The Sacred Covenant: Jesus on Marriage and Relational Integrity

Nathan: 00:00

Here's the deal, those superficial responses, if we look at the cultures under that, have just squashed this distorted humanity into other destructive behaviors, they don't actually address the problem. It's all superficial. Hey, it's Nathan again with the love shaped life podcast where we talk about our dream to see, experience and live in the wonder of God's love. We are in season six, and now Episode Five. I'm in the studio with my good friend Bob. Bob, we're back and we're finally making progress. We three episodes for the first section, one episode success for the last section. We're talking through now five examples that Jesus gave of what it means to live love as salt and light, what it means to set the bar to be the Pace Setter in society, as Kingdom people, followers of Jesus. Just quick last this, first of the five focused on what,

Bob: 01:13

well, I think up last episode, yeah, sure. Up until the last one, Jesus may set the pace for it, right? Because he made it clear that he didn't come to destroy the law or the prophets, right? He came to fulfill, yeah. And then he let them know also, in that same context, that except the crowd talking to the crowd, right, that their righteousness exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees, which were the religious leaders. Yep, they were not going to enter the kingdom of heaven, right

Nathan: 01:43

so. And by fulfill, he meant that God's dream communicated through the Hebrew prophets in the ancient guidance for the Hebrew people, that that dream of people who loved well would be realized that Jesus himself was the full realization of that dream, and the pathway for that dream to be realized in human hearts.

Bob: 02:03

Yeah, beautiful. So Jesus was setting the stage for what we just talked about last time you said these five passages that he wanted to let them know, I'm not doing away with the law or the prophets, right? I came to fulfill it, but what I am doing away with is the religious garbage. And the example that you gave was the the bathwater. You know that the we wanted to keep the baby, right, Jesus wanted to keep the foundation. Yes, right? Yes. And those Law and the Prophets, as we talked about the first five books of the Bible, was the law, right? And then the prophets were like, Jeremiah, and, you know, right? Isaiah, bunch of books, bunch of books. So, and what they were speaking, you know, he's like, I didn't come to do away with it, right? I came to fulfill it, but I did come to do away with all the garbage that the religion had put around it, right, right? So, then, last time we saw he started off with, you've heard that. It's been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, right? But I say unto you, you know, anybody who has hatred in your heart, you know, is murdered, right? He didn't use the word kill. He used the word murder, right? So he brought it down to the heart level, right, right? And comparing the two the pharasitical way of righteousness, which,

Nathan: 03:22

yeah, outward religious leaders fall outward show

Bob: 03:25

ceremonies. But like Jesus had said to him at one point, inwardly, they were full of corruption. And so then Here Jesus is saying, Yeah, Thou shalt not murder. But really hatred of another individual is really murdering somebody in your heart. And so my kingdom followers, I want you out of a heart that is free from these things as well. And this is what he came to do. Came to set us free. So he's raising the bar salt and light again. Yes, we talked about it in previous episodes. Jesus said we were the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world, right? So as salt in life, we're living different, different lifestyles. We're living a different for a different purpose and meaning. We are revealing and resembling and reflecting the character of Christ, right?

Nathan: 04:13

So what another way we could think about it is that the the the downstream is murder, and Jesus is saying, let's go back to the headwaters. The headwaters is the attitude of hatred, the attitude of belittling somebody because they have a different skin color. Come from a different part of town. We they, they have different mental capacities. We have all these categories that we tend to society to put people in boxes and put them down. That's the headwaters. The downstream result is literally killing and ruining and breaking someone down. Jesus is saying, Listen, my kingdom work is about two. Dealing with the headwaters, and then the downstream is going to be just fine, and the downstream being our outside actions, the ultimate thing that we accomplish with our lives that's the downstream. As long as the headwaters are dealt with, that source is pure, we don't have to worry about drinking from the downstream. And

Bob: 05:18

remember that the hatred, the resentments so on, we become slaves. We become slaves. Jesus is saying, I want you to be free, right? In my kingdom, my citizens are free, free in their hearts, free to love from a different capacity. And we don't have to be slaves and live like perhaps other people's standards, right? Like, exactly it's, it's okay to hate somebody, it's okay to, you know, disrespect them, and so on and so forth, and Jesus saying, No, that's not part of my kingdom. So

Nathan: 05:52

we're at number two, another one of those. You've heard that it was set? Yeah, you read it for

Bob: 05:57

us this, sure. So I'm reading from the book of Matthew, which is the first book of the New Testament, chapter five, verse 27, through 32 you have heard that it was said you should not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye cause you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away, it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand caused you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Again, here Jesus is talking about relationships, right? My first one was about relationships and not hating somebody. But now he's talking about that adultery, thou shall not commit adultery, one of the 10 Commandments, right? And but he takes it to the next level. He's saying that if you're lusting after a woman in your heart, that you're also committing adultery, right? So he brings it internal, right? So again, his desire is that when Christ is living in you, that he can keep you from these traps of of being slaves to different habits, like, you know, lusting after women and so on so forth,

Nathan: 07:18

right? And one of the you know this, the first example Jesus pulled was about reconciling, like making peace with someone that has is angry with you or has a problem with you. Making peace. No, that's a priority over religious practice. That was the first focus. This one is at the core part of the family where Jesus is saying, Listen, my followers set the bar by their lives demonstrating the demonstrating like what It looks like when relationships are at their best. But the intent was, the integrity of the marriage relationship would be maintained promise, we talked about this, that promise or covenant is really important to God, that if someone makes a pledge of integrity, that is says, Listen, I'm going to stand by you. You know, we make at the marriage, you know, at the wedding, I should say there's that promise, till death, do us part in sickness and health, etc, choosing only you above all others, those pieces of the marriage vow, that faithfulness to that covenant is is sacred in God's eyes, faithfulness, that covenant to that kind of promise, is essential to the fabric, the glue of society, that once we stop keeping our promises, keeping the the pledge of loyalty and faithfulness to another human being, there's some kind of ripple effect that begins to degrade society at large. So the integrity of the marriage promise has ripple effects, not just to the kids in the immediate household, but has ripple effects into the rest of society, yeah,

Bob: 09:11

and I think it's important, that's very good point. And I think it's important for us to realize, before we go further, is what's God's intention in the marriage, right? So originally, if you go back to the Garden of Eden, God created Adam and Eve, and he said, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Right? So there was this oneness as two human beings coming together and becoming one. And in a spiritual sense, it's God's desire, and it is inviting us into becoming one with him. So the marriage institution is really to be an example of what God desires to have with us, this, this, this oneness of a man and a woman coming together to form a family and. Start a family was really to be an object lesson, right for our society of God's desire for all of us to become one with Him, that was Jesus Prayer the night before he went to the cross, was that we might be one with Him as He was one with the Father. That's the invitation, right through Christ to be coming into this oneness with him. So the marriage institution was a that sacred covenant that we enter into right covenant and agreement. It's relational faith. Promise, a promise, right. So in the same breath, there's this relationship that God is inviting us into with him, right to be faithful, relationally to God. And we know how the story goes in the Bible that Jesus created a way for us to be relationally faithful in that covenant, because we can't right right, that

Nathan: 10:48

he came to be the faithful one, so that you and I could be faithful. Yeah,

Bob: 10:52

and what was happening back in this time of Jesus' time was the husband had the right to divorce his wife

Nathan: 11:01

for anything you're out, yeah,

Bob: 11:05

well, I don't want to say the right. Let me say that he had the the power to do that. She didn't, right, right? So it became an abusive situation, right? They did. They were divorcing their wives for for nothing. Just, you know, I am tired of you. I'm going to trade you and move on model, right? So, so move on. So God was seeking to correct that, and Jesus steps in and said, The only grounds right for divorce is this unfaithfulness in it all. And I know we're not there yet. But back to this adultery, right? Looking, right, looking on a woman to lust after her. He's saying, Look, you know, you've married somebody. This is your wife, and that's the one you need to be cherishing and not be looking at somebody else, right?

Nathan: 11:54

So again, we talked about like anger, right in the previous episode. Stuff goes through our heads. We see all kinds of we take in all kinds of media. We see lots of different people, and that has an impact on us. We're wired for relationship. We're wired for arousal. So it's not that the initial encounter, that rush of hormones and whatever. It's not that that initial encounter needs to leave us feeling or less than human or anything like that. It's that point that we decide, am I going to lean into this or am I going to lean into the Jesus life of of choosing to hold women, hold the other person, man or woman, the other person that I'm seeing. Am I going to choose to hold them as an object for my sexual gratification, or am I going to honor them as a fellow human being, created in the image of God with potential and value all their own, not for my satisfaction?

Bob: 12:59

Yeah, and I think you bring out some good points. Number one, I want to add to that, that God created us to be in relationships, yes, right? So He created Adam and Eve to procreate, right? Right? To have children, to have families. So it's in every human being, right? We are wired, hardwired, wired for that. So even though a person falls in love and gets married, that doesn't take away the fact that he might be attracted when they see somebody that perhaps is handsome or, you know, pretty. You know, if a woman's attracted to the guy handsome, the guy's attracted a woman, he sees that she's pretty. So there's an attraction there. Even though they're married, it's just the way God wired us, that, in itself, is not what Jesus is talking about. That is not sinful, right? Jesus said, Whoever looketh upon a woman, you know,

Nathan: 13:54

to lust after lust

Bob: 13:55

after her, right? So there's an intention there, right? There's a focus there has committed adultery in his heart. This is not something that is just a passing thought. This is something that we're yielding to. In our last episode, I mentioned the book of James, talking about when temptation starts, right? So I want to read in James chapter one, you know, in verse, I believe it's four and six. It says that, no, it's not four and six.

Nathan: 14:35

You see the end of chapter one, I think I uh, because, wasn't it the idea that, if we when we see like, something attracts us, something gets our attention, something arouses us, yeah,

Bob: 14:55

let me back up. So let me read. Let me read to you from the book of James. Right? This is an edit. Yeah. We hope it is okay. So let me read to you from the book of James. And so in James, chapter one, in verse 14 to 16. But each one, when he is tempted and is drawn away by his own desires and enticed, then when the desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. So there's this process, right? Every man is tempted when he's drawn by way, by his own lust or his own desires, because that's what we're talking about. He's drawn away by him, but, but when that desire is conceived. So there's this point of conception, giving birth. Is giving birth to something right, that where it brings to this, what the Scriptures call is sin, which is, you know, living outside of the framework of God's ways. So there's, there's that conception part. So when a thought comes through my mind, right? There's a, there's a, perhaps a drawing out, I don't have to let it land, right? Just like a bird flies over our head, we don't have to allow the bird to build a nest in our hair, right, right? So, like you said, We're bombarded by a lot of thoughts, right? But if I choose to allow that to lodge, to nurture it, right? And, and so I'm going to bring it to the conception, hmm, right. So it's going to give birth in

Nathan: 16:18

my heart, right? And that starts a trajectory, right?

Bob: 16:21

This is where we're running into trouble now, right? This is where, where I'm actually making a choice to embrace this. And here where we go into Jesus said, Whoever looks looking upon a woman to lust after his committed adultery in his heart, right? This is where the adultery in the heart comes, yes, is when I'm choosing something, right?

Nathan: 16:39

But there's more in the text, and I think this is a great time to talk about it, because it, because what does it say in the end? What's that last one? In the end, it brings forth death. So we've talked about this in a previous season, but bad isn't bad. What scripture calls sin. Bad isn't bad because God doesn't like it bad isn't bad because it's it's contrary to God's opinion. What James says is that there's this progression desire, the way we're wired, etc. Something triggers us. Something spins us up. That thing passes by whatever it is, whether it spins up our anger or our lust or whatever it is. Something passes by now I can take that little thing in, and I can incubate it, and that thing becomes a monster, almost like an alien life form. I take that thing in, but all of a sudden, maybe compare it to a virus. I take that thing in, instead of letting the virus blow along and land somewhere else, I take that thing in, and that virus begins to replicate, and pretty soon that virus takes over my actions. But then, not only does it take over my actions, it eventually takes my life. The thing that takes my life is not God saying, boom, I'm gonna I'm gonna zap you because you did this thing that I don't like. The thing itself is deadly. Like viruses don't kill people because God kills the people infected with the virus. The virus kills people because that's what the virus does. That's good, beautiful point. And that's that's sin. Yeah, sin is not bad again, because God just has an opinion against it. It's actually something that, in and of itself, is lethal to human happiness and well being, and ultimately to human existence. It's self destruct. It is self destruction.

Bob: 18:24

You know, Jesus said, Whoever commits sin becomes a servant of it, right? So he made it real plain, when we live outside of the framework of God's ways, we become slaves to those habits. So this whole thing, in regard to this area, it can become What? What? In our modern language, we say it's an addiction, right, right? People become slaves to pornography. People come slaves to uh, lustful ways, and they're just a slave. They can't even help themselves anymore. In fact, aaa, as we're familiar with it, a beautiful organization, alcohol. Anonymous, they have, they have sex, anonymous, right, right? So, because it's such a problem that they have a process for helping people be get free from it and praise God for that, right, you know, but so like you're saying, it ends up leading to death. What's leading to death is not God ever Charlie saying I'm gonna kill you because of what you're doing? Right? No, it's because what you're choosing is what's killing you. Exactly God is trying to save us, right? Exactly God is trying to bring us out. That's who he is. Our behavior, again, we've talked about our previous episodes that our behavior doesn't change. God. God still loves us the same. No matter what choices that we're making, it's the same. You go back to the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned, it didn't change God. He still came looking for them, right? You know, cry, you know, out to them. Adam, where are you? You know, it didn't change him, right? God changed Adam and Eve. It

Nathan: 19:55

changed Adam and Eve and here we are as human beings. You. Uh, dysfunctional at the personal level, the family level, the societal level, in America, internationally, other nations, the fear that is simmering beneath the surface of World War Three like that's a real, genuine risk right now. This is all the product of way upstream in the human story, the thinking got off the rails. With Adam and Eve, they decided to join the rebellion. At that point, it was just thinking. It was what an apple. Eve took a fruit, just bit of fruit. It was a simple thing on the surface, but it was the headwaters of where we are today, and as that stuff has begun to mature the dysfunctional society that we have today is the downstream result of those initial choices. And God saw the downstream. His issue with evil again, was not because it violated his opinion, not because it ticked him off, not because it was the wrong color, it's because he literally saw it as the unwinding of the thing, the beautiful thing human beings were meant to be, and literally the undoing of life itself. Ultimately,

Bob: 21:07

yeah, so Jesus, again, was saying, you know, you know, you've heard. But then said by them of old time, Thou shall not commit adultery. What the religious leaders, again, in the day, they were priding themselves, right? And being like pure they're priding themselves and say, I'm not killing anybody, but Jesus, you know, was, you know, putting it down to the level of the heart, right? You know, just like when the they brought Mary Magdalene, the Jesus to be stoned, in that story, these were the religious leaders again, bringing Mary Magdalene, who was caught in adultery, right? And Jesus started to write in the sand, right? And little by little, they all took off. You can't help but think what he was writing in the sand was their sins, right,

Nathan: 21:55

calling them out for the stuff they've done in secret, most likely,

Bob: 21:58

right? Yeah. They all took off. Yeah,

Nathan: 22:02

that's a great, great, great reminder again, of these religious leaders that were holding up the double standard, right? Double standard, and Jesus is turning the focus of religion from a set of external behaviors to a change of the human heart. That's the whole point. And I think it's worth noting that, again, Jesus is not holding up a list of moral expectations for us to start working really hard to check off the boxes. Jesus is saying the people of the kingdom are the pacesetters. Yes, he's saying that. But the way to set that pace doesn't come by trying hard to set the pace. It comes by leaning in to the story of God, living in the space of transformation, which is relationship with God, which is which is exposing ourselves regularly to the story of God's love. We spend time in that space. We spend time connected with God. We spend time in that transformation space, and that flows out, then into the rest of our lives. Yeah, beautiful that we've got to keep that in mind, that this is not a list we try to check off and just try to beat our heads against the wall to get better. We lean into Jesus. He's the source of our He's the source, He's the source of the goodness that he wants to shape in our lives. He's the source of that. We lean into him. The downstream is dealt with, just

Bob: 23:31

like we plug in our cell phones all the time, right? To get recharged, we need to stay plugged into God to give us the moral strength and the spiritual strength and the life exactly in this world, Ever wonder what it's like to truly experience God's love? At love, shape life. We're here to guide you on that journey through our weekly emails, podcasts, blogs, coaching and more. We're helping people just like you discover the transformative power of Divine Love. Join

Nathan: 24:00

our community at love shaped dot life and be part of a movement that's changing lives. Love shaped life your partner in the journey of seeing, experiencing and living God's love.

Bob: 24:15

So, so the devil is a master, right? Because the the we were designed and we were wired for relationships, right? We were wired for sexual sex, right? That's just what we were, yeah, absolutely. And so, so Satan perverts that, right? And then he wants people to indulge in a perverted way in it, right? So, if it's like a buffet table, he's got a buffet table for all kinds of things for people to eat, right? And God has a buffet table, and that buffet table that God has to to eat from we see what's on the table based on the Word of God, right, living within the framework of the principles of God. This table over here is living outside of that framework, right? Right? Right? It's living for yourself. It's self indulgence, right? And the result of that self indulgence is slavery,

Nathan: 25:06

right? And all you see on that table is a mirage. So once you eat the fruit, it begins to poison your whole system, correct? It

Bob: 25:14

poisons your whole system. That's why, if you, if we want freedom, if we want the true joy and fulfillment in life, choose to live in harmony with God, right? Great decisions based upon the word of God. If you happen to not be in that zone and you've made poor decisions, there's hope for you. Absolutely, God's love hasn't changed, right? And God's in the rescuing business, right? So he can rescue you know how many, how deep you are that whole he'll rescue you. That doesn't mean there's not a price to pay. Doesn't mean there's not hurt involved, but he will rescue you. The best thing is to never get there, right? But if you get there, however far down you go, God will rescue you. Yes, yes. We've all sinned and come short Absolutely. So we're all sinners in need of a Savior, but the devil takes some of us down a further road, if he if we allow Him to right, is it? Yeah. So in regard to not committed adultery, our hope is found in Christ living in us, right? You know, pornography is alive and well in our society. You know, sex trafficking. Sex trafficking is another huge one. I mean, it's $150 billion a year business. What an awful, awful, awful thing, enough to make you sick to your stomach of what he, one human being, will do to another human being. And and, you know, you know, again, you know, God wants to set everybody free and help them absolutely deliver them. This is the hope that's found in Christ, right? So, your freedom, my freedom, every human beings, freedom is found in living in harmony with the ways of God.

Nathan: 26:56

Yes. So one thing I want to speak to here is one of the responses of religion to the human struggle for purity is to trample our attraction, our wiring that leads us to places that result in shame and guilt. That's that's one human solution. Different religions have done different approaches to like squashing that in and like, the solution is, let's just, let's just beat down that dark side. Let's cover the women. Let's, let's close the eyes of the men. Let's not talk about sex, right? So, but those are all superficial responses. And here's the deal, those superficial responses, if we look at the cultures under that, have just squashed this distorted humanity into other destructive behaviors, they don't actually address the problem. It's all superficial. And so you know, whether it's the documentaries, whether it's your own experience, the truth behind the scenes is that these external solutions, these external attempts to squish, to squash, to control the sex drive, just push things into all kinds of weird, distorted stuff. What Jesus is doing is not calling people to superficially address and create these plastic external conformities, but he's actually working on addressing the heart because he doesn't want our sex drive to be killed. He doesn't want it to be distorted. He wants it to be held within the context, the beautiful context of love, so that it's not calling the shots. We're calling the shots out of a heart that's shaped in the form of love, so it leaves a healthy sex drive intact, while also leaving us people of integrity who honor the beauty of other people in healthy, honorable ways, faithful ways of relationship, without weird stuff happening, because we're trying to be the ones controlling it. It's God shaping us deeper. Does that make sense? Where God's getting to the root of the problem, rather than human interventions trying to control all the manifestations, you know,

Bob: 29:13

again, living within the framework of the revealed will of God, which is found within His

Nathan: 29:18

Word, right? Right? And that's shaped by the Holy Spirit, by God's presence working deeper inside of us. So the change is not superficial exterior management, but it's actually a transformation of the heart that fundamentally changes how I see people, how I deal with my sex drive doesn't eliminate it. It changes it to be closer to its intended purpose, rather than this thing that is destructive and dehumanizing?

Bob: 29:47

No, we're channeling it in the right direction, right, allowing God to channel it in the right and in freedom. Freedom. Yeah. So it goes on to say, you know, in the text here, it says that, uh. Uh, If any man, uh, you've heard this said, but said you should not commit adultery. But I tell you, If anyone looks on a woman lust, very lustfully, has already committed adultery. Uh, with her in his heart. If your right eye cause you to stumble, gouge it out, throw it away. Is it better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell? And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, throw it away. It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. So what was he talking about? Was he talking about look, if you're lusting after a woman, then pluck your eyes out so you're not going to see her, right? That's one extreme. If your hands are going towards your computer for pornography, well, just chop your hands off and leave your computer there. Is that. What he was referring

Nathan: 30:43

Jesus was known to use hyperbole. You look at the other teachings of Jesus, he uses hyperbole, hyperbole, these exaggerated statements to make a really important point. Well, what Jesus is saying here is that maintaining the integrity of the marriage, the integrity of your promise to be true and is faithful to that other person, is so important, so fundamental to the to the functioning socially civil society, that whatever it takes to maintain that is worth it now, not whatever It takes in cutting off hands, but taking steps, radical steps, to if you've got a problem with with a website or a certain video, you know, a certain streaming series, just stop watching it. If that means canceling your Netflix subscription, just cancel it. Don't keep it. Because you can watch this, because you can watch the the the the movie about cars, and because you can watch the documentary on cooking, just get rid of the whole thing. Like, if that it's it's worth doing even things that other people might consider extreme in order for you to maintain integrity. That's your stumbling block, if that's the thing that's tripping you

Bob: 31:56

up. So if you're going places and there's somebody there that you're attracted to, and you're right being drawn into that situation. In other words, cut it off, right? Don't go there anymore. You need to cut it off, because it's better for you to do that. So the cutting off is not

Nathan: 32:13

your eye, not literal, you know, you know, in that sense, not literal. Yeah, when

Bob: 32:18

you think about it, if, if we had gangrene and say it was in your foot, the doctor comes to you and says, Well, Nathan, you know, or sorry to tell you, but your foot is infected with gangrene and it's going to kill you, so we're gonna have to take your foot. Can we take it? And he asked you, is it okay? Nathan, I'm gonna take it. What are you gonna choose? Yeah, well, I'm

Nathan: 32:37

gonna keep it. You're gonna keep it I'm going to die, right? So

Bob: 32:42

that's your choice, though, right, right? But if you choose to live, they got to take your foot, because you value your physical life, you still want to live, right, right? You're not ready to die yet. You still want to live. So how much more so is it important in our spiritual walk with God, right to be willing to cut off whatever needs to be cut off that's causing us to stumble in order for us to maintain this relationship with God and the relationship with those around us,

Nathan: 33:09

right? Yes, and I think this example, this over the top example, again, really highlights how important the integrity of the most sacred relationship in society is outside of our relationship to God. The Marriage promise is so important to the rhythm of Kingdom, living Kingdom love so connected to the relational, the relational way that God has built the universe, the world that Jesus says, Listen, guard that at any cost to yourself. I think for me, that's why he uses this extreme language. Again, it's extreme in the sense that he's not literally talking about removing body parts, but he uses the hyperbole to say, Listen, don't cut corners when it comes to guarding your sexual purity, when it comes to guarding how you treat other people, how you view them, whether they're for your exploitation, or whether they're to be honored, because if that goes by the wayside, the rest of society is going to start to disintegrate around that it cannot be under emphasized by Jesus, which is why he uses this very intense language, encouraging drastic responses. Again, dealing in a literal sense, changing the place we hang out, dealing with the dark internet connection, taking those practical steps to say, Hey, I'm going to protect this because it's important.

Bob: 34:48

I was watching a news a program on one of the news, popular news channels, and it was about adultery, and they're talking about adultery in the workplace and how it begins. And just how people can start talking a male and a female will start talking about just, you know, anything in general is fine, but once they start talking about their personal life and perhaps sharing what was happening in their marriage, it was bad and how emotionally they start to get connected. And it was really interesting, because the news station was saying that once they get emotionally connected, and they're starting to connect with each other on that level, they're actually committing emotional adultery, because their affections are now gone from their spouse and they're being put into this individual I thought that was a powerful observation. It sounds pornography, what pornography is, is where our affections are going towards someone else, right? Pornography affections are going it's still an emotional adultery. You know, because people say, Well, I'm not committing a physical act. Well, that's true, but from Jesus standpoint of you, it's, it's what's happening in your heart, right? And this is for a follower of Jesus. He wants to cleanse the heart. And when you think about it, this, say, like pornography or indulging in this perverted sexual connection, it's for self indulgence, right? And self indulgence is contrary to the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is built on other centeredness. It's built on unselfishness. Satan's kingdom is built on selfishness. So any type of self indulgence is really aligning ourselves with the devil and his kingdom, right? Is really ultimately a self destructive path. Absolutely, it's a self destructive path, right? This picture that the devil has put in our minds, that when we do something wrong, that God arbitrarily wants to strike us down, it's a lie. So these are the consequences of the choices that we're making. God is for us. God is not against us. It's just that is the result of that choice you're making, it will destroy you from the inside out, just like bitterness and anger we talked about in the last one, you know, hatred, it'll destroy you from the inside out. That's

Nathan: 37:09

right, absolutely. So there's one more section that I think we should read and wrap up. Okay? And it's this, this last piece in Jesus words, where he says it has been said, Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery. And anyone who commits and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, Jesus again, raising the bar here, saying, listen, set the temperature for faithfulness in honoring the person you promised your life. Do you promise to care for? And I think you'd mentioned that earlier in this this culture where they could dismiss a wife for for whatever offense, right? Tired of her, yeah, and they need a butter and jelly sandwich, right? Exactly. And I like the language here, where it says that that offhanded divorce paperwork would make the wife a victim of adultery. She's put out on the street, no longer provided for, no longer in the care of her spouse. Now she's just has become the victim and someone who marries a person that's left a marriage because of other reasons besides infidelity, has also engaged in this, this destruction, this social destruction, of this sacred relationship, again, Jesus speaking to his people, set the bar be the ones with who are leading the way in what it looks like to have flourishing relationships. It's not about Jesus trying to lock people into misery for 100 years. It's Jesus saying, if you're going to be kingdom, people set the bar for what life looks like between two married people that husband and wife as they love each other, maintain that integrity through thick and thin, pursue happiness and wellness together. Let that set the bar, set the pace for a happier society.

Bob: 39:18

I was listening to this popular speaker. He's a motivational speaker for, usually, business leaders, so on. And I was listening to him, and he was saying that when he first got married to his wife, he decided they were both Speaking at a seminar, right? They were both speaking in different rooms, and he got done early, and he decided to go in to her room. And he went into her and he was sitting in the back, and she starts talking about him, and it's just women only in the room. And he was kind of proud, because, you know, his, his newly, you know, married wife of you know, was, was, you know, talking about him. Actually, they weren't newly married at that point, but she was talking about him, and she was talking about when she first married him, she didn't love him, she wasn't in love with him, and and she struggled for the first year, and he didn't know any of this, so he's just all of a sudden now he's kind of getting a little embarrassed and worthy what's going on. But then she said she realized the problem was, was my relationship with God? Hmm, it wasn't my husband. And once I straightened my relationship with God out, my husband was just what I thought he was the most beautiful human being, and I'm honored to be married to him. So I want to encourage everyone that is listening here, if you're in a relationship and relationships aren't easy, to first and foremost, make sure your relationship with God is right, so that your heart is free, and that God would give you the right eyes to see your spouse through, to be able to honor that marriage vow and live in harmony. That's right in that circle, because that circle is a sacred circle. And there's that little saying that the grass is not greener or on the other side of the fence, or maybe the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but once you bite it, it's not so green,

Nathan: 41:17

right, right, right? So, yes, the importance

Bob: 41:21

of making sure our hearts are right, I think, is huge, huge in these relationship situations.

Nathan: 41:26

And I think it's also worth noting that Jesus is again speaking as a general rule to society. But if you're in an abusive relationship, don't hesitate to get help. Don't hang on to a spouse, because, well, I think they're going to change. Well, this time is different. You need to get help. Get professional help, reach out, go to a shelter if you need to Jesus is not advocating for you to be wounded and abused. There may be redemption for your relationship, but stopping the abuse, dealing with it as a child of God. You are a beautiful person, and were never meant to be treated that way. You need to get out. And maybe, again, maybe there's hope for this relationship. But don't stay in it in the same place. Get help, and once you've gotten that help, then you can start looking at things and see if there's hope for this. But again, we're not talking about every relationship. Jesus is giving the norm. The norm should be that marriage is for life, because that's sacred and beautiful. But when that but when abuse and and breakage comes in, Jesus would also expect us to take steps toward getting away, making sure that we're safe and heal. And I

Bob: 42:49

want to say too in case people have made wrong decisions and maybe God divorced along the way, there's still hope for them. Yes, right? Because the God who we serve is a merciful being, right and and seeks to redeem us all. So turn to God. But I do want to say that if you're listening here today and you're struggling with something, perhaps you don't know who to turn to or who to ask be, feel free to shoot us an email at info at loveshape dot life. That's info at loveshape dot life. And Pastor Nathan, I will be more than happy to connect with you, to help you in any way that we can.

Nathan: 43:24

That's right. What's the takeaway? Because we gotta wrap up, yeah,

Bob: 43:27

sure. The takeaway, to me again, is that Jesus wants to cleanse us all on the inside, and he's the only one that can keep us pure. That we will be tempted. We will be drawn away. We are relational beings. Human Sexuality is wired into us, so there are pullings and whatever have you. But in Christ, when Christ is in us, he can give us the victory. He can keep us focused and keep us in His ways, that's the beauty of being in Christ without, without the power of God in us, we're just helpless in any circumstances,

Nathan: 44:10

really. So that's would be the experience part, the C part,

Bob: 44:14

the C sorry, the C part for me is the fact that the God whom we serve knows all about us and still loves us and never gives up on us, no matter good decisions we made, poor decisions we made, whatever circumstance we're in, seeing that God is for us, that's

Nathan: 44:33

right, no matter where you're at, yeah, and then live that His work in us comes out in beautiful ways. So until next time, lean into the love shaped life thank you so much for tuning into the love shaped life podcast. We hope you find this podcast not only inspirational, but life changing. Here at love shaped life, we're working to create a community, an online community, in fact, where individuals like you can connect with each other and lean into God's love together. We

Bob: 45:10

also provide spiritual wellness coaching, where we walk alongside people to help them to see the beauty of God's character, discover if there's anything that might be hindering them from finding the healing power that's in that love.

Nathan: 45:24

And as you might have expected, love shaped life is crowdfunded. Individuals like you give generously to make this dream a reality. If you'd like to join that crowd, you can give today at love shaped dot life.