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Another Gospel reading is from Mark chapter 8 beginning in verse 34. Jesus speaking said, and calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, and the Gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give and return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me in my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the Holy Angels. Father, as we come to consider your word, we pray that you would open our hearts and minds that you would use me to speak your truth, the only truth from your word, to our hearts in Jesus' name. Amen. Now this is the beginning, this Sunday, of what's traditionally considered the Christmas season or the Advent season for those of you who pay any attention to the liturgical calendar, which I know most of you probably don't, but if you do, this is the first Sunday of that. So you might be wondering, why would we talk about adultery on the first Sunday of the Christmas season? Well other than the fact, if that's the next commandment that we're considering, you might wonder what that has to do with the birth of Jesus. Adultery in the Bible is considered any sexual relationship other than that between a husband and a wife. Now if you remember, and it's hard to put ourselves in the, because we've read the story so many times, it's hard to put ourselves in the actual position of what it would have been like for the people at that time, especially Joseph and Mary, especially Mary. Mary and Joseph were betrothed, which is kind of an old-fashioned way of saying engaged. It was a little different then, because if you were betrothed, you were considered to be married, basically. Which is why Joseph, when he found out that Mary was pregnant, was going to divorce her. So he believed, at least initially, that Mary had committed adultery. Here's the account of the Gospel of Matthew. The birth of Jesus took place in this way when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together. She was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. Now of course, putting her to shame could have resulted in her being stoned to death before committing adultery. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son. You will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. And all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. Now when Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but he knew her not until she had given birth to his son. And he called his name Jesus. So this young couple, there's speculation as to how old exactly Mary was. Mid teens, 15, 16, something like that, is probable. Joseph would be considerably older, maybe closer to 30. But still young people, and they have this story that she didn't commit adultery. They didn't have sex before marriage, but she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. God intervened to convince Joseph that this was true. And we can see that Joseph believed the angel. But not everyone in their circle received an angelic visitation. So it would be safe to say that there was probably some speculation as to the circumstances of her pregnancy. Adultery was a very serious sin, punishable by death in the Old Testament law. But we see from the passage that we read in John chapter 8 that Jesus didn't consider it to be unforgivable. What was really diabolical by these Pharisees is they brought this woman, accused her of committing adultery, said she was caught in the act. Well if she was caught in the act, where's the man? And they wanted to know if Jesus would pronounce judgment and want her to be stoned. They were trying to entrap him. And what's really disturbing is that they were willing to sacrifice this woman's life in order to trap him. But Jesus says to her, after he told them, let the one who is without sin cast the first stone and they all left, he said, is there no one to condemn you? And she said, no one, Lord. And he said, neither do I condemn you, but go and sin no more. Now that doesn't mean that Jesus approved. It doesn't mean that Jesus took a modern day approach and said, well, you know, your sex life is personal, that's up to you, whatever you want to do is fine, as long as you're not hurting anybody else, etc., etc. He didn't say that. He said go and sin no more. Now we also see in the scriptures that Jesus allows for divorce in the case of infidelity. So if you are the offended, if you are the aggrieved party, your spouse has committed adultery. You are allowed to divorce them. You don't have to. You can forgive, but you're allowed to divorce them. Now if the Old Testament law was still in effect where the adulterer would be stoned, then this instruction about divorce wouldn't be necessary because the offending party would be dead. So some of you are thinking probably, this command doesn't apply to me. But listen to Jesus on the commandment from the Sermon on the Mount in Chapter 5 of Matthew's Gospel in verse 27. He says, you heard it said, you shall 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. Now I'm assuming, and I think rightfully so, I'm assuming that this applies to women as well who are looking with lustful intent at a man. So this includes almost everyone at some point in their life. At some point in their life, most of us, almost all of us, I would guess, have looked at somebody from the opposite sex in a lustful manner. Jesus does this with several commands. Instead of adhering only to the letter of the law, which the Pharisees wanted to do, Jesus expands the command or defines it to be a matter of the heart. He does the same with the command against murder. Earlier in the same chapter, he said, you have heard it said to those of old, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who's angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. That's quite an expansion. See the Pharisees, they wanted to keep the law, the letter of the law with whatever loopholes they could imagine. In other words, they lowered the bar of righteousness so they could reach it. And this is what religion tends to do. It keeps us in and them out. We have certain things that we say, this is what you have to do, this is what you have to believe, and we do these things. Or we're in and since you don't do these things, you are out. The Pharisees were very good at that. They were especially good at working things around so that even what seemed like a violation to most people, they could explain by way of their loopholes. Jesus on the other hand raised the bar back to the standard of perfection. Listen to the words at the end of this chapter, chapter 5, Matthew, on the commandment to love our neighbor. You heard it said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be the sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. You see what Jesus has done? With all of these commands, he has taken the prevailing opinion of the Pharisees as to how you keep them, the letter of the law. And he said, yes, that's true. You are to keep the letter of the law, but you're really supposed to keep the heart of the law. You have to be perfect in your righteousness. Elsewhere he says your righteousness has to exceed that of the Pharisees, which sounds, I'm sure to the people who are listening, it sounded like, wow, that's pretty high bar. But actually it wasn't because they were good at lowering the bar, lowering the bar so they could meet it. So when it comes to adultery, any thoughts which lead in that direction are sinful and must be avoided. So to be clear, sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman who are married to each other is adultery. But as we can see, Jesus dealing with a woman caught in adultery, it doesn't mean that it's unforgivable. So what does it mean if you are a person who is, by Jesus' definition, committing this sin, violating this commandment? When you go to Christ and you confess your sin and you repent. What does repent mean? That means I'm going this way, I'm committing this sin, I know it's a sin, I confess it to Jesus and I am going to turn from it. And you might say, okay, I've turned from it. What if I go back? Well you repent again and you turn from it. What if I, you repent again and you turn from it? Not all sins are easy to overcome. But there is no end of grace. Remember Peter asked Jesus, how many times must I forgive somebody? Up to seven times? And Jesus said, no, 70 times seven. Who's going to count to 490? So the forgiveness of Christ, which is demonstrated here in the Lord's Supper that we will participate in in a few minutes. The forgiveness of Christ is greater than your sin. The scriptures are full of words similar or just like those. At the end of the encounter in John chapter 8, what does Jesus say? Go and sin no more. He doesn't say it's okay or anything like that. He says go and sin no more. So if you're sitting in this way, either in thought or deed, stop, repent, and then go and sin no more. But this command applies to more than the physical act of sex outside of marriage. Excuse me. In several places in scripture, God calls his people, first Israel and then the church, his bride or his wife. In Ezekiel chapter 16, several places in Isaiah. In Ephesians chapter 5, Christ in the church or husband and bride. Therefore God refers to false worship to disobedient people as an unfaithful wife. Ezekiel 16 verse 30 says, how sick is your heart, declares the Lord God. He's talking to Israel. Because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute, building your vaulted chamber at the head of the street and making your lofty place in every square. What's he talking about? He's talking about how Israel was building altars to false gods. He says, yet you were not like a prostitute because you scorned payment. Then he says adulterous wife who receives strangers instead of her husband. What does he mean? Meaning that you are worshiping false gods, which makes you an adulterous wife to me, your husband. Remember Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign from heaven in Matthew chapter 12. He says, then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying, teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. But he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given you except the sign of Jonah. Why does he call him an adulterous generation? He's talking to Pharisees. Pharisees most certainly were not regularly committing physical adultery, but they were committing spiritual adultery and that they were worshiping falsely. They weren't acknowledging Christ as the savior. So he calls them an evil and adulterous generation. So you have in the Old Testament prophets, false worshipers called adulterous. You have Jesus calling the Pharisees adulterous. And then in James' epistles, he says, what quarrels, verse chapter 4, what quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war with you, you desire what you do not have, so you murder, you covet, you cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel you do not have because you do not ask? You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spin it on your passions? You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. So what does God mean when he calls disobedient people adulterous? It means that we are given to worshiping false gods. You might say, well, we don't carve gods, we don't make gods out of metal like Israel did, we don't have bulls and things like that. But having other gods, having other saviors is spiritual adultery and anything can be a substitute savior. So many people, this is true in the church and not in the church as well, so many people, their family is an idol. Their family is an idol. They say family is most important. It's not unimportant but they say it's most important. It's most important and how your kids are doing is most important and how your grandchildren are doing is most important. And if those things aren't going well then you are likely to fall apart inside. Often people who experience difficulty with their families walk away from their faith because they feel like, well, I did all this for God and he's not rewarding me. My spouse died, my children rebelled. It's an idol. Now it doesn't mean that you can't be sad if those things happen but they can't be ultimate or it's an idol. For some of us it's our work, our career, have to have exactly the right job. We don't have the right job. We're looking for another job and so on and so forth. For some of us it's our health. You've heard it said over and over again, if you don't have your health you don't have anything, right? What happens if you're unhealthy? Does that mean you don't have anything? That can't be right. For some of us it's comfort. I remember there was a young woman with Campus Crusade when Tracy and I were first on staff and we were having a conference, it was just the staff and she admitted, she said, you know I'm just a person who has to be at my optimum comfort level at all times. She was admitting that this was wrong but a lot of us are like that. Think about it now, if you get a new car there are separate environments for each seat, one for the passenger, one for the driver. There are beds that have different firmness on one side versus the other because comfort is all important. For some of us it's security. Especially in Canada and the US, places like that, security is just so important. Just think about the people that are in Ukraine or in Israel, security is ephemeral. A really big one in our culture is romance. I remember hearing a story that Tim Keller told about a young woman that he was counseling with and his first pastor in Hopewell, Virginia. She came to see him, she was 16, 17 years old and she was very upset because no boys would ask her out. He wouldn't ask her out. He went down through the list of her beliefs, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? She said yes I believe that. Then he said do you believe that he died for your sin? She said yes I believe that. Do you believe that he rose from the dead and that he's in heaven? Yes I believe that. Do you believe that when you die that you will go to heaven and be with him? She said yes I believe that. He said well that's what's important. Then she said this, she said but what good is that if no boys will ask me out? See that was her idol. And he pointed that out, he said well then you don't really believe. If the most important thing to you is that a boy asks you out, that is your savior. And it's not just for kids. Some of you remember a singer named Dean Martin. You're nobody until somebody loves you. A lot of our culture believes that. It's idolatry. Another idol this time of year is Christmas. Uh oh. Could I just say that? It can be. I love my dad. I believe he's a believer. I believe he's in heaven but I remember one year when we were kids. Christmas fell on a Sunday. And the pastor the Sunday before made sure everybody knew that we were having church on Sunday morning and he expected people to be there. My dad grumbled. He said church is ruining Christmas. And along with Christmas, his idea of Christmas was you know the kids get up in the morning, they go tear open the presents that my dad worked so hard all year to buy and he gets the joy of watching his kids have the pleasure of opening the presents. And it's somehow spoiled if you have to get up and go to church first or open the presents and then go to church. Anyway that was his view of things. But along with Christmas comes material things. There are people I know who present lists to spouses or parents and say here's my Christmas list. Make sure you pick something on this list. Don't deviate. Don't go somewhere. All of these substitute saviors are therefore a form of idolatry. John 1 John chapter 2 verse 15 do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father but it's from the world and the world is passing away along with the desires, its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. You see a lot of us give ourselves a pass when we read some of the commands. Don't commit adultery. Well I wouldn't do that. I've never done that. But you probably have by this new definition. You almost certainly have. But that's why our Savior came. To forgive us of our sin. To make a way for us to repent and be cleansed. John chapter 2 says he writes this thing that we may not sin. But if we do sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous who is the propitiation for our sins. And that's what this table is. It's Jesus being the propitiation for our sins. Because he lived a life that we should have lived. He died the death we deserved to die. He is seated at the right hand of the Father even today making intercession for us. Let's pray. Father as we come to the table open our hearts and minds. Help us repent and believe. In Jesus name. Amen.