command, the 7th one to not commit adultery, to embrace faithfulness is a demonstration first and foremost of God's character. We don't commit adultery because God is not an adulterous God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:God is a faithful God. God is committed to the end. And so yes, we're we're free to live. Yes, we are a new person in Christ. Yes, God has given us a land that we, have never been to before coming out of Egypt, but we are bound by faithful love.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And this idea, Jesus himself picks up when he arrives on the scene. You might remember in Matthew's gospel, he has a conversation with religious leaders who are asking him about marriage, specifically betrayal in marriage. And listen to what he says. Haven't you read the scriptures? Now listen, when Jesus begins the convo with haven't you read the scriptures, it's a problem for us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It says, they record that from the beginning God made them male and female. Now he's quoting Genesis. And he said, this explains I love Jesus is explaining the text to us. What a brilliant teacher. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the 2 are united into 1.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There'll be more on that in a second. Since they are no longer 2 but 1, let no one split apart. Listen to the statement that Jesus makes on faithfulness. Let no one split apart what God has joined together. In calling back to Genesis, in the original design, Jesus is reemphasizing faithfulness.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Let no one split apart. Let nothing come between this union that has been forged. And again, though this is the standard, though we've been created for it, if we pause just for a moment, all of us here can think about people we know, situations they walk through in which betrayal has left them in pain and wounded? Christian or non Christian, think about this. How have you experienced or witnessed the pain of betrayal in other people's lives?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's hard. Now, when we give this command, there's kind of a few questions that come out of this. The first is this, what is adultery? What is it? And a simple baseline definition that I think will help us is this, adultery is having a sexual relationship with someone who is not your spouse.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Basically put like that. Now a second question kind of arise out of that which is this, why is it prohibited? Why is adultery prohibited? Now for some this might be an easy quick answer. God is not about my enjoyment, God is not about my pleasure.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? Because all of us at some level are tempted to think that the best sex is illicit sex. Through stories, through music, through movies, through culture, there's a temptation to be drawn in that I must be missing something in what this command is telling me not to do. God is some kind of killjoy. But to take that kind of line of thinking is to misstep and forget the fact that God actually designed ecstasy, he designed pleasure, he designed all of these things.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He knows you want them and he knows how to give them to you. But his desire is to give them to you in an environment that is powerful enough to sustain them. But it's a real question. I can think back even just, a few weeks ago, I was actually sharing Jesus with someone, which is what Christians still do as crazy as that sounds. But I was talking with someone, about Jesus and and he said this, he said, man, I feel like God is just pressing me.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Like he's been chasing me. I said, oh yeah, what do you what do you mean by that? And he said, well I just keep seeing the number 7 everywhere I go. I'm like, okay, the number 7. Alright.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And he's like, and then I met you today and you're talking about the flesh and sin and turning to Jesus. And I met this other group the other day and they were talking about Jesus too and I I don't know what to do. God is pressing me. What should I do? I said, well, I think you should press back.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You need to dig into this. Think about what think about what's happening in your life. And as we were going back and forth, he came to this one point and I loved his question. He said, what about sex though? Because I got a girlfriend.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And I just, in that moment, loved his raw honesty. What about sex though? Because he's acknowledging this is a genuine barrier between him and a relationship with God. What does he do with the part of his life that he absolutely enjoys? That this command, if he's listening to it, would prohibit it in his life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What do we do? That same question he asked me, I wanna ask you, what about sex though, St. Ol's church? Can we talk about sex for a little bit? I won't tell you how that conversation went.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That'll be for another time. But I will say this, the act of sex is far more than just a simple expression of love, like maybe giving someone flowers, kissing, holding hands. I would say it's at least that but it's far more. Scripture offers us that this act of sex is a powerful bond between 2 people. It's an intimate, vulnerable, pleasurable, transformational experience that happens between 2 people, but it needs an environment that's just as powerful to protect it and sustain it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Which is why, if you're asking, why is adultery prohibited? Number 1, it's this, because deep intimacy requires more than shallow faithfulness. If you're gonna be intimate with someone, you can't just get the response, yeah, we'll see how this works out. I used to, teach high school students and, some of my years I spent time teaching seniors and in the course, I taught theology and so we would have kinda intro level discussions around certain things like the body, marriage. And when it came to the topic of sex, I would kind of pose this scenario for them because, again, these are high schoolers.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We all know what they want. Yeah. And I would say it like this, I would say, why why would some dude want you in the bedroom but then not give you his whole house? And it would kinda make them think for a second. In other words, I would say it like, if you're willing to give him your body, he needs to be willing to give you his life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He wants the body, you need the wallet. You need the 401 ks. You need stability. In other words, this deep connection is going to require a deep level of commitment or else it will not work. He'll He'll see you in the bedroom, but will he give you the backyard, the living room, his whole life?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You need a commitment. Deep intimacy requires much more than just shallow levels of faithfulness. We can't be flippant. And so the invitation is to consider what my life would look like if I actually had a deep intimacy but also a deep commitment with someone. That's profound.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's what I think is powerful and that's what we're after. The second thing that we need to consider in terms of why this is happening, or why adultery is prohibited is because our bodies matter. The body matters. Contrary to what culture often says today about the body as just this kind of wet organism machine that's got pleasures and you act on it, just kind of a shell, who you really are is on the inside, scripture offers a different presentation of the body. Listen to Paul's words from first Corinthians 6.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He says, I have the right to do anything you say. Now, keep in mind, as Paul's writing this letter, he's speaking to a community of Christians who, much like us, are trying to understand what it's like to follow Jesus in an overly sexualized culture. And he's quoting them when he says, I have the right to do anything you say. But then he says, but not everything is beneficial. I have the right to do anything, but I will not be mastered by anything.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Paul continues, you say food for the stomach and the stomach for food, but God will destroy them both. Now, pause for a second. What Paul is doing here is responding to their idea that, man, when I'm hungry, I eat. Food for the stomach, the stomach for food, God will do away with the both. In other words, he's attacking this reductionary view of the body and saying it's just got desires and I meet those desires.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He's saying, no, no, no, no. There's something much more happening to your body. He says the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord, listen, the Lord for the body. By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:In other words, what he's saying is when Jesus rose from the dead, he came back not just as a spirit, but in physical form. The body matters after death. Your body will be raised with him. You're a member with him, he says. So he goes on, shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Never. Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, the 2 will become 1 flesh, but whoever is united with the Lord is 1 with him in spirit. Pause. That's a weird statement.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Prostitute. What's he getting at? He's actually addressing an actual event happening in Corinth in which it's not uncommon for someone to have sex with a prostitute as a religious practice because, again, the body is not valued in the same way that we would say God values the body. And so what Paul is doing in this very important, very controversial passage is he's trying to disciple people, disciple the Corinthians into a new way of seeing themselves, seeing their body, and seeing how they follow Jesus. And so his application is flee from sexual immorality.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Flee from it. All other sins, he says, a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. And then he asked them this question, do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you've received from God? You are not your own, Paul says. You were bought at a price, here's the point, therefore, honor God with your bodies.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There's a temptation to think today in our world that Christians have a narrow, uptight, old ancient view of the body. I would say no, it's actually the opposite. We have a high, glorious, beautiful perspective on bodies. They are not just a shell in which the real you is forced to operate within. It's much more than that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And what Paul is saying here is in the act of sex, it's not just a physical moment of ecstasy, but your soul is longing for communion with someone. At the risk of being too obvious, the act of sex, think about this, has the power to recreate life. That is amazing. In this moment, you are recreating who you are with somebody else. So, of course it's ecstatic and pleasurable, but it's so much more than that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so for those of you who are still a little bit, like, maybe on the fence or just struggling, be open to the possibility that the sexual act is more than just a physical experience. And that what is happening is this, that deep intimacy, listen now, is creating also a deep oneness. It's oneness and this is the kind of oneness it is. Paul says in verse 19, your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Temple.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now remember in Jewish theology, the temple was a physical place where God's presence and power ruled in and through his people. If you showed up in the temple, you were meeting God. It's a holy place. The temple was reconstructed to be a reflection of what God's throne room in heaven look like. Israel was ruled by God from the temple.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Where the temple went, the people went. And where the temple was, God was. It was, think about this, the place where heaven overlapped and spilled onto earth. Now Paul is saying that after Jesus has come, risen from the dead, that area is complete, you and I now become the temples of God. Which means to say right now in this moment in your body and in my body is an overlap and collision of heaven and earth.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Sit with that for a second. Inside of your mortal, sometimes on a good day, great, other days poor, body is a collision of the divine and the physical. It's a temple. It's a temple. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I wanna go slow for a sec. For some of you who maybe even on various degrees struggle with body dysmorphia, let me just gently remind you that your body matters. Your body matters to God. He loves you, which means he loves your body. You are not someone with a body, you are a body.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's this beautiful union, body and soul. God loves you. Your body matters. It is holy to him. It matters.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:For for those of you maybe who are at Sandals Church and for various reasons, your thoughts, feelings, and the way you see yourself doesn't seem to match with your biological body, let me remind you gently that your body matters to God. And as you wrestle, God wrestles with you and this church, Sandals Church, wants to be a church that wrestles with you as you try to understand what it looks like to faithfully follow God in honoring him with your body. For those of you who maybe even bear the physical marks of somebody, a previous spouse maybe, who abused you, harmed you, just know that what they did not value, God values in this moment. He values it in this moment. You matter to him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Your body matters. It is the temple of God. His spirit rules and reigns in love in and through you. It's a temple. Do you right now in your life treat your body as a temple of God?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Not just in how you carry yourself sexually, but what you do physically, the way you eat, the way you live, how you use your hands to bless people, where you take your feet, where you allow your mind to go, your whole self. There is not a higher view of the body than the Christian view of the body. Your whole self matters to God. And so then by the grace of God, let us honor him with it. Let us honor him with it now.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Let us do that. This is why adultery is prohibited because it threatens the very beauty of oneness that the Lord has with us and that we now have with a spouse if we're in this covenant. You see that deep commitment that that more than shallow faithfulness is a covenant in which you enter into with somebody else and it threatens that. And so, man, this command is ultimately about loyalty. We wanna be loyal to God, loyal to him with our bodies, and loyal to him worship unto him in the way that we are faithful to our spouse.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And God, listen, longs for us to enjoy all the pleasures of life, but to do so in an environment that he has designed for us. And so, if fulfilling your desires will come at the cost of faithfulness and at the cost of oneness, it will not bring you the life that you really want to experience. It won't do it. It won't do it. So you see, you know, the movies and the music and they'll say things like, man, I could I could take you places you've never been.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I could show you things you've never seen. I could give you feelings you've never had. You know what happens when I think about when I see that or hear that? I believe them, but guess what? That doesn't mean I need it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Doesn't mean I need it. They might be right, but that doesn't mean I need it. Because the faithfulness I have and the oneness I have is too valuable. It's too valuable. And so be open to the possibility that your physical desires cannot be the end decision maker in what you do with yourself, your life, and your spouse.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There's more at stake here. There's more at stake here. Now, I say that because I also want us to be mindful of this. This is kind of a mystery. Paul says it's in Ephesians when he's talking about, scripture and he even calls back to the same passage that Jesus quotes.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He says, a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the 2 are united to 1. That's oneness again. And then he says this, this is a great mystery. Now I don't know if that was his tone, but I would imagine Paul as he's dictating the scribe is like, great mystery. And Paul's like, stop.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's a great mystery. Because it's hard. It's hard to explain. This is a profound thing, the faithfulness and the oneness. But here's what I think he's getting at.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Christian men and women, when you got married, yes, you got married for yourself, but you also got married for the world. Because Paul says, this is a great mystery. It's an illustration of the way Christ and the church are 1. And so your marriage is to be a sign to the world by how God loves his people. Now, not to the neglect of singles by any means, you also have a sign to hang up, a demonstration if you will.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And it's not just that life is born until you get married. It's this, that you embody right now in your state, whether it's because of circumstance or choice, you embody what we will all be one day in the new heavens and new earth. And so, don't allow a twisted view of marriage to devalue your role as a single person. You will be and you are what we all will be one day when Jesus says no one is married or given in marriage. And so, you too have a beautiful role to play in all of this.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You do. And so, in light of that, I want us to think about this. It's very possible for you and I to obey this command and still have a messed up marriage. It's very possible. I think of, a well known Catholic writer, his name is Father Chuck Gallagher, He famously said this, faithfulness isn't just about staying out of somebody else's bed, but loving the bed you're in.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Catholics can preach y'all. Faithfulness is not just about staying out of somebody else's bed, but loving the bed you're in. How many of you right now can say that you love the bed that you are in? Do you love it? I know that's hard because I, as a pastor here, can think of multiple conversations with people who are dealing with the pain of betrayal.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Maybe for some of you, by the grace of God, you've been able to restore what you fractured because of your betrayal. That's a beautiful thing. For others of you, I want to acknowledge that maybe hasn't been the case and you have gone through a season of betrayal and you've had to get divorced because of it. I want you to understand this message is not to exclude you but to welcome you in and to remind you that this church understands you, loves you and wants to walk with you in that process. Some of you right now stand on the brink of infidelity, look at your texts, look at your physical encounters with people.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:This is a moment for you to be snatched out of that and to be drawn out of this. For those of you, maybe there's some couples watching where you're trying to figure out what do we do now? How do we get to pick up the pieces? I want you to know that there is a place for you here at this church. Our church wants to help you because the pain of betrayal is very, very real.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so please don't take any of these words or this message as a whole as a sign that you can't be here because of what you have done or what has been done to you, because there is a way forward. There is a way forward. Now, part of that means us facing some realities because I want to ask this question. Why is it that we are tempted to commit adultery? In other words, how is it possible that you and I become the people that one day wake up in somebody else's bed?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I don't think that happens overnight. So let me offer 3 realities and then we get to Jesus. The first is this, we are tempted to commit adultery, number 1, when we haven't worked through our differences and so we act out. I could think of specific couples that I've cared for, walked with, who for various reasons failed just to name their differences, failed just to stay in a mature, healthy, desiring to grow kind of conversation, like, this is what I need to change. This is what I need you to work on.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They couldn't do it. And the pain of facing that kind of conversation was even greater than the pain of acting out. And so they acted out. They acted out. And I want to just caution any one of us in here today, if you don't work through your differences, you will act out.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That will be you too. And so, man, this is why we exist as a church. This vision of authenticity is to give you permission and space to name what you need to name in your life. This is what I need to see. This is what is bothering me.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:This is what is hurting. So spouses today, find space, find people, find a way to name your differences so that you can begin to work on them or else, hear this caution, you will soon act out if you haven't already. You will act out. You need to work through them. Secondly, we are tempted to commit adultery because we construct an idealized vision of love, sex, and marriage.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You know, all of us, maybe not all of us, but a good amount of us have this vision of marriage. We've got this vision of who we're gonna be. I got this vision of who Fredo is gonna be just shining, you know, as a husband. Of course we've got social media accounts, we got influences we follow, we got trips they see they take, we got Etsy accounts, we got mood boards, right? We have this whole vision, this idealized vision of what we want.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And then we get up there, we say I do and then months in we're like, what the heck happened? This is not what I thought it was. You are not who I thought you were gonna be. What happened? Now, let me just say this, our vision was partly right and partly wrong, and we gotta be humble enough to admit that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I love the wise words of Stanley Howaross, he was a Christian theologian, taught at Duke Divinity School. And he's famously said this, that we always marry the wrong person. But that's the thing here for a second. You always marry the wrong person. So if you're looking for Mr.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right, that's gonna be a long journey. You always marry the wrong person, but here's his point. The person who you say I do to that you think you know, you really don't know because that person will change. Give it time. You like them now, they will change.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so he says the problem and the great challenge of marriage is learning to love the stranger that you married. The stranger. I could tell you from experience, Asha and I are gonna hit 12 years this year, and I guarantee you she's been married to 5 different Fredos. Five different ones. We got, you know, full time student, no job Fredo.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We got teacher Fredo, you know, we got think we're gonna buy a house Fredo, so we balling now. Right? She's been married to different versions of me. They've all been me, but they've been 5 different dudes at least. Why?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because I have changed and so is she. Tim Keller in his beautiful profound book, The Meaning of Marriage, in his chapters is called, I think, Loving the Stranger Learning to Love the Stranger. Sorry, Tim. I messed it up, but Learning to Love the Stranger. Beautiful, beautiful work on what it looks like and what it requires to release this idealized vision, what we think we wanted, and to step into what God is actually inviting us into.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because imagine for just a second that you get up to the altar and you face that person looking all good and you say to them, I'm gonna place all of my hopes, dreams, desires, and expectations on you. That's ridiculous. That's unbearable. It's unbearable. And so underneath that kind of idealized vision and dream you have is probably a little bit of adultery and idolatry in which you are in bed with someone who is not God, but with a vision of marriage you think you need and want in life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Release it. Release it. So when you get up there and you dump all that on them, they don't say, I didn't sign up for that. But you can both confidently say, I do, and we will learn to love each other through the changes. The last thing that makes us, I think, tempted to commit adultery is that we fall into the trap of addiction and destructive habits.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Remember Jesus in his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, quoted the 7th commandment. Listen to his words. You have heard the commandment that says you must not commit adultery. But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Now what's profound about this statement is that the word lust is the same word Jesus just used to describe murder in your heart.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so let's be clear as to what Jesus is saying. I'll do my best to be clear. Lust is not, ladies, as you're walking down the street and you see that handsome dude and you're like, hey, nice. But you keep it moving. Fellas, as you're going about your day and you see a beautiful woman and you go, that's a beautiful woman, key thing, you keep it moving.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Lust is not a glance. Same word Jesus used to talk about murder and lust, same thing. It is a kind of cultivating and harboring a particular kind of desire in your heart for someone, a desire that's strategizing, planning, scheming, fantasizing. What he's saying is if you're going down that road, you've already committed adultery. And, man, God help all of us in here today because no one, none of us escape that statement.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:All of us at some point have done this. Where we've seen someone and rather than thinking about how can I love them, we think to ourselves, how can I use them? How can I objectify them? How can I, whether I realize it or not, give in to an addiction, a habit that's going to destroy me and destroy them? I say this because people who have admitted to affairs are 300% more likely to view porn related material.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I say this because porn sites receive more traffic than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined a month. I say this because over 30% of all digital users, which includes all of us, at some point will get unwanted pop ups and ads. Most of us in here today can acknowledge that porn or some kind of porn related addiction has impacted our lives or other people's lives. You see this addiction will take you further than you want to go, and it will destroy you. And so to some of our married couples, this is a moment to be snatched out of what is killing your life and killing your marriage.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You need to come forward. You need to confess. You need to receive grace. That's what's key. Because it's one thing to end this message here and to to feel the weight of the a systemic and structural evil like porn, to feel the weight of our own shame, to think again about the the pain of betrayal that we have all either experienced or observed, but I don't think that has to have the last word.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There is another word that can be spoken over all of us and it's this, that we are saved not by our faithfulness, but by the faithfulness of Jesus, By his faithfulness. You see what's so beautiful about the life of Jesus is that he not only taught on adultery, he had to face it firsthand. There's a scene in John 8 where a woman who's caught in the act is thrown in front of him and then he's put into a situation. What are we gonna do with her? The law says to stone her.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What do they do? What does he do? Maybe you're familiar with the story. He gets down, starts to write something in the sand, and we don't know what he wrote in the sand. Now as a Mexican, I tend to think that maybe he was dropping, you know, spilling the tea.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:A little cheese may right there. And he's starting to say things and write things that are implicating people who have stones in their hands who want to stone this adulterous woman. He's spilling the tea. Whatever he does, it creates a scene in which everyone drops their stones and leaves. And then Jesus, it says there, stood up again and said to the woman, where are your accusers?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Didn't even one of them condemn you? And then she says, no Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I. Go and sin no more. Sam's church, Jesus says to us today we are not condemned because of our unfaithfulness, because we could be saved in his faithfulness.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We're reminded that on the cross think about this for a second, Jesus bore in his own body the marks of betrayal. On his body whipped, pierced, mocked, he experienced in his own body the pain of betrayal. So you and I can come to him and be made new. For for those of you who maybe like Jesus, bear the marks of betrayal, you can go to him. For those of you who cause the marks, you can go to him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He forgives you too. All of us all of us need to come to the realization that we are the adulterous woman and that in Jesus we can be fully forgiven. Because on the cross, that judgment fell on him. The condemnation fell on him. And when he rose to new life, he offered us not just forgiveness, but a new kind of way to live.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:A new spirit in us so that we might embody faithfulness on our own lives. There's good news for us today in that. There's good news for us in that. And so I wanna invite you to think about what what is your next step? Because Jesus, the faithful one, died for you, the unfaithful one.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so for some of you as you continue in your healing journey, you need to run to him. For for others who are maybe caught in a moment in which they have a crucial decision to make, you need to turn to him and find forgiveness and find that his faithful life for you is enough to save you where you're at and to make you new. Let's pray that in together as a church. Heavenly father, we thank you that though we were faithless, you remained faithful and that you can save us in Christ. You have saved us in Jesus.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so, God, would you help us with just enough courage and humility to confess our sin, to confess the ways that maybe we have betrayed our spouse, and to work towards reconciliation. God, help some of us in here today who have maybe betrayed our own bodies. Would you help us in this moment to come to you with our wounds and to find healing, forgiveness, and a new life in you, Jesus. We pray these things in your name. Amen.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Hi. Thank you so much for watching. If this material is helping you to further your authentic relationship with Jesus Christ, I wanna encourage you to move from being someone who watches content to someone who participates and helps give towards this content. I want you to know that no amount is too small. Jesus Christ himself makes the biggest deal out of the smallest gift.
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