Man's way or God's way...Matthew 5:27-32...People: "Adultery". Jesus: "Lust"

 

My first summit is Shadow Mountain at 10,160 elevation.  It was on my mother's birthday, July 9th.  She would have been 90 years old.  It is amazing that she has been gone for 16 years.  Here is a view from the top.


On the way up on another vantage point is the old Shadow Mountain Fire Tower.  It is not manned and there is a plan to renovate it so people can go up again on the catwalk and experience a 360 view including Lake Granby, Shadow Mountain Lake, and Grand Lake.  It was an 11 mile day and I was beat when I got home.


Jesus is giving us God's way and man's way.  God's way when dealing with anger can lead to reconciliation and back at the altar of worship.  Man's way when dealing with anger can lead you to court and possible time in prison.  God's way when dealing with lust upholds the marriage covenant created by God between His created man and woman as the two become one.  Man's way when dealing with lust could lead to divorce for reasons short of Biblical exceptions and impacts others with our sin.

Whenever I speak on marriage, divorce, and possible remarriage, I pray for one on one conversations to follow.  There are so many personal questions and situations that needs a cup of coffee with a brother or sister in Christ with the whole of the Bible open to receive godly instruction forward.  

What leads couples to divorce?  Whatever the action, Biblical exception or not, is going to be rooted in sin and/or ignoring the instruction from God of how we are to be loving one another.  We know that marriage is a picture of God's love for His bride to the world and it should be prevalent within the church body.  Today with so many going man's way even within the church body, I fear has blurred that image that God has created to show the world the beauty of the New Covenant.  

Therefore, the more we follow the instruction of God to have marriage covenants that guard against sins like lust, the more the witness of God's love will be seen.  Lets do that!

Adam. (sermon at the 30:00 mark)



A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Galatians #15 - Galatians 6:11-18 - "On The Road Again..."

Image
  Another week closer and it involves some more travel for the Wolfgangs.  I feel like the Willy Nelson song, " On the road again... "  I don't know if I agree with the next line though. " ...I can't wait to get on the road again. " One of the members of the church in Wisconsin calculated that I will travel well over 10,000 miles to make this transition.  Traveling mercies prayers please. Last Sunday we will look at Paul's final words to the churches in Galatia.  He brought them the gospel (good news) message of Jesus and what resulted were churches forming throughout the region.  The letter is to defend that message that our salvation comes from and is in Christ alone.  Christ's sacrifice on the cross was sufficient for the forgiveness of our sins.  The summary statement of the letter is found in  Galatians 6:15 (LSB) .  " For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. "  Translated another way earlier in  Ga
Read more

God gave us a good weather window to travel...yeah God!!!

Image
  Berthoud Pass Here we are at the top of Berthoud Pass.  It was a whirlwind week to conduct a " hand off " service in Wisconsin on 3/17 and then preach a Palm Sunday sermon in Colorado on 3/24.  We give God all the glory for this happening.  So there are two video links at the bottom of this blog.  One is for the Wisconsin service and the other is for the Colorado service.  I racked up over 12,000 in the last 7 weeks.   I love to take these pictures sitting from the front row of chairs and listening to the one God has provided for the church I had been serving for 20 months.  I now have 3 and I am so thankful for the opportunity God gave us to serve Him in this type of ministry over the last 5 years.  It has been great to add to our daily prayer list Zach in Maine, Chris in Ohio and now Stephen in Wisconsin. This was our set up for the 2000+ mile trip.  No " hiccups " except for the strong eastern winds in Kansas.  Of course everything was quite a bit dirtier when
Read more

Resurrection Sunday in a new space...Matthew 27.62-28.20

Image
  Resurrection Sunday has come and gone but it was a sweet day to be with the gathered saints of the Stillwater Community Chapel .  We are venturing through the Gospel of Matthew and this Sunday will take us back to Matthew 1.1 but last Sunday we were in Matthew 27.62-28.20.  It was a lot to cover so the white board was truly a help to keep me on track.  This year in my Resurrection Sunday message, I focused on the contrast of the cover-up story of the disciples stealing the body of Jesus fueled by a bride and the commission of speaking of a risen Lord fueled by boldness . After the service upstairs, we ventured downstairs to the lower level and had a great meal together.  The conversations around the tables allowed us to continue to talk about the passage of Scripture we covered upstairs.  Maybe this is a very informal picture of what happens at the  Waushara Community Church called the " Going Deeper " classes of the Come For More hour following the Sunday morning worshi
Read more