
“You shall not commit adultery.” —Exodus 20:14
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” —Matthew 5:27-30
Big Idea: The 7th commandment calls us to experience our sexuality fully and exclusively inside the purity of God’s design.
• The call to sexual purity is so much more than not cheating on a spouse.
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” —Matthew 15:19
• The call applies to everyone, single or married.
• The call is critically important.
1. We should expect the world to get sexuality completely wrong.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. —Genesis 2:24
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. —Ephesians 4:17-19
2. We Christians should expect to get our own sexuality completely wrong without God’s help!
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. —1 Corinthians 6:8
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire…. —Colossians 3:5
Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. —Romans 13:13
3. If single, fight to enjoy the gift of your singleness in purity.
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. —Hebrews 13:4
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. —1 Corinthians 10:13
5. Success in our fight for purity comes from “knowing” God and walking daily in the power of the Holy Spirit.
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God…. —1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do…. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality…. —Galatians 5:16-19