So, do you run? Are you a runner? I don't run. Mm. Mm. Nope, I'll walk, I'll, uh, I'll speed walk. I might run, walk even. Uh, but I, I don't run. I'm not a runner. Part of it is I have terrible knees. And part of the reason I have terrible knees is when I was growing up high school and college played a lot of basketball. Just didn't realize that dunking the ball all the time was going to hurt my knees the way it's really hurt my knees. Just, just too much air. All those years. There are moments in life though when we have to run, we need to run. Like if you're walking through the parking lot at the grocery store and you see a cart hurtling towards your car, you're, you're going to run to cut off that cart or maybe you're at a wedding reception and you see the cutest little toddler in the world wobbling way too much toward the rickety table that has the wedding cake on it. You might run to intervene or maybe you're in a restaurant and the waitress is coming to your table with your food and you see that piece of bacon just kind of hanging off the edge of the plate. You're going to run to save and protect that bacon for yourself. There, there are moments in life when we need to run. One well known ultra marathon runner said this run when you can walk if you have to crawl, if you must just never give up. That's the kind of running we're going to engage with today, the kind of running that if you have to crawl to do it, you do it. And what kind of running is that? Well, we continue our series 10 ways to change the world. And we're looking at the ultimate laws of the universe known as the 10 commandments. And we're asking a question as we look through the 10 commandments. And the question is this, how would the world be different if we really obeyed the 10 commandments? We've arrived today at the seventh commandment and it is in the seventh commandment that we will find the type of running that we are referring to. The type of running that your mind and body and soul desperately need you to run toward. That's why the title of our message today is run for it, run for it. And we'll be looking at Exodus 20 verse 14, God is giving Moses a message for the people. They have this brand new life, this new free life and God gives them a message and the next part of His message is in verse 14, you shall not commit adultery. What is adultery? Well, in the most primal sense, it is when a man and a woman, a husband and wife failed to keep the promises they made on their wedding day. But adultery is much, much deeper than that. One day Jesus was teaching and said this in Matthew five, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart just a few moments earlier than this. On this same particular day, Jesus was affirming the sixth commandment and the sixth commandment is you shall not murder. And in affirming it, what Jesus said was you can create murder in your heart and with your hands, he's deepening our understanding of what these commandments truly mean. And he does the exact same thing with the seventh commandment. He is saying that there is a way to be lustful with our hands, but there is a way to be lustful with our hearts. Someone once noted that the seventh commandment is a far reaching law that we all broke the first time. Lust was aroused within us. That's important because a lot of people will hear the words of the seventh commandment and go that has nothing to do with me. But unfortunately, like all sin, it is very dangerous to say. Yeah, I've never done that because Jesus brings us to a different understanding. He brings us to a deeper understanding. See, we think, well, as long as my sin doesn't show up on the nightly news or as long as my sin is not gossiped about it, the family reunion, it doesn't really exist. But Jesus disagrees with that. Jesus says that when it comes to sin, it begins in our hearts. And the same is true for adultery. Now, is it true that there are strategic, moral, physical, practical, emotional, spiritual, even legal differences between lust with the heart and lust with the hand. Oh yeah, clearly, clearly, there there are different consequences for what we think and what actually occurs but make no mistake, both will harm our hearts and our minds and our souls. Even if the body is not involved, Jesus makes it clear that we must think differently than what our surface feelings may be and we need to get the depth of the commandment from God. And notice Jesus also said that everyone who looks at a woman, he has already committed adultery. So are men the only one that lusts, the only, only, only people that lust in life? No, not at all over the last few years. Statistics related to the analytical data surrounding immoral websites shows that 30% of the users, sometimes more than 30% of the users are female. Lust is not just a male problem. Lust is a human problem. Katie, let is a young single woman lives in Texas. She recently wrote an article about these challenges that women face with immorality. And she said this in recent years, as I've met with friends and listened to their stories, I've been heartbroken to hear of moments when they were specifically instructed not to share their testimonies with anyone because of their history of sexual sin, whether it was premarital or private. This was the advice she heard in those stories people would tell these ladies keep those sins hidden, that shame will never go away. Katie said this. That's not just bad advice. The suggestion that certain sins are too much for Christ to redeem is a lie straight from hell. It implies that God's grace is only strong enough to cover what we're comfortable addressing. But she says Christ's redemption reaches every hidden place and his power redeems every kind of Brokenness. It is able to erase the shame of sexual sin and replace it with glory glory. See, the enemy, the enemy will say lust is the glory. Lust is the thrill, but it's not the lust is, is a lie. Lust will always lie to us and say this is what you want, but it's not what we want. What we actually want is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The greatest thrill, the greatest glory is knowing Jesus. There is no greater glory than that, regardless of what our lust may tell us. So based on the words of Jesus, in some way, we've all broken the seventh commandment. It's a far reaching commandment that is stirred. The moment that we are aroused with any type of lust. Does that mean it's no big deal for us to break the seventh commandment? I mean, if, if everybody's doing it, I mean, if we all are, are falling into this is, is it really that big a deal? I mean, if, if the lust of the heart and the lust of the hand is just something that everybody has to face then, then really, we shouldn't have to worry about it. Right? About 3913 years ago, there was a very talented handsome young man who worked for a very powerful military leader and the wife of that military leader approached him trying to get him to break the seventh commandment and listen to how he responded. Genesis 39 9. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God? That young man's name was Joseph. He became the ruler of Egypt, but he would have never become the ruler of Egypt without a moment like this and, and notice what he didn't say. He didn't say, mm we might get caught. He didn't say, well, this would hurt my family. I gotta think about my kids. I gotta think about my career. Not as quickly as he possibly could. Joseph ran to how could I do this against the one who created me? The one who gave me life. How could I sin against the one that breathed life into me that gave me existence? How could I sin this great sin against the one who is rescued and redeem me from eternal separation from all that is happy and holy and good. How can I sin against God? We can dress up our sin in a lot of different ways. In, in this particular issue. We may say things like, well, um I'm being neglected. I'm, I'm being ignored. There's irreconcilable differences, there's mismatches, whatever we might say. But at the end of the day, the words of the Bible are very clear to break the seventh commandment is a great evil, an act of great evil against the one true Holy God. It's not a confusing commandment. It's, it's clear you shall not commit adultery. Joseph couldn't even bring himself to, to imagine what it would be like to, to break the seventh commandment because he saw it was a direct sin against God. How can I do this against God, dear Christian? Because we all struggle with some type of lust. That is the moment we have to get to because if we only look at some other reason not to do it, we'll engage. There has to be built inside of our hearts, a desire to honor our God. He has to be our motivation is he our motivation. Maybe you say, well, I don't even believe in God. And, and what about that? What about people who, who don't believe in God? They don't believe that God created them and gave them life. They don't believe that God is the only one who can rescue them from eternal condemnation and eternal separation from all that is good and holy and happy. What about people that don't believe in God? But if you don't believe in God, then the whole nature of committing a great act of evil against Him doesn't even exist. It's, it's not even a thing. I mean, if we can ignore God, if we can deny God, if we can, you know, just act like he's not really, there doesn't exist, then we don't have to pay attention to Him. We don't have to follow His rules or his plans, but I would graciously repeat the words that we shared last week. The greatest terror in all the universe is waking up on the other side of death and discovering that God is not a good old boy with a gray beard, sitting in a rocking chair, passing out candy in heaven. But rather he is the one true holy judge of the universe and he is unswervingly just and this commandment is, is not a commu confusing commandment. It's a commandment that lets us know that breaking the seventh commandment is a great evil against God. If you do not believe in God then not just for this commandment but for the joy of your soul. We pray that God would quicken you to believe in Him, quicken you to chase after and pursue his son, Jesus. Have you ever heard how, how marriage began? Well, there was this man and this woman and, and they met at a bar one night and you know, they were hanging out there enjoying their time together and, and they just kind of kept doing it and after a while they're like, hey, what, why don't we, why don't we live in the same place? You know, why don't, why don't we, why don't we have kids together? Why don't we grow old together? And they said, gosh, this, this is great. We should do this. And so, so they did and then one night they were like, hey, we should call this something. Well, what should we call this? And they were playing Scrabble and they just kind of randomly put some letters together and it's spelled Ma r, Ria ge and they're like that. That's it. That's our word May. That's what we'll call this. That's not how it happened, by the way. No marriage was created by God. Marriage is God's idea. Or maybe you heard about the couple that the week before their wedding got a little nervous and they're like, ah, what if this doesn't take and what should we do? So, they met with their lawyers, drew up some financial arrangements just in case the marriage didn't work out. A marriage is not an experiment. God gave purpose to marriage. Or maybe you heard about the, the couple that said, oh, I, I think we were a mismatch. I think we married the wrong person but you know, we'll just stick it out. Marriage is not a consequence. God gave purpose to marriage. God created marriage to be good. God created marriage to be a place where a man and a woman can become one and how they think and how they act and how they feel. He created marriage for a place to be a place where there would be freedom free from the threats of fleeting romance, fickle romance and fleeting attraction free from the threats of manipulating pickup lines and medical diseases free from the threats of self serving, lust and self absorbing lies. God designed marriage to be a place of freedom, a place of comfort, a place of safety and adultery by its very nature, betrays that comfort, it invades that safety and it rejects what God has designed to be good. The commandment is not always easy in any day and age, but it's clear you shall not commit adultery. And where did Jesus say adultery begins? He says it begins in the heart. Someone once said, don't let your heart follow your eyes. That's pretty good advice. Don't let your heart follow your eyes. See Joseph. He didn't let his heart follow his eyes. Joseph must have been scrolling through Instagram that morning. Come across that meme that says, you know, it takes a lifetime to build character and only five minutes to destroy it. He's like, yeah, I can't do it. There's just, there's just no way. So what did Joseph do a all we know at this point from what I read earlier was that he just said, well, how could I do such a great act of evil against God? How, how can I do such a wicked thing? So what did he do? Well, the wife of the military leader, she kept pursuing him, kept trying to get him to break the seventh commandment. And then one day she grabbed him and what did he do? Genesis? 3912. But he left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside Joseph made a run for it. He, he was running for his life. It was better to lose his garment than lose his character. It was better for him to lose his garment than the sin against God. So how can we function in that same type of way? How can we run away from this particular sin that we find in the seventh commandment? Well, my guess is as I've been saying each week that all of us have a different story connected to this. Some of our stories connected to the seventh commandment are extremely painful and hurtful. And this is one sermon and if I had 100 and one sermons to preach on Exodus 2014, we would not even scratch the surface of all the opinions and scenarios and circumstances and, and all types of things that could be analyzed and debated and argued and discussed. So every question and every thought and every opinion and scenario will not be answered with this one sermon. However, when it comes to running or walking or crawling away from the lust of the heart and the lust of the hands, then here's just a few practical things that we in. Looking at Joseph can do just a few practical wise things to consider. These are not fundamental BTO costal legalistic religious rules that you have to follow or you're going to get voted off the island. Ok? These are just wise considerations for us in light of what we see Joseph do. The first is this run for your life by watching what you wear. Look, there's a big difference in dressing in a way that makes you presentable and attractive as opposed to dressing in a way that makes you seductive and needy for attention men and ladies. We, we know the difference. Let us be wise with what we wear. Secondly, run for your life by watching what you watch. Look, all of us are going to go all kind of places every single day. We're going to go to the internet, we're going to go to our smartphone apps, we're going to go to movies and magazines and TV. We're going to go to the gym, we're going to go to the mall and we're going to go to the break room, the chat room, wherever we're going to go. A lot of places what we need to do as believers and followers of Jesus is to know when and where we're going and how long we need to be there. We need to be wise with what we watch and what we let our eyes see next run for your life by watching your pride. Years ago, there was a prominent pastor that broke the seventh commandment and there was a British journalist that responded, wrote an article talking about how she too once almost had a brush with God's law. And this is what she said by the grace of God. I didn't commit adultery. But because I've always been taught that I am capable, I have always been on my guard against it. And then she said this because after all, it doesn't start in that moment. But months, years earlier, when you tell yourself that your friend understands you better than your spouse. See, that's how the enemy does lust. It's, it's always something that's a little thing at first and the little things matter, they matter a lot next run for your life by running to the Bible. When I was in seminary, I would go to the little small bless, pathetic little gym that we had on campus. And, and there was some you know, some free weights and a few treadmills and some other things. But right in front of the treadmills, someone had put up some, some posters that they had, you know, taken a sharpie and made with hand and, and one of the posters that was right in front of one of the treadmills that had the words of Psalm 119 that says this, how can a young man keep his way pure by keeping it according to your word? That was back before there were cell phones? I always wish I had a picture of that wall because there was two or three scriptures that they had on the wall. And I always thought man, that's, that's something I wish I would have had a picture of just as a reminder whether you are a young man or a young woman, an old man, an old woman, it doesn't matter male, female, young or old God's word is a rescuing book, God's Word and God's truth will rescue us from many a moment if we will hide God's word in our heart and use God's word in that moment. Next run for your life by running to the church. Most of us know a story. Maybe it's part of your story that when something happened, some sin attacked your life. You're you were prone to run away from the church. Don't do that. Don't run away from the church. Don't, don't run away from the one place that's full of messed up people just like you. The one place this, this community of people. We are all struggling with sin. We are all struggling with following of Jesus, following Jesus. Some of us lie and act like we're not, but we all are some of us put on a church face and act like everything's fine but it's not. We all struggle with sin. We all struggle with following Jesus. Don't run away from the church. When sin comes calling the people in our community and our fellowship in our body of Christ, there are people that have the exact same struggles that you have. There are other people that are farther behind you. They, they, they've not arrived at your struggle yet. You may be able to help them. And then there's people that have passed you. They have won the victory. They have pressed on. Don't run away from the church. When sin comes calling, run to the church. Stay with the church. There's one other run for it that, that I'm going to share in just a moment, but I'm going to hang on to it. So I can tell you about Megan. Megan Hill is a wife and mom. Uh, years ago, she wrote an article about having to teach a class of five and six year olds on Sunday morning. What was the lesson that morning for the five and six year olds on Sunday morning? Well, the lesson was about the adultery of King David and Bathsheba who was married to Uriah. Yeah, it was quite a story. You know, the easy kid stories to teach on Sunday morning. Well, Megan said that she read the Bible passage and then she said this, David didn't care about what God said about husbands and wives and he didn't care that Uriah and Bathsheba promised to be married to each other. David only cared about what he wanted. David made up his own rules about being married. This was disobeying God and it wasn't good for him or for Bathsheba. David needed to be forgiven by God just like you and I do. Everybody wants to hire Megan to teach the Bible to kids, right? That's, that's good stuff. David made up his own rules. David decided to do his own thing. You know, there are many people, in fact, statistically speaking, most people in the world don't think they need to be forgiven of anything. Most people in the world think that the truth is defined by you shaking off outdated morals and finding your, your true self, your true identity. And that mentality is overwhelmingly true. When it comes to adultery in our culture. The the thoughts about adultery are really any sexual sin. Ray Orland said this. That message can sound good. But what if we choose an altered self only then to discover that both our original self and our altered self were dishonest. What if we make costly personal sacrifices? To modify our sexuality only to end up feeling betrayed. Did that freedom take us where we really want to go? Didn't take David to where he wanted to go, right? Didn't take bathsheba. It won't take us either. Regardless of what the sin may be. It will not take us where we want to go. It will tell us it will take us where we want to go. But sin is a liar. It's always a lie. So what is good for us? Ray Orland says this the seventh commandment redeems us sexual fools by pointing us to Jesus who is faithful. Jesus fulfills his vows. He stays true. He pursues his bride even when we wander from him. He doesn't despise us sexual sinners. He draws near to us. This is who Jesus is. He doesn't say go be whatever you wanna be. He says the only hope that our soul will find is in being with him, being saved by him and he draws near to us. Ray goes on to say this. Every one of us can admit to thoughts, feelings, looks, words and actions that violate and vandalize the glories of our God given sexuality. Now, I wanna read that again because again, some of us will look at the adultery and go, I'm not that bad. Some of us will look at the, the lesbian and gay movement. Go, oh I'm I'm not like that. Listen again. Every one of us can admit to thoughts, feelings, looks, words and actions that violate and vandalize the glories of our God, given sexuality, every one of us. But he says this but our sins do not defeat our savior. They are the reason he came to us and he isn't sorry. He got involved. It is more than washing feet. Jesus died for our sin. He died to rescue us so that when lust comes, we don't have to give in because we have one who isn't sorry that he got involved with the messiest sin in our lives. In fact, he came for that sin. So here's the last one. Run for your life by running to Christ. Run to Christ. Don't, don't run away, run to him. Walk crawl if you have to. But whatever you have to do, don't ever give up. Don't ever give in to the lust over and over again. Don't, don't believe the lies we will from time to time, but we don't have to. We can run, we can walk, we can crawl to Jesus because he's always true. He's always faithful and Jesus and only Jesus will always hold you fast.